Whats everyone reading?

[M.I.K.]

All we are is dust in the wind, dude.

[The Legendary Shark]

Or maybe we're the wind that moves the dust...
.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tried giving A Star Called Henry another shot today after two years of lauding it as one of the worst books i've ever read. Four chapters in and i'm still uncertain...

No, just couldn't do it. Rody Doyle just isn't for me i'm afraid. I got up to the post office siege and I had just had enough. Read like a 13 year olds wet dream.

[TordelBack]

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.  I'm not far into this truly enormous book, but so far I'm completely bowled over.  I generally love DFW's work, especially his articles, but this has all the hallmarks of his masterpiece: a millennial Dickens.  The footnotes are the best footnotes I've ever read - some going on for 8 or 9 full pages of the smallest type imaginable - including entire, and completely hilarious, extended fictional filmographies.

What I hadn't realised going into this 1,100 page behemoth is the science fiction setting, a satirical near-future North America reshaped by separatist conflicts along the Canadian border, where the calender itself has been 'subsidised' by corporate sponsorship, so that the Year of the Whopper is is followed by the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.

In between this, and the familiar hyper-detailed accounts of the world of professional tennis and psychiatric medication, there are marvelously grotesque characters and real, painful insights into the human condition.

It's going to take me weeks more to read, and I'm looking forward to that time very much.  What a loss to the world his death was.

[Ancient Otter]

Tried giving A Star Called Henry another shot today after two years of lauding it as one of the worst books i've ever read. Four chapters in and i'm still uncertain...

No, just couldn't do it. Rody Doyle just isn't for me i'm afraid. I got up to the post office siege and I had just had enough. Read like a 13 year olds wet dream.

Out of curiosity, what is it about that book that made you interested in it? It didn't sound like your usual cup of tea.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tried giving A Star Called Henry another shot today after two years of lauding it as one of the worst books i've ever read. Four chapters in and i'm still uncertain...

No, just couldn't do it. Rody Doyle just isn't for me i'm afraid. I got up to the post office siege and I had just had enough. Read like a 13 year olds wet dream.

Out of curiosity, what is it about that book that made you interested in it? It didn't sound like your usual cup of tea.

A few years ago it was given to me by my family after I left high school momentarily to be home schooled due ro an anxiety attack. Part of what I studied was the origins of the conflict over Northern Ireland. So naturally this book was considered an "invaluable source". Utter shite.

[303]

Midway through Gone Girl, and it's excellent.

[Karl Stephan]

I'm on a Will Eisner binge. Got the Best of the Spirit from DC, The Contract With God Trilogy and his book about sequential art (packed with black and white Spirit art). I wish there were some black and white collections (I understand that the DC Spirit Archives are in colour). There's the massive Artist's edition, which looks amazing, but it's over a £100! 

[Colin YNWA]

I'm on a Will Eisner binge. Got the Best of the Spirit from DC, The Contract With God Trilogy and his book about sequential art (packed with black and white Spirit art). I wish there were some black and white collections (I understand that the DC Spirit Archives are in colour). There's the massive Artist's edition, which looks amazing, but it's over a £100!

I have the Kitchen Sink series from the late 80s after the first 10 or so issues these are all black and white and I defo prefer my Eisner that way. Its a great series, complete in chronological order with some fantastic commentaries. Well worth tracking down and shouldn't be too hard to track down.

[Karl Stephan]

I have the Kitchen Sink series from the late 80s after the first 10 or so issues these are all black and white and I defo prefer my Eisner that way. Its a great series, complete in chronological order with some fantastic commentaries. Well worth tracking down and shouldn't be too hard to track down.

I've heard of those. Will do!

[Karl Stephan]

And all this Spirit goodness is rekindling my interest in Eric Powell's Goon. There definitely is a golden thread running through both http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/1092/deja-goon-goon-intro-vol-3-frank-darabont

[Colin YNWA]

The Goon is a strip I've never really read but always liked the look of, just never got around to, so much good stuff out there. Interesting to hear it compared to the wonderful Spirit, pushes it nearer the top of the list!

[Karl Stephan]

I've read about 8 volumes of the Goon. It's far less dense than the Spirit, story wise, but the humour is good and of course the visual style harks back to Eisner, Jack Davis, Will Elder etc. Can't really go wrong reading it.

[I, Cosh]

Mostly juggling a few different short story collections of late. Been slowly working my way through the Tordelback approved, Dozois compiled Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 for what seems like months now. This is because it has been months. There's a lot of good stuff in there, a couple of real crackers -  Lavie Tidhar's fractured narrative The Memcordist probably the stand out so far - and only one stinker.

The most entertaining difference between those and Somerset Maugham's Selected Stories, Vol. 1 is the author bios. The sci-fi crew are all jobbing creative writing tutors or IT consultants, writing in the small hours when they're away from the office. Maugham, on the other hand, is the sort of old-fashioned, English chap from money who'd probably never set foot in the Motherland until he was sent to boarding school and left again for a German university at the first opportunity.

The stories themselves are neatly written, with a good line in cutting description of the flaws in people's character. However, they all seem to follow the template of one character relating a story about another to a third (a distancing technique which I always feel dulls the impact of any story) and the inevitable twists, while sometimes amusing, seem somewhat bloodless. Perhaps dulled by shifts in public morality. A fervent clergyman taking advantage of the fallen woman he is professing to save hardly seems much of a leap.

Tales of Earthsea was an unexpected find: an Ursula le Guin collection set in the eponymous fantasy world. The stories are spread across the history of Earthsea -two of them touching on characters we already know - but each has an edge to it whether relating to abuse of power or sexual politics.

Nerds and other people who revel in such things may be interested to hear that that le Guin's introduction touches on the question of constructing a completely fantastic world to set your stories in rather than using one somebody already built, while an appendix is swollen with background information to assist in creating your own campaign.

Finally, The Art of Loving by John Gardner (the Grendel one, not the James Bond one) is full of wonderful sentences which run on for clause after clause, packing in asides and incidental detail, without ever becoming cumbersome or laboured. A trick I always wish I could pull off. These ones are full of simmering resentment, insight, longing and, for some reason, music.

They are similar to the Maugham stories in that the majority finish with a twist in the last paragraph. The difference being that Maugham's all end with a revelation which is intended to flip your understanding of what's gone before while Gardner's generally close with the characters gaining an insight into themselves or their own situation. Which seems a lot nicer.

TL;DR: isn't it ironic?

[I, Cosh]

Comicswise I'm about halfway through DMZ. It's alright and I can see where it's coming from but it's all a bit contrived and not half as much fun as Northlanders.

Was going to make some disparaging comment about journalists as heroes but only just made the connection with Peter Parker and Clark Kent as I started typing. Mind blown!