Well, I don't entirely mean to sound like a pompous artistic snob here, but it kind of disheartens me to note the proliferation of the video games thread, the SImpsons quote thread, etc, and yet find that whenever someone starts a thread like this one it quickly gets pushed off the first page. I firmly believe that metal is, or at least has the potential to be, one of the more literate subcultures around and that a metal fan who doesn't read regularly does himself a grave disservice. So, let us discuss the books that we're working on, just finished, or are contemplating .. sort of a free-for-all, if you will, but it would be ideal if people actually commented on the picks of others.

I've got a couple of things on the go at the moment. I'm nearly done with my second reading of Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", a mind-spinning novel about a group of academics becoming embroiled in world conspiracy theories and the total fragility of truth. That only scratches the surface, mind you. I think Eco touched the edge of madness with this work and showed the danger of trying to take the interconnectedness of all things (societies, religions, alchemical principles, astrology, politics, and so much more) to an extreme .. yet once you've read the book you can't help but do the same thing. He makes the madness of "the Diabolicals" seem alluring, and there are some genuinely halucinogenic and strange passages to be read here. It's almost like fantasy without the overt elements of the genre but with the strange unearthliness manifesting in the characters and their actions,, and in that sense it reminds me of Peake's "Gormenghast", although of course this is based in the "real world" and it's not as bizarrely mad as Peake's masterwork.

I'm also reading the collected short stories of Nicolai Gogol. I love them, and have been surprised by them on a number of occasions. I'm very impressed with the amount of supernatural content in Gogol's stories. "Viy" rivals Poe for sheer macabre excellence (complete with failed exorcisms and the desicration of a church and walking corpses!), and was written in the early 1830s! But more, Gogol is an instinctively wise man and wasn't fooled at all by the bureaucracy of St. Petersburg, where he relocated to from the Ukraine for much of his later writing. He regularly flouts rank and exposes bizarre hypocrisies in meaningful and subtle ways. Lots of Pole and jew-bashing .. that kind of amused me, and his characters never stop drinking vodka!

I just finished the short novel "Roadside Picnic", by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, probably Russia's most known science fiction writers, and they always worked as a team. I think their writing is marvelous but wonder sometimes about the quality of the english translations. This book was the inspiration for Andrei Tarkovsky's film "Stalker", one of the few great science fiction movies ever to be made. It's about aliens making a very brief (six seconds!) stopover or visitation at six locations on earth simultaneously and leaving behind them huge amounts of what seems to be garbage and detritus. The title comes from a theory one of the characters has about the visitations .. that the aliens were traveling along a sort of cosmic roadway and decided to stop for a proverbial picnic, and simply didn't bother to clean up after themselves. The result leaves the areas extremely dangerous, subject to freak and very localised weather phenomena, gravitational anomalies, mutational effects and pools of corrosive toxic sludge.. and there have also been many artifacts left behind that science is trying desperately to crack, while all the time the "stalkers" are traveling into the contaminated zones and retreiving items they think might be of value and selling them to the highest bidder. The novel is written in a weird style that kind of resembles American hard-boiled detective novels of the 1930s .. the characters have names like Buzzard Burbridge and use strange euphemisms for beating the crap out of someone. This is doubly amusing because the book is supposed to take place in Canada. It's very good though, and like all of the other Strugatsky work I've read, there are a lot of metaphysical implications and currents working beneath the surface. I appreciate writers that don't spell everything out for their audience and leave us with many things to ponder, and the Strugatskies always do this, and they only prod you very gently in the direction they might conceivably want your ponderings to go. I also highly recommend their book "The Final CIrcle of Paradise". These books were written in Russia in the 1970s but their future settings seemed to let the brothers get away with stuff that might have been considered decadent and undesireable in the Soviet clime. The ending is very perplexing and I'm sure that's the way it was intended. It's a bit more subtle than the total anomie of the "Stalker" movie.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction nowadays (suppose I should), but I just finished Dragan Todorovic's biography (of a sort) "The Book of Revenge: Blues for Yugoslavia". It's an interesting recounting of this journalist's life and career in Yugoslavia post-Tito as that nation was quickly crumbling. It depicts many of his quiet battles with the state, media censorship, bureaucracy .. while also detailing his time in the army, his thoughts on art and love and sex, and his eventual emigration to Canada. Definitely interesting, particularly for someone somewhat interested in tthe time and place, as I am, and I do agree with many of his philosophies and anti-communist sentiments. He does seem to make himself come out looking pretty well most of the time though, and I occasionally did wonder if he'd tweaked the facts a little to make himself seem the better man. Decent read, though.

