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I just finished Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It's nonfiction, a sort of man vs. wild story. It's a short and easy read but for me it was somewhat emotionally taxing. I really recommend it; you'll quickly find yourself in one of two camps: either you find the protagonist to be ignorant, arrogant, short-sighted and ultimately deserving of his fate, or you find his passion for life and exploration exhilarating. I'm personally of the latter group. Regardless, it's a fascinating story and an interesting insight into the human spirit. That sounds cheesy as gently caress but it's true...
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Jul 8, 2007 03:32
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Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Wow did I hate this book. It really felt like I was reading about some rambling born-again Christian trapped on an island with nothing to do but ramble on about God. I seriously could not wait for it to end. I get that its all about mastery, self-reliance and being thankful for what you have. I just wish the drat thing was shorter. Robinson annoyed the hell out of me.
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Jul 8, 2007 07:16
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EDIT: OH GOD DAMMIT! Sorry, double post.
Zero Karizma fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Jul 8, 2007 |
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Jul 8, 2007 07:16
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Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon Great book, it was long and rambling at times but drat if I didn't enjoy each of the branching plot lines of this book. A lot of focus on the Age of Reason and the spread of western civilization into America, but of course it wouldn't be Pynchon if he didn't throw a bunch of other crazy poo poo at you along the way. Mechanical ducks flying at the speed of sound, hollow earth voyages, and much talk of lines, straight angles, and the Earth. If you've read Pynchon's other novels, you know what to expect. I have to say that I feel this is one of his best, definitely better than Vineland and even Against the Day, his latest book, which I liked considerably.
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Jul 8, 2007 08:18
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Zero Karizma posted:Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Wow did I hate this book. It really felt like I was reading about some rambling born-again Christian trapped on an island with nothing to do but ramble on about God. I seriously could not wait for it to end. Wow, and to think I just bought a copy.
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Jul 8, 2007 15:07
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LooseChanj posted:Wow, and to think I just bought a copy. You may like it. But to me, it's essentially one of those books you have to read, if only because it's part of the "essential Western Canon."
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Jul 8, 2007 18:38
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I just finished Generation X by Douglas Coupland. Not his best by any means but I can see why it kids loved it in the early 90's. I read Microserfs and jPod back to back last year and it was a real treat just to see how all the optimistic kids from MS end up ruining everything by the time jPod rolls around.
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Jul 9, 2007 08:23
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Finished Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn earlier this evening. Pretty good read throughout with an interesting magic system. Liked it better than his debut novel Elantris. Debating what to read next. I could re-read Eco's The Name of the Rose since I bought a copy just recently, finish reading Things That Never Happen (a short story collection by M. John Harrison) or dive into the unabridged Edgar Allan Poe collection I also bought recently.
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Jul 10, 2007 05:03
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I just finished Palahniuk's Haunted. It was my first of his novels, and it was recommended to me by a friend. I really didn't enjoy it, not because of how graphic or explicit it was, but just because of how tedious and predictable the story felt. It was intriguing at first until every character had the same cynical, savage background and they all started acting like raving lunatics. I was even kind of surprised when I read Chuck's afterword, where he said that his intent in the novel was to make ordinary objects and situations seem frightening and ominous, since I thought the book was supposed to be more of an ironic comedy than anything. Anyway. I didn't like it, and I don't think I'll read anything else he's done.
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Jul 10, 2007 05:23
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Astfgl posted:Anyway. I didn't like it, and I don't think I'll read anything else he's done. Don't be too hasty, I thought Haunted was probably his weakest novel. Which it isn't really, it's more of a framed anthology.
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Jul 10, 2007 07:40
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That's what some others have said as well, but it wasn't even the format or the story as a whole. I just can't see myself enjoying that writing style. It's not terrible, it's just not for me.
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Jul 10, 2007 14:53
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I just finished The Dark River - John Twelve Hawks. Damned good book, tore through it in one lazy day. The book ends in a hell of a cliffhanger, and I'm up scouring the net for the release date of the next book.
