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For Your Eyes Only, Ian Fleming This isn't a novel really, it's more a collection of short stories, which confused me at the beginning. It's Bond though, so  . We really need a Bond emoticon. What's funny is this is the second Bond book to have a mind's eye  sequence where Bond see a girl, and starts going through all the stuff that's going to happen, culminating in him  . Err, him sleeping with the girl.
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Jun 26, 2007 12:47
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Finished All The Pretty Horses and really enjoyed it. Got the other two books in the Border Trilogy as well, so I'm going to start The Crossing today.
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Jun 26, 2007 17:14
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I just finished Old Mans War a few days ago and its sequal The Ghost Brigade last night. Both where excellent sci-fi books and I'm probably going to be buying the third and final one this friday. Once I burn through that one I have no idea what else to pick up.
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Jun 26, 2007 18:05
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I just finished Plato's Euthyphro for the third or fourth time as part of the 2007 Plato Assault thread. It's always enjoyable to see Socrates' portrayal in early Socratic dialogues like this one because they seem closer to the historical Socrates and his general demeanor and character. Went on a bit of a binge today at Barnes & Noble. Up next is David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and Seneca's On The Shortness of Life. Either those or I'll start off with The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson before moving on to Hell's Angels.
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Jun 26, 2007 19:07
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Recent reads: Bait and Switch: The {Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Eirenreich. You probably best know her for Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America. I love this woman to death. This book isn't quite as cut and dry as her previous expose, and I found myself at times thinking she was making her work more difficult when she could easily have changed her false identity slightly and gotten through much easier. For those who don't know, the book is about the struggle that many white collar workers who have been laid off (especially in middle age) go through in trying to find new work, and the sacrifices and hardships one must endure. Her stuff is great to me because it reminds me of Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London. Empire by Orson Scott Card. I hated portions of this book. Not because the book was badly written or offensive, but because Card made his characters that disgusting to me at parts. Bravo. This man gets inside his characters like no other. The book tells of a fictional present-day civil war in the US between the right and left. The right has the military. The left has technology and major financial backing. The story centers around an Army officer who once worked on counterterrorism by thinking up ways that people might kill the president and the trials he goes through. Current read: The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. I've been on a Card kick recently. After that, I'm thinking of ordering some more of Philip K. Dick's stories, as they're hard to find in the used shops here. De Nomolos fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jun 27, 2007 |
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Jun 27, 2007 03:17
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RightHonourableHolt posted:After that, I'm thinking of ordering some more of Philip K. Dick's stories, as they're hard to find in the used shops here. Ditto. Dick is one of my favorites, and all I've found in used bookstores in the past couple months was The Man Who Japed. Great read, but very short, I finished it in a couple days. If you haven't read Time Out of Joint, may I suggest that as well? It's a brilliant novel.
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Jun 27, 2007 03:54
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perceptual_set posted:Would you reccomend it to another 1984 fan? I think it's worth checking out. It's a little more comical, and felt A LOT less serious. And it didn't coax my imagination anywhere near as much as 1984 did.
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Jun 27, 2007 04:10
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Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut A really great book, like a lot of other people I think it's his best work. I loved the messages all throughout the book. When they got to Titan was the best part, seeing that Earth's history was insignificant and the such. I'd reccomend it to anyone, even if you've never read Vonnegut before.
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Jun 27, 2007 04:29
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I just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Overall it kept me pretty interested. I think it was well written and provided a very interesting perspective on autism. I've been meaning to pick up To Kill A Mockingbird next, but my eyes are wandering and I find A Clockwork Orange much more tempting. I'd really like to be more exposed to the classics though. Ah, dilemma.
