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What are you reading these days?

It might depend on which you encountered first. The cultural critic Mark Fisher thinks the book explains too much about the main character and the nature of her work, and prefers the open-endedness of the film.

I love the visuals of the film and its sense of alienation, but the book really gets under the skin (ha!) of the main character and you end up empathising with her situation. I love both.

Incidentally, the director of the film has done other great work: Sexy Beast and Birth. I highly recommend both.
I started reading the book without knowing anything about it, I guess it was the cover and title that attracted me. But as it went on I was quickly emmersed in its strangeness and novelty and then the horror begins to dawn slowly and you wonder where you have been taken to. The movie's ending is incredibly mind blowing. And I agree the visuals are very memorable, even on a tight budget much is achieved.

Sexy Beast is on another planet... A real classic with an incredible script with Ray, Ben and the real boss (I forget his name temporarily) at the top of their game. I quote Ben and Ray from those scenes often.
 
Just bought the so-called Glasgow Trilogy by Malcolm Mackay.

I read all three chronologically, beginning with The Necessary Death Of Lewis Winter through to the Inevitable Arrival Of Violence, the second outing How A Gunman Says Goodbye being the most engaging in my opinion.
However, I think that a condensed single volume would have had greater impact and that the paired down style of writing would have carried the story.
 
The Light of Day - Graham Swift. Must have bought it years ago but can't think why I didn't read it until now. Hardback too.
Some similarity to John Banville: I do like this style of writing.
 
Just finished Anthony Powell's "The Military Philosophers". The latest Rebus, "A Song For The Dark Times" is next in line.
 
William Boyd’s The New Confessions. It predates Any Human Heart, which is when I started to take notice and it’s another masterpiece.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rock-Cradle-Marie-Paneth/dp/1845472748

Not having UK TV, we were a bit late to this, but the other night we saw "The Windermere Children", which was first broadcast last year on BBC 2.
It inspired me to buy thIs book.
Marie Paneth was one of the team of adults tasked with helping young Jewish death camp survivors cope. She was an artist, and interested in how allowing the children to express themselves through painting might help them.

The book deals only briefly with the Windermere period, the greater part relating her experiences teaching some Jewish girl survivors who were living in a hostel in London. She, although no teacher, was charged with teaching them, and in so doing, helping them to assess what had happened to them, and to reveal the possibility of a future.

The children's traumas are terrifying, but what comes across most clearly and is so uplifting, is the gentle goodness, compassion, humility, patience and humanity of Marie Paneth herself.

It's only a slender volume, but well worth reading.
 
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'The Doors of Perception' by Aldous Huxley. I was sure this was my book, but I see it's got Mrs H's annotations in pencil, so it must be hers. Maybe I got shot of my copy (we had shedloads of duplicate books).
 
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
I quite enjoyed it but at my age I had to concentrate pretty hard as he jumps around from scene to scene without any warning!!!
I have already purchased book 2 in the series.

I have a desire to read some ghost stories. Can anyone recommend a collection of short stories that I could have a go at?
Thanks in advance.

I love a good ghost story! Look for anything by MR James. 'Sleep no more' by LTC Rolt is a good compilation. If you can find them, old hardback 'A Century of Creepy Stories' or 'A Century of Horror Stories' are brilliant. Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker, (The Judge's House is a particular favourite of mine), Algernon Blackwood, Wilkie Collins are good names to start off with.

'The Monkey's Paw' by WW Jacobs is another cast iron classic. Poe, HP Lovecraft, Dorothy L Sayers, Saki... loads of great writers to look out for.

There's a really good BBC adaptation of 'Whistle and I'll come to you' by MR James on Youtube.
 
I've not started reading yet as I only just bought it, but it's going to be the next book I read for sure: I wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke, the long-awaited autobiography. It's currently £0.99 here on Kindle :)
 
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HI FI - A history in self deception. by, erm - I haven't actually started writing it yet.

Otherwise, the hugely entertaining and intelligent, Lover Man by Bernadine Evaristo.
 
I love a good ghost story! Look for anything by MR James. 'Sleep no more' by LTC Rolt is a good compilation. If you can find them, old hardback 'A Century of Creepy Stories' or 'A Century of Horror Stories' are brilliant. Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker, (The Judge's House is a particular favourite of mine), Algernon Blackwood, Wilkie Collins are good names to start off with.

'The Monkey's Paw' by WW Jacobs is another cast iron classic. Poe, HP Lovecraft, Dorothy L Sayers, Saki... loads of great writers to look out for.

There's a really good BBC adaptation of 'Whistle and I'll come to you' by MR James on Youtube.
I agree with all those recommendations. I’m currently reading Who Knocks?, a ghost story anthology edited by August Derleth, published back in ‘46.

Mick
 


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