Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room What are you reading these days

'On The Road' by Kerouac

Read it many, many years ago and thought it was one of the dullest books I have ever read.

Over the years though I've read books about the real life characters the book is based on, and re-reading this with what I know now is making the book a far better read than before.

Just finished "Brother Nature" by Robert Llewelyn.
Very good. There are some Douglas Adams moments in there.

But I'm really into hard-SF.
Apart from the obvious stuff like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, etc, I tend to go for Peter F Hamilton (hence the NerveJam name), and Larry Niven (The Ringworld books are amazing)

(I think I've pretty much exhausted all the Clarke/Asimov stuff.)

I don't really do fantasy books, though.

The 'Mars' books by Kim Stanley Robinson are pretty good. Very technical and well thought out.

Yeah. I've read "RED MARS" by KSR. Good stuff.

I'm currently wading through something a bit different: "A Clockwork Orange". Bit heavy going, simply due to the language used. I suspect that I'll get bored before I finish it. Life's too short.

Tried to get through Clockwork Orange myself many years ago. Too dependent on the glossary to flow so I gave up. There are only 2 books I have given up midway and this was the first.*


* the other was Salman Rushdie's 'banned' novel.

I'm reading 'My Boring Ass life' by Kevin Smith - entertaining and kind of fun in a very odd and uncomfortably detailed way...

Hi maryann,

A Clockwork Orange is one of my favourite books - don't worry about the glossary! Just try and get through the first chapter without it; just read it as you would a normal book, don't worry about the slang, you'll pretty much guess what they mean anyway.

My mid 80s UK edition didn't come with a glossary. Penguin put one in because people complained, but at Burgess' request, they removed it.

For legal reasons blahblahblah, you people across the pond managed to keep hold of the glossary (having said all that, I think it was reinstated in the Penguin Classics edition after Burgess' death - not sure though)

An absolutely superb book - the second part is incredible!

Just started reading Gary Numans Praying To The Aliens. At the speed I read it'll take me 6 months.

Peter

You are probably right about not needing the glossary as I have seen the movie so many times I practically know the dialogue. It was a long time ago that I picked up (and put down) the book, but now that you have mentioned it I will add it to my reading list.

The glossary thing is quite funny. Reminds me of when I went to see 'Dune' in the theatres... they actually handed out a glossary for those that never read the novels!

Grrr. Dune Movie. Sting.