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Jun 27, 2007 05:12
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I just finished A Game of Thrones and it was just as excellent as everyone around here said it was. I finished it in about 3 days, which is the quickest I've ever slammed down 800 pages. I'm going tomorrow to grab A Clash of Kings. I can't believe they killed Eddard Stark, but then I was like "This is loving awesome, they just offed the main character like it was nothing, just executed him with no big hub bub." It's so refreshing to see something like that
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Jun 27, 2007 05:22
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Crow T. Robot posted:I just finished A Game of Thrones and it was just as excellent as everyone around here said it was. I finished it in about 3 days, which is the quickest I've ever slammed down 800 pages. I'm going tomorrow to grab A Clash of Kings. I can't believe they killed Eddard Stark, but then I was like "This is loving awesome, they just offed the main character like it was nothing, just executed him with no big hub bub." It's so refreshing to see something like that If you think that was awesome, just wait until you see what happens in the next books. 
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Jun 27, 2007 16:23
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The Great War For Civilization by Robert Fisk. A fascinating look at the history of the middle east from a man who's reported it for over 30 years. Hugely interesting read, but very long.
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Jun 27, 2007 16:29
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Candide by Voltaire. If you've ever considered reading it, do it. Candide is referenced all the time so it's probably a good idea to have it under your belt. Fortunately, it's very readable and extremely short. Definitely can be finished in a single day.
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Jun 27, 2007 19:26
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Zero Karizma posted:Candide by Voltaire. If you've ever considered reading it, do it. Candide is referenced all the time so it's probably a good idea to have it under your belt. Fortunately, it's very readable and extremely short. Definitely can be finished in a single day. What I love about this is that Voltaire absolutely rips Gottfried Leibniz (in Dr. Pangloss) and his philosophy to shreds with this work. I had to read parts of Theodicy and Monadology as part of a Modern Era Philosophy course and it was just one  after another. Granted, the dude still gets huge props for his mathematical genius, like discovering integral calculus.
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Jun 27, 2007 20:52
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Bubbletime posted:I just finished The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and it was really good. Three surreal and well written detective stories. I'm about to read that. But now I'm reading Slaughterhouse-Five.
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Jun 27, 2007 21:06
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Encryptic posted:Finished All The Pretty Horses and really enjoyed it. Got the other two books in the Border Trilogy as well, so I'm going to start The Crossing today. I read Blood Meridian around Christmas, and it was really awesome. Very gory--in one scene, a man has a baby in each hand and smashes them on some rocks.
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Jun 27, 2007 21:10
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Walter Abish's How German Is It?, a delightful carnival of sweet suppressed Nazi guilt set in a slavishly modern German town. Dry, semi-detached prose, but effective and easy to read, plus you can't swing a cat amidst the wall-to-wall allusions. Quality stuff.
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Jun 28, 2007 07:45
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I just finished I Am Legend tonight. I picked it up after seeing the movie trailer and reading about how awesome the book was in these forums. Everyone was right, this book was phenomenal. Neville's situation is presented in such a way that I kept thinking to myself how lucky I was to not be alone. And the closing paragraphs takes every thing you've seen Neville as, and let you see him in a whole new light. I just picked up the first four books in the Dark Tower series and almost halfway through the Gunslinger and I'm enjoying it very much.
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Jun 28, 2007 10:20
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Recent reads: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. The first section of the book is very humourous, but the book really gets rolling in the second section; the shared topic of the essays really lends it a sense of cohesion. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Very fun read, took me about a day of on and off reading. Not the deepest or most complex plot, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Pins by Jim Provenzano. Stereotypical queer lit read... I don't really like authors who cover up their mediocre writing with titillation. Sex! Someone dies! But because it's a gay novel it sends a message. Riiiight... I'm currently reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. My god. I'm about 3/4's through the book and quite frankly the entire novel is about drinking. Part of me wants to just go to the bar and see the dialogue in person. No to say it's a bad book, not at all- at the same time, I feel like an alcoholic just reading the thing.
