Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ?  (Read 835728 times)

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #850 on: 30 September, 2009, 12:46:30 pm »
Ooh - don't know that one.  Must seek it out.  I was a bit of a utopias geek in my teens & twenties.

There's another, slightly odd one, to seek out.

Kazohinia by Sandor Szathmary.

Wikipedia link

It's a bit heavy handed, but it takes Lemuel Gulliver onwards to two more societies.  He contrasts the sterility of a completely ordered society with the chaos and misery of a completely 'mad' one, which the author clearly intends as a depiction of capitalism.

Interestingly, it may have been the first novel to be written in Esperanto, though it may have been in Hungarian first.
Getting there...

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #851 on: 30 September, 2009, 12:55:26 pm »
Quote
It is one of those rare books that is as good as people say. Try Huxley's Brave New World afterwards (if you haven't already), and then go back and read Zamyatin's We (the Russian science fictional satire that inspired Orwell).

I'd forgotten about We, also try Samuel Butlers Erewhon - both splendid!

Flying_Monkey

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #852 on: 30 September, 2009, 03:33:33 pm »
Some good choices there (although personally I wouldn't bother reading Day of the Triffids again).

Le Guin has done several interesting novels on this theme, including one overt utopia - Always Coming Home - which is a beautiful book. Aldous Huxley's Island is also a brave utopian vision. On an ecological utopian theme, I would also recommend B.F. Skinner's Walden Two, and Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia, which would still be my favourite place to live.

In a feminist vein, if you want to go beyond Atwood, you could go back to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland or the slightly more recent Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy, which has dystopia, utopia and reality all in one package.

(this is one of my favourite areas of fiction, as you might be able to tell! I used to teach a course on 'the future of cities' which started with the Tao te Ching and Plato, went through Moore, Milton, Mercier, Owen, and all those plans for future cities and visions of hell - and finished with Callenbach and Greg Egan's Diaspora, which features a kind of utopia of virtual beings. I have a soft sport for Jefferies' anti-urban utopia, After London, from 1885.)

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #853 on: 30 September, 2009, 03:43:34 pm »
Great choices!  I forgot Piercy, though I have to say that I found Perkins Gilman's Herland boring, which was a surprise after The Yellow Wallpaper.

Island is a personal favourite book, and I am amazed I left it off the list.  It's a utopia, yes, but it shows how fragile and subjective a utopia is, and how easily it falls apart under the tensions of human desire and need.  I cried first time I read it.

I am fond of Day of the Triffids, after I read it at the same time as Plato's Republic, and realised that the different forms of society he passes through match quite closely the models Socrates proposes (and knocks down).  I wrote a quite brilliant essay at school about that, which is one of the things I am very proud of.

I haven't read Disapora, but, F_M, I shall look for it on your recommendation.

After London has a seductive premise, but loses steam part way through.  I wanted it to be more dynamic, as I had encountered Jeffries' brilliantly evocative writing about pastoral themes not as a bucolic idyll, but as an intertwining of real human events.  But sadly it fizzles out.

*reverie of London flooded* :)
Getting there...

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #854 on: 01 October, 2009, 08:17:01 pm »
The Gate House by Nelson DeMille.  I like DeMille's other stuff - "Plum Island" is probably the best, just for having more bizarre plot twists than normal.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #855 on: 01 October, 2009, 08:44:03 pm »
That's an interesting route, and it can lead onto other utopia/dystopia (it's a very blurred line) novels.  After the excellent choices above, try:

Erewhon - Samuel Butler
The Well At The World's End, The Sundering Flood or The Wood Beyond Teh World by William Morris (best to give The Earthly Paradise a miss.  It's a great work of literature, but hard going)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood
An unexpurgated version of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is an eye-opener
The Time Machine by HG Wells
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
And, last, and most uplifting, News from Nowhere by William Morris again.

Cheers all for the suggestions.  I'm liking the idea of these.  I'm also trying to track down a copy of Fahrenheit 451.
With respect to the Triffids that's a brilliant book (I'm a big Wyndham fan).  The dude was well ahead of his time with that one - it foresees GM crops, star wars defence systems etc.  The Chrysallids is even better.  Am also reading The Seeds of Time at the moment which has some variably good short stories.

Slightly different tack but I highly recommend Whit by Iain Banks.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #856 on: 02 October, 2009, 01:03:50 pm »
17:00.  Score copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" from local Sainsbury's  :)
01:30.  Finish "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" :P
09:00.  Arrive late at work, use matchsticks to prop eyelids open :(
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #857 on: 02 October, 2009, 01:35:53 pm »
17:00.  Score copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" from local Sainsbury's  :)
01:30.  Finish "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" :P
09:00.  Arrive late at work, use matchsticks to prop eyelids open :(

Still waiting for my copy. :(

Am reading Unseen Academicals instead. :)
Have you seen my blog? It has words. And pictures! http://ablogofallthingskathy.blogspot.com/

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #858 on: 02 October, 2009, 02:37:03 pm »
17:00.  Score copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" from local Sainsbury's  :)
01:30.  Finish "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" :P
09:00.  Arrive late at work, use matchsticks to prop eyelids open :(

Still waiting for my copy. :(

TWFKAML now lives within spitting distance of an independent bookshop, thus she got her copy on Wednesday chiz.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #859 on: 02 October, 2009, 02:54:21 pm »
Finished HARM, by Brian Aldiss.

Now reading Resurrection, by some bloke called Tolstoy.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #860 on: 02 October, 2009, 02:55:34 pm »
...Now reading Resurrection, by some bloke called Tolstoy.

