OT: What are you reading?

Already know I’m getting it for my birthday, and hope to start it as soon as I do get it,

I’m reading The Second World War by Antony Beevor. His earlier Stalingrad was superb and this is very good too, though i’m taking it in bursts whereas Stalingrad was hard to put down at all. I don’t like the hardback cover map, one of the ridiculous ones that has Greenland much bigger than Africa and UK moved towards the centre of the world.

This guy deserves an honourary Oscar for his contribution to film.

I’ve read all of Faulkner but nothing in the past ten years, so this is like a shy kiss with an old girlfriend.

Also, I’m plowing through Martin:

And a Balzac I never got around to:

Still waiting on a book from the library, so thought I’d give this a re-read.

I recently re-read The Ghost Writer as well (to prep myself for its sequel Exit Ghost, which I still haven’t gotten around to). Great book. One a of my favourite contemporary writers. The only problem is that he is so damn prolific I can’t keep up with his output.

Tell me about it. I’ve actually only read two of his books so far, this and Zuckerman Unbound, though I own three others. Our Gang [happened to find an old copy at a booksale,] American Pastoral and The Plot Against America. Would like to get back into his work sometime before the end of the year, can easily imagine him becoming a favorite author.

^ Either that’s a big coincidence or you’re being very cruel (Haha.)

^^hahah, nah, not being cruel mate!! it was either Outer Dark or Suttree.

i’ll read Suttree next. maybe!

Ok then. ;) Just still waiting to pick up OD from the library, been eager to read another of his novels. Anyway, hope you’re enjoying it.

^i picked it up cheap at a book sale a few weeks ago. Surprised to find it actually! thought i’d be forced to order it from the U.S

it’s decent so far. it’s almost like The Road at times.

Haven’t read The Road yet, though I intend to in the future. Have only done No Country and All the Pretty Horses so far.

BLACK IRISH: Outer Dark is really good man!! You should enjoy it. He really was in command of the medium from a very early point, but naturally the writing style is a little different to his later work, yet his style was beginning to emerge here nonetheless.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it. :) Hoping to get into it before the end of the week, have glanced at the text a little before and I like how it has alot of, lacking a better word, color to it. Definitely like McCarthy’s style, from what little I’ve read, how it manages to be so descriptive, yet concise.

Anybody have a recommendation of a Cold War history book? I want an overview of the whole thing that doesn’t skimp on details, but doesn’t get bogged down in them either. I’m thinking about getting this one:

Any thoughts?

I’m planning to catch up with Welsh books- for starters, 3 now ordered from Amazon:

- The Acid Real by John Evans
- The Long Dry by Cynan Jones
- Link Arms with Toads by Rhys Hughes.

I’ve generally been more familiar with Welsh poetry than novels and short stories.

I really must read Arthur Machen, e.g Three Impostors, look forward to new Robert Minhinnick book The Keys of Babylon, and i’ll be interested in opinions of Cardiff-born Iain Sinclair.

Cynan Jones has apparently had great reviews in France and Italy but, as often the case with Welsh writers, not so much interest in England

Or should I get Archie Brown’s The Rise and Fall of Communism?

I can’t decide…

^See if i can get through this one! hehe

Incredible ground-eye view of Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power. We all know the plot, but this work uncovers many names that have gone unnoticed. Fascinating.

^^Does it involve aliens?

if not, i’m not interested

Downriver – Iain Sinclair…. a semi-fictitious account of the marginal lives of various desperate characters- artists, whores, bohemians, cross-dressing-publicans, aspirant film-makers, second-hand book dealers, on the eastern margins of the Thames in the years of Thatcher’s pomp.

Not gonna lie, those Cormac McCarthy covers are ugly, awful design.

The general woodcut style itself is a good start but the typeface is distracting, the covers are noisy, and it’s especially obnoxious to have the review quote cover 2/3rds of the page. Finally, in cases where uncommon or invented words are concerned, it’s a really bad idea to mix up their order on a page, so that I can’t tell if that book is called “Suttree” or “Sutre Sutre” or “Sutretre” or….

—PolarisDiB