I love Books Club - winter 2011/12 poll

I'd reread Le Guin or read Crash for the first time.

Tricky. Love TLHoD and would be cool to see it discussed here. I like some of Delany's short stories but didn't get on with Nova; would be prepared to give him another shot. Zone One doesn't sound like omg must read to me but it might be fun. Crash is the only one I don't care for - have read, don't need to again.

colson whitehead. crash bored me, i read leguin too many times in high school, and triton was :shrug:

Voting Crash even though its the only one I've read - interested in reading that w/a group.

i didn't vote crash, even though it's the only one i haven't read

having read every piece of sci/fi delaney's ever published, i'm pretty sure i can assure you that if nova didn't turn you on, triton really, really isn't going to.

I thought Zone One looked alright on the amazon preview. Much as I liked Earthsea, Le Guin is like REM or Television in that I feel no need to check out any other work. Triton has a relatively interesting premise. Even though I nominated Crash and thusly feel I should vote for it, I'm somewhat intimidated by it and so will probably sit this poll out and follow the majority.

More generally, what happened with Ada? Was it just me and (I think) woof finished it in the end? The discussion rather petered out. Is everyone fine with that modus operandi? I feel the last couple have missed having a pinefox figure to cajole us into spilling all.

I thought Zone One looked alright on the amazon preview. Much as I liked Earthsea, Le Guin is like REM or Television in that I feel no need to check out any other work. Triton has a relatively interesting premise. Even though I nominated Crash and thusly feel I should vote for it, I'm somewhat intimidated by it and so will probably sit this poll out and follow the majority.

More generally, what happened with Ada? Was it just me and (I think) woof finished it in the end? The discussion rather petered out. Is everyone fine with that modus operandi? I feel the last couple have missed having a pinefox figure to cajole us into spilling all.

that thread made me really angry so i stopped reading it

But it turned out we liked it in the end. Sort of.

Fizzles seemed to be getting through it, but I'm not sure if he finished.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Much as I liked Earthsea, Le Guin is like REM or Television in that I feel no need to check out any other work

Is yr analogy here basically "Much as I liked Document, I feel no need to check out any other work"? 'Cause that would be WACK.

Yeah, I guess (I've never checked out Document). Some things are just complete successes, y'know; it's hard to imagine the artist bettering them or adding anything new, so I don't. It only works for certain artists though, and not sure I could put my finger on why.

That seems completely alien to me. Finding a work to be a complete success would always be an incentive to check out more of their stuff.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Crash is only about 150 pages - how about we do this over a week, beginning on the 28th Nov.

As a 'preview' here is a 15 min film about it, starring the man himself:

http://www.ubu.com/film/ballard_atrocity.html

Good. Voted Zone 1 then realised I had no intention of reading it (like I didn't really want a pretext to make myself read it). Will reread Crash.

Love that film. Gabrielle Drake!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VEZW8T21L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Righto - have ordered, with this rather natty cover.

I think doing this in one go over one week is the right approach. With other authors you'd want to take it more slowly, to discuss different sections and turning-points as they emerge - but with Ballard that isn't really his thing.

There are a few other good ones -
http://www.ballardian.com/collapsing-bulkheads-the-covers-of-crash
The Chris Foss was one of Ballard's favourites. Mine too.
Hadn't seen -
http://www.chrisfossart.com/2011/08/jg-ballard/
Might find out about getting a print of the High Rise one.

Embarrassingly I have the NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE copy.

me too! you see this edition fairly frequently in charity shops, given away by disappointed - or disgusted - smuthounds...

i've got the chris foss edition of high rise and on the physical copy you can see that the woman's skirt has been overpainted or covered up in some way, presumably not by foss.

I've got copies of the 85 bondage steering wheel one, & the 95 blurry lights one, neither of which I like. The mid-80s black-bordered panther ones I find especially unenticing.

Hah, I have that big pink gear shift one by Bill Botton. I don't think I'm a Ballard fan, but I'll try to join in on this.

I was the only one who voted for Triton? Who nominated it?

I did, but went for Crash - was wondering who voted for it..

Hmmm. Wondering whether I want to reread Crash--definitely not my favourite Ballard by a long way

Crash, don't pick it up

Except it'a "won't pick it up" as I finally heard it correctly

Anyway, don't know if I want to reread this, maybe will read something else by him.

Also, this is another thread in bizarro state: I can get to it through my bookmark or see it on zing but don't see it on ILB New Answers in browser.

As long as ILX is stable how about we start this Jan 16th?

i finally found my copy of ada

oops

Jan 16 should fit me well.

January 16th is fine. I never did finish Ada! I wanted to, but December was no merry month of May, not for reading anyway, and it was just sitting on my shelf gathering dust. Intend to revisit and soon though. I was enjoying it, sort of. Like a weird, not very fun climbing frame, or an intriguingly bad pub.