i'm doin' arthur c clarke short stories from the 40s and 50s. he is way better in long form. i'm beginning to think i don't like short stories in general. i liked 9 billion names of god and vonnegut's the barnhouse effect, other than that, i can't think of a single short story i've found significantly compelling.

i'm on michael chricton's "next". i appreciate his technical accuracy and use of historical fact, but it is painfully misogynistic. i don't remember his other books being like this, but almost every single female character gets a lurid, sexualized description, and uses her sexuality. not a single male character does. it's pissing me off.

if you want a really good short story read poe and hemingway and carver. in translation, maupassant, chekhov, borges and cortázar.

as for science fiction, william gibson’s “burning chrome” collection is where he worked out his universe before he poured it into novels. they’re a lot of fun.

and once i came upon a spanish translation book of stories in by jack vance and they blew my mind. have not read them in the original.

I love poe's short stories too, Isaac Asimov is also recommended. For instance: Insert Knob A In Hole B and also Bicentennial Man which is more like a short novel.

I hardly read at all, and whenever I do start reading a book, chances are very high that I will stop reading it at some point. Therefore I love reading short stories, because I'm pretty sure I'll make it until the end.

wowie. if you're looking for short stories, go here:
The Pulp Magazine Archive

(but it will be a pain in the butt to filter the good ones from the rest)

Just finished the autobiography of Cosey Fanni Tutti. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. The stuff COUM and Throbbing Gristle were doing in the 70's you actually couldn't do now. Both because it's been done and therefore would be seen as too try hard, and the boundaries of feminism and sex/porn/stripping have actually gone further away than then.

Personally, this is the book Kim Gordon's should have been, but instead Kim's got bogged down in the Thurston drama.

EDIT:I know there are a couple of people who are into music books. Get it.

my brother hated reading when we were kids but one day he found clockwork orange in my room, borrowed it, and locked himself with it. it’s the only time i saw him read a book cover to cover and it took him only a few hours.

i guess what im trying to say is give clockwork orange a shot? ha ha ha. it’s a lot of fun.

RIP Philip Kerr...died a few days ago from bladder cancer at age 62.

I've enjoyed all his Bernie Gunther novels as crazy as they get...

I wrote an email to Rudy Rucker (cyberpunk author) wishing him a happy 76th birthday and telling him how much I love his books, and since I write a book review blog, if he could provide me with some reading suggestions.

he looked at it and wrote me back! shit yeah,

"Looked at your blog, nice and very thorough. Good work. Feeble review of the Lifebox tome, though. It's not hard to read! Is it? :)"

he also gave me some reading suggestions. Love how he ripped me for the weaksauce review of his Lifebox book. I laughed.

oh hell. his software + wetware novels are GREAT. have not ready the last 2 of that group but this reminds me i wanna.

great reply, that.

Yes! I just read it too. It's so much more than a Bio, almost a social history. Brilliant!

*hi-five* can't tell what made me more gutted. That I was at the atp festival they had to pull out of after Sleazy died, or that I missed the last Carter, Tutti, Void gig last year.

just finished "The Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker.

Pretty similar to the filmed version, "Hellraiser".

Finished up Jason Zinoman's Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...d-last-of.html

and the best art is that Jason Zinoman retweeted my post about the review! shit yeah. "An online review from a former founder of a Church of Letterman. Love the kicker."

Just finished The Hidden Life of Trees. Fucking awesome. http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...s-complex.html

Finished Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe. Cool stuff.

https://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/...-life-and.html

Forgot to post that I finally finished my JRR Tolkien run. I moved next to "Tietem Brown" by Mick Foley, for my first re-read of this in many years.

Finish this yet?

ok so what's the deal with INFINITE JEST? should I read it? I will leave home for a month and thought "hey, it has many pages, maybe i will take that one with me so I won't have to take a bunch of books" but them I am scared I am too dumb for it and / or will get angry and frustrated and buy 38874 more books while away... err?

I tried it. dipped my mind in. Got about 20 pages in and realized I did not give a flying fuck about anything I had been reading so I put it down. Infinite over-rating? My fiction needs to be fun or else I dont give a fuck. i get my depressions out of non-fiction books.,

i started it and was like “i already read ulysses and it was better”

i’m a terrible person, i know

but the more you read the more you can discard.

what was the name of that essay by tears eliot about the formation of character bla bla bla? where he talks about how the influence of each new book decreases as you read more. kinda like the law of diminishing returns.

where i’m going with this is: a lot of people talk about infinite jest as some kind of life-defining formative experience. but by the time i found this book i had already been malformed for decades. and the stylistical flourishes did not impress me. so i just put it down. ymmv.

Went to see Laila Lalami speak yesterday at a Women in Literature forum. Mostly know her from Nation Magazine, but she has written extensive fiction accounts on colonialism and immigration. Very erudite and entertaining extemporaneous talk, engaged well with Q&A including one gentleman of the (tesla-type) persuasion. Recommended if you get a chance to see/read her.

