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fritz
Jul 26, 2003

Sung in Blood, by Glen Cook. I figure this is Cook's take on Doc Savage and while I like the idea the execution was very weak. It's stripped-down minimalist writing and although it made the plot go by fast the reading experience suffered. There's a hook for a second volume that never appeared; maybe if Cook had worked a little harder on this one we'd be talking about this series along with Black Company and Garret.

Recommended for Cook fans.

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A Game of Chess
Nov 6, 2004

not as good as Turgenev
Well, I've been reading a lot in the last week or so since it's the break and all...

World War Z, Max Brooks' "oral history of the zombie war" and while it had its supremely creepy moments (OH poo poo ZOMBIES) it was kind of boring and all of the narratives started blending together after a while. I was also bored by his survival guide, though, so I don't know if I'm the best judge here.

Re-read Graham Greene's The Quiet American. I like his short fiction better than his novels, but Greene has such an understated style that I love going back and going over everything again; it's a pleasure every time. This is much more than a simple old/new conflict... oh yes.

China Mieville's Looking for Jake, a series of short stories. I think that people who have problems with his verbosity might want to try this out instead, I think he manages to keep his invented words to a minimum, and he has some really bizarre/awesome ideas. There was one story (The Familiar) that actually made me a little nauseous, and that hasn't happened in a while.

Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer. I'm still ambivalent about this one, to be honest. I think he ranks as one of the better modern fantasy world creators, but there's something about his style that sets me off. I feel like I should be enjoying the reading experience more than I actually should. :( He doesn't write women characters very believably either, and this is mostly narrated by a woman. That might have something to do with it.

Favorite thing I've picked up recently would have to be Orhan Pamuk's The New Life... still can't really put that one into words yet. It was really, really good, though.

autaut
Oct 21, 2006
S.Zizek ~ Repeating Lenin

It's a typical Zizek book with Lenin; Lenin again and again and again and again.

Olsen Oligarchy
Sep 20, 2005

Resistance is futile. Tee hee!
Finished The Crying of Lot 49 and Blood Meridian yesterday.

I loved The Crying of Lot 49 for creating a world full of paranoia and confusion where Oepida would uncover something only to have it confound her other theories, and thus putting her through an endless cycle of second guessing. I will definitely check out other works by Pynchon. I'll go to V next and then build my way up to Gravity's Rainbow.

Blood Meridian has made quite the impression on me and is easily on my list of favorite books ever. The ending scene was by far the most unforgettable scene from any book that I've ever read. (Spoilers about the end) Knowing Judge Holden from throughout the book, I can't even begin to imagine what happened to the Kid. So unspeakable, McCarthy hints, that it's not even written, which is contrary to the trend of the brutally detailed Blood Meridian. I've never encountered a character as complex as Judge Holden. He has mysterious persuasion over everyone he encounters despite his actions and philosophy. As a reader, I sympathize with the characters: I'm terrified by Judge Holden, but at the same time, I can not resist him and am continuingly drawn toward him. I will definitely reread this book. I feel like I did not give it the attention that it deserved and missed somethings. For those of you who are on the fence about reading this book, READ THIS BOOK!

Whew..., after suffering a massive reading hangover this morning, I think I'll continue to something much more simple with Philip Dick's The Man in the High Castle.

LooseChanj
Feb 17, 2006

Logicaaaaaaaaal!
Breakfast @ Tiffany's, which is more a novella with a couple short stories than a novel. I had Asimov's Foundation on deck, but I ran out tonight and got Catcher in the Rye cuz a friend of mine is reading it as well.

Maultaschen
Jan 19, 2004

I just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez, which a friend gave me for Christmas. I had plodded through the book before that over a period of two months, but I finished this in a week. Being on break helped, sure, but I neglected most of my other Christmas presents to read this. I wasn't let down - the ending was amazing. I reread the last three pages four times just because of its writing (excellently translated). By the end, I still remembered each character vividly, despite them all sharing three or four names, and at times wondered where X had gone, only to realize they had died fifty pages ago.

The same friend loaned me her copies of His Dark Materials, and I started that tonight.

