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BearVsGorilla
Mar 29, 2003

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I saw this book mentioned in a few threads around here so I picked it up. I was not disappointed one bit; definitely one of my favourite reads this year. I enjoyed how they avoided, for the most part, trying to get into the technicalities of time travel. This was far better than Grimwood's Replay which started out strong but tapered off rapidly for me.

Also, I just reread Love in the Time Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This was my eighth time through the book but every time still reads like the first for me.

BearVsGorilla fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 12, 2007

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Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007
Tai-Pan by James Clavel. I picked it up at my guesthouse because it was one of 2-3 decent books out of a few hundred. I read Shogun earlier this year and liked it, so figured it'd be worth a shot. Once again, he did a really good job of showing the differences between the way the two cultures think and act. As with Shogun, a very detailed plot with lots of things going on.

When Mei-mei got biten by the mosquito in malaria-valley, I was like "oh no, not this again (In Shogun, Blackthorne finally acts on his feelings for Mariko, then she dies), but her living through the malaria shot down my suspicion Clavell writes to a formula.

The last chapter wasn't so much setting up a sad ending as a disappointing one (not in Clavell, but in one of the characters), but then he turned it around in the last page and a half.


Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. I bought 4 of the Culture novels based on recommendations here and elsewhere, and a good experience with The Wasp Factory, one of his non-scifi books. I like the humor Banks injects into the series, especially with the names the Mind's come up with for their ships. With the ending, I'm wondering if Banks is one of those authors that feels obligated to put some kind of a "gotcha" at the end of all of his books. I suppose I'll find out when I finish the other 3 Culture novels. At any rate, the twist left me confused about a number of things mentioned about Zakalwe throughout the story, when I have the free time I'm going to go back through the flashback chapters and try to work some stuff out.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I was expecting it to be a long and arduous read, but it was really interesting, read quickly, and the characters were really sympathetic. Lee is one of my favorite literary characters in a while - as is Kate.

Killfast37
May 7, 2007
Dark Dreams The Story of Stephen King by Nancy Whitelaw - I had to read it for school so decided to kill it off in one night. Overall it was decent and I learned some stuff about King that I didn't know before. Nothing really special though as far as biographies go.

LooseChanj
Feb 17, 2006

Logicaaaaaaaaal!
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

This was firmly in the "classics I need to read pile", but I did enjoy it despite the difficulties of archaic language. I don't really get down with the sort of dry voice writers seemed to use a few hundred years ago when novels were, err, novel. I can see what Zero Karizma meant about overbearing christianity, but really, the culture Crusoe came from was ubiquitously and indisputably christian, and I think anyone dumped in the circumstances he was, and for so long would fail to become a desert island christian. You'll notice it becomes much less pervasive after he leaves the island. I thought it was a little absurd that Crusoe was on the island such an insane length of time. 27 years?!? Gimme a break.

Anyhow, this is one of those books you really need under your belt, if only for the points.

Also, I found it amusing that the "I built me, I made me, etc" construction was used throughout. In my experience, it's always been a black english thing.

LooseChanj fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Aug 13, 2007

Zero Karizma
Jul 8, 2004

It's ok now, just tell me what happened...

LooseChanj posted:

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

This was firmly in the "classics I need to read pile", but I did enjoy it despite the difficulties of archaic language. I don't really get down with the sort of dry voice writers seemed to use a few hundred years ago when novels were, err, novel. I can see what Zero Karizma meant about overbearing christianity, but really, the culture Crusoe came from was ubiquitously and indisputably christian, and I think anyone dumped in the circumstances he was, and for so long would fail to become a desert island christian. You'll notice it becomes much less pervasive after he leaves the island. I thought it was a little absurd that Crusoe was on the island such an insane length of time. 27 years?!? Gimme a break.

Anyhow, this is one of those books you really need under your belt, if only for the points.

Also, I found it amusing that the "I built me, I made me, etc" construction was used throughout. In my experience, it's always been a black english thing.

