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I just finished Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby and Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis. I actually expected Pitch to be more like the movie it spawned rather than a memoir of his affair with football, but it was still a fun read. I'm more excited about the list of books I have coming up because I think it might be the best lineup I've had in years. Immortality Identity (both by Kundera, I loved Lightness of Being) The Kite Runner Confederacy of Dunces and then maybe I'll give A Heartbreaking Work...another chance. I hated it first time through..
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Jan 1, 2008 20:10
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Seems like a lot of people are reading The Road lately. I just picked it up last week and finished it during three sittings. My introduction to McCarthy, I'm definitely going to pick up No Country and Blood Meridian in a couple weeks. I read The Rum Diary by HST in two sittings and loved it. Not sure why I never read it earlier but I think I enjoyed it more than Fear & Loathing in LV. I've read almost all of HST's work now. I also "read" Gonzo although it's just a huge coffee table book of Hunter's photography along with a few crucial quotes scattered about. Excellent book for any fan of the guy. I'm starting God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater tonight.
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Jan 2, 2008 01:37
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Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut It was good, but definitely not my favorite of his books. I didn't like how long it took to get to Trout's and Hoover's meeting since that seemed to be the whole point of the book. Though I didn't have to force my way through it and was entertained throughout I still liked Cat's Cradle and Slapstick more. When I get around to reading another of his I think I'll finally pick up Slaughterhouse Five.
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Jan 2, 2008 04:11
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Recent readings include: The first three of the Song of Ice and Fire series (I'm holding off on the fourth until book 5 is out, and yes, I'm not holding my breath). Annual re-read of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts - excellent stuff. McCarthy's No Country for Old Men - it's a minor work but still quite good. Now reading a bio/film analysis of Ken Russell titled Phallic Frenzy - worth it for the section on The Devils alone.
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Jan 2, 2008 04:41
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Just got through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I read Potter as a kid, I had to finish it! Though I enjoyed the book, I noticed that the plot has quite a few holes, and Rowling is a pretty average writer, especially since every climactic event seemed to just happen, rather than there being any buildup to it.
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Jan 2, 2008 06:17
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Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. As is the case with classics in general there's not much that needs to be said at this point. This was my first time reading these stories and one misconception I had had that I'll clear up for any prospective reader who chances on this post is the point that their connection with drug culture came generations after Carroll and that there is little to no evidence that Carroll himself ever abused what would now be considered illicit drugs. Also, one could read deeply into the stories of Alice if they so desire but I feel that's going too far beyond as the pleasure of reading them is immediate; like watching a silly comedy sketch. They really are just children's stories; albeit very clever ones. I really enjoyed them.
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Jan 2, 2008 08:12
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I started His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, I finished The Golden Compass late last night. I enjoyed it. I saw the movie on a whim and it left me empty and wanting more. The book gave me the more I was looking for. I liked it and I was/am sucked into the story.
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Jan 2, 2008 19:04
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I just finished American Pastoral by Phillip Roth. Although I understand completely why it won the Pulitzer, I feel like so much of this book touches on things that I already innately know America to be, that have already been so densely concentrated into my molecules, that it loses a lot of thunder for it. I found myself, as Zuckerman was, bored with the external Levov that was way too similar to the internal-- the man who can never rock the boat, who does all the right things. I can see the genius in what Roth does with it (and I, for some odd reason, loved very much any passage having to do with glovemaking), but for me the rhetorical inner monologue that dominates the last half of this book pussyfoots around for far too long. I think The Plot Against America is easily the better book, but I think I might be in the minority on that one. Next up is Don DeLillo's Libra.
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Jan 2, 2008 21:41
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From The Notebooks of Doctor Brain by Minister Faust. Enjoyed immensely, though I felt that the ending was a little weaker than the rest of the book. Any more superhero fiction that anyone recommends?
