William Gibson Quote

I had previously mentioned reading William Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition” during the Christmas holidays and today I finally managed to take a closer look at his Wikipedia entry. From there I was lead to his Web site where I stumbled across one of the greatest  quotes I’ve seen in quite some time:

“I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here.”

William Gibson – Pattern Recognition

Occasionally, most often at airports and train-stations, I randomly browse through a book-store and buy something that sounds interesting. Seeing that I’m really bad when it comes to actually reading books - I spend way too much time reading stuff online and in magazines -  I tend to have piles of unread books sitting next to my bed, on my desk and in my shelves.

The other day, while I was thinking about which books I wanted to read over the Christmas holidays, I stumbled across William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition which I bought at one point or another but never got around to reading. In fact I had totally forgotten that I even owned it. Anyway, between Christmas and New Year’s I finally managed to read it, in fact finishing the last 130-pages in one sitting during a train-ride to Berlin.

Admittedly it took me awhile to get into it but after the first 50-pages or so I really got into the swing of things. The story takes some time to unfold but once it does it the things going on in London, Tokyo and other places quickly become exciting. Especially the descriptions of various lives and streets in London are outstanding and worth a read in itself. As is the way experiencing jet-lag is illustrated as the soul being leagues behind when it comes to travelling and having to be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.

It’s these thoughts and the portrays of cities, characters and especially moments in time that make the book such a good and entertaining read. Plus it’s got that quality where you simply don’t want to put it down and keep telling yourself to read one more chapter a couple of times before you realize it’s 5AM.

P.S. It was only while selecting some tags for this post that I found this old entry where I mentioned buying the book while I was in San Francisco. In this case it’s good that the Internet never forgets because obviously I do… ;-)

John Burdett - Bangkok Tattoo

I had previously mentioned that Mike got me hooked on John Burdett's book Bangkok Tattoo when I stayed with him in Vancouver. So much in fact that I left with his book in my backpack as I absolutely wanted to read the whole story. Now.

Last night, during dinner, I finally managed to read the last page of the book. And what can I say, I really liked it, despite the ending being a little weak in my opinion. But the first 2/3 of the book are simply outstanding and a truly excellent read. Most of all I like the descriptions of Thai culture, thinking and living as compared to Western or rather Westerners-in-Asia () mentality. The best quote from the book in that respect reads

The advantage of a culture of shame as opposed to one of guilt is that you don't start to fell bad until the shit hits the fan.

Writing hardly gets better than this!

It's certainly been quite some time since I've been sucked into a story as as much with this one. It has many twists and turns and especially the descriptions of the various characters is just superb. I especially like Ishy and Colonel Vikon, with especially the first one being a perfect role for someone like Takeshi Kitano in case the book were to be made into a movie.

Overall a definitely well-recommended read which also made me realize that I really should be reading more books and novels. To that end I bought John Bardett's Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo's predecessor today. Plus I stumbled across William Gibson's Pattern Recognition which I've also wanted to read for quite awhile. I certainly hope I can read one of these books before I fly back to Europe in 2 weeks. The second book will then probably keep me busy in August and September, hopefully while lying in the sun next to a lake or something. It's good to be back into reading books!