Books! We've not had a chatter about them printed things yet

Discussion in 'General Palaver' started by Mandi Apple, Aug 3, 2003.

  1. Yani The Observer

    Friend lend me Neil Gaiman's "Coraline". When I have some time to read it, I'll report here. :fadein:
  2. Vertigo Guest

    "I am Legend" is a true classic by the literary genius that it is Richard Matheson. Also try "Stir of Echoes", "Hell House" and "Hunted Past Reason" (one of his more recent ones)....

    MnS...have you read any of the screenplays for the aborted movie version of "..Legend"? The one for the Ridley Scott version is quite good.

    As far as screen versions go, I still think "Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price was rather good1
  3. Midori no Saru Invoker of Azarak

    Sadly, I havent even seen the film version with Charlton Heston. I didn't know there were more film versions... However, I really hadn't thought of tracking down any more of Richard Matheson's works, so thanks for the mentions of the other titles... They'll go on my long term list.
  4. Vertigo Guest

    There are a couple of nice short story collections available that you might like to try-

    "Nightmare at 20'000 Feet"

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312878273/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_5/202-9726184-3261406

    and "Duel"

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312878265/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_2/202-9726184-3261406

    Of the novels, my fave is "Stir of Echoes" which was the basis for the David Koepp/Kevin Bacon movie. You could read this in broad daylight ( as I did on holiday a few years back) and it will still give you chills.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0752271946/qid=1061850131/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3_3/202-9726184-3261406
  5. Midori no Saru Invoker of Azarak

    Thanks for the links. Those should keep me busy.
    Sounds good :)
  6. Vertigo Guest

    I was going to pick that one up but a friend of mine who is a big Jackson fan suggested I try "Come Along with Me" instead although she did say that "...Castle" was good too. She said CAWM would be a better intro to SJ's writing. Thanks for the info though.

    Incidentally, I will be directing the play "The Haunting of Hill House" early next year for a theatre group in Falkirk...if anybody fancies the trek north..ha ha ha....

    Have you read "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill....extra super-creepy also....
  7. Yani The Observer

    I have to do a bookreview about some book and I chose Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". Well, I read it almost on straight session and it blew my mind. Excellent book! Listening to Dead Can Dance and reading = very nice combination. :wink: Let's see how will Frank Darabont's movie project proceed. Let's hope the best and expect the worst. :)
  8. The Kid on the Escalator Taste the happy.

    I'm just finishing up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I read Armadillo by William Boyd recently. I really enjoyed Armadillo; it's a darkly comic look at contemporary life in Britain. Good Omens is next on my list of books to check out.
  9. Chryse Guest

    Currently re-reading Noel Carroll's "The Philosophy of Horror." A good read if you're into philosophy and/or cognitive film theory. And horror.

    Also trying to find time to get going on Haruki Murakami's "Underground," a Studs Terkel-esque account of the Tokyo subway gas attacks.
  10. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    Read it! It's great! Very depressing though, which is what you'd expect: but sparely written, minimalist in a way, not hugely over-emotive/overblown in the language department. Its starkness works very well IMHO :D
  11. firm Guest

    When I think of horror fiction, the two books that come to mind are Joe R Lansdale's "The Drive In" which is an excellent short book that is as wonderful as it is weird and Dan Simmons "Carrion Comfort" which is epic in almost every sense.

    A good anthology containing horror fiction influenced by cinema is "Silver Scream" edited by David J Schow, though it's probably a bit hard to get a copy of this now (published in 1988).

    I very much enjoyed Kim Newman's "Nightmare Movies" a critical analysis of movies that quite rightly eschews the blinkered Horror genre by including films not normally regarded as such.

    I'm currently very slowly going though Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series which although slightly Buffy-esque in subject, is considerably more mature in tone. I haven't found anything else to interest me yet - probably because I haven't been looking hard enough.

    I found "Across the Nightingale Floor" to be plenty corny though quite page-turning and easy to digest.

    A similar series by David Duncan that can be purchased online as an e-book from: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/Series182.htm

    It deals with a feudal sword-slashing culture that has a distinctly "Japanese" feel to it.

    If one's taste did run into Japanese-culture inspired fantasy then Janny Wurtz's collaborative trilogy with Raymond Feist starting with "Daughter of the Empire" is also well worth a look.
  12. Yani The Observer

  13. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    I feel honour-bound to report that Kenji Siratori, author of one of our competition prizes in the last compo, has a new book out, Headcode (nice pun!) - I think Vertigo won it in the last round...?


    Anyway, he sent me a very nice email, so I'm passing the info along for anyone who likes William Burroughs and cyberpunk-style writing... for more info check his site http://www.kenjisiratori.com/

    Nice chap :D
  14. Fuchsia Guest

    I'm reading Walker Percy's 'The Moviegoer'. My best friend bought it for a dime at a book fair and I've borrowed it . Never heard of it before but it's interesting. I still can't shake off the feeling of annoyance for some of his attitudes - especially towards women (my one beef for The Catcher in the Rye - the book jacket cites 'Moviegoer' as a 'Rye' for adults coincedentally. Of course it does). He's lived a shallow life, sees money as the root of all happiness and is finally
    trying to have some meaning in his life. Sort of. In a half ass not really understanding other people at all sort of way. It's the very shallowness he is sort of waking up to that bugs me to no end. I don't want to see spend the reading time with him. For every true observation there's an even more annoying one. I want to shake him by the shoulders.
    Maybe it'll get better on. My friend ruined the ending for me already though so I'm not sure if I want to.