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Jun 28, 2007 15:00
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organism013 posted:I'm currently reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. My god. I'm about 3/4's through the book and quite frankly the entire novel is about drinking. Part of me wants to just go to the bar and see the dialogue in person. No to say it's a bad book, not at all- at the same time, I feel like an alcoholic just reading the thing. Hehe, I got probated for my post on that in this thread. I suppose I should have a little more than "I don't get it", but really I don't get it. I bought the book because  had just done a show called "The Son Also Rises", and I'd never read Hemingway, who was this revered author so why not? Guh. If I want to read about people doing normal things I'll pick up another Bukowski. I really don't want to read about rich assholes going to bullfights.
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Jun 28, 2007 17:42
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organism013 posted:I'm currently reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. My god. I'm about 3/4's through the book and quite frankly the entire novel is about drinking. Part of me wants to just go to the bar and see the dialogue in person. No to say it's a bad book, not at all- at the same time, I feel like an alcoholic just reading the thing. The drinking is for a reason, which I'm sure your aware of. The characters suffer complete disillusionment after being stuck in the trenches of WWI. Instead of the “glorious battle” they expected, WWI soldiers were forced to huddle terrified in trenches while literally clinging to another man. If you popped your head up, you were slaughtered without fail, so they simply sat there holding each other, waiting for it to end. All the old world values of honor, manliness and integrity were ripped apart in front of them. When they came home, they were completely devastated and nothing was what they thought it should be. In the book, Jake had enough money, so they escaped from America to avoid dealing with their problems. Now, with no purpose in life, the entire cast dedicates themselves to living completely without any drive. They drink, gently caress and gently caress around because there’s nothing else to do. Nothing has any meaning anymore. All of them lust after one completely unattainable woman and spend their time picking on Robert Cohn, the man who didn’t have to go to war. They apply all their hatred to this him because they are so desperate for someone to blame. I hated that book when I first tried to read it. But it really spoke to me the second time around. I sometimes feel like Gen Y is a lot like the Lost Generation in a lot of ways. Minus the war, of course. It makes sense in my head. Point is: Just remember that they are all assholes because they have absolutely nothing left to live for, so they wander aimlessly, doing stuff they think they’re supposed to want to do. I loving love this book.
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Jun 28, 2007 18:31
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I just finished Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Possibly one of the most dense books I've ever read, since there are no paragraph breaks for dialogue, you're ambushed by walls and walls of text every page. This isn't a bad thing, per se, but when you spend an hour reading and you've got half as many pages as you normally do, it feels surreal. Anyway, there's a ton of Indian history in here, and you need to be patient, because the main character isn't born until about 175 pages into the whole thing. At first I was like "GET TO THE MAGIC KIDS ALREADY!!!" but by the time it all happened, I was over it and realized that all the history is important to give context for poor, poor Saleem.
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Jun 29, 2007 02:22
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Just finished Flatterland by Ian Stewart. It's an interesting follow-up if you've read Flatland before. Stewart expands the concept into demonstrating the ideas of higher-dimensional space and unusual geometries. The last third or so of the book goes into modern physics, talking about the shape of the universe, the structure of matter, and a little bit of string theory. All in all I'd say it was an enjoyable, quick read. Check it out if you're interested in finding out what all that topology nonsense is about.
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Jun 29, 2007 03:27
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Panzer Operations by Erhard Raus. He was originally in the Austrian army pre-Anschluss, and then became a member of the German Heer when Germany annexed Austria. This book focuses on his experiences as an officer at battalion level and up during the invasion of the USSR. The descriptions of the early battles of the Barbarossa campaign I found to be particularly interesting, and the accounts of later battles illustrated the damage Hitler's meddling did and futility of fighting against the mass of Soviet industry. My only complaint is that this account was very much a traditional "German soldiers were better, and we would have won if it wasn't for..." type of memoir. But this can be expected as it was penned in the 50s and all writing I have seen from this time by German officers has had this attitude to some extent.
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Jun 29, 2007 04:11
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Middlemarch by George Eliot (pseudonym for Mary Ann Evans). It's a monster of a book, with four parallel story lines, and so much detail it hurts the brain at first. However, once you get used to Evans' dense style, it's a wonderful read. Even though it's a Victorian soap opera, it WILL enrich your vocabulary, and make you more aware of sentiment. Readable, but requires effort. It was kind of trippy going from her super-dense style to Terry Pratchett. Pratchett lets you fill in the blanks yourself, but the first 50 pages it was like half the book was missing.
