Looking for a recommendation if possible! Just finished In The Woods by Tana French, very enjoyable. Any similar recommendations
Finished re-reading Inherent Vice and have started re-reading The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. I was thinking of possibly picking up 100 Years Of Solitude at some point in the near future – it seems like it’d be up my street, and it was on the Guardian’s Reading List thing, so I’d have loads of cool articles to read upon completion (this was the catalyst for me finally getting to The Master and Margarita and White Noise).
Finally finished Ancillary Justice. Liked it overall and would recommend it if you like ‘serious scifi’ but it could be pretty hard work at times and takes getting your head round it a bit.
Not sure what to read next…
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Was gonna read ursula le guin’s earthsea stuff but didnt realise it was like young adult fiction. Anyone read it? Is it good etc
About 100 pages into The Blind Assassin and really can’t get into it. 
was probably about the 10th novel of hers i read and i wasn’t crazy about it. took me a long time to get into it and when i eventually finished i was just kinda like… hmm, dunno if i liked that. i liked the scifi writer subplot though.
It’s very strange and melancholic, it’s from a period before “young adult” was anything like the behemoth it is today, I’d give it a go
Finished March Violets on the recommendation of someone here.
Enjoyed some of the noiry elements but found it overwritten (everything has a similie) throughout and far too grim at the end. The representation of women might be accurate for the context/ genre but I found that a bit offensive too.
I don’t think Blind Assassin clicks until later but I think it’s excellent when it does. You have to be a bit patient with it.
Finished The Sellout by Paul Beatty and finally got round to reading Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee. Some parallels there I suppose…
The Sellout got pretty tiresome for me in the end. Funny in places but just got sick of it and wanted it to end after about midway through. Disgrace is amazing. Loved it.
Disgrace is an absolute killer novel - I loved it.
I just finished Outline by Rachel Cusk which was… ok?? I didn’t actually enjoy it that much, I’ve not read any Cusk before but I found her style a bit detached and fey at times.
I had a payday book haul at lunch today - got Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Edo-Loge and Black Wave by Michelle Tea. Nice.
I’ve only read Disgrace by Coetzee, really enjoyed it. I keep hearing about Conversations with friends as it’s getting a lot of good reviews, so very tempted to give that a go.
I’m planning on reading that Conversations With Friends next, the posters have intrigued me…
nice! let me know what u think
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Have you started this yet? Can get this at 75% discount (work for that publisher in question) and am making a wishlist for payday.
Finished Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination the other night. Absolute gold. If you have even the vaguest interest in sci-fi and haven’t read it then I urge you to do so—I’d somehow never heard of it until a friend recommended I read it after Neuromancer and I ended up reading it in two sittings. It’s fucking bananas. Written in 1956 but could’ve been written yesterday. A belter.
Reading Philip José Farmer - To Your Scattered Bodies Go which, alongside having one of the best titles I’ve come across, is very engaging indeed. It’s weird as fuck. Pegged as SF but really more in the fantasy vein, it’s a bonkers mash-up of a bunch of different real/fictional historical figures in some very strange circumstances indeed. Really, really great. I’m on a good run of it atm.
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I read The Stars My Destination last year and liked it, but I just had to read online again to remind myself of the plot as I had completely forgotten it! I’ve also read The Demolished Man, which was also good.
I’ve just finished The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. Not read anything by him, and half thought it might be a bit sci fi, as it was set in the 23rd century, but it wasn’t really. It was a bit of a slow read to get through, and I can’t say that I loved it, but it was still interesting.
Now reading a short Mario Vargas Llosa novel.
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I was so disappointed by Conversations With Friends. I thought it was spectacularly uninteresting. Cheesy dialogue, repetitive sex scenes, a drippy, over-elaborated straight relationship, and (naturally) an insubstantial lesbian relationship. Dull as fuck.
Currently reading: The Answers by Catherine Lacey. Really enjoying her prose style so far, fingers crossed its a goodun.
Yeah, I’m not sold on it yet (about a quarter of the way in) I usually quite like that writing style where dialogue is just recalled rather than explicitly in the prose and correctly punctuated and that, it’s grating on me at the minute though.
anyone read ‘the first great instagram novel’ yet?