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Jul 11, 2007 07:38
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camino posted:I just finished The Dark River - John Twelve Hawks. Damned good book, tore through it in one lazy day. Considering the Dark River came out today (tuesday), you've got a bit of a wait, sir 
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Jul 11, 2007 08:44
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After many goon recommendations, I picked up and finished House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book was difficult to read but I found it quite rewarding in parts. I am still struggling with my own interpretation of events that occurred and what they mean. I am not usually a "artsy" style reader who obsesses about the proper use of the English language in literature but this book really grabbed me. The author's character development is good enough and he has an incredibly distinct writing style(ha, you will see what I mean). I don't really recommend this book to the easily distracted, you really have to dive into it to get something out of it. It's quite rare that I can tell one person "read this book, NOW" then tell another one "Oh god don't bother" but thats what kind of book this is. You can't even really sum it up in a paragraph well when people ask you what its about.
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Jul 11, 2007 14:24
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Caetano Veloso's Tropical Truth - a Story of Music & Revolution in Brazil. Pretty fabulous, but only for tropicalismo fans...
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Jul 11, 2007 14:29
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I just finished The Etched City by K.J. Bishop, it was really interesting seeming to draw equally from perdido street station and Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
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Jul 11, 2007 17:23
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Zero Karizma posted:Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Wow did I hate this book. It really felt like I was reading about some rambling born-again Christian trapped on an island with nothing to do but ramble on about God. I seriously could not wait for it to end. I get that its all about mastery, self-reliance and being thankful for what you have. I just wish the drat thing was shorter. Robinson annoyed the hell out of me. He has no problem with slave trade, lying about religion, selling his young friend who helped him escape or even killing, as long as it's profitable. Profit decides who he listens to, who he respects and who his friends are (mostly rich white dudes, except for Friday, who he rescued so he could double his profits by means of labor). At the end he goes on and on, all teary-eyed, about some guy who kept and invested his savings, but he literally only mentions his future wife and kids in one (1!) sentence. It did have its slow parts, but overall I found it to be very insightful and humorous.
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Jul 12, 2007 03:15
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Uncle Sam posted:Well, it's better once you realize it's only about religion if he's bored or fears for his live. The real thing that keeps Crusoe going is wealth. The book is pretty much about the rise of modern economics and the effect of it on who we are as people, in particular at the cost of religion. All religious morals and ethics are pretty much out the door once there's money to be made. See, I noticed all that, but I assumed he was just a product of the times. The inherent racism and feelings of manifest destiny of a good Imperialist English Christian are so tied to this time period, that I usually take them with a grain of salt. To his credit, he didn't want to shoot the natives when he had the chance, though he clearly thought of them as less than human. Women usually take a backseat in the cares of adventurous men in imperialist novels, so the wife thing doesn't surprise me. I always heard that one of the main points about this book is that it features no central love story. Which is a massive no-no in traditional story-telling. Are you sure about this? I didn't see Robinson Crusoe as a satire/attack on the values of the day, but I could be wrong.
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Jul 12, 2007 03:42
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Carl Sagan's "The dragons of Eden". A surprisingly easy to read book with discussions on things like evolution, AI, neuropsychology, computers, astronomy, pseudoscience and more. Think I'll be starting on Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" next, since I've been hearing it receive quite a bit of praise. I particularly liked the way Sagan used ancient myths (including Genesis) as metaphors to explain modern science. 
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Jul 12, 2007 22:59
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Finished reading Harrison's Things That Never Happen. I'm about 70 pages into The General In His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Enjoying it quite a bit so far. I loved One Hundred Years of Solitude (just read that about a month ago), so I'd been meaning to read more stuff by Marquez. Also got Love In The Time of Cholera lined up.
