Big Footy Book Club

[norway blue]

I’ve started crime and punishment.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[iluvparis]

Reading Death of Yugoslavia at the moment.

One of the GOAT non-fiction books - the docos on youtube are also worth a watch.

 

[Dav]

Revisiting 1984 and Brave New World now that I'm a little older and more wordly than the Year 10 Literature student I once was.

Much much more powerful this time.

Thinking I'll revisit 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink and maybe some Jane Austen too.

Why couldn't I have done Literature now instead of when I was a pretentious arrogant 16 year old?

 

[Shell]

Lol 1984.

I'm like Billy Madison: "I cant understand 9 words in that book now!"

 

[Shell]

Revisiting 1984 and Brave New World now that I'm a little older and more wordly than the Year 10 Literature student I once was.

No VCE Literature?

It was my favourite subject, particularly the greek tragedies

 

[Dav]

Lol 1984.

I'm like Billy Madison: "I cant understand 9 words in that book now!"

The concepts in that book genuinely make my head hurt sometimes, yet make so much sense.

 

[Gough]

My favourite George has always been Down and Out in Paris and London.

 

[Shell]

My favourite George has always been Down and Out in Paris and London.

What's that one about?

 

[Dav]

No VCE Literature?

It was my favourite subject, particularly the greek tragedies

I was doing SACE Literature, or Literary Studies or whatever it's called.

We never went classical, did Shakespeare obviously and a fair bit of Jacobean and Restoration Period. I just remember not really being able to wrap my head around the concepts even though I could write well. I thought it was la-di-da bullshit but now I see how good it is.

 

[Shell]

I was doing SACE Literature, or Literary Studies or whatever it's called.

We never went classical, did Shakespeare obviously and a fair bit of Jacobean and Restoration Period. I just remember not really being able to wrap my head around the concepts even though I could write well. I thought it was la-di-da bullshit but now I see how good it is.

Yeah i think Shakespeare we did Much Ado About Nothing and Mid Summer nights dream.

And Australian poetry, anthology of short stories, Sons and Lovers (hated it), and Brilliant Lies. And the greek plays.

 

[Gough]

What's that one about?

Pretty much what it says on the label, it's Orwell's experiences living in poverty in both cities. The opening part of the book is about his time in Paris and is almost a bit Kitchen Confidential (RIP Bourdain) in places.

 

[Dav]

Yeah i think Shakespeare we did Much Ado About Nothing and Mid Summer nights dream.

And Australian poetry, anthology of short stories, Sons and Lovers (hated it), and Brilliant Lies. And the greek plays.

My favourite section was probably poetry to be honest. Mainly Shakespeare's sonnets and Keats. My analysis of Keats' works was one of the few English pieces I enjoyed.

 

[Shell]

My favourite section was probably poetry to be honest. Mainly Shakespeare's sonnets and Keats. My analysis of Keats' works was one of the few English pieces I enjoyed.

Yeah i really liked poetry too.

 

[Gough]

Yeah i think Shakespeare we did Much Ado About Nothing and Mid Summer nights dream.

And Australian poetry, anthology of short stories, Sons and Lovers (hated it), and Brilliant Lies. And the greek plays.

Many moons ago I saw Hugo Weaving play Caesar in in an adaption of Julius Caesar set in the late 80s greed is good corporate era.

 

[La Dispute]

I’m 3 quarters the way through Infinite Jest, having spent months getting through it.

It’s pretty good overall. I think it’s one of those books where you’ll always be drawn to some parts and not others. The Enfield Tennis centre, and all the tennis commentary in between is probably the most interesting aspect.

It’s a bit too long and sprawling, and some sections drag on. It’s one of those books you’d have to read 3-4 times, but unless you’re a hardcore DFW fan who’s going to go through 1000 densely written pages?

Other decent recent reads:

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Sigmund Freud - Civilization and it’s Discontents
John Fowles - The Collector

 

[Gigantic]

I’m 3 quarters the way through Infinite Jest, having spent months getting through it.

It’s pretty good overall. I think it’s one of those books where you’ll always be drawn to some parts and not others. The Enfield Tennis centre, and all the tennis commentary in between is probably the most interesting aspect.

It’s a bit too long and sprawling, and some sections drag on. It’s one of those books you’d have to read 3-4 times, but unless you’re a hardcore DFW fan who’s going to go through 1000 densely written pages?

Other decent recent reads:

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Sigmund Freud - Civilization and it’s Discontents
John Fowles - The Collector

One day I'm going to get through Infinite Jest cover to cover - has to be one of my life goals

 

[Cruyff14]

Finished Me by Elton John yesterday.

Thoroughly enjoyable. It sort of slowed down a bit once it hit the 90s (still interesting nonetheless), but when recounting stories from his heyday when he was coked out of his mind, it was a fantastic read.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

A Little Life was pretty good.

At the beginning of Hanya Yanagihara’s new novel, “A Little Life,” four young men, all graduates of the same prestigious New England university, set about establishing adult lives for themselves in New York City. They are a pleasingly diverse crew, tightly bound to each other: Willem Ragnarsson, the handsome son of a Wyoming ranch hand, who works as a waiter but aspires to be an actor; Malcolm Irvine, the biracial scion of a wealthy Upper East Side family, who has landed an associate position with a European starchitect; Jean-Baptiste (JB) Marion, the child of Haitian immigrants, who works as a receptionist at a downtown art magazine in whose pages he expects, one day soon, to be featured; and Jude St. Francis, a lawyer and mathematician, whose provenance and ethnic origins are largely unknown, even by his trio of friends. Jude, we later learn, was a foundling, deposited in a bag by a dumpster and raised by monks.

For the first fifty or so pages, as the characters attend parties, find apartments, go on dates, gossip, and squabble with each other, it is easy for the reader to think he knows what he’s getting into: the latest example of the postgraduate New York ensemble novel, a genre with many distinguished forbears, Mary McCarthy’s “The Group” and Claire Messud’s “The Emperor’s Children” among them. At one point, after his acting career takes off, Willem thinks, “New York City … had simply been an extension of college, where everyone had known him and JB, and the entire infrastructure of which sometimes seemed to have been lifted out of Boston and plunked down within a few blocks’ radius in lower Manhattan and outer Brooklyn.” Yanagihara is a capable chronicler of the struggle for success among the young who flock to New York every autumn, sending up the pretensions of the art world and the restaurant where Willem works, which is predictably staffed by would-be thespians. “New York was populated by the ambitious,” JB observes. “It was often the only thing that everyone here had in common…. Ambition and atheism.”

Yet it becomes evident soon enough that the author has more on her mind than a conventional big-city bildungsroman. For one thing, there’s the huge hunk of paper in the reader’s right hand: more than seven hundred pages, suggesting grander ambitions than a tale of successful careers. There are also curious absences in the text. Yanagihara scrubs her prose of references to significant historical events. The September 11th attacks are never mentioned, nor are the names of the Mayor, the President, or any recognizable cultural figures who might peg the narrative to a particular year. The effect of this is to place the novel in an eternal present day, in which the characters’ emotional lives are foregrounded and the political and cultural Zeitgeist is rendered into vague scenery.

The Subversive Brilliance of “A Little Life”

Soon after her book beings, it becomes evident that Hanya Yanagihara has more on her mind than a conventional big-city bildungsroman.

www.newyorker.com

 

[BILC]

If you're into true crime, I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara is one of the best recent ones I've read.

About the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist.

 

[Shell]

Man another one added to the list.


I got....10 books now i gotta read.

 

[Shell]

Am currently reading The Rape of Nanking, but honestly am not enjoying it that much.

While its well written, its not going into enough detail for me.

 

[Cruyff14]

If you're into true crime, I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara is one of the best recent ones I've read.

About the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist.

Think I saw that when I was looking into what books to get over Xmas, will add this to my list when I have finished the next crop.

 

[t_94]

I really liked Barefoot Investor and the Subtle Art of not Giving a *.

 

[Leon]

My favourites are all classics:

1984 - George Orwell

Animal Farm - George Orwell

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Diary of Anne Frank

The Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger

 

[Shell]

Diary of Ann Frank is a great read. Could not put it down.