All our promised projects here at FDTW are on the go, but taking longer than we thought as one of our number is holidaying in New York (how bourgeois), while the other is swamped with work (considerably more proletarian than yow). In the meantime, here's a fun book survey ‘meme’ from Darren at Inveresk Street . Sorry if my choices are a bit obvious, but these are the books I feel genuinely passionate about. I couldn't be bothered putting all the links in, so, if you're interested in the books, stick the title in Google or Amazon. You do the bloody work.
You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I've not read Fahrenheit 451, so I wasn’t sure I understood the question. A quick Google later, and I found that the book features "an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature". In that case, I think I would have to choose Karl Marx's Capital. It's an incredibly difficult and challenging read, but, unlike every other difficult and challenging read I've ever attempted, it repays all your effort in spades. Once you get past the dry, difficult, abstract early chapters, you'll also find that the book has an extraordinary explanatory power while being moving, inspiring, witty, angry, and amusingly arrogant and polemical in the footnotes. Having said all that, you may never get round to reading it on your own. My advice: form a reading group, and read this amazing book.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Don't think I've ever had a 'crush' on a fictional character, but there are characters (fictional and not) who I've fancied myself being and tried to emulate (silly, I know, but there you are). In no particular order: Oscar Wilde, Peter Cook, Bill Hicks, Jeffrey Bernard, Withnail from Withnail and I, and Charles Bukowski. All drunks with an attitude problem. You draw what conclusions you like.
The last book you bought is:
Apart from yet another rubbish biography of Bill Hicks (see last post on this blog), the last books I bought were:
Paul Foot's The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined. I've read the first chapter so far, and it looks excellent. I saw Paul Foot speak at a meeting shortly before he died, and I'm so glad I did. A wonderful speaker and writer, and one of my heros.
Azar Nafisi's Reading 'Lolita' in Tehran. No idea what this is like yet, but I saw the man from Inveresk Street reading it. And if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. Looks great.
Doug Henwood's Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom. I've just subscribed to Henwood's brilliant Left Business Observer. Here's why.
Journey To The End Of The Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine. Because Bukowski liked him.
Consciousness Explained by Daniel C Dennett. One of the people Kenan Malik argues against in Man, Beast and Zombie, but from a position of respect. And with a title like that, how can you not read it?
The last book you read is:
Apart from that Bill Hicks biography, the last book I read was Charlie Brooker's hilarious Screen Burn. The funniest book I’ve ever read. My short review of this coming to a blog near you soon.
What are you currently reading?
Maureen Ramsay's What's Wrong With Liberalism? and rereading Kenan Malik’s excellent Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature and Joe Sacco’s Palestine (my review of this moving and depressing comic coming to ReadySteadyBook soon). Next up on the To Be Read pile is The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh and Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
Five books you would take to a deserted island
1. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Probably my favourite novel, which I read at least once a year. Hilarious. Bill Hicks’s favourite novel too, apparently.
2. Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. Always loved the first few chapters of this, but I always get distracted and I’ve never finished it. So, a desert island would be perfect.
3. A Disaffection by James Kelman. This novel makes for very uncomfortable reading. Too close to the bone. But bloody brilliant. The last book to make me cry.
4. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The novelisation of Marx’s Capital. Harrowing, but brilliant, if you can forgive the ending, which, considering the times it was written in, and the political commitment of the author, I can.
5. For number five, I’ll have another novel, but you’ll have to torture me if you want me to choose between Philip K. Dick’s collected short stories, or maybe his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene, or Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski.
Oh, and if there’s music, could I just have Ween on continuous loop? OK, then I’ve got everything I need.
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
I’m going to pass it to the lovely Mark at ReadySteadyBook , just to pay him back for never getting back to me on his "Ten Greatest Albums". And to Ken Macleod and Timid Maximalist , because they’re not only dead clever, but have had the good taste and wisdom to say nice things about our blog.
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