The SMB Book thread



I'm reading a collection of short horror stories atm to get me in the Halloween mood. Bad apples it's called. The first two weren't that scary but I'll finish it.

Any other Halloween reading recommendations?
 
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst 8/10
I'd always been put off reading Hollinghurst by the notorious 'Gay Sex Wins Booker Prize' headline when The Line of Beauty won in 2004. But I was intrigued by all the rave reviews for his latest. It's written in five parts spanning 60 years, with a lot of the key events taking place in the intervening gaps. It means you have to interpret the bigger story yourself - as we tend to do in the real world. And apart from a long scene in a club towards the end, the gay stuff is more cultural than sexual.

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Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. What a writer. A truly original way of seeing the world and of using English. Pnin is an elderly Russian emigre academic at a New England college in the 1950s. He’s one of literature’s greatest creations - an eccentric whose life and doings will make you laugh and cry. Can’t fault this, 10/10.
 
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
Don't normally read novels but a couple that spring to mind are Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (ignore the crap film) and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Both great reads.
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Captain Corelli is good, but his South American novels are great, and a useful gateway drug for Gabriel Garcia Marquez

De Bernieres' South America novels are titled, in publication order:

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman
 
janiep said:
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. What a writer. A truly original way of seeing the world and of using English. Pnin is an elderly Russian emigre academic at a New England college in the 1950s. He’s one of literature’s greatest creations - an eccentric whose life and doings will make you laugh and cry. Can’t fault this, 10/10.
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I've said before - will again - Nabokov is my favourite writer.

Love Pnin and Lolita (despite, you know...).

But Pale Fire is my 10+. If I can only have one book for the rest of my life, that would be it. I even own a facsimile of the introductory poem reproduced on Nabokov's trademark index cards:

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Two on the go -
Iron Man by Tony Iommi which is readable even though I'm not a great Sabb fan. 3 for a tenner sale on in HMV and was even cheaper with last week's student discount sale.

Acid Row by Minette Walters - bought from a charity stall in a hospital and it has potential as a crime novel.
 

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