DannyL

Wild Horses
No but that inverting of history does get done a fair bit though. I have here Bernardine Evaristo Blonde Roots here which is basically "what if it was white people taking into slavery"?
 

jenks

thread death
The final chapter mentions Simon Raven briefly, another you might enjoy if you haven't read him.
I like Raven - I need to fill in a few gaps as I’ve been slowly collecting his stuff from charity shops over the years - I think he’s deeply unfashionable nowadays. Unfortunately.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The first series of ten books is amazing... the follow up series, well I read the first book and it was a marked dip in quality - didn't the whole story turn on the boy's foreskin or something? I bet I read the rest of them eventually. Fascinating character as well.... by which I mean he was obviously an utter wanker.
 
  • Like
Reactions: STN

woops

is not like other people
My understanding is that raven is a bit of a bully and makes everything explicit, where Anthony P is more about the understatement, which, without having read any Raven, I find more appealing
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
He probably was a bully... and he does write more explicitly, but that's not the only difference vs AP, he provides a kind of parallel negative version to ADTTMOT which if pressed I might say I enjoyed more. You might enjoy if I think.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The famous story is when his wife cabled him desperately asking for money to feed their young child and he - no doubt having spunked it all on rent boys, booze and gambling - sent a reply saying "No money, suggest eat baby".
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
In general or is that the tile of a book I don't know? If the former I agree, he's a dirty little man writing about dirty little things.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I liked A Dance to the Music of Time a lot too but Powell is much more high-minded and sometimes it's good to get down into the gutter.
 

wektor

Well-known member
pihkal.
at times it is hard to swallow up the bits of new age canon included in there, but overall very interesting read on the psychedelics/relationships overlap
 

jenks

thread death
I liked A Dance to the Music of Time a lot too but Powell is much more high-minded and sometimes it's good to get down into the gutter.
I think Powell is the better writer but Raven is quite prepared to get into the less pleasant motives of people - sex, greed, revenge. As the Jerry Burns song from the 90s had it ‘Casually Unkind’
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That "All the Devils" book has been on my amazon wish list ever since I read his "Jack of Jumps" book about the "Jack The Stripper" murders, which co-incidentally Fred Vermorel solves in "Dead Fashion Girl".. Seabrook's "Jack of Jumps" gets some poor reviews because it is so cynical and nasty about the victims, but it's good at showing a really sleazy side to London in the late 50s / early 60s - makes it seem almost like everyone was on the game, involved in crime, or indulging their perverted tastes - I loved it....
Weirdly I found Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth on my shelf which is a dramatisation of the same murders (unread charity shop purchase I suppose). Names are changed so Freddie Mills becomes Teddy Hills. Other characters are clearly modelled on Joe Meek, Screaming Lord Sutch and so on. Seems quite fun so far though some of the writing about sixties scenesters sort of annoys me.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
The Cathi Unsworth novel has been re-released by Strange Attractor - I went and bought it when I realised it was based on the Jack the Stripper murders but it's now sitting in a pile of unread books somewhere.. I was a bit put off by the cover blurb which compares it to the 'factory' series of novels by Derek Raymond - I'm not sure that is a good thing, although it has been years since I read those...
 
Last edited:

IdleRich

IdleRich
The writing on that half of the novel is not really that great to be honest. Conversations stilted, thoughts simplistic etc
 

jenks

thread death
Dead Fashion Girl is good - ends up being about so much more than the murder. He lets his research tell a fat more varied and interesting story.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
And also David Edgerton Rise and Fall of the British Nation which is amazing - hard to describe. Magisterial. It's a reworking of British 20th Century history, jettisoning a lot of the myths that we have about British isolationism - all the post-Brexit rubbish. Shows how deeply liberal ideas of trade shaped Britain and how interconnected and global the British Empire was. Phenomenally good. Interview with him here.

This is a really good podcast episode if you want to get your head quickly around some of his arguments. Focused on WW2 but really interesting.
 

version

Well-known member
Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour.

It's one of his early ones when he's still doing the whole gonzo thing and it grates a bit, but it's very readable and there are a few touching moments, like him going back to his family's old holiday home in France with his brother, trying to recreate their childhood holidays and eventually realising what he's really doing is looking for his dad who died back in the 80s.

One thing that winds me up is how self-conscious he can be. He does the Hunter Thompson thing whilst poking fun at himself for doing so and it feels a bit like he wants to have his cake and eat it. "Look how cool I am, I know it's not really cool and I'm being silly, but look how cool I am." You get another bit like that where he's wandering around Vietnam and encounters a man who appears to have been caught in a napalm strike, has this crisis of conscience and is all "What the fuck am I doing here writing a fucking book?" but then, of course, the piece ends and he carries on writing his book.
 
Top