What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Spinners]

The damned united - first few chapters have been very absorbing.

[alan]

HMS Rodney at War.
My stepfather's father was Chief Buffer on board for 8 years including WWII

[Flying_Monkey]

I just finished reading Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. It's an investigation into America's fastest growing mercenary company. It's all very worthy and there are a lot of eye-opening things, but it is rather badly written and very repetitive, as if he was trying to stretch out four or five long magazine articles (which i think he was...)

[Really Ancien]

I just finished reading Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. It's an investigation into America's fastest growing mercenary company. It's all very worthy and there are a lot of eye-opening things, but it is rather badly written and very repetitive, as if he was trying to stretch out four or five long magazine articles (which i think he was...)

Maybe he'e got a baby on the way, and his publisher's cutting him some slack.

Damon.

[Zoidburg]

I just finished reading Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. It's an investigation into America's fastest growing mercenary company. It's all very worthy and there are a lot of eye-opening things, but it is rather badly written and very repetitive, as if he was trying to stretch out four or five long magazine articles (which i think he was...)

The US government used those numpties to restore order in New Orleans

That's right, they set trigger happy mercs on their own citizens.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I just finished reading Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. It's an investigation into America's fastest growing mercenary company. It's all very worthy and there are a lot of eye-opening things, but it is rather badly written and very repetitive, as if he was trying to stretch out four or five long magazine articles (which i think he was...)

Maybe he'e got a baby on the way, and his publisher's cutting him some slack.

Seeing as this is currently my situation, I can see how that would affect the time you might need to write it, but not the product - and it is more likely to be the postnatal situation that would affect you more.

It's probably the publisher's fault as much as the author's - no-one seems to employ proper editors these days. Editors used to be crucial. There was a great article in the NYT Magazine a few years back about Raymond Carver and his editor - it turns out that without the latter, Carver would not have the reputation for sparse, economic writing that he does. A lot of this was down to the way the editor cut his stories.

[Mr Larrington]

Skin Tight ~ Carl Hiaasen, having polished off Tourist Season yesterday.  If you like Hiaasen, try Marshall Karp.

[Kathy]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

The one niggling thing is that the blurb on the back of the book contains some significant spoilers about stuff that doesn't happen until half-way through, which means that you read the first half of the book thinking

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"oh, that must be the young couple who is going to be brutally murdered, and oh look, that'll come in handy later when Salander's forced to go into hiding..."

...which is a shame, as it ruined a couple of bits that the writer had intended to shock the reader. 

[Mr Larrington]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

The other niggling thing is that the film version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" has been released just about everywhere except the UK and Captain Cook's Mistake.  TWFKAML is righteously cross about this...

[Kathy]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

The other niggling thing is that the film version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" has been released just about everywhere except the UK and Captain Cook's Mistake.  TWFKAML is righteously cross about this...

Isn't that because it's a swedish film, and the lucky old ENGLISH-speaking world is going to get a Hollywood remake so we don't have to stress our poor little branes reading all those tricky subtitles?

 

[Mr Larrington]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

The other niggling thing is that the film version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" has been released just about everywhere except the UK and Captain Cook's Mistake.  TWFKAML is righteously cross about this...

Isn't that because it's a swedish film, and the lucky old ENGLISH-speaking world is going to get a Hollywood remake so we don't have to stress our poor little branes reading all those tricky subtitles?

 

Indeedy.  TWFKAML is equally cross about the non-availability of DVDs of the Swedish TV production of "Wallander".  If anyone knows from whence it can be obtained in the original Swedish and with English sub-titles...

[Jezza]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

The other niggling thing is that the film version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" has been released just about everywhere except the UK and Captain Cook's Mistake.  TWFKAML is righteously cross about this...

Isn't that because it's a swedish film, and the lucky old ENGLISH-speaking world is going to get a Hollywood remake so we don't have to stress our poor little branes reading all those tricky subtitles?

 

Indeedy.  TWFKAML is equally cross about the non-availability of DVDs of the Swedish TV production of "Wallander".  If anyone knows from whence it can be obtained in the original Swedish and with English sub-titles...

Don't know about DVDs but they're showing the Swedish Wallander series at the moment on BBC4. Mondays at 9.00pm. 

[clarion]

I've picked up Terry Southern's 'The Magic Christian' off a bookshelf at work.  It's a bit annoying, but a slim volume, so I'll probably stick with it.

I believe the film was quite a cult, but I'd not heard of it before I saw the book.

[Flying_Monkey]

I have finally got a copy of one of my absolute favourite books in the entire world, Kyoichi Tsuzuki's Universe for Rent, which is just a huge collection of annotated photographs of a whole variety of assorted people's tiny appartments in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Just fab.

I am also starting Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which I had somehow missed out on when it first came out...

[Kathy]

Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Yup, me too.

Finished reading it. It was good, but

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at the end, when Salander was shot I thought "Wow! Really didn't see that coming! What an amazingly unexpected twist. The next book could be really interesting, with them trying to unravel Salander's mystery from the traces of life she has left on the 'net whilst her body lies in a shallow grave."

Then she got better.  Which was a bit contrived and in a way, a bit of a let down. The whole trilogy is about actions and consequences, and if an underweight underarmed girl takes on a superhuman who feels no pain and a psycho with a gun, both of whom have been tracking her on IR cameras, then the consequence ought to be that she dies.

