What are you reading?

datura · Post by **datura** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:26 pm

Always like these sort of threads to find out some new books to check out..

Just finished Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes..great books, love the way he writes..Fahrenheit 451 is excellent too, worth checking if you like 1984 and Brave New World.

Just started Chuck Pahluniak - Haunted..the short story Guts is hilarious shit, properly sick though..

narcossist · Post by **narcossist** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:39 pm

Kodwo Eshuns "More brilliant than the Sun" - love readin about drugs and music combined, same for that Simon Reynolds one "Generation Ecstacy".

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanance by Robert Pirsig should be taught in primary schools instead of Maths. Even if your the biggest aethiest on the planet its worth checking cos its just stating some common sense that a lot of poeple seem to have forgotten about.

boomnoise · Post by **boomnoise** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:19 pm

Though i have to admit it's not his best work. Style over subtance and very fluffly but still a humerous and enjoyable affair which i'm reading to break up the heavier academic tone of the below tome; which is a thorough and excellent overview analysis of the contemporary music landscape.

adruu · Post by **adruu** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:35 pm

damn son...a coupland fan? i havent gotten around to jpod yet, but i will soon...you have god hates japan?

right now -
foucault - order of things
dante - divine comedy
various mind-numbing technical manuals, acronyms, numbers, slashes, dots, techno-corporate b.s.

boomnoise · Post by **boomnoise** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:54 pm

ADRUU wrote:damn son...a coupland fan? i havent gotten around to jpod yet, but i will soon...you have god hates japan?

yeah big fan. although is that question meant as some kind of test?

i haven't convinced my self that god hates japan is worth picking up yet. have you got it - should i get it just to look at the pictures?

adruu · Post by **adruu** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:24 pm

no i thought about ebaying it, but yeah its just a funny/poignant picture book from what i saw. it was probably a good ebay "investment" a few years ago.

I am a big fan by the way...not testing you at all. Most people I try to convince Coupland is worth the time always harp on the dumb genx thing, but he's a personal fav, despite my dislike of the MOZ.

misskatiemo · Post by **misskatiemo** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:26 pm

right now:

just finished:

as well as about 5 others, I <3 reading and can usually be found in the middle of at LEAST one book

Jubz · Post by **Jubz** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:34 pm

hi-def · Post by **hi-def** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:48 am

'Blood and Oil' by Michael Klare. It's not a ranting, left-wing, anticorporate polemic but it just quietly and indisputably illustrates the ideology behind the American involvement in the Middle East. It's kind of the opposite of the thing that Michael Moore does, it's a cold objective analysis, and it's all the more hard-hitting for it.

boomnoise · Post by **boomnoise** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:54 am

hi-def wrote:'Blood and Oil' by Michael Klare. It's not a ranting, left-wing, anticorporate polemic but it just quietly and indisputably illustrates the ideology behind the American involvement in the Middle East. It's kind of the opposite of the thing that Michael Moore does, it's a cold objective analysis, and it's all the more hard-hitting for it.

sounds good. i might check it out.

let's keep this thread going yeah, as one of the more genuinely interesting posts in the offtopic section

narcossist · Post by **narcossist** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:22 am

boomnoise wrote:excellent overview analysis of the contemporary music landscape.

read this one a year or two ago and found it similtanously compelling and mind numbing. Think the stiffness of some of the essays possibly ruins what could have been brilliant. Theres another one by the Wire called undercurrents which is slightly lighter and a bit thinner, both physically and in content.

boomnoise · Post by **boomnoise** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:45 am

narcossist wrote:
boomnoise wrote:excellent overview analysis of the contemporary music landscape.

read this one a year or two ago and found it similtanously compelling and mind numbing. Think the stiffness of some of the essays possibly ruins what could have been brilliant. Theres another one by the Wire called undercurrents which is slightly lighter and a bit thinner, both physically and in content.

Most music writing which borders on the academic suffers from the stifness you talk about. I read the undercurrents thing years ago and don't remember it being much better than Audio Culture, which despite it's tone i'm still enjoying but i'm dipping into it rather than reading cover to cover.

