Reading Record 2022 - Uniquely Portable Magic - The Bear and Badger

Raiziel

hylian_elf wrote:

Ooh I want to read that! Let me know how it is.

Will do. It’s a background read at the moment, so it’s taking a long time to get through as other reads take priority. Initial take, though: it’s a Terry Gilliam film in book form.

Raiziel

32. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Ten years ago four American Indian friends go on an elk hunt and…something happens while they’re out there in the wilderness. Fast forward ten years and one of those friends is still haunted by what happened. It’s essentially a revenge tale as the past catches up with these men.

I didn’t like this one unfortunately. There was something choppy about the flow of the writing that I personally just did not like. He writes well, I can see that, but it’s the style that didn’t jive with me. He also overuses “says” way, way too often. At about the halfway point the story takes a surprising turn that slapped me out of my apathy, but it too all quickly flattened out again after that. The ending also did absolutely nothing for me. Disappointing, really, as I’d heard some positive things about this novel, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

davyK

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is well deserving in its fame. It is dense in many places and demands re-reads. Makes one realise just how good Apocalypse Now is as a loose adaptation.

Raiziel

The horror…

davyK

I wish I had read this before seeing the film but .... Brando's performance was great even without that. Now....that dialogue (about methods for example) is in the stratosphere now.

mistercrayon

I’ve had some stacked Audible credit and so I went on a bit of a binge of Non-fiction books

1) Bitch - a book that goes into detail about how unsimplistic Sex (as in Gender) relationships are more complicated in animals is different to alpha male vs harem trope. It’s kind of fun but also tries to add a feminist/human layer to animals which makes no sense. (Eg female ducks get violently raped but because they have a special vagina they can control when the corkscrew penis of a male duck can go far enough to allow fertilisation, so the female duck is the true winner in this). It’s an oddly toned book overlying great facts.

2) Difficult Women - some difficult women through the ages - how even the most dramatic and influential were also knobs. It’s again pretty fun but covered by this kind of gloss of an overarching point which i think comes through a bit too easily. Additionally for every woman in the book which is flawed I feel like the story around the Indian trade unionist must be holding back some punches because she’s too good, whereas elsewhere everyone is described as more flawed. I quite liked it and it has a cool bit about womens football.

3) just started something called “existential kink” which is a self help book about embracing desiring shitty desires that might happen. It’s got a little bit of repetitive content but I didn’t want to carry on with it.

My overall sentiment is that I kind of hate this kind of Non-Fiction books now. They feel so earnestly partisan with a self assuredness which is at once both necessary (to make the point stick) but completely dishonest (there’s no way things fit neatly into these narratives).

poprock

mistercrayon wrote:

My overall sentiment is that I kind of hate this kind of Non-Fiction books now. They feel so earnestly partisan with a self assuredness which is at once both necessary (to make the point stick) but completely dishonest (there’s no way things fit neatly into these narratives).

A lot like opinion columns in newspapers really.

Gremill

Feminist ducks is an unusual take. Absolutely quackers.

tigersgogrrr

Gremill wrote:

12. The Hod King (Josiah Bancroft)
A re-read of the third in the Babel series in preparation for the fourth and final book. I absolutely love this series, it's got so much texture and life to the characters and the mysteries they are surrounded by.

I'm reading the fourth at the moment.

I should have reread the third one as a reminder of where we were!

Raiziel

33. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from The Red Book by J. R. R. Tolkien

This is a collection of sixteen poems by Tolkien. They are here unified and inserted into his legendarium as poems written by hobbits at the end of the Third Age. Errantry, a wonderful nonsense poem full of “verbal acrobatics and metrical high-jinks”, is ascribed to Bilbo, for instance. After the poems there is a weighty commentary written by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond which charts the evolution of the poems which was surprisingly fascinating. Many of these poems initially had nothing to do with hobbits or Middle-earth at all. In the titular poem, for instance, Tom Bombadil represents the spirit of the vanishing Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire countryside, and was written many years before Tolkien ever thought about writing The Lord of the Rings.

