Last Book You Read....

[Ya Bezzer!]

On 11/29/2017 at 17:26, Richey Edwards said:

Funny you should say that, because he was using opium and painkillers around the time he wrote that.

I understand its a novel of sorts? Is that correct?

I'm not really sure I would describe it as a novel.   There is a story of sorts but it's really just a framework for a series of philosophical sermons. 

[Craig fae the Vale]

I just finished Amy Liptrot's memoir "The Outrun" about her moving home to Orkney after going through treatment for alcoholism. It's fascinating reading

[Taxman]

Places in the Darkness, Chris Brookmyre. Murder mystery set on a space station with a background of political chicanery, corruption & skulduggery. Thoroughly good read.

[Blootoon87]

Marabou Stork Nightmares. 7/10.

[Richey Edwards]

Just finished Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard. It explores two different life views; the aesthetic life view (dealing with topics such as seduction, drama, music) and the ethical life view (including topics like marriage and responsibility). The version I read was the Penguin "abridged" version which is still just under 650 pages long. The book is divided into two parts with part 1 covering the aesthetic way of life and part 2 the ethical.

It was very interesting in places with the occasional boring section. In particular the in-depth aesthetic analysis of the opera Don Giovanni dragged on a bit too long for my liking and I wasn't particularly interested in the opera.

I have just started reading The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche which is a light read compared with Either/Or. Nietzsche has a way of making his short books quite heavy going, but I enjoy his writing style and humour.

 

 

[Jmothecat2]

Just finished Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard. It explores two different life views; the aesthetic life view (dealing with topics such as seduction, drama, music) and the ethical life view (including topics like marriage and responsibility). The version I read was the Penguin "abridged" version which is still just under 650 pages long. The book is divided into two parts with part 1 covering the aesthetic way of life and part 2 the ethical.
It was very interesting in places with the occasional boring section. In particular the in-depth aesthetic analysis of the opera Don Giovanni dragged on a bit too long for my liking and I wasn't particularly interested in the opera.
I have just started reading The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche which is a light read compared with Either/Or. Nietzsche has a way of making his short books quite heavy going, but I enjoy his writing style and humour.
 
 

I never managed to get through Either/Or. I went through an existentialist phase when I was in sixth year at school so it should have been right up my street but I found it a bit difficult to read. Might try to revisit it.

[Richey Edwards]

1 hour ago, Jmothecat2 said:

 

I never managed to get through Either/Or. I went through an existentialist phase when I was in sixth year at school so it should have been right up my street but I found it a bit difficult to read. Might try to revisit it.

 

Yeah, it is heavy going and hard to read at times. He was probably trying to be a bit too clever and the ideas expressed could easily have been contained in a shorter book without losing much of their weight.

There were times I considered stopping and reading something else but I continued until the end.

Have you ever read Nausea by John Paul Satre?

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Richey Edwards said:

Yeah, it is heavy going and hard to read at times. He was probably trying to be a bit too clever and the ideas expressed could easily have been contained in a shorter book without losing much of their weight.

There were times I considered stopping and reading something else but I continued until the end.

Have you ever read Nausea by John Paul Satre?

The last Satre book I read and enjoyed before attempting Being and Nothingness. I now hate him.

[Richey Edwards]

The last Satre book I read and enjoyed before attempting Being and Nothingness. I now hate him.

I have only read Nausea. Was Being and Nothingness shite?

[welshbairn]

34 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

I have only read Nausea. Was Being and Nothingness shite?

He was a great novelist but a shite philosopher imo. The Roads to Freedom trilogy and Nausea were riveting but the effort of trying to read Being and Nothingness didn't pay off, just some wooly nonsense. Bit like Nietzche, Also Sprach Zarathustra was cracking poetry and allegories, but only a madman like Hitler would take his philosophy seriously.

[Richey Edwards]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

He was a great novelist but a shite philosopher imo. The Roads to Freedom trilogy and Nausea were riveting but the effort of trying to read Being and Nothingness didn't pay off, just some wooly nonsense. Bit like Nietzche, Also Sprach Zarathustra was cracking poetry and allegories, but only a madman like Hitler would take his philosophy seriously.