SLAUGHTERCLES
Feb 10, 2004

A PURSE IS NOT FOOD
I finished The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord last night.

For such a short book (154 pages) I think any sort of comprehensive response could fill volumes. Summarily, I feel that it raises a lot of good points on society driven by commodity and cultural imperialism, but underlying so total an assault on (then) accepted norms and ideology there seems to be a dangerous current towards hyper-ideology. It is as if Debord is saying "think outside the box" but meaning "there's this bigger box that the one we're currently in resides in, let's go chill in that one." A lot of parallels can be drawn between millenarian/gnostic movements and Debord's situationism as well, to it's misfortune. I'll probably read it again sometime after I've gotten a better grip on the entire Hegelian vs Marxist spat. Definitely a good read to understand much of what happened in the West, particularly Western Europe in the 60's and 70's, but not without a swathe of shortcomings.

(7/10)

Taureg
Sep 3, 2006

by Peatpot
The Black Dahlia by James Elroy, very well written and really reflects the time that the murder occured, post-war.

Gravy Jones
Sep 13, 2003

I am not on your side
Just finished Nelson DeMille's latest John Corey novel Wild Fire. As always it's a bit of a page turner and the Corey character is a charismatic rear end in a top hat and can be a bit of fun. But apart from that it's nothing special, fairly run of the mill conspiracy thriller. It had an unusual structure that seemed to be mostly padding and spoiled an element of the plot that could have been fairly interesting (it was spoiled on the jacket as well) and led to the whole thing being fairly anti-climactic.

The following doesn't contain plot details... but it's spoilered just in case:

The 'villains' do the whole explaining the plot in detail thing during the first act. As such we spend the rest of the book with the main character slowly piecing together what we already know, which removes pretty much any element of suprise and shock at what is a fairly outlandish scheme. This also takes way to long, perhaps a quarter of the book in general is dedicated to this part of the plot.

There's also a few other big problems with it, one aspect of the climax is in particular was massively disappointing.

I loved Plum Island, but everything that's come after it has been a major letdown. I guess it will do as a holiday book (I bought and read most of it on an overnight ferry trip) but I keep hoping for better from DeMille (based on some of his earlier novels) and he keeps failing to deliver :(

Fingerless
Oct 19, 2005

Wave to the nice man.

Olsen Oligarchy posted:

Finished The Crying of Lot 49 and Blood Meridian yesterday.

I loved The Crying of Lot 49 for creating a world full of paranoia and confusion where Oepida would uncover something only to have it confound her other theories, and thus putting her through an endless cycle of second guessing. I will definitely check out other works by Pynchon. I'll go to V next and then build my way up to Gravity's Rainbow.

I'm a big Pynchon fan, and just finished his new one, Against the Day. I'd actually recommend it as a median point between Lot 49 and V. I had more fun with it than just about any other Pynchon that I've read, with the exception of Gravity's Rainbow.

Patrick Bateman
Aug 13, 2005

by elpintogrande
I just finished Steinbeck's 'To A God Unknown' and Hemingway's 'Old Man and the Sea' and am planning to start 'Farewell to Arms' and Christopher Hale's 'Himmler's Crusade'. :)

To A God Unknown was fantastic. Both that and Old Man and the Sea are why I've been on a Hemingway/Steinbeck kick...I'm so tired of the negativity in a lot of what I've been reading lately (Paluhniuk, Ellis, etc...) and its nice to read stories about real men and real sadness and triumph, instead of drugs and dicks and loving all the time.

Patrick Bateman fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jan 3, 2007

Foppish Yet Dashing
Jun 29, 2004

-horsepussy begins now
-horsepussy begins now
-horsepussy begins now
-horsepussy begins now
-horsepussy begins now
-horsepussy begins now
As I made evident in the thread reserved for it, I just finished House of Leaves.

Now I shall begin Last Call by Tim Powers.

Green Submarine
Oct 21, 2000

There will come soft rains...
The Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. I got well into The Manticore before being temporarilly separated from the volume, though. Have to say I was impressed. Davies has a way of using the first person in a way that gives you more of a third person perspective, in a way that reminds me of Vonnegut. His use of language is superb, too (for a Canadian).

