What are people reading at the moment?
I just wrapped up When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi - quite the story of a neurosurgeons memoir after being diagnosed with terminal cancer in his mid 30s and his experiences around approaching death and life.
One of those books you finish and then stare into nothingness contemplating it all for a little while.
I read those a long time ago. Will be interested to hear what you think once you’re finished with them. I won’t give my opinions until then because … spoilers!
Sounds pretty interesting. I’m starting on a bit of a Cormac McCarthy binge. Read ‘No Country…’ which I loved. Now on ‘Blood Meridian’ and have ‘The Road’ waiting to go. Dark doesn’t do him justice but he does have a real knack for drawing you in.
How have i missed this thread? His last two are extraordinary
You should also check out the Border Trilogy starting with All the Pretty Horses. But Blood Meridian is in a league of its own when it comes to darkness. I hear they are finally going to turn it into a movie, with Nick Cave appropriately doing the soundtrack
Sounds like a great project. Loved Nick’s work in the ‘The Proposition’ film. I’ll definitely check out the McCarthy trilogy you mentioned too.
Ooft that’s a good one! Well, depressing, but such a good read.
Lived No country as a movie. I have wanted to read a western style book for a while. I’m guessing this is a great place to start.
Portrait of the Artist was a tough read as an HSC student, and I’m not sure Finnegan’s Wake wasn’t just a jumble of made-up words.
We had that one in HSC English Literature.
Didn’t enjoy it all and have never been tempted to try any more of Joyce’s work.
On a more positive note, newies from Margaret Hickey, Hayley Scrivenor and Steve Cavanagh are due to be released this week.
I rather liked Portrait of the Artist, although I’m sure I didn’t understand half of the things I should have understood about it. Dubliners was good too. Ulysses was a bore, and I’ve never been able to get more than half a paragraph into Finnegan’s Wake. Maybe I should try it as an audiobook, if it’s available, but I ploughed all the way through Ulysses only to come to the conclusion that it really hadn’t been worth the bother, and I’m pretty sure I’d come to the same conclusion about Mr Finnegan.
I listened to Melvin Bragg’s In Our Time podcast on Portrait and understood a bit more, but no way would I ever read it again.
There’s a guy who has been a Blitz member who got a doctorate in Joyce. We used to mock him, on these very same issues, when he was one of our weekly trivia team.
I’ve probably posted this link before, but lately I’ve been enjoying reading these sci-fi short stories online, particularly the stylings of Sarah Pinsker.
Sci Fi is often best in short story form. There were a number of anthologies published by Penguin in the 60s that were outstanding. They were just called Penguin Science Fiction, More Penguin Science Fiction, and so on.
I do find that a lot of what is called science fiction today is just cops and robbers in outer space, with lots of people with funny names and often some kind of magic weapon. The Penguin collections had settings that were not the world as we know it, but altered in a way designed to show some aspect of human behaviour in a new light.
I read something recently arguing that there was too much romance in modern sci-fi.
The sci-fi I stories I read on that site are very much What Ifs, rather than space westerns.
One I read recently that comes to mind was about garbage men working in a society where practical magic (cauldrons and so on, not magic powers) is real and plentiful for the rich.
And it turned out to be a detective story.
I liked it a lot.
There was one about England…just floating away and everyone being fine about it, and kind of curious.
Anyway, lots of different and award winning stuff on there.
Off the Kindles now and into Margaret Hickey’s new one, The Creeper.
This one’s set up in the north-east, probably around Beechworth or Bright (near where MH teaches) and the town is about to mark the tenth anniversary of the murder of five hikers and the presumed suicide of the killer.
Started this one yesterday, found it hard to put down and just finished it.
As usual, Hickey doesn’t disappoint. The story, told across two different timelines, is intriguing, engaging, engrossing, extremely well written and kept me guessing right until the end. She really nails small-town Australia.
‘The Creeper’ is a highly recommended instalment of Aussie bush noir. 9/10
Finished it tonight myself. There’s one little improbable thing, but overall a solid 9/10
Into Hayley Scrivenor’s Girl Falling now. Three young women climbing in the Blue Mountains, and the narrator’s true love falls to her death in the first chapter.