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Jan 3, 2008 01:47
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Just read W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. It's a pretty amazing book, and part of my attempt to back to classic literature. I love the way he words his sentences, and says so much in on a few words. Beside Of Human Bondage, what else of his I should check out next?
Besson fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jan 3, 2008 |
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Jan 3, 2008 05:22
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Babbitt (1922) By Sinclair Lewis - I've been putting off writing about Babbitt because I don't think a review (at least, a review written by me) will do justice to how great this book is. Babbitt's brilliance comes from Sinclair Lewis' satirizing of the middle-class and middle-America; he presents a character (named Babbitt) whose waking moments revolve around status and materialism, and who is constantly trying to fight the notion that his life is empty. What's so disturbing about Babbitt is how little American "values" have changed since Lewis' 1920s portrayal of Babbitt's hometown, Zenith. This fictional American city represents a sort of local nationalism, xenophobia, and the mad mundanity present in all of Zenith's philistine populace. Being a citizen of Zenith, Babbit stands for all of these backward values, so he's a character that's easy to demonize; yet, Sinclair allows you to sympathize with the protagonist and his identity crisis as the book unfolds. All Americans should be forced (yes, forced) to read Babbitt if only to see how deftly Lewis takes apart the values and materialism we hold so dear. As the Violent Femmes once sung, "America is the home of the hypocrite," and Babbitt cuts straight to this message like no other novel I've read. Despite being nearly 100 years old, this novel is still relevant because its satirical target has remained, for the most part, unchanged; hell, I think someone in Babbitt even says, "If you're not with us, you're against us."
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Jan 3, 2008 06:38
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bobservo posted:/glowing review of Babbit Posts like this are the reason I get nearly all of my books from recommendations in TBB. I'll definitely check this out, thanks. Trujillo posted:I just finished The Road and I'm starting The Brothers Karamazov. I don't know if you saw my post just a little bit above yours, but I read Child Of God in one sitting. It's just like The Road, in that it's brief (193 pages or so), dark as gently caress, and gripping. And it's all the same style. The prose is perhaps a little more "difficult" than The Road, but it's not a big deal. It's still not Pynchon.
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Jan 3, 2008 06:58
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Dorepoll posted:Just read W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. It's a pretty amazing book, and part of my attempt to back to classic literature. I love the way he words his sentences, and says so much in on a few words. Beside Of Human Bondage, what else of his I should check out next? I highly recommend The Painted Veil.
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Jan 3, 2008 07:33
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I just finished Count Zero by William Gibson. It was great--seeing how the world developed from Neuromancer, and the book was quite a bit easier to follow. I'm not really sure how to go into it without spoilers, so I won't. A good continuation of the setting, and I'm looking forward to digging up a copy of Mona Lisa Overdrive.
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Jan 3, 2008 09:40
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I just finished One For The Money by Janet Evanovitch. It was quite cute and funny at times but way too slight for me to bother with the rest of the series. The rapist boxer's characterisation was also unbelievably bad and cartoonish. It's the sort of book I'd recommend reading to you if you were recovering from some kind of major brain injury in hospital and your treatment success was dependent on you not getting overly stimulated.
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Jan 3, 2008 13:49
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bobservo posted:Babbitt (1922) By Sinclair Lewis Basically anything by Lewis is gold.
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Jan 3, 2008 17:50
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perceptual_set posted:Basically anything by Lewis is gold. What do you suggest I read next?
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Jan 3, 2008 20:22
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bobservo posted:What do you suggest I read next? Have you read It Can't Happen Here? If not, please do.
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Jan 3, 2008 22:59
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I just finished the first three books of the "Night Watch" series from russia. Like a modern day Lord of the Rings, and very philosophy heavy, both political and introspective. The movies are like a different interpretation of the books and very condensed. The books are much better because of the depth the story and characters reach. Hoping the final book eventually make sit into English translation.
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Jan 3, 2008 23:36
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perceptual_set posted:Have you read It Can't Happen Here? If not, please do. I second this. It's eeiry how many of the memes in that book you can see around you nowadays.