I enjoy Nietszche's way of writing, his aphorisms and poetry more than his actual ideas. He was a genius with a talent for writing but while I agree with some of his critiques of religion and society, alot of his philisophical ideas are the work of an absolute madman and cannot possibly be applied in the real world. I mostly read him for entertainment value because he was a mad b*****d.

[deadasdillinger]

Not all from this year, but in 2017 I've read:

 Limmy's Thats Your Lot, Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance, Kill your friends by John Niven, extremely loud and incredibly close by Jonathan safran foer, a life in parts by Bryan Cranston, f**k whales by Maddox, battle royale by houshum takami, moneyball by Michael Lewis, the artist being iniesta, I can't believe you just said that by Danny Wallace , Stewart Lee's book, and currently reading bruce dickinsons autobiography

 

Enjoyed most of them. Kill Your Friends was most recent, thought it was hilarious

[tamthebam]

22 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

I enjoy Nietszche's way of writing, his aphorisms and poetry more than his actual ideas. He was a genius with a talent for writing but while I agree with some of his critiques of religion and society, alot of his philisophical ideas are the work of an absolute madman and cannot possibly be applied in the real world. I mostly read him for entertainment value because he was a mad b*****d.

Did Nietszche teach you about the raising of the wrist? 

I just read "Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!" by Pat Mills (2000 AD Comics writer). I think he wrote it during a "heads gone" moment but it's quite entertaining and he makes some good points. I met him a couple of years ago and he was a nice guy. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

On 10/12/2017 at 22:41, Richey Edwards said:

Yeah, it is heavy going and hard to read at times. He was probably trying to be a bit too clever and the ideas expressed could easily have been contained in a shorter book without losing much of their weight.

There were times I considered stopping and reading something else but I continued until the end.

Have you ever read Nausea by John Paul Satre?

I was going to but Homes Under the Hammer came on.

[SmudgePop]

The last book I read was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ".

[Richey Edwards]

Just finished The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard.

Now onto Empire of the Sun.

[moniton]

Finished " the last days of disco" by David F Ross, 6/10 had a few laugh out loud moments but just seemed to drift aimlessly to a finish. Will read some more of his though.
Now onto either " With the old breed " by Eugene Sledge of Pacific fame, or "Don Quixote "by Cervantes

[Ya Bezzer!]

On 12/10/2017 at 23:50, welshbairn said:

The last Satre book I read and enjoyed before attempting Being and Nothingness. I now hate him.

His burd wrote some good books. 

I remember 'The Blood of Others' as being a good read but it was a long time ago that I read it.

[beefybake]

'The Descent of Man' by Grayson Perry.

Some interesting stuff in there about what is maleness, and masculinity.  And it's received great reviews from the professional reviewers.

Very strong feeling of metropolitan London. fashionableness about the whole thing, though, and capitalising on Perry's TV appearances.

 

Next book for me will be one I picked up in a local Waterstones today, and read a couple of pages.

'The LIfe of Leonard Cohen'

That should cheer me up.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2017 by beefybake

[DiegoDiego]

I finished In Search of Lost Time the other day. It feels very strange putting aside a book that you spent months reading. Right at the end he admits that people are forgotten within ten years of their death and even their books are forgotten after a century; ISOLT is 95 years old. It's a slog in parts and the narrator can be a bit of a p***k at times but it's well worthy of the praise. One big issue I had was that everyone has about three names due to the complicated peerage system and many of them change during the course of the book as a result of deaths/marriages. I read the Vintage edition and a quick list of main characters at the front of each volume would have been much more practical than a dense compendium at the end of the final book.

You need to do a little background reading on France as it was, especially the Dreyfus affair. It's certainly not for everyone but I consider it time well spent. I'll maybe give it a re-read a few years down the line. Proust has some great insights into human behaviour, art and the passage of time. I picked up de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life in a two for £5 deal in Fopp a while ago and I'm looking forward to giving it a read.

I followed that up by consuming Michel Houellbecq's Submission in a day.