Reading / Literature Club

#21

reading mostly about architecture but recently finished “On Television” by Pierre Bourdieu and its great, a lot of the ideas can still be found today about the internet. Ive recently started The Society of Spectacle by Guy Debord but imma leave it until i finish uni work and can focus a bit more

#22

Been reading a lot of short fiction lately, going through the collected short stories of JG Ballard and rereading Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics (which is a huge recommendation if youre a fan of Borges/Bolano)

Also been digging into a book of Robert Duncan’s early poetry/plays, rly instructive n interesting to see him play w/ techniques he’d develop into fullness later, to see his themes in their infancy. Plus the poems are good

#23

been trying to sink my teeth back into A Thousand Plateaus but i just keep rereading The Argonauts instead

#24

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

The prose in that book is unparalleled, it took me a year to get through because I felt I had to study it. Godly piece of lit. I tried starting the sequel a few weeks ago and it didn’t quite have the same hook, but I’ll probably try again soon.

#25

how has it been? im using deleuze & guatarri for my dissertation but even my tutor said he didn’t quite fully understand a thousand plateaus during his masters

#26

finished the aleph, such a beautiful book of short stories. really good to dip in and out of.

just started reading this, not far into it but the prose is really charming and warm. saw someone compare it to gabriel garcia marquez in the way they create a sense of place which i can definately feel. story is less problematic than some marquez’ own though

#27

story is less problematic than some marquez’ own though

i’m intrigued, read one hundred years quite a long time ago - what’s problematic about his stories, or is it his personal life?

some amazing recommendations btw, got a nice long holiday soon so looking forward to getting through some of these :slight_smile:

#28

i really like taking it in short bursts, i do have to read the same paragraphs multiple times a bit but lots of very satisfying ideas buried in there

#29

Thanks man, I give it a crack once a year or so. I love the book and have read it through plenty. I just can’t get the full picture in to my head, it is the slipping between states that gets me, I would love to find a good audio book version to help me along with it.

#30

The audiobook narrated by George Guidal is pretty awesome. It’s how I got through it the first time. If you sign up for Audible they give it a free book to start: https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00OJYHA5G&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006

#31

that’s great thanks man, i’ll get on this.

#32

I recently bought Calvino’s Invisible Cities but haven’t read yet, have you? how is it?

#33

In another note im curious about if the ones of you that make music ever get inspiration and ideas from reading and if so, in what way?

#34

Finished a re-read of the Sprawl trilogy a little while ago, and it really holds up! Not as compelling as the Blue Ant books, but for a debut Neuromancer remains outstanding, and the rest of the sequence is a huge achievement.

Currently re-reading The Peripheral. The Jackpot flippin’ freaks me out; the idea that the collapse of civilization is a confluence of events and processes that we’re smack in the middle of and completely powerless to avert. That one is just too real.

#35

Been meaning to read this for a while.
How do you like it so far?

#36

Nah, not yet. Got any good links for it?

#37

I think I first heard about him from Mumdance. A lot of his track titles and references become obvious once you start digging down the wormholes. This is the first book of Gibson’s that I’ve read. Fantastic read so far though.

#38

the entire plot of love in the time of cholera is problematic and then he goes to onto describe pedophilia quite shamelessly

#39

for those of you vibing on borges, I recommend you spend some time with steven millhauser, who very adeptly constructs these fascinating little self-contained ecologies of myth/fable, magical (ir)reality, and nostalgia all done up in a crisp and contemporary short-form style.

#40

Borges’ “South” comes to mind too. I’m working on “The Timeless Way of Building” by Christopher Alexander. So far so good.