I agree with all of these points, and particularly your reasons for reading it: You just have to. Like it or not, there is really no option not to at least be familiar with the full story of Robinson Crusoe. It's referenced so drat much.

The Christian thing was certainly understandable, but got pretty tedious to me.

Robinson Crusoe basically posted:

PROVIDENCE. PROVIDENCE. PROVIDENCE. PROVIDENCE. I KILLED SEVERAL NATIVES TODAY. PROVIDENCE. YEE HAW IMPERIALISM!

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

Robert Graves - I, Claudius. Very enjoyable read, even though it boils down to "People stabbing each other in the back" for 400+ pages. It might have been nice to have a glossary of who was who, as the constant name-dropping and digressions about so-and-so gets a little convoluted, but that didn't detract significantly.

I'm midway through the second half of Claudius' story - Claudius The God and enjoying it as well.

Philonius
Jun 12, 2005

Pompous Rhombus posted:

Tai-Pan by James Clavel. I picked it up at my guesthouse because it was one of 2-3 decent books out of a few hundred. I read Shogun earlier this year and liked it, so figured it'd be worth a shot. Once again, he did a really good job of showing the differences between the way the two cultures think and act. As with Shogun, a very detailed plot with lots of things going on.

Clavell's asian saga are very good reading, and I wish he'd written more of them. I think I've read Shogun 3 or 4 times now, it's just that good. Too bad the mini-series simplified the story so much :(

Last book I finished was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm very dissapointed harry didn't die :(

Clown Meadows
Jul 13, 2003

YARRRR! Where be the gray matter up in this piece, son?

Pompous Rhombus posted:

Tai-Pan by James Clavel. I picked it up at my guesthouse because it was one of 2-3 decent books out of a few hundred. I read Shogun earlier this year and liked it, so figured it'd be worth a shot. Once again, he did a really good job of showing the differences between the way the two cultures think and act. As with Shogun, a very detailed plot with lots of things going on.

When Mei-mei got biten by the mosquito in malaria-valley, I was like "oh no, not this again (In Shogun, Blackthorne finally acts on his feelings for Mariko, then she dies), but her living through the malaria shot down my suspicion Clavell writes to a formula.

The last chapter wasn't so much setting up a sad ending as a disappointing one (not in Clavell, but in one of the characters), but then he turned it around in the last page and a half.



And what a turn around it is. I love how Calum realises that he is the only one who can take over Dirk's responsibilities.

Definitely read Gai-Jin, Noble House and Whirlwind.

LooseChanj
Feb 17, 2006

Logicaaaaaaaaal!

Zero Karizma posted:

:words:

Robinson Crusoe basically posted:

YEE HAW IMPERIALISM!

You just reminded me of a point I wanted to make. WTF is up with him just up and renaming the guy "Friday"? Doesn't that strike you as "your name is Toby"? And the poor schmuck doesn't even complain! There's a serious master race vibe to Crusoe's attitude towards any "savages" he might encounter, but I suppose that's just as prevalent as the religion stuff. I might even go so far as to call it a racial thing, see "white man's burden", nazism, the war in Iraq. "We are more perfected, and you are different. Therefore, all attempts by us to reform you in our image are good because they make you better". It certainly seems to run through quite a bit of aryan history.

shitty knock knock joke
May 9, 2006

We piss on Their rational arrangements

Chamberk posted:

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I was expecting it to be a long and arduous read, but it was really interesting, read quickly, and the characters were really sympathetic. Lee is one of my favorite literary characters in a while - as is Kate.

Honestly, I thought Lee was a pretty boring character and more of a plot device, but maybe that's me. Kate was fun though, in a Wuthering-Heights-Heathcliff sort of evil way(was that the name? It's been a while). Although to be fair I liked Heathcliff better for his motivations but hated the rest of Wuthering Heights :colbert:.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

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

Stan Lee Jeans posted:

Honestly, I thought Lee was a pretty boring character and more of a plot device, but maybe that's me. Kate was fun though, in a Wuthering-Heights-Heathcliff sort of evil way(was that the name? It's been a while). Although to be fair I liked Heathcliff better for his motivations but hated the rest of Wuthering Heights :colbert:.