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Jul 13, 2007 16:19
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I've finished a few in the last couple of weeks. Yesterday was Cormac McCarthy's Child of God, which managed to be revolting and moving simultaneously. Very good. I also read SM Stirling's Dies the Fire based on a few recommendations I've seen here. I can't stress enough how horrible this novel is. The writing is full of ridiculously bad metaphors, the characters are flat as cardboard (but not corrugated cardboard, because that, at least, has about a quarter inch of depth to it - I mean cereal box cardboard), and the premise is loving stupid. Guns stop working so fat SCA nerds will rule the day! Even the "guns and electricity don't work" gimmick is stolen from a Zelazny novel. On top of all of that, as if it wasn't enough, the author seems to have some serious resentment toward women - specifically, the stereotypical pretty / popular girls that would generally have little or nothing to do with fat SCA nerds - as quite a few of them are enslaved and used as sex objects by one of the book's villians. Stirling goes into intense detail describing the shifty, transparent slave clothes they are forced to wear, which reveal nothing but hot HOT lingerie and chained dog collars (but oh wait it's the bad guy doing this so the author's condemning it right?!?). Also the fact that one of the main characters is a wiccan or something doesn't help, because she's constantly thinking to herself in italics things like "Great goddess!" and "Blessed be". It's really loving irritating. This book is a flaming pile of poo poo that is so bad it almost reads like a parody of itself (except not in any way funny). Waste of time.
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Jul 13, 2007 18:18
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On both ends of the reading spectrum, I recently finished Howard Sachar's A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, and Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide (yeah, I know, welcome to 2003). Sachar's book is phenomenally written, extremely in-depth yet accessible, and quite illuminating with respect to Israel's domestic and international situation of the current day. He's what I would call a "balanced pro-Israeli," meaning that while he's quite pro-Israel, he doesn't shrink back from pointing out the glaring flaws in their past policies or failures of the government. Brooks' Survival Guide was interesting and amusing, as it was meant to be; I polished it off in a single day. I'm currently knee-deep in Norman Davies' Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw. His writing style is a bit fatiguing, and he seems to try to cover too much ground. I'm 200 pages into the 800-page book and he is still a chapter and a half away from even beginning to talk about the rising itself. I much prefer Polish general Tadeusz Bor-Komoroski's Secret Army for my Polish partisan fix. TheNakedJimbo fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jul 13, 2007 |
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Jul 13, 2007 20:34
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The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse. How I love Wodehouse. I haven't read a Jeeves & Wooster book in years, and I regretted it. This one involves romantic entanglements and is chock-full of his famous prose, which had me stopping to chuckle every few pages. I'm glad I have so many books ahead for me to read, I'll be terribly sad when I'm done with them all.
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Jul 14, 2007 02:01
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I just finished reading Nabokov's Lolita for the first time last night, after putting it off for a couple months. That book is so strange on so many levels. I've never read a book that was so obviously literary, as in they use a lot of a big words  , yet was so easy-going to read. That and the fact I actually somwhow felt sorry for Humbert Humbert, someone you'd never expect to feel sorry for, ever.I was so confused after reading it, not because of what happened in the book, but because of how it made me feel after reading it and finishing it.
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Jul 14, 2007 02:41
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I just finished Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I very much enjoyed it, even though it took me a while to get into. I know that it's a relatively short novel, but I didn't find the first third or so very enthralling. It wasn't until Dorian realizes the portrait is aging that it started to pick up. I don't very much care for the early conversations detailing how the various characters met - those kind of narratives never really interest me as much as the actual meat of a story. I'm very glad I stuck with it, though, as the payoff was excellent. Right before that, I finished Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and I was kind of disappointed. The story was initially very intriguing, but the narrative (from the point of view of the world's most neurotic nine year old) started to get irritating after while. I'm trying to decide what to read next; I want to do something a little more modern. I'm thinking Franzen's The Corrections, Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, or Desai's The Inheritance of Loss.
