What are you reading

[Tenebracid]

i looked and i think the literature counterpart of the films thread doesn't exist yet so decided to create it.

right now,

blood meridian by cormac mccarthy (1985) - not finished yet but will soon as it's a very nice read. raw, bleak and ultra violent western odissey with excellent landscape descriptions.

[HONOR_IS_KING!]

The World According to Garp.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Mafia Export - by Francesco Forgione.
Pretty much like listing details and personnel of Italian mafia gone global.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

i looked and i think the literature counterpart of the films thread doesn't exist yet so decided to create it.

right now,

blood meridian by cormac mccarthy (1985) - not finished yet but will soon as it's a very nice read. raw, bleak and ultra violent western odissey with excellent landscape descriptions.

I don't think so either. Good thread!

Blood Meridian is so heavy, not just in atmosphere but in language with it's extremely long sentences and endless wirling onslaught of words row upon row. One could read it over and over and maybe hope to get 75% at best. In homage to the Magic Realism of Latin America one could be bold and dub Blood Meridian as Violent Realism for the way an entire page can be dedicated to describing a stone in the desert while the most gruesome violence is brushed over in a sentence as if it was the most insignificant of things. Which, considering the setting of the story and the people at the centre of it, is a very accrurate approach. An extraordinary book!

My Current book is The Reader. A sixteen year old kid in 1950's Germany fucks a woman 20 years his senior. The woman, Hanna, acts as a metaphor for Germany's complicated past and The Kid spends the next 30 years of his life pondering complex feelings of shame and love over his liason with a Woman of the SS. Sorrry, couldn't resist. The film version starring Kate Winslet and Raph Fiennes is on BBC at 21.00 tonight. Apart from the retarded English actors faking German accents it's not bad. Winslet is good as always. The book with all its details is of course miles better.

[Ernpe]

Just finished second part of the K.H.Wiik's biography (Tuomioja 1979 & 1982). Wiik being one of the most upfront marxist social-democrats of the first half of 20th century, the biography gives a nice view of the Finnish social-democrat movement as whole.

Wiik was against the Finnish revolution of 1918 but unlike most of the socialists who didn't exile to Russia, Wiik never gave up his marxism, yet he kept a strict line towards the communists. He was kicked from the party during the Intermin Peace (1940-1941) and imprisoned after the operation Barbarossa was launched.

After the war, Wiik turned into new left-democratic alliance but disillusioned shortly after, just before death at the age of 62.

[SiClark]

Just started 'Dark Market' by Misha Glenny. It's very good so far, it's a detailed look at cyber crime. His previous book is called McMafia which is absolutely amazing and I highly recommend it which deals with the rise of organised crime after the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Bondage Culture]

Just got done reading "Index" by Peter Sotos and now reading "Depraved" by Harold Schechter about the serial killer H.H. Holmes. Pretty interesting so far.

[ConcreteMascara]

Tim Powers - The Anubis Gates. Just started it this morning.

[HongKongGoolagong]

Currently 'a, a novel' - Andy Warhol - transcribed taped conversations from the speedfreaks and sexual misfits of the 60s Factory

Recently Jack Kerouac 'Wake Up' - retold life of the Buddha which eminded me why I hate Buddhists.  John Steinbeck 'The Grapes Of Wrath' - something I should have read when a teenager, pretty powerful semi-modernist prose. Jon Ronson 'The Psychopath Test' - great expose of the excesses of psychiatry in humorous style, some interesting stuff on scientology in there. Lynn Crosbie  'Paul's Case' -excellent experimental fiction dealing with Bernardo/Homolka. David Smith 'Witness' - with amusement I noticed that this is the twelth book I have on the case now: not obsessed or anything.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

Jon Ronson 'The Psychopath Test' - great expose of the excesses of psychiatry in humorous style, some interesting stuff on scientology in there.

Interesting. Have you read Robert Hare's book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us? Psychopathy is a subject I'm very interested in. Not the weak serial killer glorification bullshit, the actual psychopaths who walk among us. The ones we have and will encounter in our place of work and other everyday settings without even knowing it. It's a subject I believe everyone would benefit from learning about. I certainly have.

[HongKongGoolagong]

Interesting. Have you read Robert Hare's book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us?

I haven't read it but Hare and his checklist get a rough ride from Ronson in the book and the guy doesn't come over too well in interview sections. Then again, almost no-one does in 'The Psychopath Test' - the overwhelming theme is a criticism of the DSM as a money-making scheme to medicalise normal human variations.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

Is that Hare and his checklist themselves or the way certain people and authorities have taken liberties with them? I know Hare is very critical about that himself which is apparently why he continues to lecture around the world well into his 70's.

[ARKHE]

Right now a bunch of introductory texts to intellectual property rights. But when I get off those, second part of Gene Wolfe's The Knight Wizard. First fantasy I've enjoyed. Also working my way through Brian Wood's DMZ series (comic books). Can't be bothered with anything non-fictious while I'm studying, prefer spaceships, dragons and future wars. But Blood Meridian might be one of the most harrowing, unsettling and mesmerizing things I've read, made this past summer a bit grimmer.

[HongKongGoolagong]

Is that Hare and his checklist themselves or the way certain people and authorities have taken liberties with them? I know Hare is very critical about that himself which is apparently why he continues to lecture around the world well into his 70's.

The book goes into all this in detail, I'd recommend it highly, it manages to cover disturbing subject matter in a very entertaining way. He goes into Broadmoor mental hospital to meet a diagnosed psychopath with the help of Scientologists, and there's also details of life behind the scenes with Scientologists - surprisingly considering the terrible press they usually get they get off pretty lightly in this book and seem genuine people compared with some of the horrible fuckers he meets including a very successful businessman who meets all the psychopath criteria, maniacal child psychiatrists who live for medicating children unnecessarily, a psychopathic mercenary...

There is also a very intriguing beginning and end to the book which is kind of about a mysterious outsider art project, hard to describe.

[RG]

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