|
The Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice. It was amazing, I completely loved it
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2008 18:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
Imperium, by Ryszard Kapuscinski, whose work I have been working through in the past couple months: it's all really fantastic and crazily under appreciated stuff. He was a Polish journalist from the late 50s, and had access to a lot of areas Western journalists couldn't get into due to his nationality. He sort of specialized in decolonization: he wrote mainly about and during coups, civil wars, and generally the crumbling of order. He tends not to focus on the factual details but rather the feeling of the time and place, and straddles the line between literature and journalism. Imperium is a study of the (former) USSR, and is basically a collection of travelogues and memoirs from three periods: the late 40s/early 50s, the late eighties during the crumbling of the Soviet Union, and the late 90s early 00s. He travels to all corners of the Imperium: Amernia, Turkistan, Tzajiskistan, and describes the feelings of burgeoning nationalism and loss of faith experienced by the nationalities as they suffer under distant colonial leadership. He also visits places like Kolyma and talks to residents and surivivors. It's pretty hard stuff, but fascinating, especially for Westerners with little sense of the history and scale of the former USSR. Sadly this book is also somewhat unfocused, feeling much more like a collection of essays without a real overarching narrative. It's extremely interesting to observe the collapse of the USSR from the inside as narrated by a political insider, and none of the various essays are boring as such. However, they definitely lack the urgency and sense of almost mystical foreboding found in his best work.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2008 20:47
|
|
|
I just finished Of Fire & Night, book 5 in the series "The Saga of the Seven Suns" it is a great book, I am just waiting for the next book to arrive from Amazon. Any science fiction fan should give this series a read, it's pretty good.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 01:47
|
|
|
Re: The Terroridhindsight posted:I really really want to read this book and it's been sitting on my nightstand for over a year. I've tried a couple of times but the pacing is deathly slow (I'm on, like, page 90). Does it ever pick up? perceptual_set posted:Yes, but it's okay to skip long parts about the characters' past lives and information on the boat that will never be interesting. The story doesn't suffer. idhindsight posted:e: Thanks p_s! Sorry, dude.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 03:28
|
|
|
I just finished A Clockwork Orange the other day. I thought it was awesome, if a little short. I still haven't seen the film so now I can go in and have something to compare it to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 05:36
|
|
|
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. A 19th century Victorian novel that I believe was the first lengthy detective or "whodunit" story. Like almost all 19th century English lit. I was a bit put off by the frilly language and masochistic attention to detail. But that is always counter-balanced by my absolute fetish for frilly language and masochistic attention to detail. Oh, wait.. Candide by Voltaire. The ultimate satire that is contemporary to the Enlightenment. This was awesome. Currently doing lots of S.F. classic short story reading (Campbell, Van Vogt, Heinlein, Asimov, etc...). I'm also about to start on Tess of the D'ubervilles. More Victorian stuff, wee.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 06:20
|
|
|
Today in my biology class, instead of listening to the lecture, I finally finished Number: The Language of Science by Tobias Dantzig. I think I found out about this book a while ago here in TBB, as it is one of the easier to access books on mathematics and also one of the more famous ones. I had tried to read it when I first got it about a year and half ago, but I could only muster my way through 3 of the 12 chapters. I actually finished it this time, but it took me a around 3 to 4 weeks, as I've been doing other stuff at night instead of reading, much to my chagrin. The book was still pretty difficult for me to understand. Parts of it were really simple, but the book was written over 100 years ago, so the language and vocabulary were sometimes difficult to wade through. I did enjoy the parts of it I really understood and the historical parts, although Dantzig talked about the famous mathematicians as though their lives are common knowledge. When he talked about the theoretical stuff, it was difficult to follow, but he does an adequate job of explaining everything. I think I'll have to come back to this book later to read it again, especially over a shorter amount of time. The chapters build on each other, so spreading out my reading over a 3 week period was probably not the best thing to do. While it is said that this book is easier for not math people to get into, I had some trouble with it and I'm a math major at university. It's not particularly easy to read, but I do suggest it if you are interested in mathematical history and theory.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 19:10
|
|
|
perceptual_set posted:Re: The Terror Well, good goddamn. Thanks for letting me know, now I can focus on better books.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 21:28
|
|
|
idhindsight posted:Well, good goddamn. Thanks for letting me know, now I can focus on better books. You and me both.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2008 21:32
|
|
|
The Road. I read it in about 3 days and stayed sitting on the toliet for an extra hour one night reading it. It was good stuff and I'd definitely recommend it if you like post-apocalytic fiction. I wanted to get Earth Abides but B & N didn't have it. Are there any good series that are in the post-apocalytic vein?
