Rol, you’re one of the last people I’d expect to say something like that.”

Why’s that, Jez? Ah, if it sounded like I was dissing genre, that’s not how I meant it. Just that HOL didn’t fit the category – or *any* category comfortably. I love genre, me.

See you tomorrow in the next class.

Also recommend the Spacemen 3 biog by Erik Morse. Hilarious.

As others have pointed out, 1984 is terrific and for Dickens I’d go for the much ignored Dombey and Son.

Dave

An intermediate density/difficultyness Pynchon would be “V.” which has all the craziness qualities with a more lucid writing style than “Gravity’s Rainbow”; pesonally I prefer “V.”

Why bother with “Cryptonomicon?” “The Diamond Age” wasn’t bad or there’s always “Snow Crash”.

I like Martian Timeslip, and Valis is bonkers, but if you want a PKD recommendation ask Tony on Saturday.

Do you Ellroy? American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand are vast, sprawling, wonderful, dense, crazy novels. They’ll keep you busy.

A stroll along my own bookshelves remind me how much I enjoyed Mario Vargas Llosa – Who Killed Palomino Malero? or Death In The Andes, perhaps. They’re not physically hefty, but they’ll take you somewhere else. JG Ballard’s is good at that too, pick anything of his.

Last suggestions and then I’ll shut up. Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed. They’re both first contact, pretty hard SF, utterly elsewhere, and yet deeply true. Choose one, and do the other a couple of years later.

Pynchon: Definitely Gravity’s rainbow (and also go for Foucault’s pendulum). Have you read catch 22?

Olaf Stapledon: read Starmaker! it’s a classic.

What about a bit of Dostoyevsky? I hear the brothers karamazov is rather good, not read it myself mind but crime and punishment was a hell of a read.

I tried and failed to finish this but thanks for reminding me to get it back off the shelf.

I found myself skipping large chunks of it. It might be useful for fighting off muggers :)

If you have never read Moorcock then his Jerry Cornelius stuff is going t blow your mind and put it back together is strange new ways :D

Cryptonomicon I have a vague memory of hearing bad things about, but I’m prepared to give it a go.

I read Dick’s Man in the High Castle and loved it (specifically how he alluded to what had happened to Africa but never said what it was, making it all the more horrific). Wasn’t sure what to follow it up with though. So a PK Dick suggestion would be good.

I’ve probably had my fill of RAW with the two trilogies to be honest. Never read any Moorcock though. I wonder what his recent London books are like (Mother London, etc)?

Foucault’s Pendulum I always assumed was too heavy but maybe I’m ready for it. One for the list.

Not desperate for Big SF right now. Which might mean I need to read some.

I loved the first two David Mitchell books and should really investigate his later stuff. But I’m also keen to stretch out to authors I’m not that familiar with.

I have a blind spot on anything more than 100 years old but Fitzgerald is intriguing. He keeps cropping up on my radar.

Nineteen Eighty-Four; Brave New World; A Clockwork Orange – no-brainers I haven’t read (or at least in 1984′s case, not for a very long time) so they should go on the list. Not that BIG though.

Making a note of Yevgeny Zemyatin’s We because it means nothing to me and should therefore be investigated.

House Of Leaves has been on my shelf since publication (I’ve got the US edition with the blue ink for each mention of “house”) and ain’t going anywhere in a hurry. Then again, this might be the perfect time to try it. heavy though, in weight…

Gravity’s Rainbow – again, something I’d assumed was beyond me but I might be ready for now.

There’s a copy of What Was Lost in the Amazon warehouse with my name on it. Should have it next week!

And yes, I’ll be blogging about this. I owe you that at least.

That’s probably enough to be going on with but feel free to keep suggesting stuff and talking about it.

That is definitely sledgehammer material though probably not your cup of tea.

Another sledgehammer author you would probably not like is Réné Guenon, in particular his two polemics, “The Crisis of the Modern World” and “The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times”, which explain how the Western world his a nightmarish deformation as seen from a “traditionalist” point of view.

Rol, you’re one of the last people I’d expect to say something like that.

I think the most mindblowing (in the true sense of the word, not just ‘wow’) book I’ve read in the last ten years was Mark Z. Danielewski’s House Of Leaves. It pretends to be a horror novel (and it is quite scary), but it’s way beyond genre.

Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those worldview-changing books for me, dunno if you’ve read that.

Three classics that you owe it to yourself to read if you haven’t already: Nineteen Eighty-Four; Brave New World; A Clockwork Orange.

Done much Shakespeare? I re-read Macbeth and Hamlet earlier this year for the first time in 20 years and got so much more out of them.