jmmcd, you raise an interesting point. Is William Gibson a poser? Absolutely! Now call me shallow, but thats part of what makes Neuromancer an enjoyable read for me. Its heavily stylised, reading like futuristic noir with a heavy dose of information overload. His style managed to keep my attention, even though it was short on detail, I could still imagine the world of the novel vividly. In fact one wonders why this novel hasn't been made into a movie yet (if they do, they have got use Leftfield on the soundtrack, anyone who remembers the one man rastafarian army will know why). The characters, whill not neccesarily having much depth are certainly colorful. Is William Gibson short on ideas? I can't answer that one, as I said, I don't read many novels and have only read one William Gibson novel: Neuromancer. However he has co-written at least one novel outside of the cyberpunk sub-genre. Its called "The difference engine" and is set in the 19th century and speculates on what might have happened to the British empire if Charles Babbage had got a practical version of his difference engine to work. For non computer history nerds, the difference engine was a mechanical computer, based on similar mathematical principles to modern electronic computers. Personally I find the idea this little piece of alternative history fascinating and definitely plan on reading this novel soon. I used to read a lot more science fiction as a teenager and have come to the conclusion that science fiction is particluarly unsuited to the novel format. The best science fiction is usually in short story form. For example Blade Runner (do androids dream of electric sleep) started out as a short story and was later expanded on. To create a good SF novel is a bit of an achievement in itself.

Dromed, that Perfume book you mentioned is the basis of the lyrics for Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice" off In Utero. Binokular have you read Phil K. Dick's short essay on novels versus short stories. It's in one of the short story collections and is very insightful. The last great book I read myself was Philip Roth's "I Married a Communist". That was around two years ago. Everything I've read since has lived in the shadow of that.

I haven't read that Phillip K. Dick essay about novels vs. short stories, any idea what its called and what book I might find it in?

I totally agree with Dromed on Vernon God Little. A worthwhile and utterly engaging read (even if there's 30 or so pages two thirds in where it loses pace a bit). The narrative voice of the title character is one of the most memorable I have read in a long, long time. Straight after reading it I got stuck into a (completely) different novel, but one worth mentioning: Maggie O'Farrell's "After you'd gone". I feared it might be one of those nicely packaged chick-lit-but-with-meaning books but it was a spirited and even moving affair. A pleasant, unexpected surprise. There's one other book I just HAVE to mention. Michel Houellebecq's 'Atomised' (a French writer who lives in Cork or Galway or somewhere). Some have hailed it as a work of utter genius, others as a blasphemous, indulgent work of sickening perversion. I thought it was a brilliant mix of both. It has the potential to blow your mind. His follow-up ('Platform') was meant to be just as controversial and divisive. But staying with books I have to mention the brilliant idea - excellently executed - that is www.bookcrossing.com. If you don’t know it, the site encourages book readers around the world to ‘release’ favourite books of theirs to the rest of the world by simply leaving them in public places for others to find. They have stickers / inserts for you to stick in the books in the hope that the finder will a) read the book, and b) visit bookcrossing.com to say they found it and what they thought of the book. So far over 794,000 books have been registered on the site as ‘released’. Hmmmmmm. Now I’m getting the idea for a www.CDcrossing.com website (darn, just checked, the URL has been already bought by someone but the site is empty). eoghan

AFter reading this thread i gotta get a copy of Vernon God Little...had given up on Booker recommendations in recent years (the notable exception being Roddy Doyle). I'm with Vent My Spleen on the general awfulness of the Big Read's choice. In the top 20 you had both Bronte's, Kenneth Grahame, AA Milne, Daphne 'One Unreadable Saga' du Maurier and the dated Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker novels. Few of these are poor works, but certainly not top 20 material. As for Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Faulkner, Camus etc? Maybe if they had been born in Barking.... It's hard to escape the shadow of On the Road, a book which influenced popular music as much as it did fiction. Without wanting to come over all Irish Times on this, the one book I'd recommend has to be ulysses. You don't have to understand all, or much, of it to be blown away by the language, the level of detail, the humour (yes, amazingly for a literary text, it's funny), and for Dubliners, the evocation of the city..Joyce really did write the book on this one...not bad for a guy who whiled away his free afternoons spyingon girls on Sandymount Strand.

The_Thin_Man...Yes, Ulysses is a great read but I could possibly be biased having studied it at college. I would recommend getting hold of some sort of explanatory notes if anyone's thinking of attempting it. I started off dazed and confused but by the end I was loving every minute of it. It was only when I got a summary of what was supposed to be going on that it all made sense though. If you're new to Joyce in general then begin with something a little easier on the senses like Portrait of the Artist. Eoghan...thanks for the heads up on bookcrossing-what a brilliant idea! Plahnuik will be appearing on a bus seat near you soon!!

"Ulysses, Ulysses, soaring through all the galaxies..." Sorry I can't hear the word Ulysses without thinking of this (click on the link): http://www.80snostalgia.com/classictv/ulysses31/ That tunes going to be going round in my head for ages, damnit. I don't think I'll ever read Ulysees, the anime series did me head in* *OK, OK I know Ulysses 31 was actually based on Homers Illiad and not James Joyces novel. Cut me some slack will ya?

yeah brilliant about bookcrossing-i joined it straight away. capslock i hope to find a copy of fight club somewhere from u-i've been wanting to read that book for ages!

It's the first note in Volume One of the Collected Stories, "Beyond Lies the Wub". It was originally written in 1968 but I'm not sure what the title of it is or when it was first published (it may have appeared in earlier collections, either "The Best of Philip K. Dick" or "The Golden Man"). It's not particularly long and concerns itself with the thesis that short stories are concerned with plot whereas novels are concerned with protaganist (and hence are often laden with filler). If you've already read the stories in that collection you could easily finish the essay in one short visit to a book shop.

Deep in the throes of my earlier Joycean eulogy I neglected to mention a book themed closer to cluas' heart - Greil Marcus' Mystery Train. It could be a little dated at this stage but it still stands in my mind as the best exposition of recorded American music from the turn of the century to the death of Elvis. And it's not half as referential as Marcus' usual stuff. Of course capslock is right about getting a guide to ulysses. Its the right thing to do - like wearing trunks when you go swimming. Just that it's sometimes more fun without any. Especially on Sandymount Strand.

Olaf Tyaransen did an interview with DBC Pierre (real name Peter Finlay) recently for Hotpress which was really interesting. The back cover/inside cover of Vernon God Little gives no biographical information on him at all except for two lines saying that he is writing his second book. I didn't even realise it was an alias. The guy has had a pretty mental life, he's a recovering drug addict, apparantly DBC was his nickname...Dirty But Clean.

Thanks Earthhorse, I'll try get myself a copy of collected stories sometime. Since you all seem to be such big fans of Joyce and other early 20th century novelists, you really should check out Project Gutenberg. You can download the text of books for free. These are books like Ulysses where the copyright has expired and are in the public domain. heres the site: http://www.gutenberg.net/index.shtml

Apparently he lives in Ireland - somewhere out west.