I'm on an anti-war novel kick right now. Currently finishing up The Thin Red Line - GREAT book. Finished up over the past few months when I egt the time away from college - All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Got his Gun, The Things They Carried, and The Red Badge of Courage. Gonna be moving on right over to either Company K or Generals Die in Bed next. I am big fan of Stephen King as well. I thoroughly enjoyed Salems Lot and The Shining. Hemingway was also a very good writer. I have a few collections of his short stories - very good, clear, and honest literary style.

It is a shame that hardly anyone reads, but you have to think that most people like when things are done for them and watching television is something anyone can do without much thought (although I can't bash it too much).

I don't think that hardly anybody reads .. in fact I'm pretty sure the printed word is doing fine .. but hardly anybody reads stuff that's actually good, powerful or meaningful .. that, I can agree with.

I haven't read any of those war books, not even "All Quiet on the Western Front", oddly enough. Have you read Heller's "Catch 22"? Tha'ts high on my to-read list .. has been for quite a while.

I enjoy some of King's writing, particularly the early short stories. I find that he writes characters very well but that his novels have trouble maintaining atmosphere.

Can't say I'm really a Hemingway fan. Most people seem to think that you're either going to love Hemingway or just not get him, and I guess the style just fails to capture me .. you're right that it's clear and concise, and in principle that isn't a bad thing,, but I like my writers to be a bit more .. purple? Hahah .. all the same, I've only ever read short works from Hemingway, so I may yet give one of the novels, like "A Farewell to Arms", a try.

Just got done reading some Poe yesterday... The Premature Burial is pretty nice.


Also as I recommended to you before Abominatrix, The Name of the Rose is fucking brilliant and one of the most intelligent novels I've ever read. It's got a great story, great characters, and a very chilling and mystical atmosphere about it. I'll read it again some time.

I finished the Kite Runner a while back and the play All My Sons by Arthur Miller.Currently working on, A View from the Bridge also by Arthur Miller.

Abominatrix, a few questions: first, have you read any of Stanislaw Lem's works? Second, do you have any PDFs of Strugatski novels aside from A Roadside Picnic?

Well, most of the stuff that I read is in German of course, so I do not know if the authors works have been translated into English, nevertheless are the books of Grass, Bernhard or Handke really good and worth to be read.

I really enjoy reading "Der Untergeher" by Bernhard; The Loser in English. It deals with Glen Gould and there is hardly a plot in the novel, but rather some kind of thinking how things would have went if certain aspects of the history would have been different.

edit: Kafka was an awesome write and his works a highly recommended. If possible, read his works in German.

Ah, I am currently reading the Lord of the Rings (pretty generic and bland, compared to classical litterature but...) in an old french edition. First time I read it in french, amusing translation.

For the french-speakers: read anything you can from Serge Brussolo. He excels in all genres, be it historical novel, fantasy, science fiction, polar, societal novels, and children novels.

I do enjoy some King some time. Moorcock is the master, and Zelazny has won my favours.
Old 50's SF / anticipation books are a good investment too. I am thinking about The Martian Chronicles, Farenheit 451, 1984 etc... Dystopies are generally good readings.