A wonderful book.
Getting there...

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #861 on: 02 October, 2009, 03:23:07 pm »
Lovely, i've got Resurrection sitting on the bookshelf awaiting some attention...

I'm very close to finishing An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan about his time in captivity.

His description of being moved from one site to another almost caused me to have a panic attack - very very claustrophobic. 

IanDG

  • The p*** artist formerly known as 'Windy'
    • the_dandg_rouleur
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #862 on: 02 October, 2009, 03:47:31 pm »
Until it's over - Nicci French

It's about a bike courier in London who gets kinda linked with a couple of murders. Not brilliant but OK

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #863 on: 03 October, 2009, 11:25:19 am »
The Advocate - A Sardinian Mystery

by Marcello Fois

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #864 on: 03 October, 2009, 12:23:19 pm »
Just finished "A Clergyman's Daughter", by George Orwell. That man has about as dark a view of humanity as anyone I can think of.

Flying_Monkey

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #865 on: 03 October, 2009, 10:04:05 pm »
Finished HARM, by Brian Aldiss.

What did you think of it?

mr endon

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #866 on: 04 October, 2009, 06:10:48 pm »
Doris Lessing needs to be in any list of writers on utopian/dystopian themes.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #867 on: 06 October, 2009, 12:56:35 pm »
17:00.  Score copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" from local Sainsbury's  :)
01:30.  Finish "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" :P
09:00.  Arrive late at work, use matchsticks to prop eyelids open :(

Still waiting for my copy. :(

TWFKAML now lives within spitting distance of an independent bookshop, thus she got her copy on Wednesday chiz.

WAAAAAH!

Mr Postman tried to deliver my copy yesterday, and left it with a neighbour.  :(

Who then wasn't home all evening. >:( :'( >:( :'( >:(

<throws little sobbing tantrum of bookless despair>
Have you seen my blog? It has words. And pictures! http://ablogofallthingskathy.blogspot.com/

Flying_Monkey

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #868 on: 06 October, 2009, 04:36:37 pm »
I have just finished Remembering Babylon by David Malouf, who is one of my favourite writers of short stories, but this is the first novel of his I have read. Well worth it, too, particularly if you're interested in Australia or colonialism. It makes an interesting companion piece to Alan Garner's Strandloper and I wonder if Garner read Remembering Babylon before writing his rather superb novel. There are similarities of theme, but completely different approaches, forms and styles.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #869 on: 07 October, 2009, 03:38:12 pm »
17:00.  Score copy of "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" from local Sainsbury's  :)
01:30.  Finish "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" :P
09:00.  Arrive late at work, use matchsticks to prop eyelids open :(

Still waiting for my copy. :(

TWFKAML now lives within spitting distance of an independent bookshop, thus she got her copy on Wednesday chiz.

WAAAAAH!

Mr Postman tried to deliver my copy yesterday, and left it with a neighbour.  :(

Who then wasn't home all evening. >:( :'( >:( :'( >:(

<throws little sobbing tantrum of bookless despair>

I got my copy last night!  :D

And then I was forcibly taken unto a house of boozahol where I was forced to drink BEER and partake in a quiz chiz. >:(
Have you seen my blog? It has words. And pictures! http://ablogofallthingskathy.blogspot.com/

Paul

  • L'enfer, c'est les autos.
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #870 on: 07 October, 2009, 04:56:10 pm »
Having been away from reading for some time, I've had a few false starts recently (The Battle for Spain being the last). However, I saw a book in Waterstones last week by Chris Cleve: The Other Hand. I like his weekly column in the Guardian's family section, so I grabbed it.

Some columnists write books like their columns. I'm thinking of Mil Millington, whose column I liked and who was guaranteed at least one sale by sticking a picture of a kind of bike on the cover; and Lucy Mangan - with whom I am deeply in love - whose book was admittedly just a collection of her columns, but none the worse for that.

This is not one of those books. It is not like the contents of his usual column at all. No Sir. But it does seem to have carried me over the tricky (for me) first 100 pages. I might be about to finish a book, which hasn't happened to me in about 6 years.
What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

Flying_Monkey

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #871 on: 07 October, 2009, 05:00:47 pm »
I'm now reading You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem. It is really a bit disposable by his standards, hardly of the level of Motherless Brooklyn or The Fortress of Solitude, but it's fun and gently pokes fun at US arts culture (particularly in LA) and the self-regarding indie music scene... next up will be Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce, the follow-up to the brilliant Three Day Road, which I mentioned a few pages back.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #872 on: 08 October, 2009, 10:30:55 am »
Just started re-reading Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Arabesk trilogy.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Flying_Monkey

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #873 on: 08 October, 2009, 08:29:35 pm »
Just started re-reading Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Arabesk trilogy.

Easily his best work so far IMHO, and very good fun. I thought his earlier stuff was a bit too over-interested in weapons and had sketches for plots rather than real plots

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #874 on: 08 October, 2009, 09:06:01 pm »
I've just read Terry Pratchett's latest, which is... OK.  It's more of a continuation of the series than a book in its own right, and the new characters don't add much.  There's some wonderful, laugh-out-loud riffage on the subject of football managers and the psychobabble which surrounds the game.

I'm just about to embark on The Big Book of Pulps, a 1000-page collection of crime stories from the twenties, thirties and forties.  Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrick, James M. Cain, oh my.  All for £1.99 at one of those publisher's outlet places :thumbsup: