Weird fiction, lots of stories by Clark Ashton Smith and started William Hope Hodgson's Boats of the Glen Garrig, which is a very short novella. Enjoying both lots.

I recently finished The Bourne Identity, and I'm now working through The Bourne Supremacy, both by Robert Ludlum.

Not a book but latest issue of Computer Arts. Taking me a while because its an Illustrator issue and I loves me some drawinz.

I'm on Jack Kerouac's 'Satori In Paris' - having only read 'On The Road' before I didn't really see where Hunter S. Thompson was getting his Kerouac influence from but it's much clearer in this text where he pretty much drinks and talks to strangers. I didn't know Kerouac was French Canadian either so I've learn a lot from such a short book.

1973 paperback, smells lovely - cost about 20p from a shoebox in a cafe window in Prague.

I love you. I remember back when I was at school, my favourite English teacher and I were largely ostracised by the other staff and students after we got into a discussion about our habit of sniffing books...

There's nothing like the smell of an old book.

Definitely, I've got a couple of lovely old books coming up next. Stay tuned!

ohmygoodness - i thought i was the only person who sniffed books

i have trouble controlling the urge to do so, certain paper and ink combinations can send me into a heavy-lidded state of bliss - usually the older the book the better

jimmy, your shoebox purchase reminds me of when i bought my copy of oblomov from a used book store in paris, i also bought the monk and the letters of evelyn waugh that day and then read all three over the next number of days

have you read all three of the so called road trilogy of kerouac's? i wrote a paper on the dharma bums for an ancient professor who liked to talk about hanging out at city lights etc, i think my class with him was virtually his last before he retired

The Book of Conquests, by Jim Fitzpatrick.

sorry jimmy, i just realised you said clearly that you had only read on the road .....

'Later Prehistoric Pottery in England and Wales' and 'Pottery in Roman Britain'. Guess what I'm supposed to be teaching next week and know nothing about...

Finished Satori in bed this morning, now I'm on:



http://gimmesomethingbetter.com/

Which is irritating because it's straight oral history, unlike say American Hardcore which provides context. And to top it all off it doesn't tell you who the person talking is, you have to refer to the back - it's a bit of a laborous read so far.

There's also a lot of sneering on bands like AFI and Green Day for being weaksauce and sell outs, and then Bille Joe Armstrong or Davey Havok talking about how much they enjoyed the band that the person who's sneering about them was in, how they saw them a million times and opened for them and stuff. That at least is a recurring theme in these things isn't it?

Just finished re-reading Gloriana or The Unfulfill'd Queen by Michael Moorcock.

Man, I grew up on Moorcock. Who is your favourite incarnation of the big four?

Moorcock is probably my favourite pure fiction writer. I love all of his books but I actually prefer his more "standalone" books like Behold The Man (and Breakfast In The Ruins), The Chinese Agent, Mother London, Time Of The Hawklords etcetera.

Jerry Cornelius is THE MAN though.

Just finished "Satan Burger" by Carlton Mellick III and moving on to "Punk Land" which is supposedly a sequel. He's insane but somehow manages to paint a very accurate picture of his vision. Given the specifics, it's quite a feat.

ANybody ever read his stuff?

Went up to Leeds this weekend, read Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer on the way up, it's written from the view point of a teenage boy trying to write like William Burroughs, very stream of consciousness, reads a bit like a cross between Naked Lunch and Catcher In The Rye.

Started reading In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami, serial killer thriller set against a Japanese sex tourist backdrop, very cool so far.

bit slow at the moment

I read that a few years ago, I found it really compulsive.

Invisible Man doesn't deserve it's status as "maybe the best novel ever written".