The only part of Wuthering Heights I enjoyed was the first two pages of the book, when the narrator is chased around the table by dogs. I thought the whole book was going to be full of awesome stuff like that. God, was I disappointed.

Just finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. The entire book was just as pretentious as its title. It was a nice little clone of Donna Tartt's The Secret History until it took a plot twist in the last 60 pages or so that was just kind of silly. Then again, the author leaves it all up to you whether that ending was real or just the conjecture of the main character. That blatant vagueness just made me feel like the book was even more pretentious than its presentation made it.

Noby Goatse Boy
Mar 16, 2005

by Tiny Fistpump
H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. They're altogether fantastic. Though their content has since become basic canon in science-fiction and horror stories the writings themselves are still nonetheless thoughtful and captivating. I think my favorite of the lot is The Invisible Man; the man is brilliant and yet finds that basic survival has become so much of a challenge and the interference of the curious and afraid upon him so frustrating that he just loses it and turns into a total violent rear end in a top hat.

Noby Goatse Boy fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 14, 2007

Geizkragen
Dec 29, 2006

Get that booze monkey off my back!
I decided to do get with the times and read all 7 Harry Potter books this week. Very quick reading for the most part and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Enough people have written about JK Rowling's work and I'm sure people are tired of hearing opinions about it. Before that I read David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster and finished off Timothy Zahn's The Last Command for the second time(I will also not comment on Star Wars novels, partly because I'm embarrassed to have read almost all of them).

Wallace is what he always is. Consider the Lobster is a collection of essays that I found to be very entertaining. "Authority and American Usage" is my favorite of the bunch. His effort to expose the "seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography" is much more entertaining than you might believe. A lot of times he is well over my head though...DFW is a smart guy and he knows it. I don't find all of his writing this enjoyable though. One of these days I'll finish slogging through Infinite Jest, but only because I don't like leaving things undone.

My sci-fi I'm done with all of Orson Scott Card's Ender-related stuff and now I'm starting on Asimov's Prelude to Foundation.

Total Party Kill
Aug 25, 2005

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. I loved Survivor and Fight Club is one of my favorite movies so I decided to give another Palahniuk book a try. I heard that Choke is being filmed right now so I decided this would be my next by him. At first I thought the book wasn't going anywhere but the last 80 pages or so made this a really awesome story and I can't wait for the film. I've already bought Haunted and will read it in a little bit.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
Stiff - Shane Maloney
A thriller mystery book about a Melbourne member of government being unwittingly drawn into a murder investigation.
There's a whole series out, also they have a good chunk of humor.

Richard Matheson - I am Legend
Cause I had to see what was being ruined.

Spike Milligan - Adolf Hitler : My part in his downfall
Movingly hilarious account of Milligan's role in the Royal Artillery.
gently caress Churchill - THIS is how the war was won.

LooseChanj
Feb 17, 2006

Logicaaaaaaaaal!
The Spy Who Loved Me, Ian Fleming

This is the shortest Bond I've read so far, and it's different in being written entirely in first person from the woman's point of view. A little sappy I suppose, but still as well done as Fleming always is, and it's interesting to see Bond from someone else's perspective.

Total Party Kill
Aug 25, 2005

death of socrates posted:

The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau

Why do such fantastic novels have such loving awful remakes? I should have included War of the Worlds but it isn't one of my favorites by him.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

Just finished Claudius The God last night. Good read, and I'd say I enjoyed it a bit more than I, Claudius.

fivefingers
May 7, 2007

Dustmaster 2008, and counting
Finished In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, part 2 of In search of lost time by Proust, and Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. Bit of a mix there, but enjoyed both of them.
I'm not sure why Proust is considered such hard reading, just skip the 5% which are boring adjectives about trees, and the rest is very readable, and occasionally very funny.
I doubt i have to convince anyone that Harry Potter is readable.