I finished a Grisham streak recently, having read the following:

A Time to Kill
The Last Juror
The Chamber
The Street Lawyer
The Rainmaker
The Pelican Brief
The Runaway Jury

Excellent stuff, although sometimes his storytelling isn't always spot on...A Time to Kill, while being the best of the above novels, has a bit of a sudden ending, and not everything was as elaborated as it could've been, and The Street Lawyer was also excellent, but moved a bit too fast in the beginning. I'll be picking up the rest soon.

Started Kite Runner today. So far I like it.

I'm always eager to join a new literature thread.

Right now I'm re-reading The Shadow of the Vulture in the Howard collection Grim Lands. It's a really good example of an action-adventure that on the surface is just popcorn entertainment, but has a lot of undercurrents and great nods to history and culture that one might miss on a first reading. The titular Vulture might seem to be unrealistic in his vulture-winged armour if you're unfamiliar with late Ottoman cavalry or the later Polish hussars, but he's still very striking. Plus it has the only appearance of Red Sonya, one of the first (and best) sword-swinging heroines in adventure fiction.



I really enjoyed Roadside Picnic. I was a big fan of Stalker and was very eager to read it, and to be honest I liked it a lot more than the film. The two things are both equally good, but I enjoyed the style and narrative more in RP as opposed to the enigmatic film. I also liked the pulpish elements (Witch's Jelly, Mosquito Mange, all those things), and it seemed more overtly SF than the film. I think Russia and the former Soviet states "suits" the post-apocalyptic milieu more though, considering recent history, and also because Russia's just cool.

Sorry I can't be more astute, I'm not very lucid due to distracting conjunctivitis.

Right now, I'm looking for a copy of the Divine Comedy but no one stocks on it anymore. When I say anymore, I mean that they never had it or even heard of it. I finished reading most of Lovecraft's stories and I'm moving into Ray Bradbury.

I'm multi-booking right now with:

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
The Essential Conan by REH
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Plato's Republic

after those I'm gonna read:

G.K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man
Descartes - First Meditations on Philosophy

Oh, and I just finished Fahrenheit 451. Loved it, but the ending wasn't very satisfying.

I borrowed a copy of Divine Comedy from my highschool library years ago and never got around to returning it.

I'm off the Nietzsche kick and back into true crime stuff again. So I'm reading THE NIGHT STALKER. Never read it before, it's great. I went through a heavy Charles Manson, Ed Gein and Albert Fish period of reading a while back.

I read the HP Lovecraft Omnibus 3 not too long ago... It was good, but he's not as amazing story teller as I'd been told. Some were better than others, but it was good on the whole.

Also finished Cold Mountain which we'd started in English Lit. Fantastic novel, though it tends to drag a bit... I found it best read in large chunks. The ending's a tad naff too.

Had a bit of an Arthur Miller binge around Christmas, reading 3 of his plays (also read All My Sons in English Lit, which inspired the binge). Absolutely amazing playwrite, I can't recommend him enough. All My Sons, Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible are all beautiful and thought provoking.

Finished Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray about a week ago and was blown away... A great, readable and brilliant story if anyone's interested in macabre, satirical and thought provoking novels.

After that I binged through Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas... Good, but a little pointless... A fun read, but no real depth and a little monotonous.

Aaaaaand I'm reading a translation into prose of Beowulf... Done in the '50s, so no movie merchandise bullshit.

After this I'm gonna get cracking on some political stuff like The Wealth Of Nations and Capital

Yes, we really need a lively discussion about books, not just, like the past 'reading thread', people posting the author and title of book and that's it.

I'm one of those readers, who can't just read one book at a time. Next to my bed I've piled up maybe half a dozen books I'm about half-through. Is anyone else doing this, too? I don't really know where that habit comes from, it's just sometimes I'm in the mood for reading except continuing with the one I was reading the day before. So I grab a new book and the story repeats itself. After a while I get totally confused and force myself to discard one or two or simply finish a few.

