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Finished In Cold Blood by Truman Capote last night. Excellently written, really gave you every single detail of the case, the victims, the criminals, and the investigation while being a fantastic read at the same time. Now on to The Once and Future King!
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Apr 25, 2007 00:06
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I recently finished Theodore Ayrault Dodge's Alexander. An exhaustive examination of Alexander the Great, and not just what he did but the factors influenced him. You actually don't read about Alexander for a while, since a good chunk of the early parts of the book are devoted to explaining Greek military tactics, traditions, and history in order to give you the background information necessary. It's long and wordy, much like his own Hannibal which was a fantastic look at the Carthaginian general, but I love history so I didn't have any problems breaking through the multitude of information. I also finished Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War just before that. Quite a well written look at the Roman Civil War from the eyes of its victor. I'm currently debating whether or not I should finish Benjamin Disraeli's Vivian Grey, which I started long ago, never finished, and recently remembered when I mistakenly associated that with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray during a conversation with a friend. I also recently started Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, so I'm trying to think of whether or not it would be better to finish Vivian Grey before tackling that behemoth work.
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Apr 25, 2007 01:29
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I just finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (which has probably been mentioned a half-dozen times already in this thread) and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that both lived up to their goon-hype, which was especially impressive considering the descriptions in the Cormac McCarthy thread. The style of Lolita was just plain fun. Not much else to say that other people haven't already. I loved Humbert's playful, pretentious insanity. And that intro. Blood Meridian was just fantastic. When I first looked at the book, my reaction was "Ugh, no quotation marks, no commas, no way." I decided to tough it out based on the recommendations and I'm glad a did. Once I got into the zone, his style was positively hypnotic. I can see why people describe his writing as "biblical" - that rhythm from the lack of punctuation and the epic tone. And the Judge really was as awesome as they say. Definitely not for those who are uncomfortable with (ultra-)violence, though.
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Apr 25, 2007 02:34
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I just finished: Lisey's Story by Stephen King - This book started off a little slow but turned out to be really, really good. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - Excellent! I honestly could not put this book down and it just drove my boyfriend nuts. We'd be watching tv or cuddling and all of a sudden I'd open the book and start reading...I even got caught reading it while he was trying to tell me about his stressful day at work.  I'm almost done Heavier Than Heaven : A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles Cross
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Apr 25, 2007 06:06
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Krinkle posted:The first thing I did was search every dark tower synopsis on wikipedia for mentions of the word finger to see if he ever, ever got them back. I mean he killed an entire city. He hasn't kicked nearly enough rear end yet to hang it up and become a newbie wrangler. Actually I had thought he lost his third and fourth finger and it wasn't until the wastelands that I realized he lost his trigger finger. Jesus, his trigger finger! Well it doesn't matter THAT much, because he just shoots with his other hand after that. No more double-fisting the revolvers I guess, but he manages fine throughout the series.
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Apr 25, 2007 06:41
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ohsocrafty posted:I just finished: I'm waiting for the paperback. The synopsis on the jacket makes it sound like an Alice in Wonderland sort of story. Is that what this book is like?
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Apr 25, 2007 12:30
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perceptual_set posted:I'm waiting for the paperback. The synopsis on the jacket makes it sound like an Alice in Wonderland sort of story. Is that what this book is like?
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Apr 25, 2007 14:32
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I just reread Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for the first time since high school. Still great, thought-provoking satire, and I can see how it helped me push through some of my high school angst.  And by the end of the day, I should be finished rereading Mother Night as well. Reading the two back-to-back, it strikes me how similar Campbell's disdain for nationalism and his love for the notion of the "Nation of Two" is to Bokonon's emphasis on the importance and relevance of the karass over the granfaloon, and it's a viewpoint that's stuck with me pretty much since I started reading Vonnegut in the first place.I reread The Sirens of Titan several months ago, but I might reread some of the other parts of my Vonnegut collection while I'm at it.
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Apr 25, 2007 19:14
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Children of Dune, Frank Herbert. Whew. More of a proper sequel to the original than Messiah which was really more of an epilogue. Herbert's writing is hard on me, I feel like it's going over my head so I frequently re-read passages. I do that constantly, which makes finishing really tiring but gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
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Apr 26, 2007 01:49
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Allen Steele's Coyote trilogy. Not bad. I'll have to read the related book, Spindrift, next. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 26, 2007 03:48
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phantom, terry goodkind. last week I've re-read the first three in the series. definitely helps pull things together to have the older stuff fresh in my mind. like in the newest book, six says "I'm going to rip your liver out and eat it!" and I never realized, in book 3, they find a guy strung up and his liver on the ground, with two bites out of it. Hers and queen violets. Crazy.