Poopinstein
Apr 1, 2003

Yeah you did it!
Just finished Titan by John Varley. Was afraid it was going to be a Rendezvous with Rama rip off when I first started and turned out to be so much more!

That is to say...loved it.

shitty knock knock joke
May 9, 2006

We piss on Their rational arrangements

Just got done with Pale Fire, and being Nabokov it was pretty great. Not as amazing as Lolita, naturally, but very enjoyable. The poem, while not being entirely amazing on a technical level, provided excellent characterization, and the commentary had a nice spectrum of depth between hilarious and serious. Pretty awesome read all in all. I felt retarded for not realizing what the 1000th line was going to be :doh:.

kelmaon
Jun 20, 2007

Stan Lee Jeans posted:

Hey philosophical novel buddy :hfive:.

I've already gotten about halfway through The Fall because it's a really, really easy read, possibly due to the long monologue style. Honestly I have to say it doesn't compare either to Sartre or to Stranger/Plague, although those might be tinged positively by memory. I'll post if it redeems itself, but so far I'll have to agree with Kapowski and say to just go with the tried and true Camus. I liked The Stranger the best personally.

Also, I loved that quotation and laughed for a minute or two when I read it. A good absurdist should always be funny. But oh, Self-taught Man :sigh:.

I've never heard of Herzog, though. If you found it very interesting, could you summarize? I'm on the lookout for my next plan of attack.

Sorry guys, I somehow missed a few pages of the thread, how lazy of me :(. Nice work on recognising the quote Stan! I love absurdist humour.

Since you asked, Herzog is amazing, I would recommend it to you unreservedly. Bellow's writing is beautiful and profound and sharp and at times very very funny, and this alone would make it worth reading, but the book is equally good at showing how Herzog thinks. Bellow's characterisation is very deep and you become very attached to Herzog. The narrative is not at all linear (it jumps about all over the place and is constantly interrupted by the text of his letters to people) but in a way this is a good thing, since it complements Bellow's style. In conclusion: read this book! I would recommend it to any goon with sufficient courage to tackle a dense but rewarding book. I wish we Australians had a writer as good as him :(

Thanks for the advice about the Fall guys :). I think I will give it a shot when I have a bit more time. Sounds like Camus' short stories are also good – I've never read many short stories before, but I like the idea of being able to cover a dozen stories in the space of a single novel. Also, definitely checking out Lolita and Pale Fire sometime. I'm currently about halfway through The Road, which is great but I'm worried I don't 'get' it. Oh well, we'll see.

drat, I need to reply faster next time :sigh:.

Aki.
Mar 12, 2007

A goblin in the works.

Zero Karizma posted:

I agree with all of these points, and particularly your reasons for reading it: You just have to. Like it or not, there is really no option not to at least be familiar with the full story of Robinson Crusoe. It's referenced so drat much.

The Christian thing was certainly understandable, but got pretty tedious to me.

Hmm, well I think it makes sense that a man would rely upon his faith and try to keep in mind his beliefs and memories to keep his sanity as well as the will to go on. I don't really think people have cause to complain about the obvious imperialistic and christian messages in this book, it was written at a different time after all. I actually think it is interesting to read Daniel Defoe's writings in regards to issues that wouldn't be accepted in nowadays society.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007
Excession by Iain M Banks. For all the hype, I'm really not getting in to the Culture novels, much as I wanted to. Can someone who's read more of them please respond to this?

