what are 'hipster' books?

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much of it shamelessly rips off flaubert's "three stories"

vahid (vahid), Friday, 9 January 2004 00:17 (twenty years ago) link

Nothing review in the Guardian is 'hip'.

Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 9 January 2004 09:30 (twenty years ago) link

reviewED

Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 9 January 2004 09:30 (twenty years ago) link

ha ha ha! The Master and the Margarita was reviewed in Simon's Reader!
http://duranduran.com/bookclub/septemberoctoberindex.htm

SIMON RECOMMENDS:
"The Master and Margarita"
by Mikhail Bulgakov

A testament to the axiom "always judge a book by its cover", It's during the recording of So Red The Rose, I'm browsing through the English section in a left bank bookstore when I happen across this little minx, drawn to it by a pretty painting of a magic black cat on the jacket. So I slip it under me coat sharpish-like, when no-one's looking and make for the exit- the evening rush of Boulevard St Germain. (Can you tell I've been reading Pynchon? - No, neither can I) Months later I opened the book and I was captivated and surprised by what turned out to be a surreal literary classic. Bulgakov's hilarious black comedy takes place in early 20th Century Moscow, beginning late one afternoon when the devil decides to come in for a couple of wild nights on the town. He is accompanied by a retinue which includes "Behemoth" a talking 6' black cat and various other assorted benign but mischievous demons in earthly form. Bulgakov uses the havoc that ensues as a vehicle to satirise his contemporary poetry and art scene. It's as entertaining now as it must 've been when it was written. Of all the books looked at here this one is a real gem; please read it...

Catty (Catty), Friday, 9 January 2004 15:02 (twenty years ago) link

it's sort of hilarious for the first half. but after the devil and co. wreak havoc on the sixth or seventh soviet bureacracy you kinda get sick of it. and the last third is ridiculous.

vahid (vahid), Friday, 9 January 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link

The Master and Margarita - AGAIN? Are you sure you don't mean 1993?

Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 9 January 2004 17:18 (twenty years ago) link

any beat writing
martin amis
jd salinger

roxymuzak, Sunday, 11 January 2004 07:15 (twenty years ago) link

Yes, I think it's all been covered: Beat, drugs, Palahniuk, Dick, Selby. Hipster writing must seem to present an outsider's perspective, and is generally male. Did anyone read The Basketball Diaries?

Martin Amis is not hipsterish in the U.S. I think he's considered just a good, solid, literary man here, and read by as many middle-aged women as young males.

Janet Gurn-Soosy, Sunday, 11 January 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago) link

A book has to be less than 200 pages to qualify as hipster literature in the US.

Kerry (dymaxia), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:05 (twenty years ago) link

Otherwise it won't fit in your hip pocket.

(sorry that was terrible)

o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 22:39 (twenty years ago) link

I read the Basketball Diaries. Much better than the Downtown Diaries. I failed to see what was young hip and cool about pubic lice relay races.

Catty (Catty), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 15:07 (twenty years ago) link

When I think of hipster books I think of something..the name Thurston Moore comes to mind. Just coz I think it's the hippest thing since, like, nineteen eigthynine. Hipster books (an opprobrious term) are invariably linked to the indie music/film scene. It's what yuppie college kids do with their parents' extra money. I especially enjoy Neal Pollack. In the american anthology... he drops little non sequiturs like "i turned on a pavement cd" &c. I love hipster books coz Im damn hip.

B. Michael Payne (This Isnt That), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:01 (twenty years ago) link

No way are you hip these days if you like Pavement.

R t V (Jake Proudlock), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 23:00 (twenty years ago) link

neal pollack?? wtf?

vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 23:53 (twenty years ago) link

You are just not hip enough to dig Pavement. What with the slanted and enchanted redux and malkmus opening for radiohead (except in the show I was supposed to go to in Tornoto becuase our national power grid needed updating &c.).

B. Michael Payne (This Isnt That), Thursday, 15 January 2004 16:10 (twenty years ago) link

I do "dig" Pavement. I love "Slanted and Enhanted" in particular,nd still play it. But I've always thought of Malkus and Co as dorkishly unhip in every way - something I quite like about them. Perhaps the only rock band dressed by Marks and Spencer.

R t V (Jake Proudlock), Saturday, 17 January 2004 19:01 (twenty years ago) link

fucking limey. nonono. They had the jaded ironic no-dance indie thing going on, though,

B. Michael Payne (This Isnt That), Saturday, 17 January 2004 22:57 (twenty years ago) link

Jaded irony isn't hip anymore though. Neither is not dancing.

LondonLee (LondonLee), Sunday, 18 January 2004 14:22 (twenty years ago) link

Fuck dancing. DFA and the Rapture and all those little scrawny kids shaking their coathanger hips are fucktwits. Nobody shaking it like a Polaroid picture has my respect.

