#429

Hey, apologies for the “if you can be bothered” thing, I sometimes forget that 98% of people here are genuinely interested in chatting. Won’t happen again.

Re: Pretentious prose - I see what you mean. I was going to ask “pretentious how? Who or what is she pretending to be?” But there you go - Will Self.

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#430

Well I mean Will Self was just the first author I could think of who writes in a particular style. I read his book Great Apes and then decided I’d not read his stuff again because it’s just not for me.

And to be clear: ‘pretentious’ because her style didn’t seem remotely consistent. If she’d written that way the whole book I’d have just written her off as not being my style.

FWIW I did like how her plot worked in White Teeth and pulled all the threads together at the end.

#431

I preferred On Beauty. It’s set on an American campus, so it’s not for everyone, but it’s probably her warmest and most engaging novel so far.

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#432

Only took me 2 months to finish? Im impressed with myself

#433

Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

I was really disappointed with this. It was a bit of a mess, like he’d been pressured to write Cloud Atlas II, and had just kind of jumbled a load of stuff up that he already had. Almost like he was writing his own bad knockoff of Cloud Atlas. The best word for it really was well, tacky.

#434

Just finished The Sisters Brothers last night after @anon29812515 touted it as a bargain Bargain Thread Good writing but I found the book got less and less compelling as it went on.

#435

Quid or whatever it was is still a bargain, Theo.

#436

Yes, £2. Definite bargain. What did you think of it?

#437

Swann’s Way, motherfuckers

and this

831×1201 615 KB

#438

Yeah, I enjoyed it. Lots of fun but nowt incredible. I have also read another of his, Ablutions, which is completely different. Pretty fucking bleak.

#439

Not really a fan of bleak but I did like his writing style.

Just started this:


I’m a big fan of her writing.

#440

I’m still reading this. Still like it a lot. Just reached part 3.

One day I hope to be able to read properly again.

2 Likes
#441

read The End of Alice :frowning:
good but a bit grim for me. couldn’t be more different from This Book Will Save Your Life

#442

What did you think of Kindred?

#443

found it very good and moving
was thinking about it yesterday actually after watching Liz Bonnin on WDYTYA finding out that her ancestors on one side were slave owners, must be quite weird being mixed race and thinking about your ancestry

#445

This looks pretty great - I like Two Dollar Radio (only read Mark de Silva’s ‘Square Wave’ from them but it was such a bloody nice edition).

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#446

Third book in the trilogy builds on the ending of this really well again in my opinion.

#447

Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections - Second of his that I’ve read and I think it will probably be the last. There’s something very empty about them despite their scope and how thoroughly he fleshes out his characters. This one in particular felt really sneering and aloof about the people we were spending all this time with and despite enjoying it to a degree I never got close to loving it. Some really iffy sex stuff as well particularly with Denise, she felt like a character written by someone who doesn’t really like women that much.

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#448

Halfway through Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd and enjoying it, fits in nicely with The Spire (William Golding) and Riddley Walker (Russell Hoban) which I read recently as well

#449

Yep, feel exactly the same way about this one. It’s part of a pseudo-genre about humans written by people who don’t seem to like humans at all I really don’t like.

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