what do you denis johnson ppl think of angels?
― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 22:07 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm not sure abt my inclusion of Ask The Dust, because it's definitely sort of... ridiculous, but as far as explorations of juvenile obsessions go...
― ian, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 8:24 PM (21 hours ago) Bookmark
This is def in my top 5 too
― I wish I was the royal trux (sunny successor), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 22:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I would for Raise Hight the Roofbeams except Seymour an introduction is a pile of ass.
― ❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉Plaxico❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉❉ (I know, right?), Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
You can bite the piles on my ass. It's the best thing he published.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 23:16 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost. I loved Ask the Dust a lot and empathised with Arturo Bandini at the time - i think i was still a teenager when i read it. Have sort of consigned it into the dustbin of books better forgotten because i associate it with Bukowski who I've pretty much rejected as slightly shameful youthful taste but I think I should give it another shot.
― suggestzybandias (jim), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 23:27 (fifteen years ago) link
nunez: seymour cruisin' is teddy outta nine stories. but not seymour. just some other precocious child.
and oops!, yeah, i guess i meant roofbeams. will have to look up seymour now. then come back and stand up for it.
― the heart is a lonely hamster (schlump), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:28 (fifteen years ago) link
i like dan for being the only one to have the TRUCK NUTZ to put stephen king on his list. the rest of u camus readin niggas siccen me.....
― (╬ ಠ益ಠ) (cankles), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:48 (fifteen years ago) link
i've only counted one camus readin nigga
― Fred Durst. Wat heb ik gewonnen? (Matt P), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:53 (fifteen years ago) link
tbf
― Fred Durst. Wat heb ik gewonnen? (Matt P), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:54 (fifteen years ago) link
That's weird because there are at least seven.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:56 (fifteen years ago) link
Skipping 262 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.
durr
― Fred Durst. Wat heb ik gewonnen? (Matt P), Thursday, 25 June 2009 01:57 (fifteen years ago) link
if you want to read a book by a women read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
― elan, Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:05 (fifteen years ago) link
actually, it only took one woman to write Gilead afaik
― elan, Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:06 (fifteen years ago) link
i associate it with Bukowski who I've pretty much rejected as slightly shameful youthful taste
this makes me sad. bukowski has so much depth and humour in his work.
― where we turn sweet dreams into remarkable realities (just1n3), Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:09 (fifteen years ago) link
if you want to read a book, buy a women
― still lolling, 'still lolling theme' (haitch), Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:09 (fifteen years ago) link
bukowski's one of those things that gets misrepresented when he gets claimed as some group's own spokesman. like the big lebowski = a stoner film. it's great. bukowski's poetry especially's beautiful.
― the heart is a lonely hamster (schlump), Thursday, 25 June 2009 02:12 (fifteen years ago) link
I generally think of Bukowski as a comedy writer. This is not at all a slight. Dude was fucking hilarious.
― HE LEFT BEHIND A WHITE HAT WITH AN ALIEN ON IT. ALSO A GLASS THING. (Pillbox), Thursday, 25 June 2009 04:41 (fifteen years ago) link
there's also of lot of really intense emotion too - the scene in post office (? maybe it's factotum, i sometimes confuse the 2) when jan is in the hospital dying of alcohol poisoning and he washes her and combs her hair - the way it's related to the reader is just so incredibly poignant.
― where we turn sweet dreams into remarkable realities (just1n3), Thursday, 25 June 2009 05:04 (fifteen years ago) link
The Master and Margarita - BulgakovThe Crying of Lot 49 - PynchonThe Summer Book - Jansson (could be Moominland Midwinter too)Cruddy - Lynda BarryThe Circus of Dr. Lao - Charles G. FinneyThe Good Soldier - FordThe Plague - CamusJourney to the End of the Night - CelineThe Third Policeman - O'BrienKim - Kipling
Props to deej for listing Borgel. Lizard Music would probably be my Pinkwater pick.
― clotpoll, Thursday, 25 June 2009 06:59 (fifteen years ago) link
Alice books, CarrollLolita, NabokovRainbow Stories, VollmannSword of Honour, WaughJR, GaddisThe Portrait of a Lady, JamesGravity's Rainbow, PynchonGreat Expectations, Dickens1982, Janine, GraySomething by Bernhard
― Niles Caulder, Thursday, 25 June 2009 09:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Had completely forgotten about one my favorite books until someone mentioned it to me this morning:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/West_lonelyhearts.JPG
So good. Am going to have to read again soon.
