What cha been reading? I've been deep in a pulp/crme fiction hole for a bit. I discovered those $1 ebook megapacks by Wildside Press and they've been keeping me fairly occupied.
Also, as always, a bunch of music bios. The new book by Memphis music historian Preston Lauterbach "Before Elvis" just came out. It's about thee specific, direct musical acts Elvis ripped off. As in, documented proof that he saw them, and then incorporated part of their act into his. Also, I'm about three quarters through the Redd Kross book and it's great, too.
Lastly, yesterday, someone in a group posted a link to the English translations of the Germany only Indiana Jones novels & scooped that up.
Definitely in a trash phase right now, if anybody has any modern serious literature recommendations, I'm open to it.
https://archive.org/details/german-indy-novels-collection-3
Been rereading Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs along with reading Neuromancer by William Gibson
Black Pill: How I Witnessed The Darkest Corners Of The Internet Come To Life, by Elle Reeves
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199798813-black-pill?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12
Fever House AND The Devil By Name by Keith Rosson. HIGHLY reccomended for horror fans.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66087060-fever-house
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202102065-the-devil-by-name?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13
Reds: The Tragedy Of American Communism, by Maurice Isserman. Found this one a bit dry, but still worth reading.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201274431-reds?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12
Aberration in the Heartland of the Real: The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh by Wendy S Painting
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by norm Finkelstein
You guys need to read PUNK books. Like "Estrus: Shovelin' The Shit Since '87".
https://www.koreropress.com/estrus-shovelin-the-shit-since-87/
The Billy Childish Bio was pretty good. Could have used some more Headcoats stories but it does shed some light on the complicated man.
https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/to-ease-my-troubled-mind-the-authorized-unauthorized-history-of-billy-childish/
Just finished The Man in the High Castle last night. Despite being fairly into Sci-Fi I hadn't really read any Philip K Dick. It was decent enough but wasn't really vibing with it. I think the concept was a bit more interesting than the execution.
About to start Out There Screaming, the Jordan Peele curated Black horror anthology
@tapeurchin I really love Philip K. Dick, but I think that book in particular fizzles in its execution. He's not always super engaging. I think UBIK is better executed and has interesting ideas throughout. I also really love his book Galactic Pot Healer which might be his most entertaining and emotionally engaging book. Also A Scanner Darkly is a masterpiece.
@Luke Henley I also have Minority Report in my to-read stack which I picked up at a thrift shop because I like the movie, which I know isn't really a good metric for whether I'll enjoy the book. But I'll add those other three to my StoryGraph for sure
@Luke Henley Been a big PKD fan since high school, but never got around to Scanner Darkly until last year... great read, I think my favourite of his, even though it's probably the most conventional of his I read -- appreciated its timelessness, felt like living in my last sharehouse haha
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Anyone onto any fiction with punk as a focus? Feels like an untapped resource.. I read Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson years ago and liked it a lot, mid-west kids growing up, discovering punk and moving to New York around the rise of NYHC.. some real good elements but the straight edge / krishna sections felt a little forced maybe, but I should try read it again.
Only other book in that realm that I can remember is This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan, kind of a fictional post-punk UK retrospective, zine style writing which I enjoyed.
@Uptown ruler 666 420
I listened to that 10 or so part podcast with Wendy Painting and realized halfway through that maybe I didn't need to read the book (even though it obviously provides even more detail), and then in the last episode, she goes into how her publisher and editor screwed around with the book and their is a good and bad edition floating about.
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I recently read The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise by Brix Smith Start. I have to admit that I did not even know she was American and grew up mostly in LA. I really enjoyed it and of course, the part about her time in The Fall. I imagine some might blame her for popifying The Fall or outright ruining them but I think her run with them was great and MES really fell off afterwards...
@trollface
If you want to continue your course on Cyberpunk, I recommend this anthology!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/370160.Storming_the_Reality_Studio
Speaking of PKD, a Cyberpunk Godfather, someone I know was complaining recently that his characters are lacking and they are just cogs in whatever speculative sci-fi ideas he wants to explore - which might be a good point although I agree that Scanner and UBIK are two of his best...PKD always makes me think of Lem, who I might like better than Dick although I still haven't read much by Lem. I was shocked when I learned about their odd "feud"
https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is-a-communist-committee
Decided to do a full reread of Richard Stark's Parker novels this year. So far I'm three in, just finished The Outfit this week. As lean and mean as ever, and a good lesson in economical writing.
Read Mark E. Smith's Renegade, on The Fall tip. Pretty entertaining, but can't hold a candle to either Hanley brother's account of the band as far as a reading experience. MES' claim that Marc Riley was starting to wear a cowboy hat while playing "The Container Drivers" live is one of my favorite bits of band slander.
Also just finished Heidi Honeycutt's I Spit on Your Celluloid, which was great. Can get a little repetetive going through filmmakers and what they made, but there's some great analysis in there and I picked up a lot of good recommendations.
I've been reading through the Yoshiharu Tsuge collections that Drawn and Quarterly put out, and they're maybe some of the best comics I've ever read. They also just put out the first volume of Shirato Sanpei's The Lengend of Kamui--it's the first time it's been translated into English. I just started it, and it already seems killer.
Non-fiction-wise, I just finished A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Super fascinating dude!
And also on the Cold War front, I'm really intrigued by the new book in the Le Carre's George Smiley series, Karla's Choice, written by Nick Harkaway, who I just learned is actually Le Carre's son--wild! I haven't read a (non-graphic) novel in close to 4 years, but I think I'm willing to break my streak for this one!
@ExpKind I read Renegade already and was just thinking maybe I will read the Hanleys' books for some more, uh, insights into The Fall and almost considering reading the book about all the former Fall members...
@SukebeGG hopefully I have the "good edition", I'm more than halfway in
@ExpKind Yeah, I've probably been averaging one Westlake book a month for the last year or so. That "Anarchaos" book is goofy one.
Also, here's a pick of my Hard Case Crime shelf.
@SukebeGG Those are the best two by far, Steve's for comprehensiveness (to a point) and Paul's for minute detail and great stories about the band's best era. I'll give The Fallen another read someday, but I think it's fine for what it is. He did get Scanlon to talk, after all. My favorite part was the author's long debate with himself whether MES was actually an alcoholic (he decides no). Terrific.
@Rapid Adapter Nice collection! I have a few Westlake novels I've been meaning to get to for a while, seems like a good year for that. I did pick up the first Grofield book last summer and liked it a lot, should get the others and finish that series as well.
Love this thread ❤️
Just started Rachel Kushner’s new novel Creation Lake. It's more "modern serious literature" than trash, but there are some explicit nods to Manchette for the hard boiled readers.
I originally fell for Kushner’s work after reading Flamethrowers, a story that revolves around motorcycles, modern art, and the Red Brigades. She has a tough, cold, existential style that's right up my alley.
