Heartland

Favourite books anyone?

Surprisingly enough I'm a fan of gothic lit. The first wave, you know, before vampires got popular. The embryonic state of fiction at the time makes for poorly written prose but I love it anyway. I really don't dig vampires. The whole pale skin, massive leather coat and ability to spit up blood on demand plays well into the modern fascination with vampires and if it helps me get laid so much the better but I once read Dracula and decided 'never again'.

Other favourites include Kafka and Dostoevksy. The Idiot is my favourite book of his so far. More romantic than philosophical perhaps but I enjoyed it.

As for non-fiction I've read a lot of philosophy, mostly Plato, Nietschze and Russell, as much as they contradict one another. I don't really have concrete opinions of my own, I vacillate between extremes.

I've also read a lot about occultism, which is not quite fiction but not quite truth either. I think there's some value in it. Crowley, the most famous exponent, I'm not so big on and I've mostly read about authors rather than the authors themselves. John Dee and Giordano BRuno are two figures that intrigue me. I've found some of Brunos writing and it is actually rather good. Another title I've been able to lay hands on is Marsilio Ficino's Book of Life. Astrology was a subject I had until then ignored but I found a lot of value in the book.

Oh and also worthy of mention is Carl Jung, who goes some way to making the 'fluffier' stuff make some sort of sense and seem valid.

Clive James, Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, Stuart Maconie, Ian Rankin, Irvine Welsh - nothing too heavy like your bollix

you're a "fan" of Plato?

Bartek wrote:you're a "fan" of Plato?

Heh, not really. I read a few dialogues when I was younger. It's a good starting point for the study of philosophy because it's kind of the starting point of philosophy.

Last actual work of philosophy I read was Thus Spake Zarathustra a year or two ago. Since then it's been mostly fiction.

austen, peake, thackeray, gaskell, cather, dante, homer, virgil, brent dyer, tolkein and rowling.

emilystrange wrote:peake

Ooh good call did you watch the Gormenghast miniseries?

no, not yet, had nothing to record to record it on

Torrent that s**t! Or get a DVD or something. It's worth it. Very different to the book though. It almost feels like they're different characters behaving the same way.

Elystan wrote:

Bartek wrote:you're a "fan" of Plato?

Heh, not really. I read a few dialogues when I was younger. It's a good starting point for the study of philosophy because it's kind of the starting point of philosophy.

Last actual work of philosophy I read was Thus Spake Zarathustra a year or two ago. Since then it's been mostly fiction.

that's good cause Plato was a twit.

i saw a little bit. it seemed too - light.
and jonathan rhys meyer is too pretty to be steerpike

emilystrange wrote:i saw a little bit. it seemed too - light.
and jonathan rhys meyer is too pretty to be steerpike

I can see how that would be a problem if you'd read the books first. I saw the drama first. Like I say - almost like different characters playing out the same story. Fuschia is also much prettier in the drama. Oh well.

Castaneda, Leopardi, Patricia Cornwell, Agatha Christie, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Foscolo, Pascoli, Grisham

Marco, Merrick, Terry-Lee...

Elystan wrote:
I can see how that would be a problem if you'd read the books first. I saw the drama first. Like I say - almost like different characters playing out the same story. Fuschia is also much prettier in the drama. Oh well.

yeah. had been reading the books for about 20 years by then.

Stig of the Dump

My obsessive childhood love of fiction vanished in my early teens along with my sunny disposition, my freckles and (I can only assume) a large chunk of my immortal soul. Never mind. These days I can't seem to follow a plot to save myself and read non-fiction almost exclusively. Mainly my dad's fantastic collection of books which he amassed whilst doing a philosophy/humanities degree with the OU, dense psychological texts that would put most people to sleep but which I find endlessly fascinating, books on Zen Buddhism and atheism, some sociological and feminist writers, and some popular science.

When I do bother with "literature" as in fiction I like to make sure it's good, so I tend to go for the classics - Dostoyevsky, Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Koestler. However, it's been a good two years since I last read a fictional text

weebleswobble wrote:Marco, Merrick, Terry-Lee...

Ignore Weebs, he's from the Naughty North.

Me, I like books with pictures in them.

I do drawings for a living

mh wrote:

weebleswobble wrote:Marco, Merrick, Terry-Lee...

Ignore Weebs, he's from the Naughty North.

Me, I like books with pictures in them.

do these pages fold out?

Isaac Asimov, James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, Neal Stephenson, Terry Pratchett, Haruki Murakami (sometimes) are the first that come to mind, so probably my faves

Binchey, Jonker, Cartland, Anon.

I did force myself (and I mean force) to read Crime and Punishment. It's hard to be to interested when you don't like a single charachter in a work of fiction, they were all so unpleasant. To me it just read as the authors sometime contradictory opinions in the mouths of others.

Gormenghast was brilliant, perhaps the final book was a bit sloppy, but I remember hearing it was written after his war experiences, and they unsettled his mind. It's a shame as there were supposedly other books planned. I remember finding Dr Prunesquallor immensely likable, for no reason I'm quite aware of. Perfect casting in the tv version too, John Sessions.

As for Nietzche, I can imagine Ann Rand and Mrs T being groupies.

Personally I go for Pratchett, Gaiman, Wodehouse, Dickens, Jim Butcher, and when my brain needs turning into mush, Agatha Christie.

At the mo am reading a collection of Greek Mythology. All the Greek gods did was shag around. It seems if you were a woman or pretty boy you had to be careful every time you bent over in case Zeus seized the opportunity.

DeWinter wrote:Gormenghast was brilliant, perhaps the final book was a bit sloppy, but I remember hearing it was written after his war experiences, and they unsettled his mind. It's a shame as there were supposedly other books planned. I remember finding Dr Prunesquallor immensely likable, for no reason I'm quite aware of. Perfect casting in the tv version too, John Sessions.

I think the third book was unfinished by Peake before he died, and was published after his death in the state it had reached: an early manuscript draft - presumably he would have spent far more time redrafting it had he lived longer.

Many through the years - George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Tolkein, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gunn, Ian Rankin, Raymond Chandler and Iain Banks to name a few.
I was even rather partial to Sven Hassel in my teenage years.

weebleswobble wrote:Marco