First off, the pros. Lots of Big Ideas. I especially like when he gets into the Minds perspective of things, not to mention the tongue-in-cheek names he comes up with for them. I find his prose to be quite good, but the characters came off as self-centered, unsympathetic and kind of annoying. (Same for Use of Weapons, with the exception of Zakalwe.) I guess growing up in a society where you have everything would tend to make people kind of self-centered brats, but I don't want to read a book about brats. That's another thing that bugs me, out of the two books I've read so far (still have Inversions and Look to Windward sitting in my "to read" stack), Banks ignores or glosses over the fact that humans in the Culture pretty much have everything, but this doesn't leave them with any kind of existential crises or a need to find meaning in life. They seem to just chill out, play sports, participate in simulation games, and gently caress each other. Which granted are things people do for fun... but it's got to get old after 400 years, doesn't it? The way the human brain is wired you really can't be happy with the same stuff indefinitely, which I think is a sort of evolutionary mechanism to keep us moving, and always wanting more (which would make sense from a survival perspective.) Other writers have touched on this theme: for example, towards the end of Heinlein's Glory Road, after a lengthy and fairly difficult quest, the (average Joe soldier) protagonist retrieves the egg, and goes to live happily ever after with the Empress of the Universe... and gets completely bored and fed up with a life of limitless ease and leaves. You could certainly make the argument that the humans in the Culture universe are more evolved, or have altered the part of their brain that causes boredom with pleasurable experiences, but at the end of it it's still a deux ex machina, and it still leaves the characters as self-absorbed and uninteresting to the reader. Well, to this reader at least.

Basically, I'm beginning to suspect this series is pure nerd-candy (to borrow from the Dune thread in GBS) and light on substance. My main beef is with his human characters, who are generally hedonistic boors, probably as a result of coming from a Culture that supplies their every need/whim. They aren't believably or interestingly human enough to engage me, which makes the rest of the book pretty tedious.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

Finished Pomona Queen by Kem Nunn last night. Great read - I really dig Nunn's style.

Going to start Number9Dream by David Mitchell today.

AliceInWonderland
Mar 21, 2007

by Fragmaster
I just finished a proof of a book called Crow Stone by Jenni Mills. It's the big Harper Collins book for this year, and I was kind of bummed because it's about underground tunnels, archaeology, Mithaic temples and Bath, so I should have loved it, but I didn't like the heroine much and felt that 100 pages could have been usefully shaved off its 400 page running time.

There's lots of characters being described as assholes before they've done anything assholic, in a kind of hype, so we feel the way about them that the central character does, since she's some kind of mindreader. This makes me psycho, personally - I think it's lazy writing. Let me see Character X behaving like an rear end in a top hat and I will consider agreeing with you, not before.

Also, I consider myself a feminist, but I found the constant harping the heroine does about being patronised by her colleagues pretty irritating. There's a point where she's sent violent pornography and goes into fits because she's so horrified by it, but never once seems to wonder "Why has this been sent to me?" which would be the germane question. She just assumes it's the sexist miners, end of story. I've worked in male-dominated environments a lot and no-one has ever told me to "don't worry my pretty little head" about something. I don't think anyone has used this phrase in a non-ironic way since 1920, frankly.

I pretty much guessed the deal with the central character's mother about fifty pages into the novel (it's kind of obvious). It then makes a lot of noise like it's going to go somewhere else, and then doesn't, and everything happens in the way you thought it would in the first fifty pages.

That said, it does really pick up 100 pages before the end, and gains a real sense of danger and urgency with the collapsing mines. But there is no urgency, absolutely none, before then. I didn't care. I think if I hadn't promised someone I would read it to discuss it with them, I would have put it down, which is a shame.

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

Just finished Rendezvous with Rama and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to read more of Clarke's work as I read 2001 a couple years ago. I'll probably wait a few weeks to read the others as I have other things that I want to get a start on.

geeves fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Aug 17, 2007

Hybrination
Aug 12, 2007

by Peatpot
I just finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World by Haruki Murakami last night at around 4 AM. What a perfect time, and mental state to finish the book in. I don't know how to describe it accurately, but at night when you are getting to the point where you want to fall asleep, your mind becomes more vulnerable and more open. At least for me it's that way.

