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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 06:43 pm: | |
Opinions anyone?
I've now read Book of Illusions and New York trilogy and loved both of them. Any recommendations for further reading? |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.167.124.163
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 08:07 pm: | |
Travels in the Scriptorium was the last book of his I read and it is a spare and bleak novella that is just lovely.
He was signing here in Denmark last year and I did reread his New York Trilogy, and it was even more amazing than I remembered it being. |
Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris
Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 08:58 pm: | |
I quite enjoyed Book of Illusions and (especially) The New York Trilogy. The Music of Chance and Moon Palace are also good. |
Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.243.16.243
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 09:30 pm: | |
> I quite enjoyed Book of Illusions and (especially) The New York Trilogy. The Music of Chance and Moon Palace are also good.
I agree with all these recommendations - these are my fave Auster books (I read most of them)
The Music of Chance was also adapted into a rather good movie that captures the existentialist atmosphere of the book well. |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 38.113.181.169
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 09:46 pm: | |
Auster is great. I loved pretty much everything he did up to "Book of Illusions", and have merely liked what he's done since.
Mr Vertigo is another good one and often overlooked because of the NY Trilogy and Music of Chance.
(Do yourself a favour, though, and avoid his film "Lulu on the Bridge") |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.241.143
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 10:45 pm: | |
The film adaptation of The Music of Chance was brilliant. The New York Trilogy is next on my reading pile... |
Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.243.16.243
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 12:04 am: | |
Now that I think about it, Auster wrote the script for the entertaining film SMOKE, with William Hurt and Harvey Keitel. Worth watching. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.167.124.163
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 12:33 am: | |
Smoke was an excellent picture. The opening novella in the New York Trilogy just does so many amazing things, and then the collage with the other two stories makes it a memorable and powerful collection indeed; Left lots of stuff in the dust IMHO. His memoir 'Hand to Mouth' is also well worth reading. |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 99.225.104.255
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 03:15 am: | |
"City of Glass", the first of the New York tales, was adapted by David Mazzuchelli and Paul Karasik a few years ago and is well worth reading. The book's influence on independent comics is still being felt today and cannot be underestimated. |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 08:28 am: | |
My vote would be for Mr Vertgio too. Auster does tent to tell rather than show in his books, but he's still rather good. I recently had the good fortune to pick up a copy of his latest in a remainder store, and it was signed. Result for TWO QUID! |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 02:06 pm: | |
anyone read Timbuktu? |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 38.113.181.169
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 04:18 pm: | |
Yes. I wasn't terribly impressed with it, but I'm not really the market for stories told from a dog's point of view. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 05:12 pm: | |
FLUKE is a very underrated novel told from that perspective. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 05:18 pm: | |
Anything Auster does makes me weep with joy. Timbuktu broke my heart. The Invention of Solitude, about the death of his father and writing is a must for aspiring writers. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 05:54 pm: | |
I really liked fluke. James Herbert has a great story about when he told his publishers the idea. they told him to give the dog rabies to appeal to his horror readership.
no prizes for guessing what his reply was... |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| | Posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 - 05:00 pm: | |
There's a reader review of NYT on amazon which claims that the book is lazy and unintelligent.
Well now we know.
Might that apply more to the reviewer than the book... |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.170.1.181
| | Posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 - 05:08 pm: | |
Yeah. I'd rate FLUKE as probably Hebert's best book.
Auster's missus has written a couple of novels, which I believe are supposed to be good. I flipped through the opening sentences of the most recent and could easily imagine Auster himself having written them. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.6.98
| | Posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 - 05:29 pm: | |
James Herbert has a great story about when he told his publishers the idea. they told him to give the dog rabies to appeal to his horror readership.
There's a great story idea here alone, Weber. An author who increases his exposure to horrors, to get to the core of it - from simple self-torture, to infecting himself with rabies, to murder, to even further depravities. The protagonist finds this man's diaries, an increasingly alarming record of unimaginable shock and gruesomeness... until, the author reveals he's found the very source of evil... he's just off to check out the address he's been given... no more entries after that... except that tantalizing address....
Nah. 'sbeen done, I'm sure. |