Well, here's my current list:

Pascal Mercier - Der Klavierstimmer (The Piano Tuner)

The inside jacket text suggest a crime story, but it really isn't. Pascal Mercier aka Peter Brieri is a Swiss philosophy professor and an amazing author. It's a very suspenseful read, he writes powerfully eloquent in with a fascinating sense for details, but the most impressing thing is his ability to meticulously describe emotional conditions and moods without losing momentum. It hasn't been translated to English yet, as far as I know, but that's a shame.

Owen King - We're All In This Together

I got it from my big half-brother and while I have a hard time grasping some of the English displayed here, it's quite entertaining. The author is actually the youngest son of the famous Stephen King, but don't expect anything like the works of his father. Oh, don't read it if you think George W. Bush sits rightfully in the White House.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Jedermann (Everyman)

Franz Kafka - In der Strafkolonie (In The Penal Colony), Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis)

All latter three for school, but I wanted to read some Kafka anyway.

Ulrich Ritzel - Schwemmholz (possible translation: 'Flotsam and Jetsam' )

The main reason I bought it is the fact that it plays in Ulm, South Germany, where my grandmum was born and raised. Actually, she was the one who recommended it to me. I've only read the first few chapters so far and it's fairly interesting.

And finally a biography of Jimi Hendrix.

Right now I'm on and off reading Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' again. Definately one of my favorite reads, thought provoking, and Nieztsche is one of my favorite philosophers. I find it interesting that many associate him with being extremely nihilistic when in actuality he claims that the true way to become the ubermensch is to overcome the ensung nihilism in the world.

Edit: Btw Abominatrix, good thread.

Most people read Nietzsche totally wrong, he denounces it all in order to rise above. It's knowing the difference, it's not about wallowing in it. It's the whole mountaintop mentality.

I know that. Wallowing in nihilism begets depression and sorrow, and in doing so is a detriment in the effort to appreciating life and ever becoming the proverbial ubermensch.

I actually used Thus Spoke Zarathustra as one of the books for my Regents essay today.

Excuse me, I was agreeing with you...and glad you agree with me

Alright, a real literature thread!

Currently I'm reading "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" by Victor Hugo. A stunning book, compelling story about love, fiery passion, revenge and French history. I've read it many many years ago but then in Finnish, now I've got an English version.

After that, these are waiting:

"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman. My wife read it already and said it was good. Previous one, "American Gods" hit the jack-pot, interesting to see if this one beats even that.

"Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem. Same thing as with "Hunchback", gone through the translated version which was absolutely hilarious sci-fi parody. Nice to see how it works in English.

"The Blind Watch-maker" by Richard Dawkins. Defense of evolution against creationist nit-wits.

Both are excellent text and they are complete... a fact tha shoudl indeed be emphasized when talking about Kafka...
Yet other works of his are more important and I would rather recommend them over the two aforementioned ones. There have been two texts that I have read lately of him and both are fragments; remember Lovecraft and his works and what he could have been able to write would he had lived longer.

Anyway, The Castle (Das Schloß - 1926) and The Trial (Der Prozeß - 1925) are better and more important works of him. Both are novels which clearly reflect the way things are happening in his universe. A person, K., is thrown into a situation in which he is barely able to escape and the way he has to struggle against the society as well as with bureaucracy.

In The Castle (Das Schloß - 1926) he arrives (was sent to) in a town and they refuse to give him work. It is a struggle to make a living in a place where no one is really on his side and those who are, are outsiders as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_%28Book%29

The Trial (Der Prozeß - 1925) is even more grotesk. K. has do deal with a trial and with bureaucracy in a different way. He has to fight the law and had to try to deal with the process and to influence in one way or another. His struggle with the judiciary is the kafkaesk element in this fragment; the story is not completed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial

Both are interesting novels.

Yes, I'm going to read that this year, without a doubt. "chilling and mystical atmosphere" makes it sound most appealing to me!

