What I'm Reading or Have Just Read

Snowblind was great fun. "Cocaine is just the metaphor". Forsooth.

And then I read something else, which I've clean forgotten...

Then it was Louise Welsh's The Cutting Room. Which I also enjoyed a lot. Real Scottish noir. Its flaw was an unsurprising plot which left me glad to finish it.

I also enjoyed the Last King of Scotland. There was a lot going on there: getting into bad situations out of the need for adventure, complicity, being charmed out of acknowleding evil.

And last night I finished reading Wise Guy. How come I haven't read it before? (It was an old edition, the cover bearing the words "Soon to be a major film!")

Incidentally, lack of space means I have to be selective with the what books I keep. Very strict criteria regarding likelihood of need-to-refer-to in the the future. Only Wise Guy made the cut of the above books, though it was close thing for Snowblind.

Now I'm reading Thud!, to see if I can see what other people see in Discworld.

Comments

  1. MichaelSun Jan 04, 09:59:00 am GMT

    I've never read The Cutting Room but I did finish a cheap copy of Tamburlaine Must Die in two hours flat. Not bad, very readable, but nothing that stayed in the mind.

    If you're looking for something a bit different, Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe is a great read. Think Kafka, but in 1960s Japan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garry NixonSun Jan 04, 11:26:00 am GMT

    I'll look out for that, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MichaelMon Jan 05, 05:36:00 pm GMT

    Just found the Cutting Room in the books that ex-teachers have left behind collection at school.
    If they won't pay for my British Council library membership, I'll give it a read.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Garry NixonFri Jan 09, 09:54:00 am GMT

    Give it a go. It would lose something if you didn't know Glasgow.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there
Read more

LTPTP XXV: We Shall Overcome

Image
We shall indeed.  It's a lovely wee tune to learn.  I've almost memorized it this morning, the idea being, when I encounter a piano, I want something to sit down and play on the bugger.  I've a feeling that my keyboard's keys are lighter than a proper piano's, and there'll be a bit of effort transferring the skills I've gotten so far.  Probably, at some point this year, I'll be in workplace with a piano.  I'll print off some simple music and scales, and work at it, but it's likely to be in a public place so I want something to avoid making a twat of myself initially. It feels right that this should be the first tune I learn by heart.
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more