― Pancakes are one of my favorite ways to party. (ENBB), Friday, 24 July 2009 16:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Also, I really love that cover which is apparently from the first UK edition in 1949.
― Pancakes are one of my favorite ways to party. (ENBB), Friday, 24 July 2009 16:48 (fifteen years ago) link
otm
― velko, Friday, 24 July 2009 16:54 (fifteen years ago) link
God I want to read this right now and figure out a way to get a poster sized print of that cover for my living room.
― Pancakes are one of my favorite ways to party. (ENBB), Friday, 24 July 2009 16:57 (fifteen years ago) link
this thread needs more pinefox
― crazy ass between (askance johnson), Tuesday, 2 February 2010 18:31 (fourteen years ago) link
In no order: Robert Musil - The Man Without QualitiesThomas Mann - The Magic MountainAndré Gide - The ImmoralistW. Somerset Maugham - Of Human BondageMarcel Proust - In Search of Lost TimeHermann Broch - The SleepwalkersItalo Svevo - Zeno's ConscienceElias Canetti - Auto-da-feJames Joyce - UlyssesLouis-Ferdinand Céline - Journey to the End of the Night
― vittorio de sickofitall (Daruton), Tuesday, 2 February 2010 19:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I stepped across this as I wanted to read a few opinions on George Eliot.
Would never really do anything like this but I guess the poster above is (scarily) close to my tastes in terms of the Germanic-Franco tradition: so yes to Musil, Proust, Celine and Broch. These would permanently have a place although I prefer Celine's Death on Credit and perhaps would go for The Death of Virgil over Sleepwalkers.
I'd need to have at least a Russian in there: Andrei Platonov or Shamalov (whose short stories add up to something else). Fave American would be Hubert Selby Jr.
Dislike the Gide and could never quite get on with Svevo: probably switch to Conversation in Sicily by Elio Vittorini or Genet's cycle of novels from the 40s (who all count as one thing, to me). Probably like Henry Green more than Joyce these days, as an English writer writing in the same period. All even before the 19th century.
But there are so many non-novel thingies that would be 'all time favourites'. Tales of Boccaccio, Pessoa's fragments as collected in The Book of disquiet, Sciascia's novellas...
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 June 2010 10:46 (fourteen years ago) link
Aargh, and the South Americans and Japanese novels! No Mishima no cred!
I hate lists...
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 June 2010 10:55 (fourteen years ago) link
shocked that nobody, including me (ha), included Sentimental Education!
― No disre but maryanne hobbs is peng trust me (jim in glasgow), Saturday, 5 June 2010 10:57 (fourteen years ago) link
i was just reading it and got too bored halfway through :(
― harbl, Saturday, 5 June 2010 11:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh and arrgh again Joyce is Irish, meant writer writing in English..
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 June 2010 11:03 (fourteen years ago) link
xp. ridiculous awesome shit that harbl dislikes
― No disre but maryanne hobbs is peng trust me (jim in glasgow), Saturday, 5 June 2010 11:03 (fourteen years ago) link
i wanted to like it, but it's no madame bovary. i guess i should just pick it up again.
― harbl, Saturday, 5 June 2010 11:04 (fourteen years ago) link
list of old sentimental favorites and stuff im feeling at the moment
as for me and my house -- sinclair rossheartbreaks along the road - roch carrierthe atlas -- william t vollmanna jest of god -- margaret laurencea dictionary of maqiao - han shaogongoutlaws of the marsh -- shi naian or whoever the fuck wrote it (i like the sidney shapiro translation)dragons of autumn twilight - margaret weis and tracy hickmanthe fermata -- nicholson bakerrabbit is rich -- john updikeabandoned capital -- jia pingwa (one of the greatest still-yet-untranslated-into-english novels of all time)notes of a desolate man - zhu tianwen (trans howard goldblatt is the most prolific chinese-engl trans and i have my problems with him but this is an okay translation of a fucking great book)
― dylannn, Saturday, 5 June 2010 11:45 (fourteen years ago) link
this is one of my favorite threads. people talking about stuff they love, and cankles.