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Apr 26, 2007 09:29
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LooseChanj posted:Children of Dune, Frank Herbert. Whew. More of a proper sequel to the original than Messiah which was really more of an epilogue. Herbert's writing is hard on me, I feel like it's going over my head so I frequently re-read passages. I do that constantly, which makes finishing really tiring but gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Wait till the next book. There's two schools of thought on Herbert. One is that he went loving crazy after Children and wrote rambling pseudo-intellectual crap. The other disagrees with this wholeheartedly. I'm with the latter. Now granted, books 5 and 6 are a little harder to swallow, but goddamn you gotta read God Emperor. It's my favorite book in the series just based on it's main character. It's Leto II. He's the talking worm from the cover. Dune 4 is 700 pages about a talking worm. I expected to hate God Emperor, because the premise is just about the dumbest idea ever. But I really think Frank managed to pull it off. In fact, he pulled it off so well that God Emperor is my favorite in the series just based on the sheer ballsiness of getting this to work.
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Apr 26, 2007 14:16
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I just finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods. We had gone to the beach for the weekend and I sat there reading it for hours on end while my feet were buried in sand the rest of my burned to a crisp. I actually believe it is quite unfortunate that it is over. My boyfriend suggested I start reading The Sandman comics and I have. I am currently on volume 4. Finding a book as good as this happens maybe a few times a year and I love every second of it when it comes!
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Apr 26, 2007 15:39
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Just finished Wladislaw Szpilman's The Pianist last night. Made the mistake of having seen the movie beforehand (at that point, I didn't realize that it had been adapted from his memoirs, though I probably should have), so I thought I knew what to expect. It is a very powerful work, showing the hopelessness of the situation for a Jew in wartime Warsaw. Puts a very human face on the Polish plight, and the struggle to survive. The interractions between Szpilman and Wilm Hosenfeld are such a 180 from his experiences with other Germans during the war, that you can tell that it profoundly affected him. Even if you've seen the film, this is a book that one must read. Excellent memoir.
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Apr 26, 2007 15:59
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vstheworld posted:I just finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods. We had gone to the beach for the weekend and I sat there reading it for hours on end while my feet were buried in sand the rest of my burned to a crisp. I actually believe it is quite unfortunate that it is over. My boyfriend suggested I start reading The Sandman comics and I have. I am currently on volume 4. I believe Anansi Boys, while not necessarily a sequel does follow the same universe set up in American Gods. I usually hate fantasy but American Gods made me read for longer intervals than I ever have before. I think I went like 3 or 4 hours without even stopping, which is amazing for my attention span.
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Apr 26, 2007 17:31
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flowersinherhair posted:Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Have you read Touching the Void by Joe Simpson? It's also an account of a climb gone bad. The author broke his leg up on the mountain, and was able to climb down. I didn't grasp a lot of the technical descriptions of climbing, but it was an amazing account of his experience.
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Apr 26, 2007 18:09
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perceptual_set posted:I believe Anansi Boys, while not necessarily a sequel does follow the same universe set up in American Gods. I usually hate fantasy but American Gods made me read for longer intervals than I ever have before. I think I went like 3 or 4 hours without even stopping, which is amazing for my attention span. I just finished that one. From what I remember, the only character the two books really have in common is Anansi, and he's really not a major player in the new book. And yes, I agree that Gaiman's writing is very absorbing. Even when he's being a bit cheesy or over the top, he still makes you want to stick with the story. But it just wasn't really what I was expecting, and everything got wrapped up far too neatly for my tastes.
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Apr 27, 2007 17:16
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Grey by Jon Armstrong - A noirish, fashionista/futuristic, psuedo-cyberpunk tale. Also, not that good at all. It had all the makings of an interesting book but none of the execution. The world he created could have great uses in future books whn the author finds his voice, unless he already has and the world will suck. Then I read Something From the Nightside by Simon Green. Now that was a wondeful read. Started strong and only started to lose greatness at the very end. It is a Sam Spade style detective story set in the dark underbelly/underworld of London, filled with demons and monsters and a quaint ghost diner from the 60's. I have two more books in the series and cannot wait to crack them open.
CrimsonGhost fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Apr 28, 2007 |
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Apr 27, 2007 18:00
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Just finished Cell by Stephen King. I enjoyed it. Maybe not one of his best works, as someone already alluded to in this thread, but enjoyable anyway. Next I'm going to read DragonLance Legends Volume 3: Test of the Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman I've read the first two twice, and honestly had no idea there was a third until I got bored and browsed through the rest of the pages of the second book and saw there was a third. I can't wait to see what happens after the second.
