Jay Landsman

Jay Landsman You can't get better than the real thing.

Finally finished A Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: a masterfully written book that would hardly look out of place being released during this decade. Its relevance to the current day events is pretty scary.

Anything by Coldplay, Snow Patrol, and The Killers

Has anyone read an engaging book on these subjects? I've found a few on Amazon, but I'd like a recommendation from somebody before parting with my cash. Don't all post at once

That's a good thing, considering that the song is about how the Chinese government blankly denied that the Tiananmen square massacre ever happened. Maybe intelligence subconsciously kicked in and discovered the true meaning of the song

Sorry to hear. I happen to live in Port Talbot, so I can't ridicule you too much

I'm starting A Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad today -- mainly due to the fact that Hunter Thompson has mentioned the bloke so many times in his work. The premise of the book really interests me, so I am quite confident that I will enjoy it.

Not in the mood to latch onto a narrative today, so I've been reading a few Hunter S. articles from The Great Shark Hunt. It never gets boring to see his opinions on a certain Richard Milhous Nixon: one of the most corrupt and treacherous figures in American political history.

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon (writer of The Wire) has to be one of the most engaging and funny crime books every written. It meshes harrowing scenes with hilarious police humour - sometimes in the same paragraph! Anybody who has a remote interest in crime literature will love this book without a doubt.

Everyone involved in the making of the advert promoting the channel Viva should be stoned to death.

I really want to read the autobiography of Lenny Bruce, one of my favourite comedians, and one of the main inspirations to almost every great comedian that followed him. I also want to read Mr. Nice by Howard Marks, as my normally reliable mate raves about it; and he is a fellow South Welshman

This is a fun little thread where we can warn our fellow members off the many authors who's work offers no credible source of literary talent. Fire away people!

I couldn't say that I dislike poetry; it's more of an indifference towards it. I don't really think that it's possible to have a strong dislike towards poetry unless you're an extremely irrational person, as I don't think that it's the type of thing that can bring up such a feeling. I think that people dislike poetry due to what they perceive as a pretentious audience - rather than the actual works themselves. You will obviously encounter a few snobs who love poetry, but you encounter morons in every facet of life with every possible interest. Stereotyping is one of the most common flaws found in people, and it's something that all of us have probably at least once in our lives.

It's nice to have a civilised and intelligent debate over a subject after witnessing some of the brutal arguments that I've seen on internet forums in the past; and who knows - maybe I'll come to love poetry in the future, and will laugh at myself when looking back through the thread

It happens to be on my wish-list too! Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are two writers who's work I plan on exploring deeply in the coming months.

Not at all The main subject that I deem extremely important is politics. There are way too many people who are willfully ignorant of how our country is run just because they find political figures 'boring' Now, I accept that most of them are boring, but that doesn't mean that you just shouldn't care about what goes on around you. One of the reasons that things are in such a mess is because people are too busy worshipping a deity based on what a book told them rather than giving two hoots about what real things are going on right in front of them. I assume that there is some good political poetry about, but I wouldn't even be interested in that. My main reason for reading is to be informed, and I just don't feel that I am learning anything that is significant to me from a poem. Even the great songwriters from my favourite bands/artists (The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Clash, Dylan, and so on ...) don't influence me in the way they are supposed too. I don't think I can fully explain my reasons for not having an enthusiastic interest in poetry, but it's just something that I don't think is ever going to come to me. It doesn't mean I am uncultured baboon who can't distinguish between 'your' and 'you're' I'll try and make up for my lack of interest in poetry by reading Ulysses five times over

The original point that I'm yet to read a poem that means anything to me still stands though. I don't react at all to love poems, as I'm a born misanthrope who has a bad habit of not being able to spend long periods of time in the company of any person. I think that people should be allowed to have a disinterest in poetry without the literature snobs (not aimed at anybody here) scoffing at them, as there many subjects that I, and others deem important that are largely ignored by the same people. We all have our blind spots, and that makes us human I guess.

It's the greatest TV show ever to have aired. I would highly recommend reading Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner if you love the show. They are well-written and engaging books worthy of your time.

I am yet to read a good sports book, but I plan on getting The Fight by Norman Mailer and The Sweet Science by A. J. Liebling for christmas, as I have a massive interest in boxing; and it is a sport that can make for interesting literature in my eyes. Being a boxing journalist is definitely my dream career.

Spent some of the day reading Naked Lunch, but it's really hard to get through. I keep having to read over parts of it, so that it registers with me. It's clear to see that Burroughs wasn't a big fan of sentence structure.

My mate keeps pestering me to read some Raymond Carver short stories. Would any of you recommend his work?

The reason that I don't like poetry is because it simply doesn't mean anything to me. I'm not the type of guy who likes to over-analyse things, and poetry seems to be all about over-analysis. I severely doubt that any poem is worth the ridiculous amount of time spent deciphering it like we did in school, and I much prefer a good book which keeps you interested throughout rather than a poem which you takes a minute to read - but hours to work out. I'm not the type of guy who holds song lyrics close to the heart either; I like good lyrics of course, but I can't listen to anything that doesn't have good music accompanying the words. I guess that I'm just part of an unsentimental generation.

The Lester Bangs book in an excellent collection of some of his best articles, but I have heard that the other collection that was edited by Greil Marcus is better. You can really tell how much influence William Burroughs had on the writing of Bangs, and he never fails to mention it either. I loved On The Road - even if I did get the impression that he was quite patronising when it came to black people and the mexican people. I suppose it was normal in early twentieth-century America though. I enjoyed The Old Man and the Sea more than The Great Gatsby, as Hemingway did a brilliant job of building up the tension during the man's pursuit of the fish. I plan on purchasing For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms in the near future, but I doubt I will get hold of another Fitzgerald novel for a while.

I think the word 'Brownian' should be used to describe terminal mediocrity. It can extend to our charismatic PM too!

I have a justified (in my mind) prejudice against Dan Brown, and will never waste a second reading the tripe that he passes off as literature. There was a show on BBC Two starring my favourite comedian right now, Stewart Lee, in which he brutally tore into the extremely poor quality of Dan Brown's prose, and convinced me to never make the effort to read his novels. I also don't want to waste my time on Lee Child novels. I don't mean to come off as a snob here, but his target audience seems to be the type of people who think that Stephen King is the vanguard of modern literature. I was also irritated to find that his novels were the only ones that I knew of in the entire library next to me! I will probably develop other prejudices over time, as I am quickly dismissive of anything that sets off my BS radar - so expect me to clog up this thread over time