Yiggy
Sep 12, 2004

"Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."
While riding on the train up to Chicago I read E. O. Wilson's Consilience and Biophilia. Consilience was a great read I thought. Wilson gives a brief account of the history of consiliatory thought and then begins taking each area of the humanities head on. In dicussing recent movements and ideas and biology, Wilson sketches out what we know and how he sees everything linking together in the long-run. Wilson closes the book with a plea to end petty squabbling between sciences and humanities and to put the culture wars away in order to solve the more important problems of the day. His last chapter outlines the global warming crisis (as of 1998) and makes a call for all sides to come together in order to save "The Creation" as he refers to it. Wilson's prose is elegant and moving at times and his explanations and metaphors are apt.

Biophilia, I quickly learned, was basically the practice run for Consilience. Written in 1984, it expresses many of the same ideas, and indeed some of the passages are near identical. However, a lot of his thinking isn't as airtight as it is fourteen years later, and there are several newer advances that Wilson has incorporated into his thinking in addition to some previous ideas from Biophilia. What Biophilia has that Consilience didn't are some fairly interesting autobiographical accounts from Wilson's life, conveying keen aspects of the human endeavor that is science. These parts had a feel that was in many ways similar to some of Feynman's accounts from Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman, at times both charming and insightful. Wilson ends Biophilia, much like he would later end Consilience, with a plea for all sides to come together in order to save what was then the prevailing ecological crisis of the day- large scale deforestation and habitat destruction. After having read Consilience first and then Biophilia, the clear lack of response to Wilson's first call leaves a chill as to how much action is revised and more up-to-date plea will have.

If one is interested in Wilson's ideas and wants a general gloss they may prefer Biophilia. Taking into account page numbers and print size, I'd say Biophilia is roughly a fourth to a third of the length of Consilience, which clocks in at about 327ish pages.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire

Ozma posted:

I'm about to start Devil in the White City. I was on a Tudor kick and read some books about Henry VIII, his wives, and Elizabeth I recently and figured I'd move on to some other stuff. Devil in the White City is about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and, specifically, H. H. Holmes the serial killer. Should be fun, I hope. :D

Just started that today! So far it seems interesting, even if architecture isn't my thing.

I just finished Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne, and enjoyed the hell out of it. An intelligent yet desperately horny 14-year-old tries to lose his virginity and gets into increasingly ridiculous situations. It reminded me a lot of Confederacy of Dunces, where things would just start off bad and get a great deal worse. Also, that kid had some very forgiving friends.

edit: Paul was without a doubt the coolest character in the entire book and cracked me up every time he showed up

Chamberk fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jan 3, 2007

Greenplastic
Oct 24, 2005

Miao, miao!
I just finished Crime And Punishment by Dostoevsky.

It's truly one of the better books I've ever read. The epilogue though, seemed a bit... forced? Dostoevsky's understanding and portrayal of his characters' psychology in this book is fantastic, and I think the epilogue is kind of a testimony to that.

How?

Well, it seem to me that Dostoevsky's innate understanding of his characters strongly directed his writing, forcing him to write a truthful and believable progression and conclusion of the story, regardless of his own, personal agendas (Except for the petty political stuff, making fun of Nihilists and the like).

Finally finished with the main story, it's like he relaxed his mind, and when writing the epilogue forces his personal agenda into the characters, something he wasn't able to in the course of the main story.

Of course, this is the impression I got! I'm no expert.

Hippo Eats Midget
Jan 4, 2006

meche posted:

Next up is House of Leaves, which the same awesome person bought me. Wish me luck!

Just finished reading that. Loved it. Really well written book, very suspensful and kinda creepy in a few places as well. Hard to get into at first, two nights ago i was halfway through the book, and then it got so very good so very fast that i ended up reading the other half of the book.

So basically, just push through and you'll be rewarded.

PrincessKate
Mar 16, 2004

Let's get it on, honey.
I just finished The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. I loved it so much, I just could not put it down. I went out and bought every other Tudor book by the author. I'm starting The Boleyn Inheritance now.

Ozma posted:

I was on a Tudor kick and read some books about Henry VIII, his wives, and Elizabeth I recently and figured I'd move on to some other stuff.

