Recently discovered that Margaret Atwood's "Oryx & Crake" was actually book 1 of a trilogy so revisiting it a decade later in order to read the following two afterwards. Enjoying it more the second time around. She is such a good writer!
Recently discovered that Margaret Atwood's "Oryx & Crake" was actually book 1 of a trilogy so revisiting it a decade later in order to read the following two afterwards. Enjoying it more the second time around. She is such a good writer!
"Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."
-Cozy 3:16-
J.G. Ballard's High Rise (which gave me a nightmare already)
I learned the work of Ballard years ago with Empire Of The Sun (before it was filmed) and I've read a couple of his SF-novels.
Just finished the 1959 The Girls in 3-B by Valerie Taylor. Billed as a "lesbian classic" and a "slice of 1950s Bohemia," it's an enjoyable pulp novel about three small town girls who move to the big city (Chicago) after high school to get jobs and be independent. One gets pregnant by her shiftless beatnik boy friend who leaves her, one yearns for her philandering boss, and the third joins the other team. Out of 178 pages, I had to read 114 or so before the "classic" stuff began. I'm now on the hunt for other such sordid beatnik novels.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
When you're into Lesbian Classics, I guess you know the modern classics from Sarah Waters. Her "Fingersmith" was recently filmed as The Handmaiden, while it was previously filmed by the BBC.Originally Posted by Lopez
I've read most of John McPhee's books.This is one i'm just getting to now."The Founding Fish".It's about the American shad,their migratory habits and life cycle.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Somehow I forgot this one was filmed recently:J.G. Ballard's High Rise (which gave me a nightmare already
I learned the work of Ballard years ago with Empire Of The Sun (before it was filmed) and I've read a couple of his SF-novels.
Infinite Tuesday by Michael Nesmith
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame, whereby comes "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (Pink Floyd), "Toad of Toad Hall" (National Health), Toad Hall (band), Dulce Domum (band), The Wind in the Willows (band), "Like Summer Tempests" (Descantation), "Wayfarers All" (compilation), and probably dozens of others I haven't copped to yet.
Just started what is turning out to be an interesting read. It's a fictionalized tale based on facts - those are always fun. It's called "Undisclosed" by Steve Alten.
The basic premise is that the government is lying to us (not much of a stretch) about their ability to create clean energy using the Zero Point Energy theory (look it up). Of course the power bosses of oil and defense have been stopping it from going mainstream. The stretch comes from the second premise that black super secret global projects have been reverse engineering machines to tap into it from extraterrestrial spacecraft.
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A gentleman is defined as someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't.
ZPE may account for the universe. Matter-antimatter pairs are constantly popping into and out of existence, cancelling each other out. At some point however, 13.772 billion years ago, a surfeit of matter appeared -- and we are the result.
Needless to say however, corralling any quantum energy to do our own work is theoretically unlikely to the point of impossibility.
I don't remember if myself or someone else mentioned Joe Ide's debut novel IQ. Mystery with a Sherlockian gifted black detective type in the inner city. Fantastic read, very well reviewed. I mention it now as a sequal featuring the same charactors , Righteous , is now in print, equally well reviewed and soon to be read by me. Im looking forward to this one, the first was very good.
Jon Cryer's autobiography "So That Happened". Picked this up from the local library. Nice light read with some classical music in the background.
Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
There's a new translation in Dutch, which was released in the same month as the new Blade Runner 2049 movie.
Just finished A Canticle For Leibowitz... Enjoyed it for the most part but found it a little heavy handed with the religious dogma at the end. Not sure I will read the sequel. Off to the library after work! I used to buy iBooks, but it was getting costly with a limited amount of availability. Now I go to our huge downtown library. 6 floors of books, Cds, Blu Rays,etc...
"Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."
-Cozy 3:16-
I guess it feels like a great journey back in time
I still buy my books and still have trouble to remove some of them to make space for the new ones....
But the same trouble I have with CD's and DVD, while the LP's are still fine.
Today I bought a so called Scottish classic, "Lanark, A Life In Four Books", although it has to wait untill I finished an Estonian classic, Andrus Kivirähk's "The Man Who Spoke Snakish"
Yves, glad you liked A Canticle for Leibowitz. I took a science fiction class in college, and that's where I first heard of the novel.
I, too, use the Boston Public and the Medford Public Librarys and their consortiums (consortia?) as my own personal collections. Great stuff.
I'm just a few pages away from the end of Off Season by Jack Ketchum - the unexpurgated edition (somehow the Boston Public Library got themselves a signed/numbered limited edition). Wow! Is this book nuts. Outside of Ray Garton's early stuff, I don't think I've read anything quite as graphically violent.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
I'm a few hundred miles from a good library so I'm envious of you guys. When we lived in the Twin Cities if you had a library card you could order any book, CD, or DVD from any branch. I really miss that.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Cheech Is Not My Real Name...But Don't Call Me Chong! by Cheech Marin
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous by Graham Bennett
I'm about 100 pages in, slow going because I stop to re-visit the music being referenced as I go.
Excellent read so far IMO and a must of Soft and Canterbury fans alike.
I love Ketchum! I probably have almost everything he has done. If you like Ketchum, then you must check out Edward Lee.
A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence
I actually just finished this book after a seven or eight year hiatus (Id bought it at release time)... Now I'm hoping to continue Aymeric's Canterbury School book, also en panne (stalled) for about a year.Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous by Graham Bennett
I'm about 100 pages in, slow going because I stop to re-visit the music being referenced as I go.
Excellent read so far IMO and a must of Soft and Canterbury fans alike.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Following recommendations from PEers, I have just started another apocalyptic novel from the 50s: Alas, Babylon! by Pat Frank. I just have one chapter read so I cannot formulate an opinion yet.
"Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."
-Cozy 3:16-
L'école de Canterbury looks like a real in-depth treatise, but my French vocabulary is worse even than Trump's elementary school-level English vocabulary... sigh.
A week ago I was talking about books with a colleague at work. We discussed A Clockwork Orange and the slang in it. I mentioned the slang used in The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. So he suggested Really the Blues by jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow. Got it from the library last week and am enjoying it. Loaded with WWI-era jazz slang. Interesting story, too, about a Jewish yout from a good Chicago family who can't stay out of trouble and gets hooked on jazz and black urban culture in reform school. Looking him up on Wikipedia, I see that he became drug dealer to the jazz stars. Only 40 pages into the tightly typed 400-page book, so looks like I have quite the ride ahead.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
Celestial Mechanics, a tale for a mid-winter night, a novel by William Least Heat-Moon. Just getting started, but it's great so far.
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
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