Books: Why do they all sound so shit?

[Chris]

I think I've reached that point in my life, like Stan in South Park, where everything just sounds like shit. I read the premise for a movie? It sounds like shit. I hear anything on the radio? It sounds like shit. I read the back of a book? It sounds like shit and I know there's no way I'll commit significant time to reading it. They barely ever sound interesting to me.

 

However, I've resolved to read more this year.

 

Any suggestions for newish books that, you know, aren't shit?

[Trumo]

Get out of the Mills & Boon section you tit.

[Sugar Ape]

I think I've reached that point in my life, like Stan in South Park, where everything just sounds like shit. I read the premise for a movie? It sounds like shit. I hear anything on the radio? It sounds like shit. I read the back of a book? It sounds like shit and I know there's no way I'll commit significant time to reading it. They just doesn't sound interesting to me.

 

However, I've resolved to read more this year.

 

Any suggestions for newish books that, you know, aren't shit?

What genre you interested in? Favourite authors etc...?

[Chris]

What genre you interested in? Favourite authors etc...?

 

Don't mind a bit of dark mystery, thriller coming-of-age small town kinda stuff...

[cloggypop]

Prozac Nation.

[Chip Butty]

If you like a laugh and something a bit out of the ordinary try, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's childhood Pal. 

 

It got me back into reading again.

[Sugar Ape]

Don't mind a bit of dark mystery, thriller coming-of-age small town kinda stuff...

Have you read any John Connoly? I've been into him for years and got a few others interested, Paul, RedKnight and Rico I think have all enjoyed his stuff.

 

Series of novels about the detective Charlie Parker. Set mainly in Maine but takes in settings like New York and Louisiana as well, they are ace books. Great prose, brilliant characters, and downright creepy as well with a supernatural tinge that gradually grows throughout the series.

 

First one is Every Dead Thing. Definitely a cut above most detective/thriller novels.

[Section_31]

I can't stand reading, I hate the way it's seen as a definer of intelligence. "Ooh I love a good book!' Fuck off, I love HBO box sets, I'll read if I'm ever in prison, and only if the gym's closed.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Have you read any John Connoly? I've been into him for years and got a few others interested, Paul, RedKnight and Rico I think have all enjoyed his stuff.

 

Series of novels about the detective Charlie Parker. Set mainly in Maine but takes in settings like New York and Louisiana as well, they are ace books. Great prose, brilliant characters, and downright creepy as well with a supernatural tinge that gradually grows throughout the series.

 

First one is Every Dead Thing. Definitely a cut above most detective/thriller novels.

This. Dark.

[Paul]

Chris, you need to check out The GF Book Thread. There are thousands of great recommendations on there.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

I'd second the call on John Connolly, nice and dark but he's got a really easy style to read so you can burn through one of his books pretty sharpish.

 

If you're looking for something a bit different, House of Leaves is worth a look too.

[Chris]

Chris, you need to check out The GF Book Thread. There are thousands of great recommendations on there.

Too long. Takes too long Paul. Need it now. Now. Gratification. Now.

[Adebisi]

Sounds to me like you're in a negative state of mind. Are you depressed? 

Get some classic literature read. I don't think there's been a good book released in decades, not that I know of anyway. If there was I'm sure they'd have made a movie about it.  

[Chris]

Sounds to me like you're in a negative state of mind. Are you depressed? 

 

Get some classic literature read. I don't think there's been a good book released in decades, not that I know of anyway. If there was I'm sure they'd have made a movie about it.  

 

Oh totally. My arl fella passed away just before Christmas, so that's defo having an effect on how shit everything sounds.

[Section_31]

Sorry to hear that Chris.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yeah, that sucks mate.

[Chairman Meow]

Don't mind a bit of dark mystery, thriller coming-of-age small town kinda stuff...

 

Coming of age and dark try Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter.

 

As you're a bit down already whatever you do don't try to read any Hubert Selby Jr. in fact if you start feeling better don't, it will not end well.

[Clem H Fandango]

I can't stand reading, I hate the way it's seen as a definer of intelligence. "Ooh I love a good book!' Fuck off, I love HBO box sets, I'll read if I'm ever in prison, and only if the gym's closed.

 

Totally agree. The amount i read at school to achieve a decent literature grade put me off reading for life.

