Friday, February 15, 2008
I always read books in the mornings, in the half hour or hour before I have to leave to go to work. I do not read books at any other time, although I do read magazines compulsively: Any magazine that I can get my hands on.
I have just started reading "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I have read it, and the sequel "The Fall Of Hyperion" before, a very long time ago, but figured that if I wanted to start the next two books in the sequence ("Endymion" and "The Rise Of Endymion"), a refresher would probably be in order.
I will write about those books when I have finished them.
I have finished reading two books this year so far. "The Insider" and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".
"The Insider" was written by Piers Morgan, ex editor of the British tabloid newspapers "The News Of The World" and "The Daily Mirror". Wikipedia's entry on him is pretty expansive, so if you want to know more about his career, click away. I'll give you my take, anyway.
I think that Piers Morgan is a dark creature of the night. He is a vile, smug, arrogant, self satisfied scum sucker and bottom dweller. He is an inhabitant of the gutter and prone to historical revisionism. (Piers introduces Paul McCartney to Heather Mills! Piers convinces Tony Blair to run for a third term! Piers has private lunches with Diana Spencer and she tells him everything.) Piers was a tabloid editor with his fingers in many pies and many, many contacts. A tabloid editor who would sell his own Grandmother for good story. A man who considers muck racking and celebrity baiting a game and a game that he can play well. He is also, for an experienced newspaper man, quite a wooden and bad writer. The book is structured like a diary, but Piers fully admits that the source material was not a personal diary, but rather his, and his various P.A.'s, appointment diaries, with the relevant details filled in from memory.
Got that? OK.
It is a good job that the book is hilarious, tasteless, scurrilous and essential reading, isn't it? I really enjoyed "The Insider" as a guilty pleasure and would heartily recommend it to anybody who fancies a glimpse into the world of the tabloid hack and the gossip driven world that they circumnavigate. If one thing is demonstrated clearly by this book, it is the extent that celebrities will collaborate and collude with the media when it suits them to do so. Not that we didn't already know that, eh?
The second book I have finished reading this year is "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver.
Raymond Carver's short stories were the source material behind such magical films as Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" and Ray Lawrence's "Jindabyne" and I love them. Carver's stories are cold, hard and difficult to pin down. Imagine looking through a window and witnessing a scene mid flow, no beginning, no end. Then, imagine trying to make sense of that scene and where it fits into a bigger story. That is what a Carver story is like.
I think that Raymond Carver was a cold, hard genius. Also, he never used 20 words when he could get away with 10. A good lesson for everybody who tries to write.
I will write about films tomorrow.
********
I have a girl on my mind and it is not Lorraine. I think I am being stupid. I have no what she thinks of me.
I have just started reading "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I have read it, and the sequel "The Fall Of Hyperion" before, a very long time ago, but figured that if I wanted to start the next two books in the sequence ("Endymion" and "The Rise Of Endymion"), a refresher would probably be in order.
I will write about those books when I have finished them.
I have finished reading two books this year so far. "The Insider" and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".
"The Insider" was written by Piers Morgan, ex editor of the British tabloid newspapers "The News Of The World" and "The Daily Mirror". Wikipedia's entry on him is pretty expansive, so if you want to know more about his career, click away. I'll give you my take, anyway.
I think that Piers Morgan is a dark creature of the night. He is a vile, smug, arrogant, self satisfied scum sucker and bottom dweller. He is an inhabitant of the gutter and prone to historical revisionism. (Piers introduces Paul McCartney to Heather Mills! Piers convinces Tony Blair to run for a third term! Piers has private lunches with Diana Spencer and she tells him everything.) Piers was a tabloid editor with his fingers in many pies and many, many contacts. A tabloid editor who would sell his own Grandmother for good story. A man who considers muck racking and celebrity baiting a game and a game that he can play well. He is also, for an experienced newspaper man, quite a wooden and bad writer. The book is structured like a diary, but Piers fully admits that the source material was not a personal diary, but rather his, and his various P.A.'s, appointment diaries, with the relevant details filled in from memory.
Got that? OK.
It is a good job that the book is hilarious, tasteless, scurrilous and essential reading, isn't it? I really enjoyed "The Insider" as a guilty pleasure and would heartily recommend it to anybody who fancies a glimpse into the world of the tabloid hack and the gossip driven world that they circumnavigate. If one thing is demonstrated clearly by this book, it is the extent that celebrities will collaborate and collude with the media when it suits them to do so. Not that we didn't already know that, eh?
The second book I have finished reading this year is "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver.
Raymond Carver's short stories were the source material behind such magical films as Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" and Ray Lawrence's "Jindabyne" and I love them. Carver's stories are cold, hard and difficult to pin down. Imagine looking through a window and witnessing a scene mid flow, no beginning, no end. Then, imagine trying to make sense of that scene and where it fits into a bigger story. That is what a Carver story is like.
I think that Raymond Carver was a cold, hard genius. Also, he never used 20 words when he could get away with 10. A good lesson for everybody who tries to write.
I will write about films tomorrow.
********
I have a girl on my mind and it is not Lorraine. I think I am being stupid. I have no what she thinks of me.
Labels: Reading
# posted by Pynchon @ 8:52 pm 