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 00:27
|
|
|
Bashful posted:The Road. I read it in about 3 days and stayed sitting on the toliet for an extra hour one night reading it. It was good stuff and I'd definitely recommend it if you like post-apocalytic fiction. I wanted to get Earth Abides but B & N didn't have it. Are there any good series that are in the post-apocalytic vein? I've heard that these are in a somewhat similar vein and are quite good, but I have not personally read either one: On the Beach The Sheep Look Up
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 01:38
|
|
|
I just finished Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. I really enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it so much in fact that I am now reading Killing Yourself To Live by him.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 02:02
|
|
|
idhindsight posted:I've heard that these are in a somewhat similar vein and are quite good, but I have not personally read either one: I've read On the Beach but I hadn't heard of Sheep Look Up. It looks good, I think I'll check it out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 02:37
|
|
|
Christine Falls and The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black. Black is the penname of John Banville, an Irish writer who won the Man Booker prize in 2005 for The Sea. These two books follow a pathologist in 1950's Ireland named Quirke. In the first book Quirke is a drunk with a dead wife who becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind the odd death of a girl. His curiosity sets loose a cascade of events that wreak havoc on his life and the lives of those around him. In the second book, Quirke has quit drinking, but still gets caught up trying to solve another young girl's death that he can't quite let go. To be honest, the "mystery" parts of the book aren't that mysterious, but they're so well written I didn't care. These books are all about the characters and their interactions, and Black's prose. I love these books because they feel like what they are: The pet project of an internationally recognized author paying homage to the types of books he loves. The best description I can come up with is "Literary Noir." I found Christine Falls at a Half Price Books for $6 or so. I'd suggest picking it up for that price and seeing if it's your kinda thing. If so, The Silver Swan is out in hardcover so it's a bit more expensive, but it's more of Banville/Black's goodness.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 03:05
|
|
|
Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, and I feel like I'm trapped in hell because I desperately want to discuss this book with my friends but none of them have read it and it's a daunting thing to just suggest to people and expect them to pick up and plow through in short order. I enjoyed it though, and it was interesting watching how the characters and the relationships between them were filled in throughout the course of the novel. Funny, thoughtful, and linguistically engaging, which I expected of DFW; what I didn't neccesarily expect was how much it tugged at my heartstrings.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2008 06:51
|
|
|
Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett Yay for new characters, the History monks really brought some freshness to the whole discworld concept, even though this story's premise was pretty silly when you get down to it. How the hell did Miss Ogg become Mrs Ogg?? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2008 04:22
|
|
|
I just read House of Leaves. By the end of it I thought it was pretty okay. It admittedly did shoehorn its way into my dreams, but jesus christ Johhny Truant was a whiny little human being. He was like Holden Caulfield sans any reason for sexual frustration and very little impetus behind his semi-schizophrenic/existential malaise. In addition, all of the peculiar structural elements struck me as a waste of paper and utterly lacking in reason. Yes, the corridor is tapering! And the words are tapering as well! Hahaha, this is so great! He is demonstrating the plight of the character through formatting! I love this so much. Maybe if people hadn't talked the book up prior to my reading it I wouldn't look at it like this.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2008 23:52
|
|
|
12 Million Black Voices by Richard Wright. Wright wrote this book in 1941, only months after Native Son became an inexplicably gigantic hit in mainstream America - I say 'inexplicably' not because it wasn't a fantastically written book, but because the dark subject matter was not something you'd expect to be widely read among middle class white men and women. 12 Million... is a very ambitious blend of photography (selected from the Library of Congress) and Marxist progressivism that attempts to depict the black experience in America through a collective social consciousness. It's a fast read, with some incredible pictures, and very dense. I cannot express how masterfully Wright establishes the social character of 'black folk' through a synthetic lens of an incomplete history marred by the inherent sin of slavery. Anybody who was particularly intrigued by Barack Obama's recent speeches on race would do well to read Wright, who is even more relevant now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2008 01:23
|
|
|