I've read a fair bit of Zizek and indeed started on interrogating the real on a number of a occasions but never finished it. I have to be in the right mood to take Zizek.

edit >>> where'd your Zizek post go?

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:01 am

tronman · Post by **tronman** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:06 am

reason 3 for dummies

adruu · Post by **adruu** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:13 am

Looking at the JPod cover again -- I can't believe they used "Microserfs for the Google Age" as a header there, what a retarded header, and who did they think would be attracted because of it?

Also saw a recent title on the shelf, think it was by Robert Irwin, that claimed in the jacket to be a successful refutation of Said's Orientalism thesis. Going after a freshly dead man seemed so shitty to me, and I seriously doubt the claim to begin with.

narcossist · Post by **narcossist** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:28 am

boomnoise wrote:
Most music writing which borders on the academic suffers from the stifness you talk about. I read the undercurrents thing years ago and don't remember it being much better than Audio Culture, which despite it's tone i'm still enjoying but i'm dipping into it rather than reading cover to cover.

I've read a fair bit of Zizek and indeed started on interrogating the real on a number of a occasions but never finished it. I have to be in the right mood to take Zizek.

edit >>> where'd your Zizek post go?

Yeah I found the wire ones better in small amounts too, realised that i prob sounded negative about them when actually it was more just an "if only they'd done it different" kind of whinge. Learnt a lot of interesting things from both.

Re the Zizek one: was half reading it as i posted and figured it would be better to actually get a grasp of the mans views then perhaps post something about that. There's a lot of things even in the first chapter I've never come across before, Lacan in particular. Can see what you mean about "being in the right mood" but so far his intensity and flitting style has been quite refreshing.

Last serious books i've tried to read were Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil, and while both are obviously more signifigant than i can imagine, the tedious repetition with which those writers enforce their views is something i'm hoping that Zizek avoids.

Anyone into Camus at all?

docdoom · Post by **docdoom** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:33 am

Just been on holiday so i read loads!

Saturday by Ian McEwan. Bit dissapointing tbh and not very realistic. Not as good as Enduring Love of The Child in Time.

Metroland by Julian Barnes. Very funny and short. Hes an awesome writer.

Book about a Journalist (Anthony Loyd) in Bosnia in the 90s (My war gone by i miss it so). Very honest and detials his drug and violence addictions. Sarajevo is a wonderful city i have visited a few times to i like reading about it.

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel - good, easy to read novel quite whimsical but also dark about a medium and her buisness and the spirits she contacts.

Birds Without WIngs -Louis de Berniers. Pretty entertaining good old fashion yarn. Some interesting bits of history in it.

metalboxproducts · Post by **metalboxproducts** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:26 pm

Stanley Karnov " Vietnam, a history"
Vincent Lobbrutto "Sound-on-film"
John Grey "Alqaeda aand what it means to be modern"
Tariq Ali " Bush in babylon"
Hilaire Barnett "Britain Unwrapped. Government and constitution explained"

metalboxproducts · Post by **metalboxproducts** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:32 pm

ADRUU wrote:Looking at the JPod cover again -- I can't believe they used "Microserfs for the Google Age" as a header there, what a retarded header, and who did they think would be attracted because of it?

Also saw a recent title on the shelf, think it was by Robert Irwin, that claimed in the jacket to be a successful refutation of Said's Orientalism thesis. Going after a freshly dead man seemed so shitty to me, and I seriously doubt the claim to begin with.

Have to read it first though, but yeah i doubt it. And it is a little shitty. Wonder what Chomsky has to say about this. I would be quite interesting as they were good mates.

ifp · Post by **ifp** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:36 pm

damn, some pretty heavy duty reading going on here!

i'm reading
israel/palestine - tanya reinhardt
terrorism:theirs and ours - eqbal ahmad
gormenghast - mervyn peake
don quixote - cervantes
...and the bible! im going to israel soon so thought id read some history!

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