British Comedy Guide

What are you reading right now? Page 67

I read a great book recently called "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell (not that David Mitchell).

It was really quite touching, funny and a definite guys read. I enjoyed it, but that's because I was once a guy.

Quote: PhQnix @ April 17 2009, 8:51 PM BST

I read On The Road by Kerouac recently. It was a total slog, but worth it.

Truman Capote once dismissed Kerouac's work by saying, "That's not writing, it's typing." He had a point. His books, especially On The Road, can get a bit tiresome after a bit.

I've just Amistead Maurpin's 'Tales In The City', which I have only just heard of and now can't wait to read the rest of the series. Warning: highly readable and addictive, readers may find themselves unable to put the book down at 3am.

I started 'The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite' by Beatrice Colin last night. I am blown away by the detail of characterisation and how seamlessly she fits the detail into the narrative. The language is rich and thick as I read it in my mind and I can't help but revel in the sensuality of her words.

Ok, nerdiness over/

I mentioned on another thread that I'm halfway through an awe-inspiringly great non-fiction book. It's Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (who also writes for The Grauniad and has appeared on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe). It should be compulsory reading. It poos on all the crap pseudo science and quackology by using things like - er, science - and it's a funny read as well.

Auschwitz - The Nazis and Final Solution by Laurence Rees. Cheery stuff. Actually it's a surprisingly easy read and very interesting in the ways it puts stuff I knew into context. I've avoided reading history books since I finished studying History at uni, but this is reminding me why I used to find it fascinating.

I'm really going to miss history, and going on the trip to Berlin to learn all about that kind of thing made me realise it, Rob.

Quote: Scatterbrained Floozy @ April 29 2009, 3:30 PM BST

I'm really going to miss history, and going on the trip to Berlin to learn all about that kind of thing made me realise it, Rob.

When were you in Berlin? I went in October last year. Very odd city. In a good way. Hope you didn't play hide and seek in the Holocaut memorial. Because I didn't. >_<

What are you gonna study/read at uni Scats?

I was there with school in February. We didn't play Hide and Seek but it was all iced up, so we inadvertently skated around it.

English Lit. :D

Aw, well luckily history is one of those subjects you can easily study in your own time.
Unlike erm... practical experiments in nuclear fission.
Or something.

I'm currently reading two books but here's the story behind them.
I bought Charles Schultz's biography "Schultz & Peanuts" thinking it would be this nice comedy romp through his life.

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Unfortunately for the reader Mr Schultz was more depressed than Charlie Brown himself. I'm still reading it but I wanted a funny book to read for bed. So I bought a biography about Groucho Marx:
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And it's really funny.
So those are the two books I'm bouncing back and forth between right now. Both good, but ones funny and the other is not. :)

I'm now reading 3 other books.
I'm almost done Isaac Asimov's 1st Foundation book (on the last chapter). I loved the book but the last 2 chapter are nowhere as good as everything else.

I'm about half through Neil Gaiman's American Gods. It's been taking me a while to get through. Good book but so little happens at times that my ADD kicks.

And I just bought myself "..and their memory was a bitter tree" a collection of Robert E. Howard Conan stories. I had been looking for a compelation of original Conan books for years and when I was walking through the bookstore tonight with a friend I saw this one and just had to have it!

Birdsong. I can't get my head around that it's not set in the 1920s yet, because it's written so much like it is, even though it's only 1910 in the narrative; but it's verrry good so far. :D

What's Going On by Mark Steel. Funny and informative.

Gonna re-read the Spike Milligan war memoires. or I may continue my Pratchett oddesy with Small Gods.

I'm reading The Naked Jape by Jimmy Carr & Lucy Greeves

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