The Book Thread

  • At least you missed out "Finnegan's Wake" - a wise move! ^^


    "Ulysses" is great. It was also a big inspiration for U2's "Achtung Baby". I really like Portrait of the Artist too...you know, you may have inspired me the re-read Joyce. :thumbup:

    Oh, I've read Finnegan's Wake, she said in her best hipster voice. I will be reading it after Ulysses.

  • From what I remember of it, yes, but my mother was an English teacher & I was trained to read literature, even something as avant garde as Finnegan's Wake.


    I don't really associate music with books unless I can tie a song to a specific piece of writing; hence Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits, which is my second favourite song (Slowdancer's comments above about associating Making Movies with LOTR are fascinating. I associate it with Led Zeppelin IV).


    The Song Of Ice & Fire books by George R. R. Martin were a new experience for me. I loved them & love Game Of Thrones. In light of what some have said about fantasy/prog I wonder if this made me more inclined to delve deeper into Genesis.

  • I can only speak for myself. I listen to prog music and read fantasy novels mostly. I was turned away from so called "good books" at school. We read Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass in our German course, Graham Greene in our English course and Albert Camus in our French course and analyzed the stuff beyond the point of what was bearable. As I always enjoyed reading, I moved over to sci-fi and fantasy, which I enjoyed very much without being forced to analyze the plot. Fantasy is a great genre, if you pick the right authors. There are not so many, who are great. My favourites are Tolkien, Donaldson, Rothfuss, Robin Hobb and Peter Brett. The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King are killer. Almost all his books are killer.


    I combine certain books with certain albums. I got The Lord Of The Rings for christmas in 1979 together with the album Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I read the whole book in the week after christmas and listened to Rumours constantly while reading. I read the book again exactly one year later and had Making Movies by Dire Straits on the whole time. So every time, I listen to one of these albums today, I get instant memories of certain scenes from the book.

    This reminds me on what Anthony Phillips said about classical music: Being constantly told at school he was listening to the wrong kind of music and he should start listening to "good music" pushed him away from classical music; however, he discovered it on its own later on and regretted his teachers had such a misleading approach.


    Speaking for me, I had my discovery experience with classical literature by sheer coincidence: you know these boxes that people put on streets to give stuff away? I found a book in one of those which is a random collection of classical German literature through a couple centuries, from Luther to Liebknecht as it says; making my way through this I found myself for the first time actually reading and enjoying old literature. I recognized some of the texts from back from school and yes I really found it liberating to not being forced to analyse everything. School seriously spoils some great literature. Also I noticed school tends to pick out those texts in the first place that lend themselves most to exemplifying certain qualities (what rhetoric stylistic devices can you find, what changes of character does the main protagonist go through... X/ ) and blocks out other texts which are not that easy to analyse. All this helps to leave an image of classical literature as dry and over-moralistic. Often times it is nothing but that.

  • From what I remember of it, yes, but my mother was an English teacher & I was trained to read literature, even something as avant garde as Finnegan's Wake.


    I don't really associate music with books unless I can tie a song to a specific piece of writing; hence Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits, which is my second favourite song (Slowdancer's comments above about associating Making Movies with LOTR are fascinating. I associate it with Led Zeppelin IV).


    The Song Of Ice & Fire books by George R. R. Martin were a new experience for me. I loved them & love Game Of Thrones. In light of what some have said about fantasy/prog I wonder if this made me more inclined to delve deeper into Genesis.

    Well, I think we would all recommend that you delve deeper into Genesis - but, then again, we are a bit biased. ;)


    Like you, I associate the world evoked by Led Zeppelin IV and LOTR as being the same place. Robert Plant himself adored Tolkien, and there are references throughout Led Zeppelin's lyrics to Middle Earth. "Making Movies" is my favorite Dire Straits album ("Brothers In Arms" a close second), and I was thrilled that they finally were voted into the RnR Hall Of Fame this year - both The Moody Blues and they ought to have been inducted long ago...