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Jun 29, 2007 12:55
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Mr. Fahrenheit posted:Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut I agree, that is one hell of a book and a great read. My personal favorite has to be Slaughterhouse-Five though, which I have read multiple times and enjoyed each time more than the last. One the same line, I just finished Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut because I just can't get enough of his writing. It's not one of his more popular or more noted books, but I really enjoyed it as what I took to be modern American society examined through the microcosm of Midland City, Ohio (not even sure if it really exists even though I live in Ohio). Garibaldi fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 29, 2007 |
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Jun 29, 2007 19:14
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Zero Karizma posted:words Having finished it, I actually quite agree with you. I enjoyed it a lot, especially the nearer it got to the end. I think it finally got into my head that with TSAR, like a lot of great novels, you really kind of have to work for it; getting into Jake's head instead of just being an observer. I also think you did kind of hit it on the head when you compared Gen Y to the Lost Generation- like I said, I could basically go to any bar or dance club in my city and see pretty much exactly what was going on in the novel. Very interesting point, bears exploring. I stick to my point that reading about alcoholics can be a bit trying- especially when you want a drink yourself- but I definitely understand WHY they're doing it. I mean, I read All Quiet On The Western Front too, haha. Of course, if I was getting tired out by reading about 20's alcoholics with justification, why did I start reading about frat boys? I'm currently embroiled in Goat by Brad Land.
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Jun 29, 2007 23:33
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Mine, Robert McCammon Holky gently caress, that was a ride. I just finished the last 200+ pages in one marathon 3 hour sitting. One night after we'd got done doing the floors of the grocery store, and hanging out in the parking lot getting smashed, one of the managers was telling us about this book his brother had given to him. He told us about a book, Stephen King-ish that he really didn't think he'd like, this story about a woman waking up to a baby's crying, how she tried to comfort it and such, and finally losing her cool and turning on the stove, and  she was gonna teach it to behave, and then burning its face off and throwing it against the wall. And then it turned out it was just a doll. I lived with that story for 15 years, and I finally asked the internet and got the name of the thing. This book, about a crazy whacked out flower power psycho bitch who has a vision and decides to steal a baby to take to her Manson-ish cult leader grabs a nerve and twists and then when you're about as tense as you can get twists *really loving hard*. And you're looking at the book and thinking you've still got over a hundred pages to go wtf?!? If this doesn't wrap up in the next chapter...oh holy poo poo. Mother chasing after the baby, psycho ex-G-man out for revenge on the woman who hosed his poo poo up and doesn't care if the baby gets in the way, the helpful traitor who helps the heroine chase down her baby, drat. It's all in there. This book should be the definition of thriller and suspense.
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Jun 30, 2007 04:50
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Finished Slaughter House-Five again, solid as ever. Reread Flowers for Algernon again. To this day, it still holds the prestigious award of being the only book to ever make me cry. Also finished The Road... and honestly I was sorely dissappointed. After such rave goon reviews I thought it would be a home-run. I found it plain, and frankly, the ending pissed me off. I'll take a bird saying "poo-tee-weet?" over that Deus ex machina ending anyday. BRB MAKIN BACON fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jun 30, 2007 |
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Jun 30, 2007 10:39
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The Sun Also Rises is one of my favorites. I was just recalling the awe they had when they met the fellow who had battle scars from a "real war." And don't forget that the story could also be titled A farewell to my balls  I just finished Anthony Bourdain's The Nasty Bits, a collection of articles and a story, regarding food tourism, Ferran Adria, and other restaurant and cooking related topics. Bourdain writes well and gives a punk edge to it, so it was interesting. I picked up P.G. Wodehouse's The Mating Season for a light read while up at Lake George. How I have missed his delightful prose.
