tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post3859375273881200760..comments2024-01-14T08:50:45.677+00:00Comments on The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society: The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society Book ClubUncle Dick Madeleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01124053234469634414noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-12409885034439480412008-06-17T18:02:00.000+01:002008-06-17T18:02:00.000+01:00So sorry for the downtime in the blog. I lost inte...So sorry for the downtime in the blog. I lost internet for a day, in addition to which I've been busy with other work.<BR/><BR/>Selena, so nice to see my posts discussed intelligently. We should make a chat show together.<BR/><BR/>Many thanks Elberry for the list. I've read a few of them but I've not printed it out and will carry it with me.<BR/><BR/>Okbye, it is Sting. Exactly as I photographed him at a book signing last week.<BR/><BR/>Anonymous (who I assume is The Twitch), I did get some pictures, forwarded to me by a friend. And quality pictures they are too. I'm now hunting down my copy of Sterne (I seem to have lost it) and I will add it to the pile. I really intend to read it this time...Uncle Dick Madeleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01124053234469634414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-43211757382185300182008-06-17T08:56:00.000+01:002008-06-17T08:56:00.000+01:00Dick, you asked for books that stand the test of t...Dick, you asked for books that stand the test of time....I hope you enjoy the picture of the pair of beauties I sent you...that you agree to seeing the fact that these literary lucky dips indeed do just that....and better still.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-84149236725205337492008-06-17T05:46:00.000+01:002008-06-17T05:46:00.000+01:00Is that Sting? He looks better.Is that Sting? He looks better.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-73668807317512038902008-06-16T19:20:00.000+01:002008-06-16T19:20:00.000+01:00Well the Book Club seems to be going really well. ...Well the Book Club seems to be going really well. Maybe, however, you are stuck with a good book somewhere, having a quiet read?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-79833086195025414752008-06-15T20:30:00.000+01:002008-06-15T20:30:00.000+01:00i think there'a a reason very little contemporary ...i think there'a a reason very little contemporary fiction is interesting - the post WW2 world lacks glamour, class, adventure. Every time a man tries to go off an a Gandalf-like adventure some damn Government man comes along and says, "look here, you can't just bugger off for a year. Who's going to pay your rent? What about your council tax? And it's against the law to wear wizard hats! That's one of the 3000 new laws brought in by Nu Labour."<BR/><BR/>The great writers of yore were often born to wealthy parents and could bunk off to travel & write - Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Proust, Thomas Mann, etc. Even those who were poor, like Camus, instantly got interesting journalist jobs and were free to have adventures within their work-life, and have energy left over for creative work.<BR/><BR/>i think we now live in a world where, if you have the self-respect to stay off state benefits, just staying alive and in accommodation costs you 95% of your energy and money. And if you don't have technical skills or an ability to coneal your difference, you're probably going to be stuck with minimum wage jobs.<BR/><BR/>i find virtually every novel i like is either written before, or set before, the end of WW2. The world thereafter is one in which 99.999% of the citizens of the West have 9 to 5 office jobs which prevent anything interesting happening to them. <BR/><BR/>The exceptions are genre - because genre work is about situations that lie off the mundane 9 to 5 life, like police thrillers, Fantasy, sci-fi. i wonder if one reason Literary Types despise genre is the same reason my fellow slave at work says i'm "stupid" because i read books and like to write when no one will pay me - it's the revulsion of the determinedly prosaic against the suggestion of any other world. to me, most Literary Fiction (contemporary) says "the world is dull and nothing interesting happens, except for squalid things, that is."<BR/><BR/>Anyway, recent books i've liked:<BR/><BR/>Alan Furst: Dark Star; The Polish Officer - both Nazi-era spy thrillers.<BR/><BR/>Charles McCarry: Old Boys; Tears of Autumn - more spy thrillers.<BR/><BR/>Robert Littell: The Company; Legends - both spy thrillers.<BR/><BR/>Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash - cyberpunk.<BR/><BR/>Pascal Quignard - All the World's Mornings (made into a superb French film, Tous les Matins du Monde - it is originally French).<BR/><BR/>Martin Amis - Experience.<BR/><BR/>Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin.<BR/><BR/>Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy.<BR/><BR/>Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<BR/><BR/>Donna Tartt - The Secret History<BR/><BR/>Alistair McLeod - Island<BR/><BR/>John Connolly - Nocturnes<BR/><BR/>Douglas Coupland - Microserfs; All Families are Psychotic.