Anyways, the book was amazing. The whole two story dynamic was a little off-putting at first, as I found one of the stories a little more interesting than the other. When everything started falling into place though (won't say what), both stories worked together in a way that was profoundly affecting, and crushingly bittersweet. I also love the concepts it puts forth about the possible power of the mind.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007

Hybrination posted:

Anyways, the book was amazing. The whole two story dynamic was a little off-putting at first, as I found one of the stories a little more interesting than the other. When everything started falling into place though (won't say what), both stories worked together in a way that was profoundly affecting, and crushingly bittersweet.

I was exactly the same. I read "Norwegian Wood" next, which people say is "just" a love story, but holy hell. "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" is on my bookshelf waiting to be read, but I'm kind of savoring/saving it for last.

Zeus McBadass
Dec 13, 2006

Pompous Rhombus posted:

I was exactly the same. I read "Norwegian Wood" next, which people say is "just" a love story, but holy hell. "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" is on my bookshelf waiting to be read, but I'm kind of savoring/saving it for last.

I really hate to say, but I finished Wind-up Bird Chronicles wondering when the goddamn story was going to start moving. This wouldn't be too big a deal if the book wasn't 600+ pages, but seeing as how that wasn't the case I was a little disappointed. This is merely my opinion of course, you might like it better than I did.
I'm a really big Murakami fan, but I really didn't care for this book; at least not as much as his others. So far, my favorite book of his is After the Quake; it's a really quick read with a handful of his, in my opinion, best short stories, save for a few that can be found in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

Zeus McBadass fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Aug 18, 2007

Hybrination
Aug 12, 2007

by Peatpot
My first of his was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and it is still probably my favorite.
The plot moves in a weird way. In saying that I mean, it feels as if he comes up with some of the experiences as he goes along, and I don't mean that they lack focus. They don't feel scripted, it feels like someone is really having an experience that keeps gaining more and more depth. Things happen that he has to deal with. Also, I am a sucker for endings that don't tie things up in a nice bow at the end. Needless to say, I loved it. Sometimes when I am in small, enclosed bathrooms with little to no cracks where outside light gets through, I'll turn off the lights when doing my business.

I have also read After Dark, and The Elephant Vanishes, both of which were great. I was thinking of going to Kafka on the Shore next, but I have some other reading that I should probably do.

QVT
Jul 22, 2007

standing at the punch table swallowing punch
I finished Shadow of the Torturer the first book of the 4 in Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe last night, again. I'd read it before, a little over a year ago, only making it this far that time as well and not continuing with the series. This time I intend to go on. The book was brilliant, the language is nearly flawless, the characters are deep, world is amazingly new even after people have had 30 years to copy it, the plot hasn't really taken off, but all the bits thus far have just been amazing.

My complaints: The book is incredibly hard to read. I'm a decent reader and I could barely make it through one or two chapters without being entirely drained from trying to keep up with the story, and this is after having read it once before. It ended up taking me about three weeks to make it all the way through. What a great book it is though, highly recommended.

About 4 hours ago, I decided I was going to take a break from Wolfe and read a book in the middle before returning to New Sun. I picked up Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, and finished it about an hour ago. I don't know what made me read it quite so fast but wow, that book was also brilliant. Ballard is one sick fucker of a character but the book was great. I like the way that McCarthy wrote it - no quotation marks, very little noting of when a person was speaking. You'd think it would make it harder to read but it made it very natural and it felt like having a story told to you. But that'd be a poo poo-awful bedtime story for a child. Also highly recommended, this has made me add all of McCarthy's work to my wishlist. I eagerly await Blood Meridian.

robotsinmyhead
Nov 29, 2005

Dude, they oughta call you Piledriver!

Clever Betty
Just finished Soon I Will Be Invincible, an original superhero book by Austin Grossman.

