What are you reading now?

[Spagoli]

We need to talk about Kevin.

Easily the book of the year for me, looks at the question are we responsible for the actions of our children. The style is innovative, the content is disturbing to say the least and the ending takes your breath away. Job done then.

[Pookmunki]

Yeah, there are a bunch of Haruki readers on here. I'm trying to get my friends to read them - using exactly the two books you mention.

Glad to know that, he's one of those writers who i have no frigging idea what the story is about (esp his last chapters...WTF?) but i know i like it, so thats all that matters to me

Six and counting, including my mum, who's usually into ninny fritterage like Maeve Binchy and ****

[Gerry Helmet]

My mate just passed me "Big Apple Takedown" A WWE novel......

From the back Cover...

"December 2001: Vince McMahon steps out of a snowy night into a diner in upstate New York for a meeting with old friend Phil Thomson, now a highly placed government official. Thomson has a strange proposition: creating a new covert black-ops group using the Superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment. The WWE's talented men and women are perfect. Highly skilled athletes with the ideal cover, they travel all across the country and the globe; no one would find it unusual to find them in a town one day and gone the next. The government would train and support the wrestlers in every way possible except one: no one must know the truth. March 2006: The Superstars have been handed their latest assignment - take down a commercial-grade methyl-amphetamine plant that is bankrolling terrorist activities in Europe. Their mission seems simple and straightforward, until a member of their team is taken prisoner. Now all that they've worked so hard for is in jeopardy, and one of their own might be killed..."

This could be the worst plot of all time, should be a terrible read but good for a laugh!

[Pookmunki]

That sounds so clownshoes...

[Big Seany]

At the moment reading Embedded In America (Onion news archive) and Tony Cascarino's stellar autobiog, one of the finest football books ever written.

[Big Seany]

My mate just passed me "Big Apple Takedown" A WWE novel......

This could be the worst plot of all time, should be a terrible read but good for a laugh!

Check this review out from the US Amazon site! Lolz

In my life as an English Professor, I have had the joy of reading any of a lare selection of classic books, brilliant treatises on the human condition, and some of the most brilliantly revolutionary prose that hallmarked the great movements in human history. I feel, though, that my faith in literature has been increased to a level I truly did not feel possible after reading this book.

It is truly rare when a book changes your life in a fundamental way. For some, the Bible was their path to a new and better life. Others feel that Paine's Common Sense is a truly great piece of political propaganda that tries to raise humanity to a higher level. Others, on the other hand, are partial to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.

I say "A pox on ALL of these houses".

Like a very special episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger", WWE's "Big Apple Takedown" manages to simultaneously make one weep at the emotionally taut imagery, laugh at the rapier-sharp wit, and contemplate the deep, inner discussions of the soul that are the hallmark of sweaty guys with questionable drug habits.

And, honestly, the book is a little infuriating. Why IS the government wasting its money paying for a military with many nuclear missiles when ALL that is needed to save the world from evil and chaos are the occasional errant chair shot, a knee to the groinal region, followed by an overly elaborate finishing sequence?

The decision to use WWE superstars --- "wrestlers" does not remotely do legends like HHH justice, let's be frank --- to sniff out a drug cartel is the kind of inspired genius that makes lesser authors like Poe weep in their beer. You didn't see George Orwell use imagery as subtle as a glistening body of pure, pent-up, moderately eroticized squashing drug kingpins in 1984, did you?

I tell you, next to this book, Madame Bovary has as much plot as a 3rd grader's book of Mad Libs.

I, personally, enjoyed the discrete reference to another classic of American literature --- "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", with a plot that, bluntly, ripped off this book's plot in the most diabolical and sinical of manners.

Kudos to you, WWE. You have clearly demonstrated that the dramatic masterpiece that is the average episode of RAW is not an accident. This is the book that makes one appreciate the subtlety of a good fart joke or an unexpected "puppies" reference. I can only hope they keep Mr. Josephs on the payroll to produce storyline that can even approach this level of inspiration.

[Paulos G]

Class!

[k0pp0]

Anyone got any recommendations for a new book to read.. Gernally Horror's my bag, although I've read everything that Stephen King/James Herbert/etc etc has written. I also read a bit of SciFi, Pete F Hamilton, Ian M Banks etc.

Considering Life of Pi got rave reviews, I thought it was absolutely ****e. So non of that rubbish.

Oh yeah, thicker the better too. F'nar!

[Dirty Sanchez]

Not quite your genre but I've just read Black Hawk Down. Fantastic book, a pretty gritty experience all round.

[J0e Musashi]

The Game by Neil Strauss.

[k0pp0]

Ta.. I'll have a shifty. Enjoyed the film of Black Hawk Down so I'll give it a crack.

Here's one for you game/book buffs.. There was a Dungeon's and Dragon's game for the speccy that came with a big bastard D&D book.. can anyone remember what it was? The book was good, but the game was ****e.

[Spagoli]

The righteous men by Sam Bourne. Supposedly the new Dan Browne. Only just started but looks good.

[MattyD]

Not quite your genre but I've just read Black Hawk Down. Fantastic book, a pretty gritty experience all round.

Was this a novelisation of the movie or a military history / eyewitness account?

I'm reading The Third Policeman. Apparently it is a major inspiration for the writers of TV show Lost but I've never seen it and only bought the book because it was ?2 in HMV and I have a penchent for the strange.

[briareos_kerensky]

Ron Hubbard's Dianetics.

No, really, no jokes here. Except the book. I found it in a old book store in the outskirts of Milan for 2 euros and immediately bought it. Comedy gold. However thinking that him and someone else truly believes in what it's written on it is actually scares me to death.

[djjimbob]

Dean Koontz - Strangers.

450 pages in and I still haven't got a clue what the hell is going on. It's a cracking read though.