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Jun 30, 2007 12:59
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Just finished Ghost's of Yesterday, the prequel for the Transformers movie... predictable fanfic type stuff, but maybe it'll help enrich watching the movie. But I doubt it. Up next we have Thus Spoke Zarathrustra.
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Jun 30, 2007 14:04
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organism013 posted:
Have you ever read any Jean Genet? I think you might like it, hes one of the greats of literature, gay, french or otherwise. Start with either thief's journal or querelle, as those are the easiest reads since they are linearly plotted.
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Jun 30, 2007 16:44
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A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. I'm normally more of a non-fiction reader, so it was a bit of a departure. Had it been written more recently I'd probably write it off as the half-baked fantasy of some philosophy major; it actually reads pretty sober, though. I'm interested to check out the film of it just because I really can't imagine how they'd pull it off with keeping much faith to the book.
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Jun 30, 2007 18:28
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Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla drat good book. Still thoroughly enjoying the series, I felt that this was possibly one of the better books as it manages to use all of the previous ideologies and styles he implemented in fragments during the previous books and tied it together in a nice neat package. Not really buying into the hate that most people have for the series at this point. The whole writing himself into the story doesn't bother me in the least, hell I was actually happy that he was tying together things from his other books. Seeing as the Tower and Roland's travels span many different worlds and parallel realities, it's nice to have this being developed.
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Jun 30, 2007 18:40
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'Quo Vadis' by Henryk Sienkiewicz... historical fiction about Christians vs Romans during the reign of Nero. All the Christians are pure and good and most of the Romans evil. There's more sex and gore than I'd expect from 1895. It's fun, but I don't see how it won a Nobel Prize. Next up: 'Gilead' by Marilynne Robinson and my new Jeeves & Wooster Omnibus, hooray!
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Jun 30, 2007 19:28
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The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue ... if only there were more discussion threads about it =(
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Jun 30, 2007 22:54
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kizeesh posted:Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla drat good book. Still thoroughly enjoying the series, I felt that this was possibly one of the better books as it manages to use all of the previous ideologies and styles he implemented in fragments during the previous books and tied it together in a nice neat package.
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Jun 30, 2007 23:50
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I finished The Death of Yugoslavia yesterday. Once I got accustomed to half the people having last names ending in "ic", it was a very interesting read. The book gives a thorough and, as far as possible, impartial overview to Yugoslavia's breakup and the 1991-1995 wars.
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Jul 1, 2007 00:11
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I just finished The Alchemist, and was blown away. An absolutely fantastic book that just makes your heart swell. I actually picked it up from the library on a whim, originally going there to check out I Am Legend, which was checked out, and I saw this on the shelf and remembered an BBC radio interview I heard with Paul Coelho that sounded pretty cool. Now, I'm going to try and pick up I Am Legend, 'cause I keep hearing about this really awesome ending and with the movie coming up I want to read it before some jackass spoils it in the movie discussion thread.
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Jul 1, 2007 01:35
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Finished Janet Malcolm's In the Freud Archive, a classic non-fiction account of what must surely rank up there with the all-time great scholastic meltdowns. Agonisingly funny, but in a way that makes you clutch your skull in dismay at the huge waste of otherwise gifted people. The gist: On the cusp of the handover of the Freud Archives, the worlds largest and least accessible collection of Freud's mostly unknown correspondence, candid interviews in the New York Times appear suggesting that what's contained therein ultimately undermines the whole basis of psychoanalysis; letters which seemingly point to Freud developing the Oedipal theory as a semi-conscious attempt to assuage himself of guilt for nearly killing a patient, even going so far as to shift the burden of guilt onto the patient. The resulting black-hole of recrimination sucks in the archive director, the board, the young (but ultimately wildly erratic) successor, Freud's daughter, an enterprising amateur historian and, by extension, the Sunday Times. Hell, even the author couldn't extricate herself from the mess without first beating off a decades worth of probing lawsuits. Can't recommend it enough, plus any knowledge of Freud going in is merely a bonus.
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Jul 1, 2007 12:05
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