    "Finnegan's Wake" is one of those notoriously and legendarily impenetrable books. Thus, Joyce's quote about it, "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." ^^


    One of the very many reasons I like early Genesis is that they allude to and/or directly refer to Classical Mythology. That's my field of training, and I've actually used some Genesis songs as an out-of-the-ordinary way to teach some of the myths.

    Stepping out the back way, hoping nobody sees...

  • Genesis - Chapter & Verse


    I have read this book in parts over the years but this is the first time I will be reading it from the start

    “Without music, life would be a mistake”

  • Thought i would resurrect this thread now that many of us will be restricted to home life for a while.


    I love reading thrillers and so am now reading


    “Without music, life would be a mistake”

  • Funny to see this revived when I am still ploughing through FInnegans Wake while also attempting Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & The Light.


    As a devotee of English history I just finished The English & Their History by Robert Tombs and have now started Peter Ackroyd's five volume history. I don't know why he didn't take it up to the present day.

  • I'm a few chapters into the novel Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. On the basis of good reviews I put it on a xmas or birthday list last year.


    It's about a single mother and her teenage daughter who become rental tenants of an affluent middle-class family in Ohio. The husband, wife and four children become fascinated by the tenants, who represent a very different kind of lifestyle compared to the family's neat, regimented existence. I'm starting to feel a kind of dread building up very gradually as the story progresses and I increasingly wonder where it's taking me. Even though the opening passage describes a shocking scene that is yet to happen in the narrative, I'm left even more intrigued about how we're going to arrive at that point and what leads to it.


    The writing style is an absolute joy, it's almost like a prose version of music, using words and sentences like sparkling notes and chords. It's very compelling and I'm having to stop myself from dropping other things in order to get back to it. I predict I'll be finishing it quite quickly.


    It's been made into a TV series airing this year.


    I recently read the most recent Rebus novel from Ian Rankin, In a House of Lies. For anyone who doesn't know, John Rebus is a Detective Inspector who features in a series of novels set in Edinburgh. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I'd never taken to crime fiction except for Rankin's books. I've read my way through Rebus's police career, through to retirement and beyond. I was wary of how well Rankin would keep the stories going past Rebus leaving the police but he's managed it skilfully. He's even got yet another one due out this autumn, I think. The stories are as complex and thought-provoking as ever.

    Abandon all reason

    Edited once, last by Backdrifter ().

  • I'm a few chapters into the novel Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. On the basis of good reviews I put it on a xmas or birthday list last year.

    I would love to know if you recommend the book. A friend of mine has just read it and gave it 9/10 and said I must give it a try but I'm not sure if it is my type of book (tend to stick to crime thrillers)

    “Without music, life would be a mistake”

  • I would love to know if you recommend the book. A friend of mine has just read it and gave it 9/10 and said I must give it a try but I'm not sure if it is my type of book (tend to stick to crime thrillers)

    I finished it at the weekend. I do recommend it, but of course that depends on how willing you are to be tempted beyond your preferred genre. As it progresses there is a mystery element that develops and becomes quite compelling.


    I can't recall if we discussed before whether you like the Rebus novels, being crime fiction set in Edinburgh. The character 'lives' in Arden Street, not far from you!

    Abandon all reason

  • I moved on to another novel, How To Rule The World by Tibor Fischer. So far it's not engaging me very much. It's narrated by a freelance tv producer who's just been kicked out of Thailand due to the destructive behaviour of his cameraman, and is now looking for a job. I've just got to a point where a somewhat disreputable commissioner has just said he has a project for him.


    The narrator voice is quite annoying, very laddish and cynical. Not that I mind cynicism in a novel, but in this case it's pretty relentless and already starting to get a bit wearying. Right now I'm not 100% sure I'll even finish this book.


    Much more readable is The Speed Of Sound, a memoir by Thomas Dolby. (I'm sure I'm not alone in having more than one book on the go at any one time). I'm not far into it but so far he's described his first forays into the music business and getting his first two albums out, and touring behind them. It goes on to cover his venturing into Hollywood film scores and computer games, and eventually mobile phone software, but I've still got some way to go before I reach that part of the story. Up to now it's been very entertaining in its account of late 70s/early 80s London life during the punk/new wave/new romantic days.