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Jan 4, 2008 00:27
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Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen Apparently people who enjoy James Joyce will dig this book's style. Having never read any Joyce, I can't comment personally in that regard, but I will say that I enjoyed the book. The rudderless narrator adrift in a sea of desperate lonliness reflected my personal life over the last year and I found it a cathartic, albeit depressing, way to ring in the new year. On a more general note, I often found myself having having to re-read sections to figure out what the Christ had just been said, but the book is short and clearly broken up into numbered sections ranging from a sentence to a few pages long. More important, to me anyway, is the fact that the words themselves, seperate of the message they're meant to deliver, could be so lush and gorgeous that I re-read sections aloud just to hear them.
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Jan 4, 2008 10:40
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White Noise by Don DeLillo I loved the dry humor of the first two parts, but part three was just dry for the most part. The ending somewhat saved it for me. Should I bother with any of DeLillo's other novels? Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov I've been whittling away at this for a while now. Thoroughly in love with Nabokov's writing style, but it's like a rich food that can only be had in limited servings. Consistently some of the best prose I've ever read, and a story that is as engrossing as it is unsettling.
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Jan 4, 2008 15:55
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[quote="SLAUGHTERCLES"] White Noise by Don DeLillo I loved the dry humor of the first two parts, but part three was just dry for the most part. The ending somewhat saved it for me. Should I bother with any of DeLillo's other novels? Yes. The Names is excellent, and I'm 2/3rds of the way through Libra right now, also excellent. I'm planning on reading Underworld this month, but I have a tendency to put off any novel over 400 pages until I'm out of shorter stuff.
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Jan 4, 2008 17:24
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I just finished Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. I enjoy his writing, but I hadn't read this one yet. Over the past few days, while stationed away in a log cabin in Tennessee, I finally spent the time to read it, although it should have been a book I read earlier than that. It's only 120 pages, and goes by very quickly. All of Bulgakov's works are very funny to me, and this one was no different. The writing is witty and expertly conveys the story. One thing I like about his stories is that he focuses on a few characters instead of having too many. Almost the entire book takes place in one apartment and follows the three main characters. This isn't difficult to do in 120 pages, but he didn't try to do too much with the space. Each character will get a different reaction from the reader, as it depends who you feel pity for, the doctor, or the dog. The ending is absolutely perfect, and fits the story well. It's not forced, and it fits in perfectly with how the dog was described earlier in the story. He hasn't changed a bit even in his time of change, and everything for the doctor is back to normal. Wonderful in ever sense of the word.
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Jan 4, 2008 18:21
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At long last, and after three put-downs, I finally finished Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. I found the split narrative interesting, albeit hard to follow at times. When I got to the end, however, I still couldn't make sense of what I read throughout the book. I guess because it didn't have a nice concluding sentence like I'm otherwise used to. Being a history major (recent graduate; sarcastic "wooo"), I'm a big fan of historical nonfiction (not necessarily textbooks of course), but I plan on first ripping through a couple Tom Clancy works for some quick action before settling back into some more serious material.
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Jan 5, 2008 02:30
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Sharp_angus posted:At long last, and after three put-downs, I finally finished Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. I found the split narrative interesting, albeit hard to follow at times. Regarding the ending, I think it's very important to remember that there's no way a blind man could watch a documentary. There is no reliable narrator in that novel; Johnny Truant isn't, the blind man isn't, the documentary itself isn't (in that it can't capture reality and misses some of the most important things), and Navidson isn't. Also, The Navidson Record would make a fantastic cinema verite.
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Jan 5, 2008 09:54
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I just finished Junky by William S. Burroughs. It was a great book, and offered an amazingly detailed view of the life as an addict around 40 years ago. I highly reccomend it to anyone interested in that side of life.