Anything you'd recommend from your 'Tudor kick'? Because I'm really interested in the period now.

Ghost of Reagan Past
Oct 7, 2003

rock and roll fun
I've been reading some philosophy (which goes much slower than everything else) and I love short stories so I'm reading a bunch of them. I finally acquired the Complete Stories of Franz Kafka, so now I've read a lot more Kafka than I have in the past.

Some highlights so far: The Great Wall of China (includes the parable of the Imperial Message), In the Penal Colony (again...), Rejection, and A Hunger Artist. I've read quite a bit more Kafka, but everyone knows The Metamorphosis (which, I think, isn't as good as Penal Colony, though it's loving incredible) and the other ones haven't clicked yet. Kafka is a dense writer.

Next up in this collection is A Country Doctor, The Hunter Gracchus, and Description of a Struggle. Kafka is awesome, and everybody needs this collection, if only so they can read their friends and family Before the Law and some of his shorter parables. The expression is generally :psyduck:. I don't want to make a Kafka thread until I sit down and understand it a bit more, though.

I finished Blindness a bit ago, which was an incredible book. I posted about it in the Saramago thread, though.

Occam's Aftershave
Mar 26, 2004
I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I can't recommend it highly enough. Awesome stuff. I'm now simultaneously reading The Years of Rice and Salt and Buddhism Plain and Simple based on recommendations around SA.

clarion ravenwood
Aug 5, 2005

AntiZeus posted:

What was the deal with the character of his assistant? In the beginning of the book it seems like his relationship with her was going to be important, but she just drops out and dissapears after the beginning as does his family.

But in general the book read more like a fictional memoir than a novel. Eco isn't enough of a stylist (at least not in tranlation--maybe it's better in Italian) for me just to want to read his sentences for the sheer pleasure of their construction, so the fact that the majority of the book goes nowhere hurts it IMO.

Oh, and what the hell did that ending mean?

His assistant, Sibilla? to me she seemed like another 'echo' in his life of his one true love, Lila - or at least that's how I interperated it.

I have absolutely no idea about that ending. It's like he spent the whole the book trying to find his childhood, then at the end, it found him. But yeah, I was expecting some kind of...well something! to happen at the end. I haven't read The Name of the Rose but I intend to, it's in my pile.

flowersinherhair
Jun 7, 2004
girr-illa

Ozma posted:

I finished Krakauer's Into Thin Air, about his 1996 trek to Everest. I feel kind of sheepish because everyone but me had read it and I kept putting it off for some reason but I absolutely loved it and read it in a day because I couldn't put it down. He's capable of stronger writing but perhaps the subject matter is what compelled me the most--- I picked it up because my sister and I were having a long discussion about the David Sharpe incident on Everest that was touched on by the Discovery Channel special about Everest. If anything reading Into Thin Air made me even more angry about what happened with Sharpe but that's a whole 'nother story. I would honestly put this in my top 15 books just because it was fascinating to read.

This probably doesn't belong in here but....
I finished Into Thin Air about two weeks ago, and then saw the Everest IMAX film that chronicles the 1996 disaster.
Then on the 29th I went to Disney Animal Kingdom and rode Everest:Legend of the Forbidden Mountain.

I felt like such a nerd walking through the Asia area, oohing and aahhing at the nepalese temple at the base of the "mountain", wandering through the expedition outfitters shop, with the crampons, carabieners, expedition patches, mounds of teakettles, and into the 'yeti museum', and all the authentic Nepalese touches.

After immursing myself in Everest the last few weeks, it made me realize just how much effort the imagineers put into the theme-ing of the ride, even if the ride itself was a little underwhelming. It made me enjoy the ride, and the books even more.

Soth
Jul 21, 2004

My knife, you see... is coated in poison.
I just finished Anansi Boys from Neil Gaiman, and I'm not quite sure how to qualify it, on the surface you have likable characters doing cool interesting stuff, but underneath it, there's nothing, it's simultaneously boring and pretty good at the same time. I came in expecting something on par with American Gods, but it wasn't really even close.

OrdinarySomeone
Dec 6, 2002

Poo-holes!

