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'Modern' writers

Vintage Paw said:
As for me, I love the work of Percival Everett. Hardly anyone has heard of him, but I think he's great. A funny and easy one to start off with is American Desert, about Ted. Ted wants to kill himself, so he sets off to do so but gets in a traffic accident and is decapitated. At his funeral he wakes up, and starts a media circus as various religious groups think he's either the messiah or the devil, and jolly japes ensue. My favourite by him is Erasure - just brilliant. I'm writing about it for my masters.
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This guy sounds wicked :cool:

*adds to wish list*

Have you read any Paul Beatty VP? Although it goes off the boil towards the end, The White Boy Shuffle is a fucking hilarious book, and Tuff is beautifully dreamy.
 
Idris2002 said:
I thought Erasure was one of the best books I've *EVER* read, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
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OMG OMG!! Someone has read it!!! :eek:

It probably is my favourite book ever! Like I said, it's forming the basis of my Masters thesis. It's a fascinating book.

Have you read his other stuff? Glyph is the natural choice after Erasure. His collection of short stories, Damned if I Do are interesting. Some of them don't really work for me, but they are very useful at understanding where he is coming from on his attitudes to race. As I mentioned, American Desert is probably his most accessible, and highly entertaining. Wounded wasn't what I was expecting, but very interesting nonetheless.

I keep meaning to order everything of his - but so much is only available in the US at the moment.

Oooh, tell me what you loved about Erasure :)

*I'm so excited!!*
 
May Kasahara said:
This guy sounds wicked :cool:

*adds to wish list*

Have you read any Paul Beatty VP? Although it goes off the boil towards the end, The White Boy Shuffle is a fucking hilarious book, and Tuff is beautifully dreamy.
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Srsly, see my last post :cool:

Nope, haven't read Beatty (haven't heard of him). Will check that out though. I love recommendations :cool:

Another book I really enjoyed was Lunar Park. Not at all what I was expecting, considering my knowledge of him.
 
Vintage Paw said:
Ella Minnow Pea - quite amusing and a quick read, letters go missing. Not written letters, alphabetic letters.

Apex Hides the Hurt - lead character is a nomenclature consultant who has to go and help a town choose its new name. A bit poncy, but good nonetheless.
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Those two sound worth a look.

I enjoyed Life of Pi, I liked the mixture of bizarrely improbable plot with the matter-of-fact narration. I have no desire to read any more books by the same author though.
 
Alex B said:
Those two sound worth a look.

I enjoyed Life of Pi, I liked the mixture of bizarrely improbable plot with the matter-of-fact narration. I have no desire to read any more books by the same author though.
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If you look up Apex on Amazon and look at 'other customers bought' you'll see my entire reading list for last semester. Our small class changed the face of Amazon, man :cool: :D

Another one: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. I actually didn't get to the end of this purely because I had other things I had to concentrate on, but what I did read I found amusing and kooky.
 
Dillinger4 said:
but that doesn't mean there is not brilliant modern literature. It is just the stuff that is championed seems a bit up itself, mostly.
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What did for me (with regard modern Lit) for quite a while was the cleverly promoted 'Scottish School', or whatever the fuck it was dubbed. Not nec the authors or works, more that I really don't want all that faux marketing flannel around book reading - the worst of it is that reviewers allow themselves to be caught up in it.

Majorly flacid about it.
 
London_Calling said:
What did for me (with regard modern Lit) for quite a while was the cleverly promoted 'Scottish School', or whatever the fuck it was dubbed. Not nec the authors or works, more that I really don't want all that faux marketing flannel around book reading - the worst of it is that reviewers allow themselves to be caught up in it.

Majorly flacid about it.
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It's a damn shame that this marketing has this effect, because it's closing off a whole range of hugely excellent stuff to you and others who feel the same. It's hard to change your feelings on something though, when it's clearly an emotive issue. That's quite understandable.
 
I'm quite wierd about it I expect; don't even like being exposed to all the promo - the daft cardboard cutouts, the 2 for a fiver deals, far less the orchestrated media campaigns. Just feels inappropriate and intrusive - like product placement in The Wire, or summin.
 
London_Calling said:
I'm quite wierd about it I expect; don't even like being exposed to all the promo - the daft cardboard cutouts, the 2 for a fiver deals, far less the orchestrated media campaigns. Just feels inappropriate and intrusive - like product placement in The Wire, or summin.
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I think I know what you mean - I suffer bad reactions to massively hyped books and authors, so when I see something like The Lovely Bones with all its heaps of 'astounding' and 'astonishing' and Richard+Judy Book Club epithets all over it, my eyes involuntarily start to roll. I have a similar thing with the Guardian Saturday Review section, in that every week I read it and roll my eyes at the same old coterie of authors doing the featured bit.

