What are you reading

[Harvest]

https://shop.ditto-london.com/products/skinhead-an-archive-2020

my copy just arrived this morning. excited to crack into it.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I have the old edition. It is quite unusual, as it attempts to cover all sorts of skinhead things. Therefore it may be ”too much” for almost everybody. Some will be freaked out by extensive bonehead presence. Ton of nazi skin stuff there, but if you didn’t have problem with THAT, then you might have when gay skins take over and you got that stuff, explicitly presented... ! Haha!
Unusually good skinhead book. Not sure how much new edition is revised?

[Manhog_84]

Jukka Siikala - Spanielit

Siikala is an amazing painter and this was his first published novel. I got it with my latest haul from Sarvilevyt, and the extract in the back cover got me interested. It was about this main character fantasizing about death and murder while waiting in the grill line, and then picking up few girls to after party with him. The extract leaves open what the scenario leads up to, but it made me think about the case in Finland 2007 when a teenager picked up girls to an after party and killed them with a crossbow. I thought that maybe the book is about something similar to that case.

Basically the story follows the life of an anonymous male protagonist and captures the feeling of alienation and meaninglessness with occasional wallowing in self pity, jerking off and sex and violence fantasies towards the people he interacts with. Some familiar places can be spotted like the old movie theater in Helsinki and some insights are really easy to relate to. Depressing short book (68 pages) and recommendable for Finns! (as it's only in Finnish).

+ Also reading the graphic novel Scalped. Violent crime drama set in Indian reservation. Artwork and colors are great! The first two trades were promising but the jumping back and forth in timeline was annoying. Hopefully it's not like this all the way through...

[Atrophist]

Jukka Siikala - Spanielit

To my amazement it’s not available in the Helsinki library system. Looks like I’ll have to buy this too. 

[Balor/SS1535]

Jukka Siikala - Spanielit

Siikala is an amazing painter and this was his first published novel. I got it with my latest haul from Sarvilevyt, and the extract in the back cover got me interested. It was about this main character fantasizing about death and murder while waiting in the grill line, and then picking up few girls to after party with him. The extract leaves open what the scenario leads up to, but it made me think about the case in Finland 2007 when a teenager picked up girls to an after party and killed them with a crossbow. I thought that maybe the book is about something similar to that case.

Basically the story follows the life of an anonymous male protagonist and captures the feeling of alienation and meaninglessness with occasional wallowing in self pity, jerking off and sex and violence fantasies towards the people he interacts with. Some familiar places can be spotted like the old movie theater in Helsinki and some insights are really easy to relate to. Depressing short book (68 pages) and recommendable for Finns! (as it's only in Finnish).

+ Also reading the graphic novel Scalped. Violent crime drama set in Indian reservation. Artwork and colors are great! The first two trades were promising but the jumping back and forth in timeline was annoying. Hopefully it's not like this all the way through...

It's a shame it is only in Finnish.  It sounds interesting.

[holy ghost]

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie - I loved this book. The First Law trilogy was great, the subsequent books were really fun but Best Served Cold dragged on just a touch, but this one was just great. Totally excellent from start to finish. Can best be described as a deranged western set in a Conan/GoT type universe. Probably the best one I’ve read in the series.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff - Very Philip K Dick-ish, a fast and fun read, I REALLY liked this one.

Blue Light of the Screen by Claire Cronin - I have never read anything quite like this. Billed as a “creative-critical memoir” it’s a hallucinatory journey, I don’t know if I love it, but I definitely enjoyed it. Would definitely read more from her in the future.

[MateriaPrima]

Aimé Césaire's Solar Throat Slashed The Unexpurgated 1948 Edition and perusing the recently published The Complete Poetry of Aimé Cesairé. He was like a cousin to Artaud, a little after him, but coming from a Carribean and African tradition. These works are an immediate grasp on your nerves, they hold weight and force, hotness, leaving a fierce harsh taste. You will not find an immediate violence or explicitness like de Sade or Bataille, but a deeper violence. This is like the African Bruegel the Elder, hot and fierce cosmic violence, dream and soul violence, boiling blood violence. These newer translations are of great importance, since Césaire became a politician later in life he edited some of the blasphemy and ferocity out of his works and cut some of the poems from Solar Throat Slashed. Anyway, whatever you feel about his politics these works are inspiring and exciting stuff. If you like Artaud's poetry this is definitely up your alley.