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Favorite Author?

felix said:
my answer: Iain (M) Banks.
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is the (m) in parentheses because you like his work as both iain banks and iain m banks?

until very recently, and for a very long time, 'the bridge' by iain banks was my favourite book of all time. i've enjoyed pretty much all of his books as iain banks but i've started a couple of his iain m banks books and haven't been able to get into them. maybe i just need to give iain m banks another try. which would you recommend?

alasdair
 
Oh yeah I forgot about Philip K. Dick -- that guy's books are NUTS!

Robert Anton Wilson is the other one I thought of today. He knew a voluminous amount of history and culture, and was a deep thinker with a perspective on life you can't not respect.
 
Originally Posted by felix
my answer: Iain (M) Banks.
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alasdairm said:
is the (m) in parentheses because you like his work as both iain banks and iain m banks?

until very recently, and for a very long time, 'the bridge' by iain banks was my favourite book of all time. i've enjoyed pretty much all of his books as iain banks but i've started a couple of his iain m banks books and haven't been able to get into them. maybe i just need to give iain m banks another try. which would you recommend?
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both, yes!

i recommend reading them in their published order. not mandatory but it def helps! u need to understand the whole 'culture' concept. it is a place i want to live, forever. :)

so 'consider phlebas' first. :)
 
If I could pick one, it would be...yep, Bukowski.


2394501436_e84fcfcb01_o.jpg

It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
—Factotum, 1975
 
Ali, I mostly agree with felix, but you could try 'The Player of Games' as a good starting point. Or maybe 'Use of Weapons'.

Felix, you mean 'Matter', or is there another new one? I've got Matter sitting on my shelf as well.
 
haruki murakami is probably my favorite since we're just picking one.. his books are so beautiful and bizarre. the perfect blend of surreal and mundane, timelessness and pop culture.. i would recommend any of his books to anyone on this board, heh, but especially kafka on the shore, or if you want something fucking epic (and long) the wind-up bird chronicles...
 
^ Oh my wife and I are reading 'Kafka on the Shore' out loud together right now! An absolutely mindblowing book, and very philosophical. I wasn't moved by 'Wild Sheep Chase', though.

Murakami's style is surreal, but not in a David Lynch film sort of way. Reminds me almost of Steven Millhauser, and this one famous Mexican author whose name escapes me now, who were great at blurring the line between the possible and the impossible.
 
Murakami is like if you want to read an anime, but you're embarrassed to have people see you with a comic book.
 
I see Philip K Dick has already been mentioned...

I'd have to say Salman Rushdie.
 
Infinite Jest said:
Ali, I mostly agree with felix, but you could try 'The Player of Games' as a good starting point. Or maybe 'Use of Weapons'.

Felix, you mean 'Matter', or is there another new one? I've got Matter sitting on my shelf as well.
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TPOG is also a good starter (the second book) but I think the Culture is best explained in the published order.

And yes, I meant 'Matter'. :)
 
An Iz said:
Murakami is like if you want to read an anime, but you're embarrassed to have people see you with a comic book.
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lol -- yeah that's pretty much spot on.

What you said speaks to a cultural rule in the West (comics are for kids), as opposed the literary merit of manga.
 
An Iz said:
Murakami is like if you want to read an anime, but you're embarrassed to have people see you with a comic book.
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i wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with a comic book. lol. it's silly to be embarrassed by your own interests.
 
Favorite ever? Hemingway. Gimme an alcoholic loner and womanizer with a frank writing style and a realistic view of the world.

Current favorite? Palahniuk. Just finished Choke (which was great in a bizarre and disturbing kinda way), just starting Diary.
 
Give me any author with lush descriptives, who can really capture the full sensory experience of being in the setting they create. Give me any author who can create characters that haunt me, because the way they're written about makes me feel like they're old friends of mine. Give me a good triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

I've never gotten the appeal of all those rough-cut, shaggy bearded, grumpy, alcoholic macho loners, who write in raw shocking prose that smacks of unquenchable frustration.
 
I like Thomas Pynchon and Vladimir Nabokov. Philip K Dick and Kurt Vonnegut have great ideas (I like the former better) but their prose has moments of shittiness. John Updike has amazing prose, but lacks the postmodernism creds.

These discussions are great ways to find potential friends, by the way.
 
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