What's Everyone Reading At The Moment?

Found this in the neighborhood book closet this morning.
20201030_161830.jpg
 
Finished fifth business and it finished much more dramatically than I would have thought. Snuck up on me I suppose because the drama predictably didn’t directly involve fifth business (as it shouldn’t). Anyway the real power of that novel is just in the stylish prose. So many great quotes and I’ve a feeling I could have read him talking about anything. Going to try his other novel related to this book and probably also the cunning man.

now reading Einstein’s monsters which has a little forward from Martin amis acknowledging the stories debts to previous authors like Ballard Kafka bellow etc. his love of other authors comes out so much in his works
 
Finished my third Joyce carrol oats though the last was under a pseudonym and it was excellent. A bit more pared down than her work under her own name but it was still beautifully written. The opening chapter with its symbolic imagery of a women on an American flag pool raft trying to attract men’s attention and validation with her bikini while at the same time terrified of the intention behind there attraction and the arms she see as the try to poke and prod her and pull her down under while she desperately tries to stay afloat was great. It also avoided every cliche I was afraid was going to come with the next turning the of a page. Golf stuff.

I’ve got to read two more to reach my goal of twenty five for the year so I’m starting catch me if you can as I sit in the tub
 
Novels I read in 2020

mom chesil beach
Keep the aspidistra flying
Damage
Amsterdam
An American dream
Before she met me
American appetites
The locals
Tender is the night
Hollywood (Vidal)
Dubliners
The executioners
Flash fire
Black water
Worst.person.ever
Ellen foster
That night
The good soldier
The tenth man
Fifth business
Einstein’s monsters
Starbrite will be with you soon
Catch me if you can


worst of the batch was worst person ever followed by damage.

most surprising was the good soldier followed by Ellen foster for very different reasons.

the best is obviously tender is the night but American dream sat with me for a while.

best new authors were Joyce carroloTs and Robertson Davies

good day
 
About 100 pages in and it does feel a bit like it’s meant for me to read in my medium sized house on my comfy chair standing. Lamp beside me. It also kinda feels like I’m reading ravelstein in reverse as I’m wondering when this book will start to confront hitchens suicide. Feels like there’s lots of allusions to his other works which I guess makes sense as it his life he’s talking about
 
So inside story is going fairly well. All the different threads, the essays on the novel and fiction, the commentaries on other authors, the game of he and his wife representing there retrospective countries in a dialog bordering on commentary to the Iraq war ( which despite his slight bashing of Greene made me think of the quiet American) are all converging on a common topic, September 11 and hitchens. Mentions a lot of my fav things as well
 
Novels I read in 2020

mom chesil beach
Keep the aspidistra flying
Damage
Amsterdam
An American dream
Before she met me
American appetites
The locals
Tender is the night
Hollywood (Vidal)
Dubliners
The executioners
Flash fire
Black water
Worst.person.ever
Ellen foster
That night
The good soldier
The tenth man
Fifth business
Einstein’s monsters
Starbrite will be with you soon
Catch me if you can


worst of the batch was worst person ever followed by damage.

most surprising was the good soldier followed by Ellen foster for very different reasons.

the best is obviously tender is the night but American dream sat with me for a while.

best new authors were Joyce carroloTs and Robertson Davies

good day
Dreamyneil would've read those in a month
 
Closing in on the end of inside story. Kinda fun how a lot of the authors I read last year were mentioned or featured in the book (Ellis, Barnes, mailer, Vidal, Mcewan bellow). Bits of there books feel in there as well like how the whole book feels a bit like ravelstein in reverse (starts out as a autobiography and becomes a bit of a memoir to a dying man). The beginning of the phoebe plot feels something like on chisel beach. Being visited by the ghost of his younger self and casting doubt on the narrator. The Julian Barnes novel get mention directly
 
Dreamyneil would've read those in a month
I bet. I mean like he’s just so perfect 😍 Anyway, in 2021 I’ve read (minus the ones that left no impression to speak off) here goes
The Last Party
Oswald’s Tale
The Belly of the beast
My return (his wife is a professor of Philosophy in NYC)
I follow You
The Murders. Chris Watts (Tragic, he got possessed for sure)
The physical phenomena. Herbert Thurston. (Decay decay)
Gospel of Luke (again)
Of Woman and their Elegance (only for the photos (to be Frank)
Might start Hollywood, Gore Vidal, in the morning. I got invited to join a book club (Zoom doom) No thanks, I only read for my own pleasure. Hate amateurs who critique books 📖

Bye :rabbitface::rabbit: X
 
I bet. I mean like he’s just so perfect 😍 Anyway, in 2021 I’ve read (minus the ones that left no impression to speak off) here goes
The Last Party
Oswald’s Tale
The Belly of the beast
My return (his wife is a professor of Philosophy in NYC)
I follow You
The Murders. Chris Watts (Tragic, he got possessed for sure)
The physical phenomena. Herbert Thurston. (Decay decay)
Gospel of Luke (again)
Of Woman and their Elegance (only for the photos (to be Frank)
Might start Hollywood, Gore Vidal, in the morning. I got invited to join a book club (Zoom doom) No thanks, I only read for my own pleasure. Hate amateurs who critique books 📖

Bye :rabbitface::rabbit: X
he is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :love:

the last party, i remember that! i bought it ages ago, when i was like a teenager. im not sure i read much of it though.
 
oh perhaps 'the last party' you read was a different one. i see that there's another one by that name about britpop and such. this one that i had was "studio 54, disco and the culture of the night"
 
oh perhaps 'the last party' you read was a different one. i see that there's another one by that name about britpop and such. this one that i had was "studio 54, disco and the culture of the night"
Haven’t read that one. I’ve taken note, ta. My one was Adele M. Definitely worth reading. Teddy x
 
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books wit no pitchers but not much more just fuck off literary ponces long live books more to life than books nerds n squares obscurer and obscurer shakespeare is smart
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