Richard’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2012)

Richard’s comments from the The WTF? Book Club group.

Awesome I look forward to discussing it :)

Its a light read but a fun book to reboot the club with but his books are all great especially naked and when engulfed in flames

Seeing the fallout from the election results I couldn't help but wonder what Hunter S. Thompson would have made of this whole situation.

What are your thoughts on the godfather of Gonzo Journalism and his books?

Let's hear your thoughts and favourites

So as some of you might know, my co-admin Sharon is a huge Stephen King fan to the point where her face was immortalised as part of the back cover artwork on the UK special edition of The Wind Through the Keyhole.

As of this morning she announced on the FB page that starting January she will be re-reading the whole back catalogue, with the aim being to cover one book per month with discussions for each title as its finished.

Obviously this will not change the monthly book selections for the group which will continue unchanged, but rather give you a second option to read each month, as well as removing the domination of the polls every time we enter one of his books into the mix.

While we could have made another group for this project, we both felt that there was enough King fans in the group as we saw with "The Shining" discussion to justify adding this as a second option.

Ok folks, the floor is still open for ideas on books you like to see discussed by the group, so let us know what you think we should be reading.

Am I right in thinking that he's dropped the local dialect in the newer books?

He's certainly an author that we should cover again on the group, maybe even redo "Filth" if that's what the group wants as didn't really grab anyone to discuss it the first time round, but by the looks of things there would be atleast 3 people to discuss it this time.

I've avoided his books after failing to get into "Glue". Just find them so hard to get into when he insists on writing his books as the characters would talk with their accent. The end result being that I spent too much time getting used to the language to focus on the story.

So with the trailer for "Trainspotting 2" now released I thought I'd ask what the group thought about Irvine Welsh who wrote the original novel aswell as its sequel "Porno" which this new film will be a loose adaptation off due to Danny Boyle not being a fan of the book.

Still what do you think of his books?

Currently looking at starting in December with "Santaland Diaries" by David Sedaris.

Looking forward to hopefully coming and discovering some fun and interesting titles in the months ahead.

So the WTF? Book Club hasn't been active for quite awhile and despite our previous attempt to restart activity only for life to once more get in the way, interest in this club has only continued.

As such we have decided to take another stab at rebooting the club and hopefully continue our original goal of providing a group were fans of cult, obscure and occasional downright random fiction can gather, share recommendations and discuss their favourite titles.

I look forward to hopefully welcoming back members old and new and together creating something great.

"Vernon God Little" I know people who rave on about this book, but honestly I have made two attempts at it and failed each time to finish it.

I would also note that James Joyce is possibly one of the most overated authors alongside Alan Bennett, whose books recive such unjustified praise.

It does take a couple of chapters to get going and then it just pulls you in completly. Still possibly one of the hardest books to make sound as good and suprisingly moving as it is, without generally freaking people out with the family's antics.

Still no idea how they planned to make a film version of this book, which Johnny Depp was unsuprisingly attached to awhile back.

Chuck mentioned the group in "Fugitives and Refugees" as part of the section on the Santa rampages.

As we all know Wikipedia is the home to a host of random infomation on a huge range of obscure and random subjects, which can make for fun reading when its the only thing your work internet will let you acess.

With this in mind I just wanted to set up the thread to share links to any random or fun articles you have found on there.

Here's an example to kick things off

Cacophony Society (The inspiration for Fight Clubs Project Mayhem)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacophon...

It is a book I want to add to the next book vote, especially as I got a real kick out of the film version, so keen to compare the two. Would also like to look at bizarre fiction novels aswell as always held a curiosity for me.

While May be reserved for reading On the Road we are open to ideas as always for future book ideas you would like to see in the polls, aswell as ideas for themed book votes.

Still have to start fables, aswell as 100 bullets. Just started DMZ, Vol. 1: On the Ground which is an incredible read, set during the 2nd civil war following a photojournalist reporting from within New York

Set in a fictional affluent college town where students attend more parties than classes, and sexualities are more fluid than before, The Rules of Attraction presents a bizarrely dark and satirical take on the upper-middle-class college student culture, as told mainly through the view points of Sean, Lauren and Sean.

Still Ellis here is keen to keep the reader guessing as he randomly throws in the view points of other students, including Clay (the lead of his debut novel "Less Than Zero" aswell as Victor who would also get his own novel with "Glamorama". It would also be with this novel that Ellis established his long running theme of allowing the characters from his books to crossover, as especially highlighted by the first appearance here of Patrick Bateman of "American Psycho".

Does this multi view point style of storytelling provide a fuller world view or are all three of his leads as morally deprived as each other?

Equally with so much sex, drug taking and general bad behaviour on show, is there a real point that Ellis is trying to tell with this book, or is this essentially just an exercise in shock and awe?

The floor is now yours to discuss.

Recently I have been on a real kick with my graphic novel reading, especially with the more indie series such as Hack/Slash and The Boys, and curious to see what other series and one shot titles wanted to recommend,

Also thought it would be great to use this thread to help to provide a starting point for those who are yet to get into the genre.

The Empty Page is one of my favourite collections, with a variety of authors taking inspiration from Sonic Youth songs, a band I never got to grips with (its just noise) yet this collection is incredible

Skinema I would class in the same short story catagory, while having a nice twisted edge to it.