Sunday 31 May 2009

The book mountain

A longlist of the books currently grabbing DABC's attention. Cross-genre, in no particular order, this is what the forthcoming few months of Dusty Anachronist reading will look like.

More suggestions happily received. An order of sorts will be decided soon.

Descriptions of lesser-known books will be sent out so you can have a gander and see whether they spark your interest. 

I got linking disease - this list is linked to the maxx

did somebody say gravity's rainbow?
The Drowned World - JG Ballard - unless anyone fervently recommends other Ballardaciousness  
Something by Jane Smiley (maybe A Thousand Acres)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Bigot Hall - Steve Aylett (my idol)
A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul 
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood  
The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell (the only DM i haven't read - hope it's as great as the rest)
Naïve, Super Erlend Loe (awesome the first time round - also the only Trondheim writer I know) 
The Last of Her Kind - Sigrid Nunez this is meant to be Excellent.

7 comments:

  1. Hoo-rah! Good list this. In addition to seeing Homicide and Jimmy Corrigan, The Drowned World and Lucky Jim on the list, I'm quite keen to check out The Fortress of Solitude and break my DFW cherry with Oblivion.

    also i've just started reading the blind assassin, completely independent of this list so hopefully should be able to say something pithy and insightful for that one too! Wheeeeee!

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  2. Wahey, welcum, welcum aboard the good ship Dusty, Colonel T. Extremely glad to have you take time away from keeping me up to date with 'L'Apprentice' (i'd rather have 'Caprica', but I accept the buffoon quotient on the former is irresistible).

    Anyway, i'm delighted that you're on for Lethem and Atwood, a DFW chezzlepop (have you read his Kenyon commencement speech btw? i'll find a link. frakkin excellent way to waste a half hour of temping), and etc, etc. Sweet as.

    ps. i liked your dead planets beaten to death by a shoe simile. i liked it to the cry cry.

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  3. thanks eli. there will be a caprica write-up. sadly the series is not due to be shown on ustv until some time next year. in the mean time i'm thinking of doing a dvd club similar to your book club, doing an episode of a series every week. at the moment i'm not sure whether i should do deadwood or friday night lights.

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  4. isn't 'deadwood' generally considered the better of the two? never seen it but i remember the dialogue being praised or summat. 'Friday Night Lights' always seemed alright to me, though i never quite got why you guys jizzed all over it so much. Other than Tim Riggins. The idea of a DVD club is great, by the way, especially since it promises more of the Minster Sofa Brethren Trawl through this current golden age. Also it would fit into 'Unfollow' nicely, a sort of interactive part. So 2.0.

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  5. I have a black hair-dye stained copy of Lost Souls lying around somewhere from when I was 14. It's great!

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  6. It's like the hardcore version of Twilight.

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  7. Black hair dye? Ooh. I bet you were a cute little goth ;)

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