What are you reading lately? - Lounge - Forums : Best Ever Albums

EyeKanFly
Head Bear Master/Galactic Emperor

Age: 33
Location: Gotham

theblueboy wrote:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke. It’s basically genius.

Brilliant novel, her newer one (Piranesi) is on my to-do list.

Right now I'm reading through the Howl's Moving Castle trilogy. It's definitely YA, but still a fun read. Just finished Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho. I believe it's her first novel, it was good but nothing stellar IMO.
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51 Washington, D.C. albums!

BARDAMU

Been reading the recent-ish New York Review of Books edition of Negrophobia: An Urban Tale, which is fucking fantastic. Black William S. Burroughs indeed. Also been getting into Calamities by Renee Gladman, which is a terrific book of poetry; otherwise been reading a couple books on urban planning that are very interesting (Bourgeois Utopias, Nature's Metropolis, Metropolis: A History of the City).

BARDAMU

EyeKanFly wrote:

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (fiction): In an alternate history where a Yiddish-speaking Jewish refugee state was created in Alaska, detective Landsman investigates a murder and uncovers a conspiracy

Fantastic world-building in that one. Also very funny.

Skinny
birdman_handrub.gif

Flipping between Harry Sword’s wonderful Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion, which looks at the use of drone sounds at various points in history (with a particular focus on their use in psych-rock and metal) and really benefits from the author’s breezy style and infectious enthusiasm, and Chris Bambery’s A People’s History of Scotland, which is interesting, and possibly even noble, but which sadly suffers from a real sense of imbalance (whole multi-century periods are glossed over whilst you have to wade through the minutiae of, for example, student nuclear disarmament campaigning in Edinburgh elsewhere) and a very dry tone. Would highly recommend the former, whilst the latter will be of interest only to those who want an insider’s view of the myriad reasons that the Scottish hate the English.
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2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

BARDAMU

Skinny wrote:

Chris Bambery’s A People’s History of Scotland, which is interesting, and possibly even noble, but which sadly suffers from a real sense of imbalance (whole multi-century periods are glossed over whilst you have to wade through the minutiae of, for example, student nuclear disarmament campaigning in Edinburgh elsewhere) and a very dry tone. Would highly recommend the former, whilst the latter will be of interest only to those who want an insider’s view of the myriad reasons that the Scottish hate the English.

On the note of hating the English I recently got through Daniel Finn's One Man's Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA after having watched Ken Loach's extremely-moving The Wind That Shakes The Barley.

Tiocfaidh ár lá and all that.

Patman360
Serenity Now

Gender: Male
Age: 31
Location: Cork, Ireland

Moderator

Never thought I’d see The Wind That Shakes The Barley brought up on here, glad it left an impression on you, my late grandfather (among other family members) were extras in the movie (due in part to him being a local with horses and wagons at the time), must have multiple copies of the movie on DVD and naturally it hits me hard anytime I watch it, west Cork is home to me.

The IRA is a complicated and polarising beast, my grandmother (still going strong in her 90’s) was only recently telling me of her uncles and the time they spent in Frongoch and the like, I grew up on a farm myself and its strange to know that people died on it during the War of Independence, there’s memorials dotted all around the country side here. The scars of the Troubles are still much fresher.
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2023
2022

BARDAMU

Patman360 wrote:

Never thought I’d see The Wind That Shakes The Barley brought up on here, glad it left an impression on you, my late grandfather (among other family members) were extras in the movie (due in part to him being a local with horses and wagons at the time), must have multiple copies of the movie on DVD and naturally it hits me hard anytime I watch it, west Cork is home to me.

The IRA is a complicated and polarising beast, my grandmother (still going strong in her 90’s) was only recently telling me of her uncles and the time they spent in Frongoch and the like, I grew up on a farm myself and its strange to know that people died on it during the War of Independence, there’s memorials dotted all around the country side here. The scars of the Troubles are still much fresher.

My girlfriend's family is Newfoundland Irish (Newfoundland culture is very Irish), came over during the famine and are still quite sore at the English about it (and for good reason), and she was the one who was insistent that I watch the film.

I thought The Wind That Shakes The Barley painted a pretty complex picture of revolutionary violence, not glorifying it but presenting it as a tragic necessity at times (I'm thinking of the scene where [SPOILER] they kill the kid who informed on them). As an Indigenous person I've always felt a degree of kinship with the Irish struggle -- I know the American Indian Movement did too (below is a picture of some AIM members commemorating the deaths of the Republican hunger strikers in 1985, Gerry Adams is in attendance).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

I feel some pro-IRA sentiments, but obviously it's quite easy being someone so removed from the violent political struggles of the IRA to idealize them, and I'm sure that, had I lived through it, much of me would have just wanted the fear and violence to end. But it's the same way I feel about groups like Hamas -- the struggle against the occupiers is legitimate, though it's not like I'm going to celebrate the death of civilians, I just want to see an Ireland free of English yoke. But you know, it's hard to read about MI5 trying to convince the UVF to shoot up Catholic elementary school children and not be brought to tears or into a boiling rage, and feel the need to [REDACTED] some British security forces. And of course the campaigns of the UVF and the UDA were far more focused on killing civilians than the IRA were, and the you don't need to look much further than the casualty reports to see that, but... it's complicated, obviously. I would never tell anyone who lost someone to a car bomb that it was all well and good in the pursuit of Irish reunification. I'm not Irish so maybe it's not really my place to comment.

Saddens me to see there may be a Troubles 2 on the horizon with the imminent violation of the GFA though.

theblueboy

Klara and the Sun is another beautiful Kazuo Ishiguro novel. It wasn’t perfect but was ultimately so moving, original and memorable that I can completely overlook its imperfections. At this point, I’d say Ishiguro is my favourite author.

BARDAMU

been reading The Magus by John Fowles. Kooky.

an-outlaw

Location: Highcoombe

Life Force by Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins
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Yesterday is not you, it is a resource to be looked back on.