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Jul 14, 2007 03:58
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Just finished Armor by John Steakley. I guess I was expecting Starship Troopers without the History and Moral Philosophy, but I ended up with Jack Crow. It was an alright novel I guess, but that whole section of the book threw me for a giant loop and I really had trouble suspending my disbelief for that. Hey, I'm a famous space pirate! Let me live in this secret military project facility!
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Jul 14, 2007 17:55
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Joseph Gavi, Hero of the Minsk Ghetto I was hoping for more actual information from Gavi. In each section there are a few paragraphs of comments or anecdotes from Gavi, but most of it is commentary or analysis from Prof. Carlton Jackson. It's a great story, about a young boy who fought with the partisans after escaping from the Minsk ghetto and helped more than 200 jews escape. After the war, he joined the navy, went to college and became an expert mountaineer. Probably the most interesting parts are his descriptions of anti-semitism in Post War USSR, and his emigration to the US. War and Again This is another book about a Latvian survivor of the WWII who emigrated to the US. Too young to actually fight in the war, Zigurds Edgars Grigalis paints a good picture of life in Lativa before, during and after the war. It's also got some interesting stories from while he was a DP (displaced person) after the war and eventually emigrated to the US. He went to highschool in Wisconsin and joined the Mairnes and fought in Korea. It's a little difficult to read sometimes, his writing style is awkward. The last chapter deals with his efforts to reclaim his father's factories after the collapse of communism in Lativa, which is pretty informative.
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Jul 14, 2007 19:17
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andrew smash posted:I also read SM Stirling's Dies the Fire based on a few recommendations I've seen here. I can't stress enough how horrible this novel is. I have never read a good review of it on these forums. I read it about a year ago and have the same feelings about it as you. I'm amazed that I finished it and even more amazed that Stirling has decided to lengthen the series to 5 books (maybe 6). He even looks like some Ren-Fair rear end in a top hat who prays to the Goddess every night for guns to stop working so his Lord of the Rings fan fic can finally come true. I hate these books and I can say that having only read one - because gently caress, there is no saving something that lovely.
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Jul 14, 2007 19:50
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perceptual_set posted:I have never read a good review of it on these forums. I read it about a year ago and have the same feelings about it as you. I'm amazed that I finished it and even more amazed that Stirling has decided to lengthen the series to 5 books (maybe 6). He even looks like some Ren-Fair rear end in a top hat who prays to the Goddess every night for guns to stop working so his Lord of the Rings fan fic can finally come true. I hate these books and I can say that having only read one - because gently caress, there is no saving something that lovely. There's one on page 4 of this very thread
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Jul 14, 2007 21:50
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Just finished The Dark Tower 6: The Song of Susannah Still not seeing the hate that folk have, I can understand why they might not like the book wholesale as a story, being that it's fundamentally a lot of exposition and filler that doesn't really get any of the characters anywhere fast, and for a book that is slight enough, much of it felt like repetition and filler. The constant wordy and odd conversations with Mia irked me as they went on too long and didn't really say much with lots of repeptition and the Stephen King inserts didn't really bother me, although he clearly enjoyed writing about how he thinks other people view him, far far too much. I was still okay with the conceit that he was the storyteller creating the universe unwittingly.That said, like much else in the book, the story would have worked fine without it. However, I'm raring to go on the last book, although it'll have to wait until after next week's inevitable pointy hat and robe circle-jerkathon.
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Jul 15, 2007 00:29
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Just finished Marquez's The General In His Labyrinth - his rendition of the last days of Simon Bolivar, as he travels down Colombia's Magdalena River to the sea and his reflections on the past. Very enjoyable throughout. He manages to not only portray Bolivar as a legendary figure but also intensely human.
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Jul 15, 2007 04:57
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Neuromancer by William Gibson. It was a great read, as I'm sure most of you know. That ending still has me scratching my head a bit though. Has me wanting to read some more cyberpunk now though.
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Jul 15, 2007 05:10
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andrew smash posted:There's one on page 4 of this very thread Oh man, cut me some slack that was a long time ago!
