The Decline and Fall 2016 of gILBert the fILBert: What Are You Reading Now?

granta are doing a nice series in which writer's write about their favourite book from a given year, lots of links here: https://twitter.com/GrantaMag

which leads me to: should i read ice by anna kavan?

Desmond Morris the Naked Woman since it was on a charity shop shelf last week.
Also started Tom Jones.

xp Goodreads just recommended Ice to me, I'm def curious, though I just started Jerusalem and should probably not have too many other books going for a bit.

imo, the problem with computer-generated recommendations is that they just try to feed you more of whatever you read the most, so that if you follow their suggestions your breadth of reading material will automatically narrow further and further until you are reading nothing but clones of some book you originally enjoyed, minus any sense of discovery. I like to play the field.

i wouldn't read that far into my being intrigued by one computer generated recommendation.

Hooray another Pelevin fan! I just got Empire V for xmas. Haven't started it yet.

i reread ice earlier this year and it was a lot more enjoyable than my first go through. not really comparable to anything else i can think of. also been planning on revisiting eagle's nest, one of her earlier novels which is more in a kafka mode. would love to get hold of her short story collections, the ones i've read are a+ stuff.

Can't scroll up right not, assume you are talking about Anna Kavan, right?

the one and only. would be interested to know if anyone's read any of the pre-ak helen ferguson novels?

Speaking of Tarkovsky and such - I have quite a lot of Russian poetry, but it's all fairly old. Does anyone know anything about newish Russian poetry they'd like to recommend?

Helen DeWitt fans, have you read her second novel, Lightning Rods? I've been curious although hear it's quite different from The Last Samurai.

I did a search upon finishing tLS last week, seemed to have gotten mixed reviews (but also apparently is sort of about statistics? very high chance i will read it)

some discussion beginning here

a kind of simulation but better than the real thing ever was - the Tom McCarthy thread

I would completely recommend Lightning Rods - it's very different but also brilliant - the two together make me think she's just the best. There's a kind of what-was-that-? quality to it… a taste I don't really get anywhere else (my other comments are in that linked thread although they do lead down into incomprehensibility)

and xp on Russian poetry - I enjoyed the selection of new Russian political poets in the previous issue of N+1 (no. 26) - I don't think you can get to it if you're not a subscriber, but ilx mail me and I'll share or, if you want to go hunting, the names are Kirill Medvedev, Galina Rymbu, Elena Kostyleva, Roman Osminkin, Keti Chukhrov.

L.rods is very funny and weird

Any algorithm recommending anna kavan and not harper lee is already ahead of the game imo

Cool, thanks for the link and thoughts on l rods. The posts in the McCarthy thread have definitely further piqued my interest!

lightning rods is very good in a very different way from last samurai. i saw her speak earlier this year and she is, i think, super brilliant.

yeah i thought lightning rods was hilarious, half from the writing itself and half from my ongoing disbelief that someone actually wrote this book. also very angry. she's def brilliant, i'd be kinda terrified to speak to her.

It is happening again: A Model TrILBY; or, What Are You Reading Now, Winter 2016/17