(In some cases I know this is a senseless prejudice on my part, meaning I don't read some people that I would probably like. In the case of The Lovely Bones, however, at least I can say that I have read it - it came up at my book club - and although not terrible by any means, it is ultimately pretty average.)
 
I don't read literature reviews and I find this contributes to my quality of life. Strangely I like to read film reviews, but I read the film reviews by people I like, and most book reviewers come across as cunts :p

I do tend to avoid books that have been heavily advertised on the tube though :o
 
It's a good point. I work in a chain bookshop and I'd flatly refuse to read a R+J book. If something's in the endless 3for2 it gets a wide berth too.

However, Middlesex was in the 3for2 for ages, as others have been as well. So it is possible to look past the marketing hype and find hidden treasure.

The key is to be cleverly cynical, to not allow the bookshops, adverts etc make up your mind for you. Take the time to read the back of jackets. Spend a while reading the first chapter. It's hard to get past the initial "it's in a promotion, it's going to be shit" attitude, but you need to in order to find the gems.

Otherwise you're a victim of cultification I suppose. Those that become underground classics through word of mouth, and through not being 'popular', might be no better than those in the Waterstone's chart.
 
Whereas I tend not to read film reviews unless I've already seen the film or I'm not going to bother seeing it. And yes, lots of book reviewers sound like wankers, but then I have massively bulked up my Amazon wishlist with stuff from the Review section that sounds interesting, that I probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise.
 
Brainaddict said:
I don't read literature reviews and I find this contributes to my quality of life. Strangely I like to read film reviews, but I read the film reviews by people I like, and most book reviewers come across as cunts :p

I do tend to avoid books that have been heavily advertised on the tube though :o
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I thought you dug The Kite Runner?
Which is one of the most off-putting books for a long while.
I am never going to read it.
:D
 
Orang Utan said:
I thought you dug The Kite Runner?
Which is one of the most off-putting books for a long while.
I am never going to read it.
:D
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Yeah, I broke the rule due to an interest in Afghanistan. It's hardly a literary classic but is interesting for historical reasons. Why am I defending myself to you? You have terrible tastes in literature ;)
 
The increased popularity of book groups is quite frustrating, in a way. They are a good thing, of course, because they get people thinking more about what they read. And encourage people to read things they might not otherwise pick up. Although I'm aware what I just wrote sounds really fucking patronising.

However, if the reading group I used to go to is anything to go by, the driving force was R+J and really middle of the road shit. Nothing that was going to push the envelope. Typical Kite Runner stuff.

I made everyone read Erasure and no one liked it until we had met up and I put across my love for it, then most went away with a completely different view point. Which is nice.
 
anyway OP I thouroughly reccomend Adam Roberts new book 'Swiftly'. Its sort of a sequel to Gullivers Travels. Excellent stuff




and a deal more interesting than some of the shyte mentioned on this thread
 
I've shied away from a couple of bookgroups because of the tedious predictability of their choices. But there are better ones out there.
 
My book group is pretty cool actually, everyone puts in five choices and you can have whatever you want (fiction, fact, biog, comics, poetry, whatever). So far we've had quite a mix really, some dreadful chick lit type stuff, some decent novels, an American sociology text, a book about the Treaty of Versailles (I think), all sorts really.

I am, however, dreading the day House Of Leaves comes out (my choice). Hopefully we'll get Watchmen first instead.
 
Brainaddict said:
I've shied away from a couple of bookgroups because of the tedious predictability of their choices. But there are better ones out there.
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yep, I think if you set it up with some likeminded friends you've got more of a chance.

If you go to the one your local library set up ... well ...
 
I gave up on my bookgroup cos it was for lesbians, with lesbian stories , written by lesbian authors - which kinda narrowed down the reading list :rolleyes: Then I got pissed off with the 'I only fancy a nice easy read' moaning twats, and the women who wouldn't even bother reading the book, and if they did, they didn't speak about it


The most POINTLESS fucking bookgroup in the world, EVAH :mad:
 
sojourner said:
I gave up on my bookgroup cos it was for lesbians, with lesbian stories , written by lesbian authors - which kinda narrowed down the reading list :rolleyes: Then I got pissed off with the 'I only fancy a nice easy read' moaning twats, and the women who wouldn't even bother reading the book, and if they did, they didn't speak about it


The most POINTLESS fucking bookgroup in the world, EVAH :mad:
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lol :D
 
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