I felt slightly cheated by the ending. 

[Jezza]

HA, thought you'd catch me out again, eh? Well this time I'm not going to click your silly old spoiler. I shall be strong.

One thing that's annoying me just a little. In the classic cheesy old spy thrillers there was tons of product placement, but it didn't take itself too seriously: "Bond flicked the Saab 900 Turbo into third and felt the full 18psi of the Garret Airesearch type IV turbocharger kick his Gieves & Hawkes-upholstered behind." But it gets a bit much when Salander goes and buys a 'Tromsoe' duvet cover, four 'Kiruna' lampshades and a 'Namsos' tablecloth, and some 'Goteborg' cutlery to put on it. I feel like I should have been issued with a complementary Ikea catalogue for reference purposes.  

[clarion]

Was that product placement or just overuse of signifiers?  I don't know if Fleming got supplies of Aston Martins or Louis Vuitton luggage (nor Toot-sweets, for that matter )

[Jezza]

I suspect you're right - I doubt Larsson was getting any Ikea kickbacks either. But rather than Saussure's conventional Signifier I think they function more as Peirce's immediate Interpretants: the Representamen as an act of signification.

Either way, they're overdone.

[clarion]

... But rather than Saussure's conventional Signifier I think they function more as Peirce's immediate Interpretants: the Representamen as an act of signification. ...

Game, Set & Match to Jezza!*







* noted Bond, wiping the sweat from the handle of his Slazenger racquet, and checking the time on his Oris watch, before changing into a Saville Row suit with a Jermyn Street shirt and tie, the outfit complemented perfectly by a pair of flipflops from Primark...

[her_welshness]

Just finished 'Labyrinth' by Kate Mosse  - I have more time for her writing than Dan 'I am going to lecture at you throughout the entire book' Brown.

The problem I had with Mosse's writing is that there can be too much information and the french/occitan translation to words and phrases that it feels awfully burdened. Good tale though.

Next : Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. 

[clarion]

I've picked up Terry Southern's 'The Magic Christian' off a bookshelf at work.  It's a bit annoying, but a slim volume, so I'll probably stick with it.

I believe the film was quite a cult, but I'd not heard of it before I saw the book.

OK.  I've finished it, and looked into it a bit.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW

Terry Southern was the writer of Dr Strangelove, Barbarella and various other films.  He seems to have majored on outrage.

The novel is a series of short chapters, each of which starts with a narrative of a (single) afternoon tea with the main character's maiden aunts, jumping to a tale of a situationist-style prank set up by the extraordinarily rich protagonist. 

The film seems (from the list of characters) to insert additional events, and invents a character for Ringo Starr to play.  Peter Sellers is the star, and various Pythons and British comic actors appear in minor roles.

Not sure what to make of it, really.  Is it a satire on wealth, on greed, on religion?  Or just a game of the imagination? 

Anyone who has read/seen it I'd be interested in your views.

[Zoidburg]

Just finished 'Labyrinth' by Kate Mosse  - I have more time for her writing than Dan 'I am going to lecture at you throughout the entire book' Brown.

The problem I had with Mosse's writing is that there can be too much information and the french/occitan translation to words and phrases that it feels awfully burdened. Good tale though.

Next : Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.  

Dan Brown is pot boiling keyboard monkey impersonating a best selling author.

By Christ he writes airport novel trash, mostly about Christ.

Someone lent me the Da Vinci Code - 3 hours of my life I will never get back - I returned it and said "that was just a bit of trash with some art history and religion thrown in to make it seem worthy". She who lent it said "I know".

Then why tell me to read it!

Women...

[her_welshness]

Just finished 'Labyrinth' by Kate Mosse  - I have more time for her writing than Dan 'I am going to lecture at you throughout the entire book' Brown.

The problem I had with Mosse's writing is that there can be too much information and the french/occitan translation to words and phrases that it feels awfully burdened. Good tale though.

Next : Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.  

Dan Brown is pot boiling keyboard monkey impersonating a best selling author.

By Christ he writes airport novel trash, mostly about Christ.

Someone lent me the Da Vinci Code - 3 hours of my life I will never get back - I returned it and said "that was just a bit of trash with some art history and religion thrown in to make it seem worthy". She who lent it said "I know".

Then why tell me to read it!

Women...

Well when I read it on my honeymoon, I came back to the office to discover that one of the secretaries was reading it, I said 'its good nonsense isn't it' and she gave me this horrified look and said 'but it makes such a lot of sense, why would you say its nonsense?'. Turns out that quite a lot of people that I have spoken to thinks that his theories are extremely persuadable...

[clarion]

This morning, I read 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' (yes, I'm still trudging through it, and it's still good) on the tube, and 'Vet In A Spin' while I was brewing coffee

[Jezza]

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at the end, when Salander was shot I thought "Wow! Really didn't see that coming! What an amazingly unexpected twist. The next book could be really interesting, with them trying to unravel Salander's mystery from the traces of life she has left on the 'net whilst her body lies in a shallow grave."

Then she got better.  Which was a bit contrived and in a way, a bit of a let down. The whole trilogy is about actions and consequences, and if an underweight underarmed girl takes on a superhuman who feels no pain and a psycho with a gun, both of whom have been tracking her on IR cameras, then the consequence ought to be that she dies.

I felt slightly cheated by the ending. 

I completely agree.