I recently bought an e reader and realized it is solely filled with libcom stuff! can anyone recommend some of their favourite books so I wont spend all my time reading communist tracts ...
I really got into the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin...probably because Edinburgh is my home-city and i could picture the geography in the books and also because of his constant reference to bands esp. the Rolling Stones.
The stories were always addictive too and always with the sting in the tale that wasn't expected.
Specific to me, my top 5, in no particular order, are:
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
The Plague - Camus
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck How Late it Was, How Late - Kelman (free on this site)
In the Castle of My Skin - Lamming
Dostoyevky, especially The Devils / The possessed.
Solzhenitsyn One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
Dangeous Liaisons choderlos de Laclos
Persuasion Jane Austen
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
NAtive Son Richard Wright
Invisible Man, RalphEllison (one day I will try juneteenth)
The Color Purple
Raymond Chandler - maybe the big sleep
SE Hinton : Rumble Fish the utsiders
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, the secret agent, lord jim chance (basically everything except some of the sea stories)
Q, MAnituana, 56 wu ming collective / Luther Blisset
James Hogg confessions of a justified sinner
L'Etranger LEs justes- Albert Camus
Silas MArner - George Eliot (all the rest is good although Adam Bede takes a bit to get into and I haven't tried Romola although I got it over ten years ago.
L'homme qui regardait passer les trains - Georges Simenon, if you don't read French try his MAigret novels instead they're translated)
LE rouge et le noir - Stnedhal
Pere Goriot - Balzac
In terms of disposable stuff: John Le Carré, Ed mcBain's 87th precinct series, Jeri Westerson' Crispin Guest series, Richard Price (especially Ladies Man and Blood Brothers), Gorky PArk, Day of the JAckal. I am not a serial killer Dan Wells (seems like a Dexter ripoff from the cover but is MUCH better written. Incidentally the dexter series just gets worse and worse.)
Have you checked out Project Gutenberg? Full of DRM free out of copyright stuff.
Recently read and enjoyed
Drag Queen in the court of death Caro Soles
Independance Day - Richard Ford
Illywacker PEter Carey (got a few more of his I will read)
ironweed
The Clearing Tim Geutreaux
My memory has gone to shit, I've read a few good books recently and can't remember much of anything.
ps Wolf Hall is not worth it and Cormac MaCarthy is a pain in the arse too.
Yes man Ed, that Kelman's a great wee book by the way
Musil
Broch
Celan
Rilke
Ford Maddox Ford
Pinter
Beckett
Joyce
Pynchon
Saramago
Jack Trevor Story
Borges
George and T.S. Eliot
Atwood
Gaskell
Faulkner
Trumbo
Angela Carter (but not the plays, they are truly shite)
Swift
Sterne
Lorca
Fielding
Gilgamesh
The Illiad
The Tain
Chekhov
Endo
Shalamov
Cervantes
Defoe
Kadare
Yer Mum
When it comes to poetry, Aurelius Prudentius and Ephraim seem like some of the most interesting, and I've tended to keep to those kinds of poets of late. Since Prudentius is a bit obscure, here's a bit of his text translated into English:
Away the sluggard's bed! away
The slumber of the soul's decay!
Ye chaste and just and temperate,
Watch! I am standing at the gate.
[...]
Mark ye, what time the dawn draws nigh,
How 'neath the eaves the swallows cry?
Know that by true similitude
Their notes our Judge's voice prelude.
When hid by shades of dark malign
On beds of softness we recline,
They call us forth with music clear
Warning us that the day is near.
[...]
He bids us fear lest sensual ease
Unto life's end the spirit seize
And in the tomb of shame us bind,
Till we are to the true light blind.
'Tis said that baleful spirits roam
Abroad beneath the dark's vast dome;
But, when the cock crows, take their flight
Sudden dispersed in sore affright.
In terms of novels, they tend to be less of a focus. Agree on The Red and The Black, by Stendhal, which is a decent novel although a bit decentred, and similar of course to Kawabata's 'Snow Country,' while Kawabata was of course similarly concerned about incidental ruminations upon subjects like love, for instance Kawabata noting that they had never held a woman's hand romantically. In a sense, though, they do tend to be critical in a way - while Stendhal is more moralistic and conventional in his criticism of relationships, Kawabata can often be far less pronounced in how critical of them they are, and both of these do of course lead to limitations. Prudentius and so on generally had more freedom and were less hemmed in in such terms, and tend towards a more independent standpoint far more easily. Louis Bonaparte might be worth a read, apart from his historical accounts which are less notable. Marx's 'Scorpion and Felix' could be of interest. Those are more exotic non-fiction, though, rather than otherwise, but while the later Marx generally seems to be under assault and needing to qualify every statement due to likely rebukes, the early Marx does generally tend to be slightly playful about things regardless of this. It might be of interest in that sense.
Recently my son was given "Annabel Lee" as his piece in a poem reciting competition in school. I began to admire Edgar Allan Poe as we rehearse at home it was a tragic love story but beautifully put into words.
I really got into the
I really got into the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin...probably because Edinburgh is my home-city and i could picture the geography in the books and also because of his constant reference to bands esp. the Rolling Stones.
The stories were always addictive too and always with the sting in the tale that wasn't expected.
Borges Kerouac Cortázar Joyce
Borges
Kerouac
Cortázar
Joyce
Pinter
Beckett .....
Camus Sartre Ibsen Shakespear
Camus
Sartre
Ibsen
Shakespeare
Albee
Dostoevsky ....