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Jan 5, 2008 10:07
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The Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly - checking out my 'competition', so to speak. As usual for a Reilly novel, it cheerfully ignores trivia like physics, technical accuracy and real-world logic (build not one but two prisons on Himalayan peaks that are only accessible by private high-altitude railway? Sure, why not!) in favour of OTT Hollywood-style action and legions of cackling EEEEEVIL villains, but it's not quite as gleefully batshit demented as his last couple of books. A surprising amount of time is spent between action scenes explaining the pseudoscience and historical background. Sure, there are insane plot twists left and right (our heroes have been captured. How are they going to escape? JAPANESE SUICIDE BOMBERS OUT OF loving NOWHERE!  ) but it's not as  as, say, Scarecrow. I did genuinely laugh out loud when the Maghook made an appearance, though.How does it end? With a loving cliffhanger. Is the fact that this is only half a story mentioned anywhere in the blurb or on the cover? It is not. Unless "The ending is unthinkable" counts. Overall it's definitely better-written than Scarecrow or Seven Ancient Wonders, but it doesn't have their sheer lunatic vigour, and it falls short of the flat-out brain-in-neutral entertainment value of Temple or Area 7. (And I thought authors had stopped describing Africa as "the Dark Continent" in about 1930.) Most overused description: "a ____ of some sort", eg "rope". (Why not just say "a rope"?) Best 'wait, what?' line: "Stretch saw a third Egyptian bus swing unseen beneath the plane's left wing" [my emphasis]
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Jan 5, 2008 10:39
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I just finished The Old Man and the Sea and it was one hell of a book. The prose is great, and in the parts of the book where the old man becomes mildly delerious the prose becomes even more poetic and profound. The book strongly expresses the character and struggle of the old man, and the nature of the ending manages to be both somewhat unexpected and at the same time uplifting. The message of courage and endurance and dignity expressed by the book is excellent. I'm looking forward to reading more things by Hemingway.
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Jan 5, 2008 12:29
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Boleslaw Prus' The Doll, a Polish classic about Stas Wolkulski, a nouveaux-riche merchant who made a fortune in war supplies solely as an attempt to win the hand of a femme-fatale aristocrat. 700 or so pages dedicated to having the readers tearing out their hair waiting for him to come to his senses. Some strong characters like Wolkulski's clerk Rzecki (who narrates about half), and nihilist student tenants who pop in and out for comic relief keep it afloat, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for anyone without a touch of the masochist in them. Also Janet Malcolm's Two Lives, an attempt to find a chink in Gertrude Stein's self-mythologising to create an accurate picture of her relationship with her partner, Alice Toklas. Some really interesting stuff in here, and a quick read, but ultimately Malcolm's near-genius for pithy offhanded journalism is left to make up for the fact that fresh insight amongst Stein scholars seems to have dried up in the last decade or two.
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Jan 5, 2008 14:43
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Beowulf, Kiernan's movie tie-in novelization. I was interested in seeing how she did with characters that weren't angsty goths, and it turned out pretty good.
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Jan 5, 2008 17:29
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Lamb: The gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal. Auth: Christopher Moore. Hilarious take on the missing 30 years of jeebus's life. If you're a hardcore southern baptist, Id say skip it, but otherwise it's pretty awesome. Next in line: The Electric Church by Jeffery Somers.
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Jan 5, 2008 18:23
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Yesterday I finished: Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison This morning I finished: Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
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Jan 5, 2008 19:29
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On The Shoulder of Giants The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy Edited, with commentary, by Stephen Hawking. Contains the classic works of physics and astronomy that changed the way man think of the world, and universe. Included are Copernicus's On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres, Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Kepler's "Harmony of the World," Newton's The Principia and selections from The Principle of Relativity by Einstein.