I just finished The State of Fear by Crichton. I found the hard back for sale for $6 couldn't resist picking it up. I haven't read a Crichton book for so long that I forgot why i enjoy his writing style so much. This book i though was masterfully written. You were cheering on the good guys and loving when the idiots got eaten to see the bad guys go down. This book had a strong resemblance to Airframe in that it totally open my eyes to a different side of an argument or story that i won't have necessarily though about. I'm not going to say I believe or don't believe everything that was said in the book, it was just refreshing to see someone not afraid to let it out.

After finishing the book last night I had to go find Airframe to re-read it.

Jambob
Jun 6, 2004

Life of Pi. I read the first half about a year ago, loved all the stuff about India and the zoo, got bored when it seemed like Pi was just on a boat and nothing was happening. But I picked it up a few days ago and enjoyed it a lot more, it would have been brilliant even without the twist ending, but I think it's even better for it.

I'm now picking my way through The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories.

Debbie Metallica
Jun 7, 2001

flowersinherhair posted:

This probably doesn't belong in here but....
I finished Into Thin Air about two weeks ago, and then saw the Everest IMAX film that chronicles the 1996 disaster.
Then on the 29th I went to Disney Animal Kingdom and rode Everest:Legend of the Forbidden Mountain.

I felt like such a nerd walking through the Asia area, oohing and aahhing at the nepalese temple at the base of the "mountain", wandering through the expedition outfitters shop, with the crampons, carabieners, expedition patches, mounds of teakettles, and into the 'yeti museum', and all the authentic Nepalese touches.

After immursing myself in Everest the last few weeks, it made me realize just how much effort the imagineers put into the theme-ing of the ride, even if the ride itself was a little underwhelming. It made me enjoy the ride, and the books even more.
I honestly don't know much about what's going on with Disney so I had no idea they had that at the Animal Kingdom. Sounds cool though! I vaguely remember seeing the Everest IMAX film but when I try to conjure up specific stuff from it I can only remember being absolutely petrified in the theater because I'm so afraid of heights. Just READING Into Thin Air gave me the chills sometimes because heights freak me out so much!

PrincessKate posted:

Anything you'd recommend from your 'Tudor kick'? Because I'm really interested in the period now.
I enjoyed Antonia Fraser's "Wives of King Henry VIII" and will probably start in on her book about Mary, Queen of Scots soon. I also received a book about Catherine Parr (Henry VIII's last wife) for Hanukkah but haven't started it so I don't remember the author.

I realize it's also a little bit on the fluffy side and it's historical fiction but I still enjoyed reading Jean Plaidy's "Tudor Queens" (told from the POV of Elizabeth). It omitted some things I believe and toyed with other details but was still entertaining enough, though certainly not scholarly. And again, if historical fiction is your bag (providing you really keep in mind the "fiction" part) I remember reading Margaret George's books about Henry VIII and Mary, Queen of Scots ages ago and liking them though I think there's some really creepy stuff in the Mary book when they get to the part about Darnley disliking her musician (Rizzio? Can't remember the name) and eventually having him killed at her feet. Hope those are some halfway decent suggestions. :/ Also, I realize this is not a book and don't know how interested you in in Elizabeth I but this old BBC series is pretty good:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066652/

If you can find it at a local rental place or your local library I'd suggest watching it though it is long. The first part where she's pretending to be a younger Elizabeth is kind of funny but it gets quite good in my opinion. But Elizabeth is one of my favorite people despite her mercurial temperament so I'm always up for watching something about her.

Twelfth Nightstalker posted:

Just started that today! So far it seems interesting, even if architecture isn't my thing.

I've now finished Devil in the White City and I'm not sure if I like it a lot yet or not. It was an enjoyable and quick read for me so I suppose I'd still suggest it but I wasn't completely sold on the writing itself. I felt like the guy had a great idea in terms of combining the architecture/bringing together of the fair itself with Holmes but couldn't shake the sense that he had originally meant to just cover one aspect and needed to fill space. Then I felt like there was just a lot of filler in general. There was a TON of really neat stuff in there and lots of historical tidbits that I'll store away and trot out later since I use it in my poetry but it just wasn't as well crafted as I was hoping it would be. I guess I'd still rate it 8/10 just because it's an interesting subject. Make sure you post about it once you're done so I can see if I was way off base.