The book is essentially split in 2 parts, alternating each chapter between the stereotypical Evil Genius supervillain, Doctor Impossible, and a newcomer Superhero, Fatale, until the final climax chapters where the stories converge. Entertaining, tongue-in-cheek almost, highly cliche (but funny because of it). Hardly literature, but it was well written, funny, but tends to drag at some points.

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 wrapped up A Year In The Life of William Shakespeare 1599 by James Shapiro. Rather than do a "straight" biography of Shakespeare, Shapiro instead chooses a single year in the Bard's development and climbs inside of it like a tauntaun carcass, then relates the days and the times to the work Shakespeare did. 1599 was chosen because it was the year the Globe was constructed and Shakespeare performed or (probably) began work on Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet, all considered major turning points in his art. In the world outside, we find Essex's attempt to squash the Irish rebellion (leading to an event Shapiro calls "the end of chivalry"), a threat of another Spanish Armada, and the birth of the East India Company (the starting point of the Empire and "the birth of globalism"). It's all very interesting, and much of the book takes on the task of relating the plays to the world outside. Overall, it's a good read for a general audience.

The bulk of the Shakespeare material is speculation, of course (although very well-informed speculation), but it all seemed so plausible. Oddly enough, the one chapter that didn't stick with me was the one that dealt most directly with Shakespeare's family relations, or lack thereof (the key word in this section: "We just don't know"). Still, there's enough stuff here to make me want to read the plays again.

Beside the textual analysis, I kept getting drawn to the material about the Irish fiasco, and Essex's rapidly souring relationship with Queen Elizabeth. Going through the list of how the 16th century British screwed up in Ireland gave me some (too easy) parallels with America's current foreign policy, but after I thought about it, it came to this: the deeper I get into western history, the more I see the same mistakes repeated over and over through the centuries. Vaguely depressing when I put it that way...

voting third party
Sep 5, 2006
~
I just recently finished Paradise Lost on the recommendation of an English professor who described it as the greatest work in the English language. I don't know if I agree with that but I definitely enjoyed reading it. I read an annotated Barnes and Noble version, which helped with some fine details but probably wasn't really necessary to get the gist of it. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was when I was expecting a really dry retelling of the Bible.

Total Party Kill
Aug 25, 2005

geeves posted:

Just finished Rendezvous with Rama and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to read more of Clarke's work as I read 2001 a couple years ago. I'll probably wait a few weeks to read the others as I have other things that I want to get a start on.

If you really want to enjoy it you'll pretend there are no sequels.

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

QVT posted:

I finished Shadow of the Torturer the first book of the 4 in Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe last night, again. I'd read it before, a little over a year ago, only making it this far that time as well and not continuing with the series. This time I intend to go on. The book was brilliant, the language is nearly flawless, the characters are deep, world is amazingly new even after people have had 30 years to copy it, the plot hasn't really taken off, but all the bits thus far have just been amazing.

My complaints: The book is incredibly hard to read. I'm a decent reader and I could barely make it through one or two chapters without being entirely drained from trying to keep up with the story, and this is after having read it once before. It ended up taking me about three weeks to make it all the way through. What a great book it is though, highly recommended.

That's Wolfe for you - difficult to read but a fantastic loving writer. :)

BOTNS is one of my all-time favorites, but I'll admit that it's definitely one of his most challenging works. I've read it numerous times and I still get something new out of it every time.

mCee
Aug 19, 2007
newbie goon
I just finished Fulgrim by Graham Mcneill. Its the fifth book of Black Libraries 'Horus Heresy' and its possibly the best one yet. A great piece of gothic sci-fi.

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inktvis
Dec 11, 2005

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor, is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous.
The Floating Opera by John Barth, which he wrote on the verge of being forced to give up the writing game as a rookie. Interesting (and with a page-turning quality) despite the narrator's grating smugness oozing off the page through the whole thing. I think his overly (anxiously) clever interjections are probably the weakpoint, but you can probably chalk those up as part of the Southern swagger of the thing. Or more likely just part of Barth's "first" novel jitters. Entertaining and curiously raw.

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