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Jan 5, 2008 21:48
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Just finished reading a whack of books over the Holidays: Dreamsongs Vol.1 by George R.R. Martin. It reminded me of some of King's anthologies, and gave me a bit more insight into the development of his writing. Some real gems hidden inside, but no real surprises (predictable endings, etc.). Next by Michael Crichton. I told myself that I wouldn't buy another book of his after reading State of Fear, quite possibly the most proselytizing and boring book I'd read of his. Next was actually quite good, if somewhat reaching...it brought up some excellent points on the discordance between current laws and biotechnology. The Twilight Herald by Tom Lloyd. I really enjoyed the first in this fantasy series, The Stormcaller, but the Twilight Herald seemed to have been rushed. It depended too much on the first novel for character development, and didn't engage me as much. Not horrible, but well below the benchmark set with his initial offering.
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Jan 6, 2008 00:13
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I just finished Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription, a collection of anecdotes, letters, and memos by the founder and long time editor of National Review, William H Buckley. He is a crazy fundamentalist Republican who counts Thatcher, Reagen, and other prominent conservatives as friends. But, he is a brilliant man who puts other writers to shame in his use of language. His vocabulary is beyond that of any other person who I have ever seen. Many people think he hides behind his "big" words to get his point across better. I think he does this a bit, but not as much as other people do. I couldn't understand much of what he says, which is disappointing, because I think he has a lot to say. He is also funny and witty. Many of his responses are quick, humorous, and generally funny. Obviously, the book has most of his better letters, but it also includes great letters from other people, some of who wrote letters that Buckley has no response to. The best parts of the book for me were his letters from Art Buchwald about their special Hertz connection. There conversations are funny and over the top, and it's nice to say that they keep up the correspondence for many years, even though they disagree completely when it comes to politics. I was a tad turned off by his craziness, as he is seemingly a Republican radical. I rolled my eyes at much of what was said, but I laughed too. I recommend this book to people that want to learn about Buckley and his magazine, as well as enjoy a funny book. It might be hard for some people to get past the obvious agenda he is pushing (He helped Communism in the USSR?!), but if one does, it is an enjoyable read. It also moves pretty quickly and is roughly 280 pages in length, which is nice. I don't think I could have handled his verbiage much longer.
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Jan 6, 2008 07:59
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I just got done with An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. What an amazingly well written account of the war in Africa. It's a bit depressing to see how bad the US general bungled the war at its beginning, but the personalities of the people in the book realy shine! A great read!
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Jan 6, 2008 21:12
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Finished Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee a few days ago. The bulk of the text is set up as a series of lectures given by the titular character. It presents ideas on animal rights, censorship, and authorship, among others. Much of the material was already presented in lectures Coetzee had given before. It was a great read, recommended by a professor as a potential work on which to base a research paper. I like Coetzee a lot, I just started reading Foe, and I have some of his other works that I look forward to diving into.
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Jan 7, 2008 00:23
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A couple of days ago: Waiting by Ha Jin. I got this one as a gift a couple of years ago and decided to finally pick it up. It was a relatively decent read; a little dry and not much really happened but it was an enjoyable slice of somebody's life nonetheless. One I just finished today that I REALLY enjoyed was Utopias Elsewhere by Anthony Daniels. It's a travel book written by a brit who decided to travel to the 'backwaters' communist countries as communism started to crumble. He visits Romania, Cuba, Albania, Vietnam and North Korea, sharing his experiences and what he can glean from the people living there. I think the weirdest moment in the book was his description of Department Store No 1 in North Korea, staffed with fake shoppers to show how prosperous the NK regime was and how well the people had it... great book, a little more dry than PJ's "Holidays in Hell" which I've seen it compared to, but very very enjoyable.
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Jan 7, 2008 02:11
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I just finished White Teeth by Zadie Smith and I did not enjoy it at all. It was cleverly written at times however, over a quarter of the book is dedicated to the point of view of a character who I hated. I have never disliked a character so much that it actually impeded my enjoyment of a book before, so this is new to me. Also, I kept expecting the plot to tie up or go somewhere when really the book is more about giving a sample of the characters life's, and this as well impeded my enjoyment as well, although this is more a flaw in my approach to reading it rather then a complaint directed at the writing.
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Jan 7, 2008 04:55
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