The GOT Book Club

[LostLegend]

Have you read McCarthy’s - The Border Trilogy ?

The first book out of the three, All the Pretty Horses is about as upbeat you’re going to get in a McCarthy book.

That book in particular, is one of the most beautifully crafted books I’ve ever read. It’s just stunning.

After you’ve read that, you fully understand what a literary genius McCarthy is and why his books are studied at university level.

I've read 3 of his now and I'm pretty sure I'm going to work my way through as much of his work as I can.
A friend of mine has been raving about 'The Sunset Limited' which I believe is a shorter one.

To be honest, my TBR list is getting out of hand, I need to stop buying books
I've got John WIlliams 'Butchers Crossing' sitting there which a few in here have recommended, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol which was a pain to get hold of a copy of, but instead I've just picked up a couple of books by a young Scottish horror writer called David Sodergren, who's been making a name for himself recently. *sigh*

 

[COYBL25]

I've read 3 of his now and I'm pretty sure I'm going to work my way through as much of his work as I can.
A friend of mine has been raving about 'The Sunset Limited' which I believe is a shorter one.

To be honest, my TBR list is getting out of hand, I need to stop buying books lol
I've got John WIlliams 'Butchers Crossing' sitting there which a few in here have recommended, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol which was a pain to get hold of a copy of, but instead I've just picked up a couple of books by a young Scottish horror writer called David Sodergren, who's been making a name for himself recently. *sigh* lol

Butchers Crossing is a whisker away from being as good as a McCarthy book.

I’d put All the Pretty Horses very high up on your list too, as it’s mind blowing good.

I’ve not heard of David Sodergen before and I’ve had a quick look - sounds right up my street

Ps - this is an outstanding read too and another historical book, that reads like a novel ( it would make a brilliant film, but I think sone of the content would be too hard for audiences in the US to take )

 

[sdk]

The first book out of the three, All the Pretty Horses is about as upbeat you’re going to get in a McCarthy book.

Heh. Compare and contrast with, say, Blood Meridian or The Road. I love McCarthy's work and lament his passing, but I look forward to reading some of his earlier stuff that I never got to. I've heard Sutree, which I think was his debut novel, is both really good and quite different from his later work. What a writer he was.

 

[sdk]

I've also been meaning to read Butcher's Crossing based on the strength of another John Williams novel, Stoner. Once I got over my disappointment that it wasn't about actual stoners (when will my people be represented??), I really liked it.

I just finished this past year's Booker Prize winner, Paul Lynch's Prophet Song, a timely tale in which a woman and her children navigate daily life in a deteriorating Ireland that's just put a fascist regime in power. It's good in an unflaggingly bleak way, a solid downer. I was pleased to reach the end, though; it was a touch too believable to go down easily.

Now I'm reading Primeval and Other Times, one of the earlier novels (pub. 1996) of Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish Nobel laureate who's become one of my very favorite living writers. It concerns the goings-on at the namesake Polish village through much of the twentieth century, and I'm not surprised to find myself liking it an awful lot because Tokarczuk's the greatest. Tokarczuk!

There's just too much to read and I think it might kill me.

 

[LostLegend]

Ps - this is an outstanding read too and another historical book, that reads like a novel ( it would make a brilliant film, but I think sone of the content would be too hard for audiences in the US to take )

View attachment 257342

Yeah, I've read that, superb book. Having read Blood Meridian afterwards, I can see how some people compare them, not just the brutality but the descriptions of the majestic countryside this is all taking place in.
I posted this quote from it in here when I first read it. Genuinely bleaker than any fictional horror I've read.

“a void in the snow surrounded by bloodied bones of children and the body of what appeared to be a woman stripped of all her flesh. At the foot of the crater was a camp fire surrounded by pale faced, skeletal children all weeping inconsolably”

I’ve not heard of David Sodergen before and I’ve had a quick look - sounds right up my street

He's apparently a massive nerd for 70's & 80's horror, b-movies & exploitation cinema and all these influences come through in his stories. The opening page of 'The Haar' says: "For my Gran, she would not have liked this book at all"

His instagram page is a trip as well. It's just pictures of his pug "Boris" next to his favourite books & films:

 

[COYBL25]

Heh. Compare and contrast with, say, Blood Meridian or The Road. I love McCarthy's work and lament his passing, but I look forward to reading some of his earlier stuff that I never got to. I've heard Sutree, which I think was his debut novel, is both really good and quite different from his later work. What a writer he was.