    Oh yeah, the movie part. I don't feel his movie obsession either.
    If you saw The Dreamers or Me Without You (a great script here, terrible performances). They give the characters *the best* taste in films and music and it's wholly unbelievable that they ever set foot in a movie theatre or put on one of the albums who's poster decorates their walls.
    My biggest connection was to the films and music I love deeply, not to any shared love with the characters. That's a shame.
    That's how I feel with 'The Moviegoer'.

    I went on and on and no one of you are probably even interested. :) Or I ruined it for you if you wanted to read it.
    I loved the Farenheit 451 Truffaut film with Julie Christie in it.
  15. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    Hi, and welcome to the forums. :) Sounds like a dull book - thanks for the warning. I don't think I'll be bothering with that one!

    Funny but even though this old topic only just got kicked back up, guess what I'm reading again...yep, the same book I was reading in my very first post on this thread, the Nick Drake biography :lol: How boring am I :lol:

    It's a good book though - well worth reading twice, or, well, however many times I've read it though! Even if you have zero interest in Nick Drake's music, the book is so, so sad - it's such a tragic story :cry:

    If you get a chance, hear Tom Barman's interpretations of Nick Drake's songs - they are awesomely beautiful. Sorry to leap off-topic... now I want to go and put it on the CD player but it's 3am and our neighbours already hate me :lol:
  16. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    Fwiw, I am currently digesting the following (as is Alex):

    [font=verdana, helvetica, arial]Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground - extraordinary story, but a bit on the dry and serious side - honestly, I'm not kidding! :lol: It's a great read though :D

    Cider With Roadies by Stuart Maconie - a hilarious kind of autobiography with lots of on-the-road-music-journo anecdotes - plus a brilliant segment about Napalm Death which had me in stitches :lol:

    Dream Hunters, the latest Sandman book: beautifully Japanese-themed with a lovely, very simple story - really very touching IMHO :D

    (Btw, Astrid is reading Where the Wild Things Are - or at least, having it read to her whether she likes it or not :lol: )
    [/font]
  17. Yani The Observer

  18. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    This is quite interesting I think on quite a few levels...

    I've just lately been re-reading one of my favourite books, 1997's Idoru, by William Gibson. It's a kind of cyberpunk concoction set in near-future Japan and featuring a sad old J-rock star who falls for a hologrammatic idol-singer, and there's lots of loopy future-Internet goings-on and what have you - all in all, IMHO a pretty great read.

    What I only noticed yesterday however (after having read the damn thing... what, ten bloody times now? me blind!) was an interesting paragraph in the Thanks section at the beginning of the book, and I quote:

    "Sogo Ishii, the Japanese director, introduced me to Kowloon Walled City via the photographs of Ryuji Miyamoto. It was Ishii-san's idea that we should make a science fiction movie there. We never did, but the Walled City continued to haunt me, though I knew no more about it than I could gather from Miyamoto's stunning images..."

    (official site information plus extracts from the book: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/idoru.asp)

    So the book was clearly inspired by Gibson's friendship with Sogo Ishii, which makes it even more interesting to me...

    ... and leads me neatly along the path to Ryuji Miyamoto, who I'd never heard of before, but whose photos of demolished sites and obscurities are really stunning IMHO:

    http://www.slm-net.com/signum/Issue3/detritus/miyamoto.html

    and here I quote:

    "The Kowloon Walled City was a large block of slum apartments in Hong Kong that has been demolished. Miyamoto entered this labyrinth with his camera in 1987 before the demolition began and continued to document it until it was destroyed in 1993. Large numbers of Kowloon prints are pinned to the wall, showing the many different aspects of this fascinating place.

    > from http://www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp/exhibition/exhibition_e.html

    So - three times as fascinating for me! :D

    Thought I'd like to pass it along :D
  19. Ganbachi Contemporary Caveman

    This week I have been mostly been reading The Witches Of Chiswick (Robert Rankin) and the previously mentioned I Am Legend. I surprisingly enjoyed Witches of Chiswick. Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypes I found a bit of a chore and I'm not always a fan of Rankin's running gags. I love The Brentford Trilogy though.

    Next up on the reading list is Have A Nice Day! (Mick Foley).
  20. Mandi Apple The Acid Queen

    Aaaarghhh!!! I am a HUGE Robert Rankin fan!!! :D My favourite book of his that I've read is The Fandom of the Operator, and I also love the Brentford Trilogy :D My sister worships the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies, and I've just bought Witches of Chiswick and Web Site Story for her birthday.

    Oops, I hope she doesn't read these boards otherwise I've just revealed her secret birthday gifts to her :snigger:

    In short: again, I'll reiterate, I love Robert Rankin :heart:

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