<BR/><BR/>Roberston Davies - The Deptford Trilogy; The Rebel Angels<BR/><BR/>Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose<BR/><BR/>Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho<BR/><BR/>Will Ferguson - Happiness<BR/><BR/>Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair.<BR/><BR/>Penelope Fitzgerald - The Blue Flower<BR/><BR/>Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated<BR/><BR/>Catherine Fox - Angels and Men<BR/><BR/>Michael Frayn - Towards the End of the Morning; Headlong.<BR/><BR/>David Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars.<BR/><BR/>Peter Hoeg - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow.<BR/><BR/>Michael Houllebecq - Atomised.<BR/><BR/>Just about anything by John le Carre - the only bad one of his i've read was Single and Single.<BR/><BR/>Milan Kundera - Slowness.<BR/><BR/>Ursula le Guin - Earthsea<BR/><BR/>Michelle Lovric - The Remedy<BR/><BR/>Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses; The Crossing; The Road.<BR/><BR/>Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood<BR/><BR/>Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient<BR/><BR/>Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast trilogy<BR/><BR/>Arturo Perez-Reverte: The Fencing Master; The Dumas Club; The Nautical Chart.<BR/><BR/>Ian Rankin - Black and Blue<BR/><BR/>Salman Rushdie - The Moor's Last Sigh<BR/><BR/>Bernard Schlink - The Reader<BR/><BR/>W G Sebald - Vertigo; The Rings of Saturn<BR/><BR/>Martin Cruz Smith - Gorky Park; Wolves Eat Dogs<BR/><BR/>Patrick Suskind - Perfume<BR/><BR/>HST - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas<BR/><BR/>Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions<BR/><BR/>i've not sure of the dates of some of these - some may be too old. Also, i've missed out a lot of good non-fiction!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-50457428603015473712008-06-15T20:12:00.000+01:002008-06-15T20:12:00.000+01:00Can we post pictures of our books Dick? Books need...Can we post pictures of our books Dick? Books need their beauty to be seen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-16370248381158171292008-06-15T19:21:00.000+01:002008-06-15T19:21:00.000+01:00“There’s much that terrorises me in a bookshop.......<I>“There’s much that terrorises me in a bookshop....”</I><BR/><BR/>Nor, Richard, do I entertain the least apprehension that literary agents are not playing a major, perhaps the principal, role in the dumbing down of our urban, cosmopolitan society. See the Memorandum...<BR/><A HREF="http://selenadreamy.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow"/><BR/>MEMORANDUMSelena Dreamyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11629908887644614404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-91416710078009405412008-06-15T17:40:00.000+01:002008-06-15T17:40:00.000+01:00I nearly forgot to ask you Dick....can we include ...I nearly forgot to ask you Dick....can we include graphic novels? Last months Playboy was a classic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-39640768543079607622008-06-15T17:37:00.000+01:002008-06-15T17:37:00.000+01:00I am happy that you have alowed us to include old ...I am happy that you have alowed us to include old books Dick, for I rarely buy new books anymore since I was kindly given box loads of literature by a kindly philosopher friend. Whenever I am in the mood for a good read I open the boxes and take a literary lucky dip. The other day I pulled three books from out of the box..."The Innocents Abroard" by the great American humorist Mark Twain which I have since read and enjoyed. <BR/>"Some Tales of Mystery & Imagination" by Poe which I have read before and will read again & again for the thrill of it.<BR/>The third book out of the box was "Heaven's My Destination" by Thornton Wilder, a beautiful story about a kind & spiritual American named George Brush .<BR/>I highly reccomend all three books as a good read.<BR/>I am about to take another lucky dip and will let you know what comes up when I have finished reading them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-4740002128514266382008-06-15T15:08:00.000+01:002008-06-15T15:08:00.000+01:00Many thanks Lee. Old books are good. In fact, I th...Many thanks Lee. Old books are good. In fact, I think they're what I'm really after. Sometime tested by time and a generation of readers.<BR/><BR/>Do you know I nearly said 'nothing set in Ireland'? However, when I'm up in Manchester on Thursday, I will go to Waterstones and check this one out, despite the blurb on Amazon: 'In a small Irish village, young Esther Costello, victim of a tragic accident that has left her deaf, dumb and blind, is kept barely alive by hardhearted parents.'Uncle Dick Madeleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01124053234469634414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5888062989539166264.post-8821186682695641552008-06-15T14:55:00.000+01:002008-06-15T14:55:00.000+01:00What about an old book, you fussy old thing. What ...What about an old book, you fussy old thing. What about reading some old book like The story Of Esther Costello. I just said that off the top of my head. I think I said it just to be annoying.leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13562641539954768235noreply@blogger.com