I would have read more of The Bradbury Report last night, but I only managed one chapter because we went to watch the wonderful Robert Downey Jr / Jamie Foxx film, The Soloist. Go see it.
(Robert Downey Jr is such a legend.)
I would have read more of The Bradbury Report last night, but I only managed one chapter because we went to watch the wonderful Robert Downey Jr / Jamie Foxx film, The Soloist. Go see it.
(Robert Downey Jr is such a legend.)
This guy is way less crazy than the rest of us are.
I worked my way through a few more chapters of Tender is the Night, and if I wasn’t the type to finish books just because I started them (with only a handful of exceptions), I’d have given up by now. Fitzgerald just isn’t for me, I think. But I shall go on. Slowly.
I also started reading The Bradbury Report (manuscript) on the train this weekend. I’m enjoying it so far. It’s superficially similar to Never Let Me Go, but I haven’t got through enough of it yet to really make a comparison (plus I read the Ishiguro years ago, so I’m not even sure any comparison on my part would be of any use).
I had to get through half of Tender is the Night before it got interesting. I appreciate Fitzgerald needed to set up the narrative so the back story really takes on meaning, but it was a slog to get here — and I’m not sure (at the moment) if the journey was worth it.
As Neil says, You have got to be kidding me: Smeaton promises to ‘bring a storm down on Westminster’ if elected. He’s right in one respect, though — vote or stop complaining.
If electing Smeato is the way to demonstrate how ‘celebrity’-driven politics is these days and that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket because we’re too fucking complacent to care about how a country is governed, bring it on. BRING IT ON. We need it.
I totally have a blog crush on Motivated Grammar.
Last night I finished The Hurricane Party by Klas Ostergren. It was weird. I got really into it earlier, but then when the myth is recounted in the middle of the book, I kind of lost the plot (literally). It gets super-surreal in the end — that’s quite a feat, given it’s set in a dystopian near-future. I’ve only read one other Ostergren novel, Gentlemen (which I plan to read again because I think it needs another go), and I think he’s one weird author.
Next up: I’ll either continue to slog my way through Tender is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald) or get started on the manuscript of The Bradbury Report (Steven Polansky).
Neil put on The Acid House (DVD) while I was playing with my computer. Once that movie finished and it was time for bed, I decided to pick up my BookCrossing copy of the short story collection and read A Soft Touch. I have a soft spot for Kevin McKidd at the moment, and once again, it’s a bit hard getting my head aroond the dialect and accent, but it’s much easier now that I actually live in the country and hear it all the time. I thought the story was good and I’m going to be reading the rest of it at some point.