Yeah, man! Sure I posted about it a few pages back. Hang on let me look

Edit:Huh maybe I didn't. I finished and totally loved it. There's a scene near the end where it's Pierre, Natasha, and Maria all talking together about death and in particular Prince Andrei's death. That scene will rank as one of the greatest pieces of writing I've ever read. It hit me so hard. Thing that pissed me off so much was epilogue 2. So he's just finished up talking about the characters and leaves tantalising clues as to where their lives are heading. Perfect. If he'd left it there I'd have been so happy. Does he? No, he decides to go on a 200 hundred ramble about the idea of writing about history etc.

Currently reading Rabbit at Rest. I've totally been sucked into this world so after reading Rabbit Run and I've done the next three one after another. This is the last one of the four and it's probably my favourite of the lot.


Whilst the way he talks about sex, and his obsession with banging on about it (no pun intended) is just cringe worthy he's a brilliant writer. He has these ling descriptive passages that just flow so seamlessly along. You gotta love a good solid piece of writing, right?

I told you those essay passages could be easily skipped. Or at least I meant to.

---

Next to Nabokov, Updike is my favorite author.

But yes. He does have his obsessions. And it's always bothered/confused me when reading one of his masterful sentences to find the word "cunt" somewhere in there.

The first Rabbit book depressed me. The second is so dark and unpleasant. The third is merely melancholy, although I remember some funny bits. But I agree the forth is the best. The novella epilogue thing in LICKS OF LOVE: don't remember a thing about it.

Are you going to read another Updike next?

For the most part I actually enjoyed his essays. It was just the fact he ended an incredible book with the worst essay of the lot.

Hmm, not sure. After reading four books of his in a row I think I'm gonna go somewhere else after it :D I was actually looking at Witches Of Eastwick, but like I say, I'm probably gonna go for something light and easy after this.

Rabbit Redux was definitely the most depressing for me. Whilst his son Nelson is this current book is such an unlikable character, Skeeter has to rank as one of my all time disliked book characters. What it was for me was the fact he so was so believable. You know there are people in every town, city, state like him. Out to ruin other peoples lives for their own gratification.

I had heard the final novella is not even worth bothering so I'm gonna leave it.

I'm currently reading a book I had no idea could existed. I found it in a railway station...
The subject is Magellan's expedition, and the authors/editors have gathered lots of material and trimmed it down to make it readable and instructive.
I've had a fascination for this first world tour and other sea things (the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Challenge, with Moitessier, Crowhurst, Tetley...)
It's quite fantastic.
Le voyage de Magellan 1519-1522, Chandeigne editions.

cool shit Bertrand

Finished Freaks of Nature, which explores developmental anomalies and defects and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...l-work-of.html

Strange Bird by Vandemeer. Not bad.

I wanna read Borne b y Vandermeer

So this happened:

I wrote an email to Penguin Random House sharing my review of Haruki Murakami's book ABsolutely On Music. I told them about myself a little and that I would love to contact Murakami. 20 minutes later I get an email from Random House, providing a mailing address for correspondence with Murakami (eep!) and thanking me. THEN, I get another email stating that they shared my review on Haruki Murakami's official Facebook. hot shit!

In the past 2 hours, my review has gotten 2968 distinct "hits"

wowowowowo bad-ass.

Amazing! Glad to see the work you're putting in is paying off. Even if it was only for your own gratification getting a response like that must be pretty satisfying.

So you've had Alan Moore, soon to be Murakami, couple others if I remember rightly. Any other author you'd like to a)see a review of yours and b)get in touch with?

A month or so ago my wife said that I should take the time to write to one author that I have reviewed each day, and see what happens.

I have written and communicated with several people, most recently Mark S. Blumberg, who wrote the Freaks of Nature book. Jeff vandermeer, Moore, now Murakami, Rudy Rucker, etc... cool stuff.

I wrote to Freeman Dyson but he is like 90 years old.

that shit is now at 4,100 hits

Can a book review go "viral" ? hjahhahahahha. That specific review now has 8037 original hits all since 9 AM today.

the authors I would love to contact are all dead! (HST, Vonnegut, Bukowski, Asimov, etc)

My wife told em to write to the authors I love because they will all die.

she was right.

as far as any authors I wanna communicate with? Camile Paglia, Neil Gaiman, Greg Bear

doubt that any contact with Pugly would go well...

I'm gonna send her a highly intricate B+W drawing to curry her favor.

paglia is great. i like her more in writing than in person (i saw her speak once). sexual personae drove me a bit nuts. it was like having taken a too-powerful drug. i read her columns with some frequency.

while i don’t have to agree with everything she says, and she can repeat and oversimplify things, and even be disturbing, i appreciate her perspective, which i believe to be an honest one, unlike many charlatans who feign positions according to fashions.

i think it’s valuable for the culture to have someone in her post, and holding the positions she does, and as vociferously as she does.

as you know most people these days don’t want debate but cry for agreement and compliance instead. whether the various mainstreams or the lunatic fringe, it’s always “with me or against me” and torrents of tears.

so thank fuck for paglia’s furious opposition to various brands of sanctimony and wishful thinking and lack of seriousness.

i hope she scolds you! i’d take that as a great compliment.