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  • #76
    Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
    I polished off Skagboys and Porno by Irvine Welsh over the last couple of weeks, both were excellent, although Skagboys was grim as hell.

    Having seen Trainspotting 2 recently and reading Porno, I kinda wish T2 was closer to the Porno, but it was a great follow-up to the first movie.
    I need to read more Welsh. Got a copy of Filth back in 99 or so. Great book. One day I will watch the film based on it.

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    • #77
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      Back in the day, somebody really should have made a giallo set during the Nazi occupation...

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      • #78
        Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
        I polished off Skagboys and Porno by Irvine Welsh over the last couple of weeks, both were excellent, although Skagboys was grim as hell.

        Having seen Trainspotting 2 recently and reading Porno, I kinda wish T2 was closer to the Porno, but it was a great follow-up to the first movie.
        DEAD MAN'S TROUSERS, which was published last year, is good. I liked that one a great deal.

        Originally posted by Newt Cox View Post
        I need to read more Welsh. Got a copy of Filth back in 99 or so. Great book. One day I will watch the film based on it.
        I loved the film adaptation of FILTH. McAvoy is superb in it.
        'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

        http://www.paul-a-j-lewis.com (my photography website)
        'All explaining in movies can be thrown out, I think': Elmore Leonard

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        • #79
          Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
          I polished off Skagboys and Porno by Irvine Welsh over the last couple of weeks, both were excellent, although Skagboys was grim as hell.

          Having seen Trainspotting 2 recently and reading Porno, I kinda wish T2 was closer to the Porno, but it was a great follow-up to the first movie.


          Yeah, I felt that PORNO managed to balance the grimness and comedy of the first book. SKAGBOYS was damn depressing.

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          • #80
            Just finished Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Thornbury. I thought it was an excellent and very fair look back at a pretty polarizing figure. If you had parents that didn't want you to listen to AC/DC as a kid and tried to force feed you Christian rock growing up, Larry was one of the rare acts that didn't suck. He gets compared to Dylan a lot, which isn't off base, but I like his voice more than Dylan's (whose voice I just flat out don't care for). It's humorous at times, moving at others. Pretty thought provoking too. Probably not a book most people will care about but for me, it really worked (helps that I listened to his stuff growing up, got back into his stuff a few years ago when I found an album in a $1 bin at a record fair - part of this is probably nostalgia).
            Rock! Shock! Pop!

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            • #81
              I just finished Skagboys and then Porno by Irvine Welsh and resumed my Harry Bosch reading with A Darkness More Than Night.

              Skagboys was kind of tough to get through, it's just so bleak. Not that a prequel to Trainspotting was going to be all sunshine and daisies, but it got fucking grim for long sections. Porno was fun, and in some ways more satisfying than Trainspotting 2 was, which shared many ideas.

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              • #82
                Originally posted by Newt Cox View Post
                I need to read more Welsh. Got a copy of Filth back in 99 or so. Great book. One day I will watch the film based on it.
                The movie of Filth was very good at capturing the feel of Welsh's writing.

                If you want to read more Welsh, I recommend Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, it's a bit less grounded than most of his other stuff, and does some fun things with shifting viewpoints.

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                • #83
                  Originally posted by Ian Jane View Post
                  Just finished Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Thornbury. I thought it was an excellent and very fair look back at a pretty polarizing figure. If you had parents that didn't want you to listen to AC/DC as a kid and tried to force feed you Christian rock growing up, Larry was one of the rare acts that didn't suck. He gets compared to Dylan a lot, which isn't off base, but I like his voice more than Dylan's (whose voice I just flat out don't care for). It's humorous at times, moving at others. Pretty thought provoking too. Probably not a book most people will care about but for me, it really worked (helps that I listened to his stuff growing up, got back into his stuff a few years ago when I found an album in a $1 bin at a record fair - part of this is probably nostalgia).

                  I'm about halfway through and really liking it so far. It's well-written, which is almost a rarity in biographies these days. I think that a lot of biography writers have come up in reality TV land, and think you have to 1-2 punch your way through everything.

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                  • #84
                    Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
                    The movie of Filth was very good at capturing the feel of Welsh's writing.

                    If you want to read more Welsh, I recommend Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, it's a bit less grounded than most of his other stuff, and does some fun things with shifting viewpoints.
                    I will find a copy of that. GOt three books last night

                    Tony Atlas Bio,Shiek Alnon Al kasey bio and the first Bobby the Brain heenan book. Buddy is shrinking his library and sold them to me for a good price,was around 7 bucks a book.

                    Now just gotta get my mind set on reading a book. This entire year it has been hard for me to focus on reading a book. I can plow thru comics and magazines easy. But a book I make it 3 pages and get distracted. When just a few years ago I read like 102 books in a year.

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                    • #85
                      I'm reading a collection of 500 short stories that I picked up via Kindle for 49 cents. I'm only about 10% of the way in. Some surprises include stories that were later used in tv and movies like Pigeons From Hell, Casting The Runes (Curse Of The Demon), The Dunwich Horror and the story that was used for Matango (Attack Of The Mushroom People).
                      "The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Film at 11".

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                      • #86
                        I finished off A Darkness More Than Night and started Desperation by Stephen King. I've read The Regulators about half a dozen times, but have never read Desperation yet, so I figured it's about time.