    Abandon all reason

  • Terrific thread I somehow missed until now. I'm fascinated by the amount of commentary on Joyce. I've read Ulysses once and loved it, but haven't tried anything else.


    For the question of linking music and books - this happens to me once every few years where I'll be listening to a band or album a lot at the same time I'm reading a book, and the two fuse in some way. The strongest example I have personally was with Wish You Were Here (the album) and the fourth book of Stephen King's dark tower series, Wizard and Glass. The dusty western atmosphere and detached music and lyrics melded perfectly.


    My favorite author is Bolano. 2666 is truly phenomenal. His writing style is very visceral and drags you into the book.


    Currently reading Cixin Liu's Ball Lightning and the first of the books the tv show The Expanse is based on. Liu's first book, The Three Body Problem, is one of the most exciting books I've ever read - not just gripping, but the text itself and the ideas flowing out of it make you think anything is possible. It's a very rare example of a sci fi book I would recommend to anyone who doesn't usually enjoy sci fi.

  • As Backdrifter mentioned Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell...


    I read his latest book, Utopia Avenue, about a fictional 60s rock band. I could write a great deal about how it didn't work, but will confine myself to saying that there were endless cameo appearances by real musicians throughout, beginning with Rick Wakeman & ending with Jackson Browne (the book moves from London to LA). These were gratuitous, heavy handed & added nothing to the story.There was no sense of the dynamic between the band members at all - it was extremely gimmicky. The chapter titles were named after the songs on the band's three albums, which was a nice idea, but somehow didn't quite translate.


    I will be startting Barack Obama's A Promised Land in the new year.

  • As Backdrifter mentioned Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell...


    I read his latest book, Utopia Avenue, about a fictional 60s rock band. I could write a great deal about how it didn't work, but will confine myself to saying that there were endless cameo appearances by real musicians throughout, beginning with Rick Wakeman & ending with Jackson Browne (the book moves from London to LA). These were gratuitous, heavy handed & added nothing to the story.There was no sense of the dynamic between the band members at all - it was extremely gimmicky. The chapter titles were named after the songs on the band's three albums, which was a nice idea, but somehow didn't quite translate.


    I will be startting Barack Obama's A Promised Land in the new year.

    I started another Mitchell, I can't remember which one but not Utopia, but had to give up as it didn't work. Cloud Atlas is so superb and distinctive I wonder if I'm going to find nothing else of his that clicks or measures up.

    Abandon all reason

  • As Backdrifter mentioned Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell...


    I read his latest book, Utopia Avenue, about a fictional 60s rock band. I could write a great deal about how it didn't work, but will confine myself to saying that there were endless cameo appearances by real musicians throughout, beginning with Rick Wakeman & ending with Jackson Browne (the book moves from London to LA). These were gratuitous, heavy handed & added nothing to the story.There was no sense of the dynamic between the band members at all - it was extremely gimmicky. The chapter titles were named after the songs on the band's three albums, which was a nice idea, but somehow didn't quite translate.


    I will be startting Barack Obama's A Promised Land in the new year.

    Good to know. I nearly splurged on the new Mitchell book and held off as the story didn't grab me.

    I started another Mitchell, I can't remember which one but not Utopia, but had to give up as it didn't work. Cloud Atlas is so superb and distinctive I wonder if I'm going to find nothing else of his that clicks or measures up.

    The first one I read was number9dream which remains one of my favorite books. Also excellent is the thousand autumns of Jacob de zoet (or whatever it's called). I think that's probably most like cloud atlas in terms of the writing and scope, but doesn't have the unique structure. I can't remember ghostwritten very well, and the bone clocks was a bit meh. I haven't read black swan green, Slade house or utopia.

  • The De Zoet character's son is the lead guitarist in Utopia Avenue. He has the most peculiar backstory involving being possessed by some sort of spirit. I won't go further in case anyone does decide to read it.

  • Another read I enjoyed recently was Limitless by Alan Glynn. Provocative, page turning thriller. Written in quite a conversational style, not pretentious at all. I haven't seen the movie. The writing reminded me a little of Philip Kerr, the guy who wrote the Berlin trilogy. I love his work too, it's pure noir.