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Books: The Acid House
I'm not sure how I feel about short stories. I find them very easy to read, but rather unsatisfying. This might be because I'm slow to empathise with characters and situations, so don't make those quick connections that are important for short stories. Or it might be that because they're short and easy they don't make me feel like I've done some ( Read more... ) -
Books: Vineland
Vineland is a bit of a mess of a book, but I really enjoyed it ( Read more... ) -
Books
sometimes I think I'm just pretending that I actually understand or really learn anything from books. -
Books: V for Vendetta
Continuing my attempt to write something about every book I read ( Read more... ) -
Books: Titus Groan
I find it hard to believe that I last read Titus Groan when I was thirteen or fourteen. I always meant to re-read it, but never did. (My parents' copy of Titus Groan went missing, which didn't help.) So while I'd say it's a favourite and important book to me, it was half my life ago that I read it ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
On the riverside walk, tucked beneath the overhang of Bevan Britten. The river is a dark jade, with ripples like badly blown glass. No gulls bob on the surface. A trail of small white torn-out feathers on the paving. In the corner, by the basement ventilation grates, a bloody pink worm of intestine. -
Books: the Good, the Bad, and the Multiplex
I got this book by Mark Kermode for Christmas. I think I must have first heard Mark Kermode when I started listening to Radio 1 when I was 12 or so. I feel like he was on Mark & Lard's show that I used to listen to in bed after ten or ten thirty, but perhaps that's just because everyone on the program seemed to be called Mark ( Read more... ) -
Books: What's Left?
What's Left is Nick Cohen's polemic against the state of the left. I was a bit apprehensive coming to it. I'd consider myself on the left, even if I'm uninvolved. So criticisms of it are personal. On the other hand, because I am uninvolved, it is easy for me to pick and choose, ignoring bad things and people, rather than having to commit to ( Read more... ) -
Books: Kuhn vs Popper
Continuing my attempt to write something about every book I read. Even though this book's fairly short, this post goes on a bit as I try to get to grips with the most important parts.
The dramatic subtitle of Kuhn vs Popper by Steve Fuller is: The struggle for the soul of science. I don't know much about Thomas Kuhn or Karl Popper. What I was ( Read more... ) -
Books: Excession
Some lighter reading now. The other two Culture novels I've read left me with the impression that (spoiler alert) the Culture always wins. The Culture is a tremendously advanced, post-scarcity, civilisation; the most powerful in the galaxy. Excession poses the question: what happens when it encounters something that seems more powerful than it ( Read more... )