Also I learned in this book the original meaning of the phrase “swan-song”. So often I use an idiom without ever thinking about where it comes from. Tolkien was a philologist, and even in these poems he has fun with words and their meanings and origins, and the excellent commentary allows a layman like me to unlock those secrets.

Of all the poems here Errantry is by far my favourite, and while I imagine it’s going to be a devil to read out loud and not trip over your words, I’m going to have a go at reading it to my nephews when I see them this week. I’ve got to start them somewhere with Tolkien!

Gremill

tigersgogrrr wrote:

Gremill wrote:

12. The Hod King (Josiah Bancroft)
A re-read of the third in the Babel series in preparation for the fourth and final book. I absolutely love this series, it's got so much texture and life to the characters and the mysteries they are surrounded by.

I'm reading the fourth at the moment.

I should have reread the third one as a reminder of where we were!

I can't put the 4th one down and yet I don't want it to finish.

davyK

Judge Dredd:The Cursed Earth(uncensored)

There's nostlagia and then there's this. Only by going back to this (a glossy all-in-1 volume with some cover art repros etc) do I realise that certain sequences and panels are burned into my brain from reading this week to week in the late 70s, breathlessly waiting to see if it was in my local newsagent yet (we had it reserved).

Boy is the art good in this. Bolland is favourite with his super clean lines, but all of it is iconic. And the detail to this day gives one plenty to chew on. This retains the banned episodes (that I still remember) with the burger wars and there's even a repro of the little 6 panel strip they agreed to print to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a good guy.

The dialogue is what it is but it has its charm. The star is the underlying narrative and ideas which are way ahead of its time. Great stuff. Was wonderful burning through this again after so long.

ShabbyMcCrabby

4. Colour of Magic
The gf has gotten into Pratchett and so now have I. Been meaning to read these for ages. Reminds me of Douglas Adams a lot in the stream of consciousness style but maybe slightly less cynical. Nice quick read too. Looking forward to the others

poprock

You have some treats ahead of you Shabs. It’s good to start from the beginning, but Pratchett really starts to hit his stride 10 or so books in.

Raiziel

34. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

Did Hardy ever write a dud? I’m only three books deep, but each one of them so far has been a cracker. Native has the usual hallmarks of beautiful prose, complex plotting and deep characterisation. He’s a dab hand at creating phenomenal villains, too. Eustacia (never encountered this name before and I love it) Vye is a self-absorbed and wretched drama queen and I absolutely hated her. But I’m pretty sure Hardy never intended her as a villain, but perhaps a complex product of the class system as it was at the time. But still, I hated her; hated her more than the megalomaniacs who have done much worse in the stories of lesser authors. I loved this story, not least because it gave me an ending I was happy with, after the last book I read of his, The Woodlanders, damn near broke my heart.

hylian_elf

Yeah I love Hardy. Read quite a few and they’re all great.

Gremill

davyK wrote:

Judge Dredd:The Cursed Earth(uncensored)

There's nostlagia and then there's this. Only by going back to this (a glossy all-in-1 volume with some cover art repros etc) do I realise that certain sequences and panels are burned into my brain from reading this week to week in the late 70s, breathlessly waiting to see if it was in my local newsagent yet (we had it reserved).

Boy is the art good in this. Bolland is favourite with his super clean lines, but all of it is iconic. And the detail to this day gives one plenty to chew on. This retains the banned episodes (that I still remember) with the burger wars and there's even a repro of the little 6 panel strip they agreed to print to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a good guy.

The dialogue is what it is but it has its charm. The star is the underlying narrative and ideas which are way ahead of its time. Great stuff. Was wonderful burning through this again after so long.

Fuck yeah Davey! You got a link to buy it?

davyK

Easy to get @Gremill. On Amazon. And at £15 good value given the quality.

Spiffing cover too.

davyK

poprock wrote:

You have some treats ahead of you Shabs. It’s good to start from the beginning, but Pratchett really starts to hit his stride 10 or so books in.