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                        • #87
                          Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
                          I finished off A Darkness More Than Night and started Desperation by Stephen King. I've read The Regulators about half a dozen times, but have never read Desperation yet, so I figured it's about time.
                          I've read both those books a few times. Desperation is good. I prefer Regulators.

                          Started up Too Much too Soon the Tony Atlas biography last night. Got a few wrestling books off a buddy the other day. And this one caught my eye.

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                          • #88
                            Originally posted by Darcy Parker View Post
                            I finished off A Darkness More Than Night and started Desperation by Stephen King. I've read The Regulators about half a dozen times, but have never read Desperation yet, so I figured it's about time.

                            I think that The Regulators and Desperation are both well-done books by King, but could have used some editing. Still, they're not in the same ridiculously unwieldly ballpark as garbage like The Tommyknockers.

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                            • #89
                              Got this today, it reprints the early 1970s series. I had several issues of it back then but never had a complete run. Always loved these reprints though, particularly the Golden Age ones.

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                              I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.

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                              • #90
                                A few weeks ago, I finally finished the Richard Laymon books I had in the queue. Didn't have time to write up comments till yesterday, which I did since unexpectedly did not go anywhere. Not to mention I was sad to see nothing posted in this thread for over a month. (Minor spoilers ahead, if anyone cares...and I apologize for being a bit long-winded.)

                                If the last book I read of his (BLOOD GAMES) was a boring 466-page novel with only one protagonist killing, the 467-page endurance test known as ENDLESS NIGHT seemed to be trying to make up for that (at least half of it did). It contains alternating sections concerning a teenage girl and boy who survive a home invasion massacre trying to outrun a relentless pursuit by one of the perps, and sections involving that same serial killer committing horrendous acts of rape and murder (when he's not reminiscing about prior rapes/murders he and his gang have committed). It was quite a contrast, too, with Laymon lovingly penning prose for the antagonist's grisly doings, while providing mostly vapid thoughts from the young girl, as well as corny dialogue between her and those around her. In some ways it reminded me of the sequence in THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT that alternated horrific scenes of murder with the incompetent actions of two bumbling law enforcement officers.

                                To be fair to Mr. Laymon, let me state that his extreme form of violence is generally not my cup of tea (sorry, I'm pretty much a wimp), and I had been warned ahead of time (by a few of you, in fact) about his style. With that in mind, from my perspective ENDLESS NIGHT is a literary example of torture porn, a term that I know a lot of folks hate but, as I define it, applies here. I realize it's totally subjective, but to me the amount of sadistic brutality in much of this book was excessive and not properly balanced against the parts involving the young girl the main serial killer is tracking down. I guess it wouldn't have even been quite as objectionable if after all the torment the killer and his gang dish out, their demises would have been satisfying. Yet not only does the fate of the main gang only get mentioned by the narrating sicko when he gives a brief description of the scene in which he dispatches them for betraying him, his existence is ended with a simple, quick shotgun blast to the head.

                                (Note: I do know that Laymon more formally falls into the "splatterpunk" category reserved for the written word, but I always felt that was a designation more aptly given to works merely of extreme gore...the kinds of things that might equate to the cinematic world of Fulci. My opinion.)

                                And I probably wouldn't have even been as irritated by all the torture and sadism if there were something original to be found in the whole process, to at least induce the occasional uncomfortable grin; instead, the plot was really just a standard, by-the-numbers killing spree/victim stalking outing.

                                IN THE DARK was an improvement, as its story of a woman receiving envelopes from some stranger that contained increasingly challenging tasks that earn her increasingly higher amounts of cash was really more a mystery than the violence-drenched adventures Laymon's more known for. Unfortunately, the even longer, 500-page novel consistently strains the limits of credulity, as the risks always seem greater than the rewards, but the main character just continues along playing the game. In addition, the book contains vast passages of the mostly uninteresting thoughts of the female lead, which is a common trait in most of the books of his that I've read.

                                Maybe he starts with a page-length in mind (understandably to receive a larger paycheck, if that's how the system worked), then fills each page with the most trite mental ramblings of the main character(s). In the case of this work, he has the woman continuously contemplate just about every possible reason for every occurrence, supernatural or otherwise; or the true intent of every person she encounters, whether it's sinister or benign. (At least in ONE RAINY NIGHT when he did this, it was divided amongst numerous characters, so they didn't all seem so dull and unrealistic.)

                                And like the previous two books of his I read, the title makes no sense, providing no real description of the contents of the work. There were were no games in BLOOD GAMES, ENDLESS NIGHT unfolded over several days and nights, and IN THE DARK wasn't really any more about the dark than most other horror stories (unless it was supposed to connote the fact that the lead female was constantly "in the dark" about the motivations of her secret taskmaster). The titles might have been slapped on by Leisure, I don't know.

                                So, in summary, regarding Richard Laymon, I think I will be tapping out now. (Oh, and since apparently the killers in ENDLESS NIGHT were inspired by the characters in a work of fiction that is clearly an allusion to Laymon's own THE WOODS ARE DARK, I'll not be seeking that one out, even though it seems to be his most praised accomplishment.)
                                VHS will never die!

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