Mack the Knife
Feb 8, 2004

would you like to buy a monkey?
They're making a movie of Devil in the White City. I didn't like it that much. The Olmstead stuff was interesting, the killer seems theorized and unbelievable to me. Interesting read, though.

I just finished Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. I loved it. It's a kind of detective novel, from the perspective of s guy who's hired muscle with Tourette's. The TS is handled very well, and the story is good, funny and intriguing, with well-written characters and an excellent sense of setting. Lionel Essrog is a great character and I felt myself wanting more of his story, but Lethem doesn't seem the type to revisit characters. I read his first book many years ago, Gun, With Occasional Music and loved it- a great little dystopian satire. I picked up a few more of his books and have to play catch-up.

Debbie Metallica
Jun 7, 2001

Mack the Knife posted:

the killer seems theorized and unbelievable to me

Very, very true. Though it's probably incredibly hard to do much with it since your source material is limited to sensationalistic news stories and his obviously untrue autobiography along with some personal accounts that probably don't fill a ton of space. The part about the woman's footprint on the inside of the vault is really macabre, though.

I don't know how you could possibly make much of a movie out of what's there, though. The Holmes/Mudgett story is pretty sparse and the Burnham stuff is compelling but a movie? Hm...

stephpwnz
Aug 28, 2006
Recently finished Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I actually ended up liking Age of Innocence, even though I swore never to read another one of Wharton's books after completing Ethan Frome, just because it was so depressing.

Mr. Pants
Apr 12, 2005
I am happy
Just got done with The World Inside by Robert Silverberg. Found it stuffed away in a forgotten box along with a whole lot of other sci-fi that belonged to my mom. Lots of Silverberg, Haldeman, Delany and the like in there so I should be busy for a while. I had no idea what to expect but I ended up really liking it. It's a very good take on a dystopian future that I haven't seen before. It deals mostly with the issues of over-population and personal freedoms. Instead of imagining a world strained and cracking due to population pressures and attempts to control growth, Silverberg instead shows us a society that has embraced rapid reproduction and unrestrained sex with resources to spare. Lots of sex, personal freedom issues, sex and more sex. If you can get past the super creepy incestuous underage sex then it ends up on par with the likes of 1984 or Brave New World with characters every bit as tragic as the protagonists in those books. Recommended.

EasyEW
Mar 8, 2006

I've got my father's great big six-shooter with me 'n' if anybody in this woods wants to start somethin' just let 'em--but they DASSN'T.
Just finished The Crying of Lot 49, because I had an itch to dip my toe into Pynchon-land without hitting the deep end first. Unfortunately, I didn't take the recommended second go-through before it went back to the library, but there was so much going on that a revisit is warranted down the line. (Sidebar: the same library's copy of Against The Day had a "14 Day Loan" sticker on the cover, which gave me a nice "as if" chuckle.)

In progress: Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris; "Six To Eight Black Men" is one of the funniest things I've read in the past twelve months. Up next: Lolita, probably. The "most perfect first lines" thread piqued my interest.

splink
Apr 27, 2005

Everyone, c'mon get happy!

Soth posted:

I just finished Anansi Boys from Neil Gaiman, and I'm not quite sure how to qualify it, on the surface you have likable characters doing cool interesting stuff, but underneath it, there's nothing, it's simultaneously boring and pretty good at the same time. I came in expecting something on par with American Gods, but it wasn't really even close.

I have to agree with this. I loved American Gods, but Anansi Boys came nowhere near it. I like your description that it was simultaneously boring and yet good, but overall it felt like just the best elements of AG recycled with some new characters that didn't seem nearly as engaging as Shadow and pals. Seeing Anansi again was nice, though, as he was one of my favorite characters from the House on the Rock scene of AG. Probably the most disappointed I've been at a Neil Gaiman book, but mostly only because my hopes were so high for it.