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Jul 15, 2007 19:16
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. Really intense look at the stark humanity of death and dying. Read this last night in bed, stayed up worrying about my death until the morning. The ending is beautiful though, it really is.
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Jul 15, 2007 19:25
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Encryptic posted:Finished reading Harrison's Things That Never Happen. Please let us know how The General in his Labyrinth is. I have read a bulk of Garcia's work and am looking for something else of his. Also, Love in the Time of Cholera is amazing and probably my favourite book so you are in for a treat. I have just wrapped up Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Anyone who is a fan should read this but really only after you have put down some of his larger works. I was spellbound by how he drew from what happened in his life and put it into his books. Again though, since it is Garcia Marquez, I found myself asking how much of it was really true even though it is a memoir. Also, I blew through How We are Hungry by David Eggers and Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver. I'm a short story fan and had never read anything else by Eggers so I thought short stories would be a good introduction. I went through them and had a tepid reaction. Nothing really stuck out or grabbed me. This was only emphasized more by reading Carver's work afterwards. I have already read What We Talk about when We Talk about Love so I knew what I was in for and this anthology did not disappoint. The way Carver presents life and relationships is simply amazing and each time I read anything by him I am immediately drawn into the snippets of life that he presents. Eggers never stood a chance next to Carver in my reading lineup. Maybe he is better suited to writing novels than short stories but I don't know if I'll ever find out unless someone convinces me to pick up a novel of his. BearVsGorilla fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jul 15, 2007 |
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Jul 15, 2007 21:08
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A few hours ago I finished The Terror by Dan Simmons. When I was about 400 pages into it I realized that I really didn't like the book but kept reading just to finish it. It was an abysmal book. Simmons needs a new editor; the amount of repetition alone was enough to turn me off the novel, and that was by no means the only thing wrong with it. A solid two thumbs way down.
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Jul 16, 2007 01:49
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Plastic Innards posted:The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. Really intense look at the stark humanity of death and dying. Read this last night in bed, stayed up worrying about my death until the morning. The ending is beautiful though, it really is. I loved The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It is definitely not a happy tale but it's so well written and worth the read. I just finished Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It was an interesting non-fiction work and did not take long to finish.
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Jul 16, 2007 04:06
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Fraud by David Rakoff I had no idea you could be both self-loathing and a narcissist. Although I generally enjoy the short story/memoir collections by known This American Life contributors (i.e. David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, etc.), Fraud was irritating to read because many of the stories seem to revolve around how much Rakoff despites himself or the choices that he's made or the perceptions has has about people, things, life, you name it. It's agonizingly self-centered at times and several of the stories have unfortunately worded bows tied on as a way of saying "you get what I'm saying here? Are you sure? Let me repeat it again for you!" Sometimes this is helpful, because some of the stories seem to go absolutely nowhere. One towards the end about living in Japan was an utter chore to read because it didn't feel like it had a purpose. The stories that I did enjoy weren't about him, but instead were enjoyable stories about superstition causing troubles with modernization and things like that which are disconnected from inane stuff about being a glorified secretary. Fraud is a frustrating read because it's obvious that Rakoff has a great deal of wit at his disposal and is occasionally very funny. But in the end it's not worth sifting through his baggage.
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Jul 16, 2007 12:03
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Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. There's not much to it. The mystery is exciting in the beginning, but it quickly turn corny beyond all belief. Wouldn't recommended it to anyone.
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Jul 16, 2007 13:53
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BearVsGorilla posted:Please let us know how The General in his Labyrinth is. I have read a bulk of Garcia's work and am looking for something else of his. Also, Love in the Time of Cholera is amazing and probably my favourite book so you are in for a treat. I really enjoyed The General In His Labyrinth, I have to say. It's a fictionalized account of Simon Bolivar's last days and portrays him as the legend he was in his time but also very human. I'm really enjoying Marquez's style, so I'm looking forward to "Love" as well. 
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Jul 16, 2007 14:53
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