 

Books are a shit version of tv.

[Chairman Meow]

I can't stand reading, I hate the way it's seen as a definer of intelligence. "Ooh I love a good book!' Fuck off, I love HBO box sets, I'll read if I'm ever in prison, and only if the gym's closed.

 

If you're sharing a cell with Adebisi you aren't doing any reading sonshine. 

[Sugar Ape]

Terrible news. Life is fucking shit at times.

 

Coming of age try:

 

The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Vampire-Show-Richard-Laymon-ebook/dp/B0028T82EC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420571664&sr=8-1&keywords=the+travelling+vampire+show

 

In the latest novel from Laymon (The Midnight Tour), 16-year-old Dwight and his two pals, male Rusty and female Slim, decide to add some excitement to an otherwise boring summer day in 1963 by sneaking into "The Traveling Vampire Show." This adults-only act, featuring "Valeria, the only known vampire in captivity," is visiting their rural town of Grandville for just one night. Dwight narrates the events of that day, all the way through to the terrifying finale. The three friends are for the most part typical teens, but they are tested that day in ways none of them could ever have imagined.

 

 

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Harvest-Norman-Partridge/dp/076531911X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420571876&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+harvest

 

Starred Review. At the start of this mesmerizing new fantasy from Partridge (Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales), it's Halloween night in 1963 in Anytown, U.S.A., and the local teenage boys are ramping up for the annual hunt for the October Boy, a pumpkin-headed being cultivated by the town fathers to run the gauntlet each All Hallows' Eve. The boy who brings him down before he makes it to the local church wins a highly coveted ticket out of town and, as most believe, liberation from the stultifying ennui of small-town life that has crushed all ambition and dreams out of the adults. Pete McCormack is among the most determined boys on the hunt, but this evening he will learn horrifying truths about his town's tradition and the terrible price he must pay for his manhood. Partridge has always had a knack for sifting deeper significance from period pop culture, but here he brilliantly distills a convincing male identity myth from teen rebel drive-in flicks, garish comic book horrors, hard-boiled crime pulps and other bits of lowbrow Americana. Whether read as potent dark fantasy or a modern coming-of-age parable, this is contemporary American writing at its finest.

 

[Bobby Hundreds]

Books are better than TV for me. Nothing not one other form of expression or storytelling absorbs me more than a book I am enjoying. Pure escapism. It don't mean shit, it's not a sign of anything, people just enjoy different things is all punk ass bitches.

 

Need to lay off gta v for a bit. A good computer game absorbs me more than film or TV.

[Section_31]

Totally agree. The amount i read at school to achieve a decent literature grade put me off reading for life.

 

Books are a shit version of tv.

Managed to blag my way to a C at Literature GCSE without ever actually reading a book thanks to some WH Smiths study guides, I didn't know scout from to kill a mocking bird was a girl until ten minutes before the exam.

 

I know this makes me sound thick, but I like books with pictures in. I have several books on Rome and the Waffen SS, although I have read a few Star Wars and sci fi books as well as a couple of Tom Clancy ones. Tried reading Lord of the Rings once until he spent three pages describing the roots of a tree, so put the DVD on.

 

People who over exaggerate their love of books are probably self conscious about being seen as dense, consider that the celebrities who make the biggest meal of their love of reading are Oprah Winfrey and Richard Maidley.

[Hermes]

I got some good books for Christmas:

 

 Basic Accountancy - by Adam Wright

 

 How to get bronzed all over - by Tanya Whiteside

 

 The art of reconciliation - by Olive Branch

[Chairman Meow]

Pretty much everything by Richard Price is a coming of age story. I'd stay away from Freedomland though, the only book he's written that I couldn't get into.

 

He was also a writer on the Wire. His daughter was the girl who appears 3 times in the entire series, first as a rich girl who will barely even speak to the black dealers, secondly in a shop and talking about how her dealer/pimp loves her and thirdly in rehab and mother to a black baby. Price himself was the tutor in D'Angelo's book group / class thing in prison as well. There are elements of the Wire which you can see have come from Clockers and his early books. 

 

Very good writer. 

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Terrible news. Life is fucking shit at times.

 

Coming of age try:

 

 

Quite the transition, mate.