Millennial
Feb 5, 2006

Freakonomics, by Levitt. I enjoyed it, but it seemed so short compared to what I was expecting.

ptk
Oct 4, 2006

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Now I'm reading a revision of The History of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus by P.F. Gen upon which the play was strongly based, and starting to really appreciate how Marlowe worked the source material into something pretty. It is a good story, but it reads dully. Didn't get its deserved treatment until Doctor Faustus.

Potemkin
Sep 22, 2005

Catherine I can't say I approve of the amount of time you're spending in the stables...
I just finished Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and I have to say that it was absolutely incredible. Allende managed to weave the personal lives of a family with the political struggle of Chile with the utmost delicacy. You're just constantly forced to remember that their lives are part of this larger political whole, all played out against the house itself, which reflects and embodies the state of Chile. The remarkable thing is that she managed to retain this love of all her characters, even those who tortured and beat others. There were no villains, they were all just fully fleshed out human beings.

I'm still moved by it I guess, it's a lot to deal with. Reading the book you're just haunted by the fact that she lived through Pinochet. It's very, very, very difficult to get through some parts, and honestly it just broke me down. It's the first time I've cried after reading a book in a while.

Krinkle
Feb 9, 2003

Ah do believe Ah've got the vapors...
Ah mean the farts


I just read the phillip K. Dick reader. It was a collection of his short stories. I've now read every book he's ever had turned into a movie. Maybe. I'm not even sure which of the short stories based the movie "screamers" because I've never seen the movie and even if I had hollywood just takes one of his premises and runs with it in a more marketable direction so it might not even help to know.

It was good. I really enjoy his stories. He's not the best writer, I've been told, and I guess I can see that. However, he really knows how to make you sweat right along with his paranoid characters. It feels a little dated because he wrote most of these in the sixties or seventies and I thought people would stop assuming rockets were going to be the defacto transportation by the fifties, but whatever.

dirtycajun
Aug 27, 2004

SUCKING DICKS AND SQUEEZING TITTIES
Oi, I have had a broken leg and surgery and all kinds of poo poo lately. The plus side? I got major reading done.
First on the list I burned through anything to do with Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal, Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising) and in all honesty the only novel I found compelling was Hannibal, for whatever reason I liked the development of his character.
Then to the cyberpunk and sci-fi. I had been on a short story kick lately so I picked up Toast by Charles Stross (Accellerando is a great cyberpunk book and all afficianados should read it) and Strange Itineraries by Tim Powers. I enjoyed both thoroughly.
Next I read a strange little fantasy novel Called The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar about a bunch of scottish punk fairies moving into the projects of New York. Neil Gaiman recommended it and it was a quick but amusing read.
I am now embarking on the Song of Fire and Ice, wish me luck.

A Game of Chess
Nov 6, 2004

not as good as Turgenev
J.-K. Huysmans' Là-Bas. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't quite what I got---it was a bit hard to relate since I think a lot of its power back when it was published was the horror that Satanism evoked, whereas from a modern perspective those scenes are just a little silly. I did find the 'biography' of Gilles de Rais that the main character was writing to be pretty interesting, though---embellished obviously, but you can tell Huysmans at least read his Michelet before writin'. And there were parts that were still pretty awesome, and I think it has a hilarious closing sentence. I'm also not sure whether this translation was a good one, because the translator rendered the title as "The Damned" whereas Là-Bas is more like "Down There." I don't understand French well enough to be sure or to read it in the original language, though, so I will never know if I just had an unfortunate translation. :(

A Game of Chess fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Jan 7, 2007

Krinkle
Feb 9, 2003

Ah do believe Ah've got the vapors...
Ah mean the farts


dirtycajun posted:

I am now embarking on the Song of Fire and Ice, wish me luck.

good luck. I'm 700 pages in the song of ice and fire's first book, game of thrones. It's amazing how many chapters end with a line that makes me want to read four or five more chapters to find out what happens next. It's a great book.

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Striker
Jul 22, 2006
Noted for my lack of distinction
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I know Gaiman is held in pretty high regard around here, and the man can certainly write, but for some reason, I didn't really enjoy this book much. I can't quite put my finger on why, either. Maybe I was expecting more or something. Oh well. It happens.

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