B. Michael Payne (This Isnt That), Sunday, 18 January 2004 16:44 (twenty years ago) link

Good, enjoy the rest of '97

Silly Sailor (Andrew Thames), Monday, 19 January 2004 06:34 (twenty years ago) link

seven years pass...

Hipster books!

the pinefox, Saturday, 27 August 2011 16:01 (twelve years ago) link

i go to ilx for interesting opinions on many things but 'defining hipster books' is probably not one of them

thomp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 21:56 (twelve years ago) link

considering the # of posters that never post abt novels except on dfw threads i think ilx probably has a good grasp of what 'the hipster novel' represents

Lamp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 21:57 (twelve years ago) link

lol

brrr-icane aye-rene (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:03 (twelve years ago) link

that would be 'the hipster novel' in the singular, then

thomp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:05 (twelve years ago) link

it's a weird thing about him how popular he is amongst people who don't read, really

― thomp, Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:27 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark

just sayin, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link

lol

― brrr-icane aye-rene (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, August 27, 2011 3:03 PM (4 minutes ago)

lol

sarahel, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:08 (twelve years ago) link

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee366/lamp11/IMG_0040.jpg

Lamp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:25 (twelve years ago) link

is that the forsyte saga?

thomp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:29 (twelve years ago) link

haha it is

Lamp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:41 (twelve years ago) link

theres an even better pile of uncool books on the other side but i decided not to post that one

Lamp, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:42 (twelve years ago) link

nice collection of Everyman's Library, Lamp!

corey, Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:57 (twelve years ago) link

abhorrence of bookcases is probably a h_____ trait

diouf est le papa du foot galsen merde lè haters (nakhchivan), Saturday, 27 August 2011 22:59 (twelve years ago) link

carver - cathedral, so good, prob a good hipster one too

u have a lot of penguin modern classics huh. i know i read norman mailer's the fight in that particular design

zvookster, Saturday, 27 August 2011 23:27 (twelve years ago) link

abhorrence of bookcases is probably a h_____ trait

lol were painting the office

Lamp, Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:12 (twelve years ago) link

i mostly stop reading after world war 2 except for patches here and there, and by the 1980s i've halted completely (except for dfw, yes). i dunno how H that is. most people i know (who read) seem to start around catch-22.

my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:31 (twelve years ago) link

i mostly stop reading after world war 2 except for patches here and there

how old are you man?

HEROIN IS LIKE JAZZ TO ME (history mayne), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:32 (twelve years ago) link

haha i mean "i don't read much postwar".

my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:33 (twelve years ago) link

i'm 24 tho

my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:34 (twelve years ago) link

lol

*steens furiHOOSly* (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link

having worked in bookstores for years, i can say w/o equivocation that hipster all-star books are:

master and margherita
confederacy of dunces
perks of being a wallflower
atlas shrugged
choke
catch-22
house of leaves
underworld

the atlantic
the new yorker
the believer
monocle
new republic

come back to the five and dime remy bean, (remy bean), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link

rly? that list is like the stuff my nerdy friends were reading in my suburban high school.

*steens furiHOOSly* (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link

atlas shrugged

lol rly? oh, america

'catch-22' just seems like one of those 'everyone likes this' books; im sure hipsters are part of the venn diagram tho

HEROIN IS LIKE JAZZ TO ME (history mayne), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link

i had no idea the bulgakov was such a thing.

my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link

rly? that list is like the stuff my nerdy friends were reading in my suburban high school.

― *steens furiHOOSly* (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, August 28, 2011 5:58 PM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark

haha or this is the other answer. 'this is a hipster book now? i remember reading it in '93.'

HEROIN IS LIKE JAZZ TO ME (history mayne), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link

rly? that list is like the stuff my nerdy friends were reading in my suburban high school.

― *steens furiHOOSly* (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, August 28, 2011 9:58 AM

yeah, exactly. it's not exactly a deep list, but it's got an appropriate affectation of darkness. kind of like tim burton.

come back to the five and dime remy bean, (remy bean), Sunday, 28 August 2011 16:59 (twelve years ago) link

fair point.

*steens furiHOOSly* (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Sunday, 28 August 2011 17:01 (twelve years ago) link

http://blog.fourfront1602.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/tumblr_l34zh0UsiU1qzzhzdo1_500.jpg

^^^ likes bulgokov, irvine welsh, chuck p, one novel by bret easton ellis (but the others are crap!), that book by jared diamond that everybody read, and maybe murakami

come back to the five and dime remy bean, (remy bean), Sunday, 28 August 2011 17:02 (twelve years ago) link

one novel by bret easton ellis (but the others are crap!)

it would be cool if this were lunar park

my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 28 August 2011 17:04 (twelve years ago) link

maybe most hipsters are actually entry-level.

any stats on hipster dvd purchases?

HEROIN IS LIKE JAZZ TO ME (history mayne), Sunday, 28 August 2011 17:13 (twelve years ago) link


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