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Apr 28, 2007 01:35
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Finished Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. (I was on a bit of a nonfiction kick for a while.) I got bogged down in the "preparations of the World Fair of 1893" part for MONTHS, but once the fair started I couldn't really put it down, and I finished the book in a night. Fantastic stuff. Certain parts about things that happened during the fair gave me goosebumps.
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Apr 28, 2007 07:29
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, LeCarre. This had been on my "to read" stack for a long time until I needed a book to read while my car was being serviced. Fast-paced, short (by modern standards) novel about counterintelligence. Kind of quaint nowadays since the end of the Cold War (LeCarre mentions this in a forward, but the settings of 1970s London and the boys' school are even more removed than the possibility of being buried by the Soviets)Sarilith posted:Next I'm going to read DragonLance Legends Volume 3: Test of the Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman I've read the first two twice, and honestly had no idea there was a third until I got bored and browsed through the rest of the pages of the second book and saw there was a third. I can't wait to see what happens after the second. Why would you do such a thing 
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Apr 28, 2007 08:05
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I just finished the waste lands, the third book in the dark tower series. With the heavy emphasis on riddles, it makes me want to get my hands on some "real" riddles. Not riddles roland would call idiocy. Old timey rhyming riddles like the ones bandied back and forth between bilbo and gollum in the hobbit. I'm pretty tired but when I googled for them all I got were stupid story riddles where the answer is to ask one gatekeeper what the other would say, or bizzare answer-less riddles that microsoft apparently gives to job applicants which focus mostly on estimation and in what order you would troubleshoot your lights not turning on.
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Apr 28, 2007 08:43
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Krinkle posted:I just finished the waste lands, the third book in the dark tower series. With the heavy emphasis on riddles, it makes me want to get my hands on some "real" riddles. There's a bunch of them in the next book by the way. I just finished Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games about 20 mins ago on the bus. Absolutely fantastic book, and nice to see that he manages to be critical about the Culture whilst still trying to put it forwards in a good light. Still think Excessions is his best Sci-fi novel.
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Apr 28, 2007 19:28
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Krinkle posted:I'm pretty tired but when I googled for them all I got were stupid story riddles where the answer is to ask one gatekeeper what the other would say, or bizzare answer-less riddles that microsoft apparently gives to job applicants which focus mostly on estimation and in what order you would troubleshoot your lights not turning on. Did you try this site?
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Apr 29, 2007 00:04
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Last book I read was Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf. I absolutely loved it, the language and mix of poetry, prose and drama. Even more so when I completely researched the novel's themes, symbolism, etc. Edit: Oh, and before that, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, which was kinda nice. Sort of like Jane Austen coming down from a horrid LSD trip. Uncle Sam fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Apr 29, 2007 |
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Apr 29, 2007 00:09
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I just finished Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson. It was much less pulpy and much more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It's the story of a young leader who conquers the world in the early 25th century told by one of his chief lieutenants, who is haunted by the genocide that he helps his country commit. I was annoyed at the last chapter, which, while it functioned well as a plot element, sort of abandoned the ideas and themes he had been developing.
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Apr 29, 2007 07:45
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I (literally) just finished reading Ally by Karen Traviss. Wow. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 29, 2007 13:08
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Just finished Bram Stoker's Dracula and boy am I pissed at that movie now. Not only is the entire Dracula/Mina love story not present, it's not even vaguely hinted at! Oh and I'll spoil this if there's anyone who still doesn't know the story of Dracula: Am I the only one who felt like the humans kinda mercilessly kicked the poo poo out of big bad count Dracula... almost to the point where you felt bad for the poor bastard?
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Apr 29, 2007 16:35
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Zero Karizma posted:Am I the only one who felt like the humans kinda mercilessly kicked the poo poo out of big bad count Dracula... almost to the point where you felt bad for the poor bastard? It's been awhile, but I remember thinking the first third or so was far scarier than the rest. I need to read it again.
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Apr 29, 2007 16:51
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LooseChanj posted:It's been awhile, but I remember thinking the first third or so was far scarier than the rest. I need to read it again. The first part where Harker is trapped in the Count's castle is by far the best part of the book. Van Helsing is WAY too good at kicking vampire rear end to make the last parts scary. The thing I liked most of all was the early blood transfusions they do, where the only screening process is that you needed to be a "strong man" to give blood to ANYONE. Lucy gets 4 random blood donors. She was lucky to live as long as she did!
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Apr 29, 2007 17:28
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Astfgl posted:Did you try this site? Thanks, that was fun for a while. Some of them were just dumb but many were alright. I still haven't completely scratched this itch so I'm back to where I started!