Have only read one Pratchett - Mort. Loved it.

Raiziel

davyK wrote:

poprock wrote:

You have some treats ahead of you Shabs. It’s good to start from the beginning, but Pratchett really starts to hit his stride 10 or so books in.

Have only read one Pratchett - Mort. Loved it.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but I wrote to Pratchett once; to express my love of his early books (this would have been in the late eighties), but to also recommend that Mort might make an excellent film. He was very kind to reply that he had in fact been paid already to prepare a screenplay for that exact book, but nothing was happening about it.

hylian_elf

Mort was his best. I loved that. Mort.

poprock

When Mort came out, it was the first one I read. I bought the preceding three as soon as I finished it, and then was hooked. I was day one for every Discworld novel after that.

poprock

We’ve done ‘best Discworld’ before, right? Because it’s Night Watch.

Wookienopants

Gremill wrote:

davyK wrote:

Judge Dredd:The Cursed Earth(uncensored)

There's nostlagia and then there's this. Only by going back to this (a glossy all-in-1 volume with some cover art repros etc) do I realise that certain sequences and panels are burned into my brain from reading this week to week in the late 70s, breathlessly waiting to see if it was in my local newsagent yet (we had it reserved).

Boy is the art good in this. Bolland is favourite with his super clean lines, but all of it is iconic. And the detail to this day gives one plenty to chew on. This retains the banned episodes (that I still remember) with the burger wars and there's even a repro of the little 6 panel strip they agreed to print to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a good guy.

The dialogue is what it is but it has its charm. The star is the underlying narrative and ideas which are way ahead of its time. Great stuff. Was wonderful burning through this again after so long.

Fuck yeah Davey! You got a link to buy it?

I'm sat in hospital and decided to give Judge Dredd a go for the first time. Got through "Year One" and "Volume 1" last night.
Pretty damn good indeed!
Thank you Kindle Unlimited

Gremill

13. The Fall of Babel (Josiah Bancroft)
The final volume did not disappoint - flawed heroes that you really root for and detestable villains that you can't wait to get their come uppance. A great story brilliantly told.

davyK

Wookienopants wrote:

Judge Dredd:The Cursed Earth(uncensored) There's nostlagia and then there's this. Only by going back to this (a glossy all-in-1 volume with some cover art repros etc) do I realise that certain sequences and panels are burned into my brain from reading this week to week in the late 70s, breathlessly waiting to see if it was in my local newsagent yet (we had it reserved). Boy is the art good in this. Bolland is favourite with his super clean lines, but all of it is iconic. And the detail to this day gives one plenty to chew on. This retains the banned episodes (that I still remember) with the burger wars and there's even a repro of the little 6 panel strip they agreed to print to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a good guy. The dialogue is what it is but it has its charm. The star is the underlying narrative and ideas which are way ahead of its time. Great stuff. Was wonderful burning through this again after so long.

Fuck yeah Davey! You got a link to buy it?

I'm sat in hospital and decided to give Judge Dredd a go for the first time. Got through "Year One" and "Volume 1" last night. Pretty damn good indeed! Thank you Kindle Unlimited

The early stuff is magnificent. At the time even my Dad read 2000AD. He loved Judge Dredd. He loved the ideas - when Whitey was dropped off on the traffic island that was a prison - that may have been the 1st story actually.

He lost interest during the Chief Judge Cal story which did go on for a bit. The Judge Child story would sit alongside Cursed Earth in my favourites list.

Raiziel

35. The Once and Future King by T. H. White

My thoughts on this are all over the place. Overall I’d say it’s excellent, but in my humble opinion it’s not without its issue, the chief of those being the first book. Right, so The Once and Future King is actually four books that were originally published separately. The first one, The Sword in the Stone (Disney adapted this, if I ever saw it it was too long ago to remember now), recounts young Arthur (here called the Wart) being taught by the wizard Merlyn. My problem here is the structure; very little of any actual story value happens until the very end. Instead we’re treated to many (too many) instances where Merlyn transforms Arthur into an animal so that he can learn a lesson. It goes on for far too long, and then all of a sudden there’s about ten pages of condensed plot right at the end. I felt a little bit ground down by it, to be honest.