His last two books, the Passenger and Stella Marris, were massively disappointing. Self indulgent and deliberately written to baffle anyone but a nuclear physicist

 

[COYBL25]

Yeah, I've read that, superb book. Having read Blood Meridian afterwards, I can see how some people compare them, not just the brutality but the descriptions of the majestic countryside this is all taking place in.
I posted this quote from it in here when I first read it. Genuinely bleaker than any fictional horror I've read.





He's apparently a massive nerd for 70's & 80's horror, b-movies & exploitation cinema and all these influences come through in his stories. The opening page of 'The Haar' says: "For my Gran, she would not have liked this book at all" lol

His instagram page is a trip as well. It's just pictures of his pug "Boris" next to his favourite books & films:



lol

What a film The Indifferent Skies would make.

But similar to Blood Meridian, it would be all but impossible to stay true to the book and get it through the film sensors, due to the content.

 

[LostLegend]

What a film The Indifferent Skies would make.

The story of the Donner Party is more well known in the states and there have been a few films made on the story (a few for-TV movies as well) not seen any of them, but from what I can tell, most of them have 'toned' down the brutality of what happened, which kind of defeats the object, as some of the most memorable moments are the most brutal.

Members of the group cooking Sarah Grave's husbands heart and other internal organs on sticks over the campfire minutes after he died while she's sat there watching was one of those real WTF moments. I'm not sure how you could even shoot that scene without it coming across as gratuitous. But it really happened!

 

[Bilko]

I've also been meaning to read Butcher's Crossing based on the strength of another John Williams novel, Stoner. Once I got over my disappointment that it wasn't about actual stoners (when will my people be represented??), I really liked it.

I just finished this past year's Booker Prize winner, Paul Lynch's Prophet Song, a timely tale in which a woman and her children navigate daily life in a deteriorating Ireland that's just put a fascist regime in power. It's good in an unflaggingly bleak way, a solid downer. I was pleased to reach the end, though; it was a touch too believable to go down easily.

Now I'm reading Primeval and Other Times, one of the earlier novels (pub. 1996) of Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish Nobel laureate who's become one of my very favorite living writers. It concerns the goings-on at the namesake Polish village through much of the twentieth century, and I'm not surprised to find myself liking it an awful lot because Tokarczuk's the greatest. Tokarczuk!

There's just too much to read and I think it might kill me.

I found "prophet song "a bit of a drag of a read. It took a long time for me to read the first 70% of the book, but ran through the end.

 

[Bilko]

I enjoyed this odd book .trying to describe it isn't doing it justice, read a review.

Been reading a couple of Sam Blake thriller books, decent author imo.

 

[matty1878]

the only book i’ve ever read was
probably how to colour in one

 

[sdk]

His last two books, the Passenger and Stella Marris, were massively disappointing. Self indulgent and deliberately written to baffle anyone but a nuclear physicist

I've heard mixed things about that pair. Some were baffled, and the two people I know who were really positive about 'em are both hard-science poindexters. As a tender-minded Humanities naif, I figure I'll read the rest of his corpus before I ever try those two.

 

[summerisle]

I've also been meaning to read Butcher's Crossing based on the strength of another John Williams novel, Stoner. Once I got over my disappointment that it wasn't about actual stoners (when will my people be represented??), I really liked it.

I just finished this past year's Booker Prize winner, Paul Lynch's Prophet Song, a timely tale in which a woman and her children navigate daily life in a deteriorating Ireland that's just put a fascist regime in power. It's good in an unflaggingly bleak way, a solid downer. I was pleased to reach the end, though; it was a touch too believable to go down easily.

Now I'm reading Primeval and Other Times, one of the earlier novels (pub. 1996) of Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish Nobel laureate who's become one of my very favorite living writers. It concerns the goings-on at the namesake Polish village through much of the twentieth century, and I'm not surprised to find myself liking it an awful lot because Tokarczuk's the greatest. Tokarczuk!

There's just too much to read and I think it might kill me.

I read this in my youth, it describes the author's experiences, good and bad, of consuming the poppy (laudanum) ; rather good considering it was written in the 1820s.

 

[sdk]

I read this in my youth, it describes the author's experiences, good and bad, of consuming the poppy (laudanum) ; rather good considering it was written in the 1820s.

Yeah, I liked that. Some litsy Englishmen of the time were content to wander lonely as a cloud and gawk at lakes and stuff, but it took De Quincey to demonstrate the virtues of indoor fun.

 

[Bilko]

the only book i’ve ever read was
probably how to colour in one

I started reading again after realising how much crap I was reading on my phone, scrolling through absolute rubbish. It grew into watching crap tv then, and now to help me sleep last thing at night,Never looked back !