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Apr 29, 2007 18:07
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Women, Charles Bukowski It took me a little while to get into this, coming off Children of Dune, it was just a hard right turn. Basically 300 pages about all the girls he's hosed. It had some seriously hilarious moments, but overall I liked Ham on Rye better.
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Apr 30, 2007 00:05
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I finished James Clavell's Shogun last week. Joe Haldeman's Forever War finally decided to show up this week ( Media Mail!), I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. I was considering starting a Shogun thread after I finished because I was surprised at how much I enjoyed book. It did a really good job of showing the main character's acculturation and the vast differences between Japanese and Western culture (in the seventeenth century). By the end of it, I was saying "ah, that's why that Japanese person did what he did", while at first I was as  as the main character when he first got to Japan. I've had some basic cultural stuff in my Japanese classes, but nothing as in depth as this. Plenty of political intrigue, and Mariko dying took me somewhat by surprise. Based on an actual historical figure, too.As a big fan of Starship Troopers I had heard I should check out The Forever War. Definitely a completely different message, but I really liked it just the same. I wouldn't have minded it being longer though. From the reviews of the two sequels, I'm not in a hurry to check out the rest of the series. I'm buying Armor as part of a lot on eBay tomorrow... along with about 22 other highly recommended SF titles. Hello, summer reading 
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Apr 30, 2007 01:16
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I just finished Drown by Junot Diaz. It is a collection of short stories about Latino families living in the Dominican Republic and in New Jersey. I actually found this book on the subway in the seat next to me and started reading it, figuring I would drop it back into the seat when my stop came up but I unconsciously walked out still reading it and found it very interesting. There was an extreme lack of punctuation that I found kind of annoying though.
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Apr 30, 2007 01:51
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Just finished Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I did most of the reading in class but cleaned off the last 50 or so pages in my dorm one day after approaching the climax while sitting in CEE270. I'm really captivated by his style of writing. It goes from being down-to-earth, to philosophical, to tongue-in-cheek, and he's great at making the smallest (most 'chaotic') events and details important parts of great stories.
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Apr 30, 2007 09:12
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I just read Feist's latest Into a Dark Realm. I've been reading his books since Magician and at this point it's just automatic to see his new one, put a hold on it from the library, and read it. This one though, I'm not really sure it was exactly worth the wait. Sure it's only been a year since the last one (almost to the day) but frankly not much happens in this book. It's almost entirely setup, with the "end" being a ... sort of dramatic revelation that had the minor problem of only being hinted at for the last 50 pages of the book tops, so it didn't have the impact it would've had it been foreshadowed on say, page 5, such that I read it and said "okay, so?" and that really should not have been my reaction given what the reveal was. It's a lot of setup for book 3, but in sum total there's not a lot THERE, if that makes any sense. Pretty short for Feist, too. I miss his books of fast-paced action and, I don't know, stuff happening. He's not anywhere near as good with this concept of dramatic build-up towards payoff in the next book.
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Apr 30, 2007 19:08
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Just finished On the Road by Kerouac. It was something of a struggle. Dean bothered the hell out of me. I never really got why Sal thought he was such a great guy. He just seemed to like the sound of his own voice to me. That and sleep with anything with a pulse. Aside from a personal dislike for one of the main characters, it was good.
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Apr 30, 2007 23:28
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I just finished Year Zero by Jeff Long. It's plague fiction about an ancient virus from the first century AD being re-released by the opening of a holy relic. The virus quickly spreads threatening to wipe out humanity. Because the virus was first introduced in the first century, scientists begin cloning humans from bones found at Golgotha in Jerusalem. One clone claims to remember his name. And he is Jesus Christ. Very awesome book. For those that enjoy religious fiction like Da Vinci Code and plague fiction like The Stand I urge you to pick this up.
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May 1, 2007 06:09
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perceptual_set posted:I just finished Year Zero by Jeff Long. It's plague fiction about an ancient virus from the first century AD being re-released by the opening of a holy relic. The virus quickly spreads threatening to wipe out humanity. Because the virus was first introduced in the first century, scientists begin cloning humans from bones found at Golgotha in Jerusalem. One clone claims to remember his name. And he is Jesus Christ. Does he end this book well? My main problem with Mr. Long is that his endings always suck rear end. After reading an enjoyable book for 300 or so pages he manages to ruin it with a three page ending that doesn't do any justice at all. For example- The Descent and The Reckoning.
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May 1, 2007 23:23
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I just finished The Sound and the Fury and it was amazing. As someone who is getting into writing, I've never felt so insignificant. Faulkner made each character's point of view so believable that I was beginning to worry that he himself was a mentally handicapped, suicidal, hatemongering douchebag. Anyway, I strongly recommend to anyone with a patient mind for working through some twisted stream of consciousness.
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May 2, 2007 01:22
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