But! Things do starting cranking along in the second book, The Queen of Air and Darkness. Here’s another thing: the first two books have a very comedic tone that felt very British, very Pythonesque, but that tone is largely abandoned by the time you get to book three, The Ill-Made Knight. Here Arthur is but a minor character and Sir Lancelot and Guinevere take centre stage. White reserves his best character work for them, and it’s a riveting read to see their love affair almost destroy them both.

It’s in the third book that we get the Grail quest. Once upon a time, when I was still in my teens, I was pretty obsessed with the Arthurian legends, and most especially the Grail quest. So much so, that at a time when I once fancied I might like to be a screenwriter one day, I read The Quest for the Holy Grail and Parzival, and adapted and mingled elements of both into what I thought was a filmic whole. So I was really disappointed that in this book the quest for the Grail is relayed to the reader as a second-hand account by various knights. I wanted to go on that quest with them, dammit! But then White’s principal source (he even name checks him several times) is Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, and as I never read that I’m not sure how prominently the Grail figures in that work. But still, I was disappointed. Having said that, The Ill-Made Knight is the best of the four books.

The fourth book, The Candle in the Wind, which recounts how Mordred seizes the throne, is also strong, and maintains the more serious tone. Well that’s a very long-winded and rambling review of a very long and (sometimes) rambling book. It’s well worth reading, though.

dynamiteReady

Cos wrote:

1. Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

I've thoroughly enjoyed most of what I've read from Murakami but this was the first in several years and it was a timely reminder of why I love his work. For such a relatively simple story to be so unputdownable is testament to the characters and detail of their lives. The descriptions of daily routines or wrestling with self identity and existential crises are presented with the same amount of care, and there were points where the most mundane sentence is lifted in such a way it made me smile and marvel.

The only downside was it felt like it was cut short but perhaps that's partly because I just wanted to carry on reading about the characters I'd come to care about so much. He'll be appearing again in my list this year I suspect.

I'm not in here often enough cause' the pace is relentless, but yeah. I enjoyed this a great deal too.

Murikami's character work is excellent. What is he doing in this one? Describing the lives of a failed musician, an expat artist / potter, a car salesman, an enterprising motivational speaker, and a 'colourless' architectural specialist... Mundane?...

Wished the book would never end.

Not sure how it reviews, but it really stuck in my mind. Awesome work of fiction, I thought.

davyK

Soho in the Eighties by Christoper Howse is a by turns amusing and sad collection of tales of the folk (largely talented - writers, cartoonists, journalists and artists) who drank a large portion of their lives away in the Soho pubs during the 80s.

Howse is currently a columnist in the Daily Telegraph who covers religious matters and is now dry - so he is a survivor of the era. Light and easy to read - it's also a gateway to other reading material by columnists, poets etc. I found it enjoyable despite the suicides and early deaths portrayed in this.

Raiziel

36. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

I enjoyed this, but I didn’t love it. The quality of the novel cannot be denied; what Wyndham is doing here he is doing very well. My problem with it is just a personal preference and not a slight against the book at all. Wyndham’s approach to this story is to give us a very broad picture of the beginning of an alien invasion. Even though it’s told only from the perspective of one character, making him a journalist at the forefront of the unfolding events means we get to hear about the invasion on a global scale. Personally I would have much preferred a narrower slice of the narrative, a vertical slice of the invasion that allowed me to get a little closer to the characters and to share in their peril. As it is, I feel like we’re all too often kept at arms length as we now find out what’s going on in the Pacific or what have you. It’s been a long time since I read it, but I think we get a more focused look at an alien invasion in Wells’ The War of the Worlds, and that’s my jam. So a good book, but not a great book. The Midwich Cuckoo’s still reigns supreme.

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