― computer champion (harbl), Sunday, 1 March 2015 00:27 (nine years ago) link
Is that an exclusive "and"?
― I am not BLECCH (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 March 2015 00:38 (nine years ago) link
i didn't put enough effort into writing that
― computer champion (harbl), Sunday, 1 March 2015 00:49 (nine years ago) link
my favourite novel is the complete works of william shakespeare
― one negged single mother (wins), Sunday, 1 March 2015 00:50 (nine years ago) link
jk
Anyway, somehow never saw this thread before so thanks for the revive.
― I am not BLECCH (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 March 2015 03:09 (nine years ago) link
I don't really have favorite novels in quite the way I did when I was younger. Too much water under the bridge by now. But I'm willing to name some that I wouldn't hesitate to reread or recommend.
The Third Policeman - Flann O'BrienThe Master & Margarita - Mikhail BulgakovHunger - Knut HamsunEgil's Saga - Anonymous, but possibly written by the great Snorri SturlusonTristam Shandy - Laurence SterneThree Men In a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog - Jerome K. JeromeFirst Love - Ivan TurgenevPsmith, Journalist - P.G. WodehousePortrait of the Artist As a Young Man - James JoycePrater Violet - Christopher IsherwoodAt least a few of the twenty Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian
― Aimless, Sunday, 1 March 2015 03:15 (nine years ago) link
love this thread but it nags
prob add crying of lot 49 and at swim-two-birds now but man I need to read more
― local eire man (darraghmac), Sunday, 1 March 2015 03:51 (nine years ago) link
WeRoadside PicnicThe Obscene Bird of NightMemoirs Found in A BathtubGalactic Pot-HealerFire On The MountainSatyriconThe Scholars
― Dave fischer, Sunday, 1 March 2015 03:52 (nine years ago) link
Adam Thorpe - UlvertonJonathan Franzen - The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen - FreedomEvelyn Waugh - Brideshead RevisitedIan McEwan - The Child in TimeJohn Fowles - The Magus
― anthony braxton diamond geezer (anagram), Sunday, 1 March 2015 06:58 (nine years ago) link
forgot Cormac McCarthy - The Road
― anthony braxton diamond geezer (anagram), Sunday, 1 March 2015 09:17 (nine years ago) link
Looking back at my post I wouldn't get Broch anywhere near the top 10. Amazingly all of the rest of my 'what a list would look like, which is not something I could ever do' pretty much stays the same.
Five novels by writers that haven't been mentioned and could be in a list of this sort:
Peter Weiss - The Aesthetics of Resistance (based on the 1st vol., the rest hasn't been translated into English)Cesare Pavese - The Moon and the BonfiresHelen Dewitt - The Last SamuraiRabelais - (but only the Thomas Urquhart translation)Juan Rulfo - Pedro Paramo
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 1 March 2015 10:10 (nine years ago) link
I gave up on The Last Samurai halfway through. Something about the tone irked me
people who love it seem to really love it though
― Number None, Sunday, 1 March 2015 11:37 (nine years ago) link
the rings of saturn, w.g. sebaldausterlitz, w.g. sebaldmason & dixon, thomas pynchondeath comes for the archbishop, willa catherstoner, john williamsmoby-dick, herman melvilleágua viva, clarice lispectorthe recognitions, william gaddisplay it as it lays, joan didionzazen, vanessa veselka
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Sunday, 1 March 2015 19:23 (nine years ago) link
The Recognitions - William GaddisJR - William GaddisAgainst the Day - Thomas PynchonThe Tin Drum - Gunter GrassAmerican Pastoral - Philip RothBlood Meridian - Cormac McCarthyLolita - Nabokov Women in Love - DH LawrenceUnderworld - Don Delillo
― Tomás Piñon (Ryan), Sunday, 1 March 2015 19:27 (nine years ago) link
Love Agua Viva, read a few books by Lispector this year, she's great.
I gave up on The Last Samurai halfway through. Something about the tone irked mepeople who love it seem to really love it though― Number None, Sunday, March 1, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Number None, Sunday, March 1, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
She has a voice. Very few people have that.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 1 March 2015 19:44 (nine years ago) link
I am not really good at making these kinds of lists, but I appreciate it when others do. I really like at least three on Aimless's list and have been meaning to read a few others that I own.
― I am not BLECCH (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 March 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link