He has numerous books that deal with the ideal of an alternate London. Different ways of looking at the city through different filters of consideration. The three Bas Lag novels, of which Perdido is the first, are all excellent, though he goes full throttle politics in the last one. The City and the City is also gobsmackingly good. An insightfully different filter through which to view the city in a hardboiled detective novel.
Just finished Asimov's "I, Robot" short stories. Can't believe it took me this long to get to them. Wonderful, imaginative stuff.
I heard about One Hundred Years of Solitude over the radio when they mentioned that the author had died, best impulse purchase I have made.
I like the everyman crossword in the Observer (UK Sunday paper). I'm pleased if I can work out a handful of clues but as for completing a while one, I am still way off.
Vonnegut's God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater (I needed a feel-good book after a Bukowski binge and Vonnegut always does the trick for me) actively, and Bill Bryson's A Walk Into the Woods on the potty, a few pages at a time. C'mon, everyone's in the same boat, right? ...or did I reveal too much?
Donald Hall's The Back Chamber and Wendy Xu's You are not Dead. I found unexpected joy -- being that I'm a major fan -- that the Back Chamber has a poem dedicated to Liam Rector after his death. It was good to read something from someone close to the artist, rather than articles from newspapers and magazines.
About reading on the toilet? Nah, everyone does it. Or everyone I know anyway. I'm reading a short story by Thomas Mann, and a section of Ulysses by James Joyce for a university paper. Esh!
Alice Munro's "Open Secrets." Her stories have this nebulous quality that I have to be in the right mind to appreciate and it's going well so far.
Finished The Internet is a Playground by David Thorne. He might be the funniest man alive! Now finishing I'll Go Home Then, also by David Throne, and also Greek Mythology by Marilena Carabatea. Giving this a rereading.
Reading the Beano Annual 2015 by Various Artists. In Part 1 of her comic strip Minnie the Minx has just stolen her father's car. I am anticipating that Part 2 will be spent in a young offenders institute, and probably won't be dissimilar to Scum.
Oh god, the extra stuff he includes are amazing. I think the first book was more for his friends than anything because some of the added articles were a bit lost on me I must admit. The second he was clearly writing for everyone, so the extra stuff is hilarious!
Halfway through Perdido Street Station. It's friggin demented. The Scar and Iron Council are up next. Started reading the Yu-Gi-Oh manga yesterday. It's... also pretty friggin demented. About to start reading Neuromancer whenever it gets here.
Right now I am reading -The Hell-bound Heart- by Clive Barker. It's the book Hell raiser was based on.
@DeadMoon, I read that years ago when I was a teenager. I had a bit of a Barker fixation going on at that time after reading The Thief of Always. I'm reading The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh. It's what might fall under the umbrella of 'Tartan Noir' and is based in Glasgow. Not my usual sort of thing but the location swung it for me. It's holding my attention thus far, some one hundred pages in.
I am re-reading One Second After by William Forstchen. A pretty grim novel. A little slow to start (first chapter and a half as the author sets the pieces) but after that an engaging read.
just started Stephen King's book 'on writing' part how to book part biog not just another how to book, its a book about how he became a writer and his experiences growing up and how they shaped him.