Firstly, I would check out
Firstly, I would check out our working class literature reading guide
Specific to me, my top 5, in no particular order, are:
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
The Plague - Camus
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
How Late it Was, How Late - Kelman (free on this site)
In the Castle of My Skin - Lamming
Russell Hoban is just
Russell Hoban is just magical
Candide by Voltaire
Glue by Irvine Welsh
The Fan Man by William Kotswinkle. Sidesplittingly hilarious! Here's the low down
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fan_Man
Dostoyevky, especially The
Dostoyevky, especially The Devils / The possessed.
Solzhenitsyn One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
Dangeous Liaisons choderlos de Laclos
Persuasion Jane Austen
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
NAtive Son Richard Wright
Invisible Man, RalphEllison (one day I will try juneteenth)
The Color Purple
Raymond Chandler - maybe the big sleep
SE Hinton : Rumble Fish the utsiders
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, the secret agent, lord jim chance (basically everything except some of the sea stories)
Q, MAnituana, 56 wu ming collective / Luther Blisset
James Hogg confessions of a justified sinner
L'Etranger LEs justes- Albert Camus
Silas MArner - George Eliot (all the rest is good although Adam Bede takes a bit to get into and I haven't tried Romola although I got it over ten years ago.
L'homme qui regardait passer les trains - Georges Simenon, if you don't read French try his MAigret novels instead they're translated)
LE rouge et le noir - Stnedhal
Pere Goriot - Balzac
In terms of disposable stuff: John Le Carré, Ed mcBain's 87th precinct series, Jeri Westerson' Crispin Guest series, Richard Price (especially Ladies Man and Blood Brothers), Gorky PArk, Day of the JAckal. I am not a serial killer Dan Wells (seems like a Dexter ripoff from the cover but is MUCH better written. Incidentally the dexter series just gets worse and worse.)
Have you checked out Project Gutenberg? Full of DRM free out of copyright stuff.
Recently read and enjoyed
Drag Queen in the court of death Caro Soles
Independance Day - Richard Ford
Illywacker PEter Carey (got a few more of his I will read)
ironweed
The Clearing Tim Geutreaux
My memory has gone to shit, I've read a few good books recently and can't remember much of anything.
ps Wolf Hall is not worth it and Cormac MaCarthy is a pain in the arse too.
Jeff - couple of really good
Jeff - couple of really good calls there - Persuasion and Silas Marner.
Doestoevsky Camus Proust Phil
Doestoevsky
Camus
Proust
Phillip K Dick
Ursula Le Guin
Arthur C Clark
Kafka
Tolstoy
Kerouac
Harriet Beech Stowe
Barbarous Nights by
Barbarous Nights by Lorca
Measures Taken and Other Lehrstucke by Brecht
Yes man Ed, that Kelman's a
Yes man Ed, that Kelman's a great wee book by the way
Musil
Broch
Celan
Rilke
Ford Maddox Ford
Pinter
Beckett
Joyce
Pynchon
Saramago
Jack Trevor Story
Borges
George and T.S. Eliot
Atwood
Gaskell
Faulkner
Trumbo
Angela Carter (but not the plays, they are truly shite)
Swift
Sterne
Lorca
Fielding
Gilgamesh
The Illiad
The Tain
Chekhov
Endo
Shalamov
Cervantes
Defoe
Kadare
Yer Mum
edited to insert Kafka's Stories
Hello Vicent if you can
Hello Vicent if you can return that ereader because it was only a marketing ploy. Read whatever you want to...
When it comes to poetry,
When it comes to poetry, Aurelius Prudentius and Ephraim seem like some of the most interesting, and I've tended to keep to those kinds of poets of late. Since Prudentius is a bit obscure, here's a bit of his text translated into English:
Away the sluggard's bed! away
The slumber of the soul's decay!
Ye chaste and just and temperate,
Watch! I am standing at the gate.
[...]
Mark ye, what time the dawn draws nigh,
How 'neath the eaves the swallows cry?
Know that by true similitude
Their notes our Judge's voice prelude.
When hid by shades of dark malign
On beds of softness we recline,
They call us forth with music clear
Warning us that the day is near.
[...]
He bids us fear lest sensual ease
Unto life's end the spirit seize
And in the tomb of shame us bind,
Till we are to the true light blind.
'Tis said that baleful spirits roam
Abroad beneath the dark's vast dome;
But, when the cock crows, take their flight
Sudden dispersed in sore affright.
In terms of novels, they tend to be less of a focus. Agree on The Red and The Black, by Stendhal, which is a decent novel although a bit decentred, and similar of course to Kawabata's 'Snow Country,' while Kawabata was of course similarly concerned about incidental ruminations upon subjects like love, for instance Kawabata noting that they had never held a woman's hand romantically. In a sense, though, they do tend to be critical in a way - while Stendhal is more moralistic and conventional in his criticism of relationships, Kawabata can often be far less pronounced in how critical of them they are, and both of these do of course lead to limitations. Prudentius and so on generally had more freedom and were less hemmed in in such terms, and tend towards a more independent standpoint far more easily. Louis Bonaparte might be worth a read, apart from his historical accounts which are less notable. Marx's 'Scorpion and Felix' could be of interest. Those are more exotic non-fiction, though, rather than otherwise, but while the later Marx generally seems to be under assault and needing to qualify every statement due to likely rebukes, the early Marx does generally tend to be slightly playful about things regardless of this. It might be of interest in that sense.
Recently my son was given
Recently my son was given "Annabel Lee" as his piece in a poem reciting competition in school. I began to admire Edgar Allan Poe as we rehearse at home it was a tragic love story but beautifully put into words.