I've really enjoyed what I've read from Iain Banks thus far. Actually, a few people from Bluelight turned me on to him, I otherwise would never have heard of him. The Wasp Factory and Consider Phlebas were awesome. I also read The Crow Road, but I really can't remember anything besides the granny blowing up in the beginning. I remember enjoying it though.
one of my favourite authors by a mile. 'walking on glass' is mind-bendingly awesome.
i can also heartily recommend:
the bridge (my #2 fave book of all time)
espedair street
canal dreams
the crow road
complicity
a song of stone
his vision is novel, moving and wonderful.
alasdair
Holy shit I posted that back in 2013. Just finished the book less than two months ago. Not because of any sort of difficulty or plodding pace, but rather as a result of an unintended hiatus from reading. I was reading literature at a breakneck pace for a couple years there, and then I took three years off. I had no idea it had been that long. A shame.
Walking on Glass was indeed excellent. I'm surprised the book ranks so low among the opinions of Banks fans; I honestly can't understand why.
That ending though. So good.
Anyways, since then I finally got around to reading Notes from the Underground (along with a handful of Dostoyevsky shorts that came with it), completing what I consider the essential Dostoyevsky trilogy, along with Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, which I read years ago. Quite possibly my favorite author, but there are so many great works out there yet to be read that that is always subject to change.
Right now I'm reading Thomas Pynchon's V., and loving it. I remember when I picked up Vineland a few years back, and while I couldn't deny the quality of the work, and took some enjoyment from certain sections and themes, I secretly fucking hated it. It was the first "challenge" book I had ever read, as well as my introduction to that genre or style or whatever it would be called, and so I guess not really understanding what the hell was going on and being constantly pissed off and frustrated was to be expected.
This time, I came prepared. I knew what I was getting myself into, prepared for the fact that it will be a long, oftentimes plodding read, and dove into it. Also, smartphones; No fucking way was I going to get up from whichever sofa cushion or bed I was laying on to hop into the next room where the desktop was located every time I came across some encyclopedic or historical element, or a word that not even my dictionary understands. Not then or now. I don't see how anybody could have read this back in 1963 and understood a fifth of what was actually going on; It's still hard to fully comprehend everything now. With a smartphone, however, all the information I need is right at my fingertips, all from the comfort of my ass. With that at my disposal, it's really been a lot of fun. Particularly enjoyed Chapter 3, with all the pertinent espionage and events gleamed from dialogue overheard by our 8 narrators, and all late European colonial Egyptian history going on, that I had no idea about before I read this book. Who ever heard of the Fashoda Incident?
