Releasing the strangle hold
As I posted previously, I have been struggling to find a book that I could hold down & finish.
Robustyoungsoul made the suggestion of Choke by Chuck Palaniuk & although I loved Fight Club on first reading, I was less enamored by Invisible Monsters. So I am a little wary of a return to Chuck’s worlds just now.
Sean suggested I try something by Anne Rice. I have never read one of her books before but know vampires are her thing & I know being on a beach in Bermuda I won’t pick up a book that is, can I say it, so obvious.
So I was beginning to struggle again. I kept looking over the top books on numerous sites but it wasn’t getting me anywhere near a new book.
Then I had a brainwave…what about a graphic novel?
Alot of choices out there but as I am so out of touch with comics it would take me too much time deciding a title. One good thing did come from the comic idea…Conan.
I didn’t know that Dark Horse Comics had been running this title for 4 years now. They have gone about developing the original stories by Robert E. Howard so that there’s a fuller Conan character. Of course I had to place a subscription for it straight away! Got my first back issue #20 yesterday, look for my review over the weekend.
I did look for a book that combined the Conan stories into neat chronological order but the only book to do this is currently only available in hardback. I hate trying to read a hardback book at the best of times & beach reading a hardback book is a definite no no in er…yeah you guessed it…my book.
So I was close to giving up looking when I noticed on a friends Facebook profile a book listed in her favorites, Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis! What was I thinking…? I love reading his books! American Psycho still gets picked up by me every now & again…love picking out scenes to reread.
I asked my friend to give me her thoughts on Lunar Park:
I think its one of the best books i have read in a long while… its quite a read and I’m still not sure i fully understood it but it felt so damn good to read, really quite creepy and unsettling and i like that!
I ordered it from Play.com this morning…now should I start reading it before I head off on my holiday?!
Tags: Books, Brett Easton Ellis, Comic Books, Conan, Reading
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September 8, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hi DM,
Do you enjoy reading scifi? If so one of my favorites is Diamond Dogs/Turquoise Days by Alistair Reynolds. (In fact I have read and enjoyed nearly all of his work.) DD/TD is a normal sized paperback, but contains two novellas.
For Aussie authors (Reynolds is British) I can recommend fantasy by Ian Irvine, and Scifi by Sean Williams (The Resurrected Man is brilliant). You might have to order those through Amazon though.
September 8, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Thanks Stropp!
I am awaiting Lunar Park to be delivered from Play.com now so I think I will stick to that for now. Although I am a sci-fi fan I haven’t read many books in that genre. The last was Dune which I loved reading!
September 9, 2007 at 4:11 am
Ahh Dune. I bought that when I was fourteen or fifteen, and over the next five or so years consumed it and the all the sequels. Haven’t read any of the books written by Kevin Anderson and Brian Herbet though. I’ve been a bit scared that they won’t live up to the originals.
September 9, 2007 at 8:10 am
I got through only the first but have 3 sequels on my book shelf unread. I’d probably read Dune again before trying the sequels.
Does the intensity of the first book carry on through the series?
September 12, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Very much so. Lets see there was Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, Heretics of Dune, God Emperor of Dune. I think that’s all of them. I think Children was the next in the series, but I’m not sure.
The books immediately after Dune pretty much continued the story without much time passing. The last couple(?) jumped well into the future. It’s been a long time since I read them, nearly 20 years, so my recollection is a bit hazy. The last book got somewhat strangely metaphysical towards the end as I recall.
September 12, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Ah I don’t have Heretics of Dune…20 years eh!? God Emperor of Dune is set 3000 years after the events of Dune so that’s some future hehe!
Ever thought about rereading them?
October 19, 2007 at 11:28 am
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