Yes, "The Premature Burial" is a great little piece. I sometimes find Poe a bit on the long-winded and didactic side (as in, that story where he describes in great detail a balloon trip to the moon only to reveal at the end it was all a hoax!) but his short, atmosphere-driven pieces are usually awesome reads. "King Pest" is one of my favourites .. and we mustn't forget "The Case of M. Valdemar"!

So do you have any thoughts on "The Kite Runner"? That book has been hyped so highly I almost don't want to read it.

It's an incredibly insightful "story within a story" murder/mystery. The film starring Sean Connery definitely captures the bleak setting and feling of the secluded Italian abbey set in the Dark Ages, too. I think you'd enjoy that as well.


One of my favorite novels ever

Kite Runner, albeit being an alright read, is depressing. The name invokes visions of little children flying kites ever-so-merrily. But no. The story is filled with 13-year old boys raping 13 year old boys, murder, suicide, prostitution, lies, deceits, more murder, attempted rape, rapists commiting murder. It just goes on and on.

The only Lemm I've read thus far is "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". Interesting concept about most of the paper in the world being eaten by a virus from space and what would happen as a result. Really nightmarish and Kafka-like in depicting the inescapable bureaucracy. Lemm seems like a pompous bastard in the introduction .. it reminded me why I generally don't read them (authorial or third-party introductions) before cracking the novels in question. I'd definitely like to read "Solaris" at some point.

Give me your e-mail. I may have some files for you.

My wife read it, and I know about it; but something about 13 year old boys raping other 13 year old boys just isn't on my "to do" list of things to read anytime soon.

Yes, I've heard that, too, but I gonna read those I have to do for school first and afterwards decide whether I want to read more of his works.

@oneyoudontknow; Do they still make those novels? Hell, do you know if they even sell them outside of Germany? I'd like to get my hands on them.

My favorite Poe story would be Berenice... I love how the narration seems so ethereal, almost hazy. I always picture the scenery and characters blurry, like shrouded in mist. I love it. Also, The Black Cat was my first reading of Poe, and it remains one of my favorites as well. The Oval Portrait I also enjoy, if only for its 'wtf' (excuse the non-adequate expression here) conclusion.

For some reason I've never been able to get into his police/crime stories. The only one I enjoyed was The Golden Beetle, but the others were a little boring.

"The goooooolllllle bug, mista!"


LOL That guy cracked me up.

The Black Cat was my favorite Poe story as a teen. I remember in high school in Creative Writing class we had to read our favorite short story out loud, and that was my pick. Poe is my favorite short story writer.

Haven't read him in quite a while, but perhaps I'll pick back up again after my TRUE CRIME current phase.

One source is e-bay and the other one is the Gutenberg-Project:
Kafka - The trial:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7849

Yet I prefer books over some prints from *.txt files...

About the other one... The Castle.. I do not know if there is an e-text available, at least not at the American one.

His longer stories are also more complex and 'he' is getting on ones nerves with his style of writing... they are often weird in their own way. Kafka is not easy to read and you would have not only to read his stuff, but to interpret what he is actually writing about. There is far more than meets the eye on the first glance.

I'm currently reading Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot. Pretty cool stuff, based on some 50 pages I've already read.

Will add more when I read it.

I loved "In the Penal Colony". Very good story.

What's it about?

It's considered a horror story, for some reason. It's pretty upsetting alright.

Heh, a German novel about Glen Gould? I'm sure it's been translated into English .. he's somewhat of a figure around here and I know some people who knew him, including my old piano teacher. SOunds interesting at any rate. Can't comment on the other authors but I can tell you that for sure Grass is read in english .. in fact, I should probably pick up "The Tin Drum" again as I started it just a few months ago but wasn't quite in the mood then and got distracted by other books. Seems like a strange journey indeed.

I love Kafka. I always feel like shit after reading his writing! I'm mostly familiar with the short stories, but "The Trial" was a very engrossing, if incomplete, novel .. which I was introduced to via the orson Welles movie! That's got to be one of the most pretentious films I've seen in my life .. haha .. pretty enjoyable anyway though, I guess.