NBA FAN !!!!!!! posted:I just read House of Leaves. By the end of it I thought it was pretty okay. It admittedly did shoehorn its way into my dreams, but jesus christ Johhny Truant was a whiny little human being. He was like Holden Caulfield sans any reason for sexual frustration and very little impetus behind his semi-schizophrenic/existential malaise. In addition, all of the peculiar structural elements struck me as a waste of paper and utterly lacking in reason. Yes, the corridor is tapering! And the words are tapering as well! Hahaha, this is so great! He is demonstrating the plight of the character through formatting! I love this so much. I'm reading this now, about 1/3 of the way through and I'm struggling. On topic, I just finished On The Beach by Shute. It was a pretty quick read, and I really came to pull for the characters. Once you can suspend the belief that people would behave that way knowing the end is coming, it is a ending that hangs with you for days. It's just hard to believe that people would behave themselves with the end of the world at hand. I really do recommend it as it was one of the triggers for the anti-nuke movement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2008 02:04
|
|
|
The first volume of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities. Set in 1913, it follows the progress of the Parallel Campaign, a bureaucratic and widely organised attempt by Austria to express the modern Great Idea, mostly for the satisfaction of rubbing it in the face of Europe (and especially Germany). Just replace Austria with Musil, Great Idea with immense philosophical novel, Europe and Germany with Thomas Mann and Hermann Broch and you've more or less got an idea of what to expect. He worked on it for 20-odd years, and it shows; the whole drat thing is overstuffed with ideas to the point where you can't possibly remember all the tangents he flies off on. I likes my irony, and Musil's sense for it is especially sharp, but it can still be slow-going at times. Further in the whittlings-away from the To Read stack is David Markson's early breakthrough, The Ballad of Dingus Macgee which had little to nothing to do with anything he did later (other than bankrolling him through the aimlessly Lowryesque Going Down). Mostly just a comic take on deflating the Wild West mythos with some gratuitous Benny Hill style humour thrown in. Entertaining and clever in a goofy way, but naturally don't expect Wittgenstein's Mistress with a six shooter.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2008 04:27
|
|
|
Read a couple of books by Arturo Perez-Reverte over the past few days - The Fencing Master and The Queen of the South. The Fencing Master was pretty good. It's set in 1860s Spain and (as might be expected) focuses on an aging fencing master who's approached by a mysterious woman wanting to learn the secret of his "200 escudo thrust" (a supposedly unstoppable fencing move). While the writing and characterization is good, it seems a bit short and rushed towards the end. However, The Queen of the South was very good - it follows a Mexican woman from Sinaloa whose boyfriend is a drug runner for the Culiacan cartel. After he's killed for running drugs on his own, she flees to Spain and gradually gets involved in running hash and coke between Spain and Morocco, eventually rising to power and being dubbed "The Queen of the South". Her story's interspersed with the occasional interlude by a reporter who's researching her past for an article, which helps fill in some of the background. As with "Fencing Master", it's really well-written with plenty of gritty detail and also provides an interesting look at drug smuggling on the other side of the Atlantic. I was pleasantly surprised as the jacket description sounded kind of cheesy at first. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Apr 6, 2008 |
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2008 07:26
|
|
|
The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy. I enjoyed this a lot, but can't worship it. Sebastian Dangerfield is a compelling character, an American bumming in Ireland on the G.I. Bill after WW2. He rakishly battles the forces of sobriety and monogamy. He's a classic character and probably one of the best portrayals of a cad put to paper. Donleavy's language is sparse and poetic, reminiscent of a conversation in a pub or internal monologue. I'll definitely be reading more by him. I was supposed to be done with this by St. Patrick's Day, it took me a month to read because I've been immersed in movies lately. I found it a little difficult to empathize with him, but he's an anti-hero so that makes quite a bit of sense.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 13:15
|
|
|
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I can see why it has such a huge following. I never really liked high fantasy, and I don't think that I could read any other work in that setting other than this series. I also read Libraries in the Ancient World by Casson. It covers libraries from the period from ancient Mesopotamia to late antiquity. He makes a very convincing argument that there were more people literate than previously imagined throughout Ancient Greece and Rome.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 15:32
|
|
|
NBA FAN !!!!!!! posted:I just read House of Leaves. By the end of it I thought it was pretty okay. It admittedly did shoehorn its way into my dreams, but jesus christ Johhny Truant was a whiny little human being. I've got to fully agree with you here. Johnny Truant was such a sophomoric toolbag. Especially early on; his descent into madness was at least a little entertaining (perhaps if only in a vengeful and spiteful way). I guess I understand that MZD wanted to have the book be "deeper" by adding another layer into it, especially in such a grossly unreliable narrator such as Truant, but I truly felt that Truant took away from the book. My dream is that Guillermo del Toro will make a movie called "The Navidson Record" and leave Truant and Zampano completely out of it. That would be a tremendous film.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 18:43
|
|
|
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I thought it was awesome but too short and the pacing was all wrong towards the middle/end.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 20:21
|
|
|
Don Oot posted:
This sounds really fascinating, actually. I'll add this to my list.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 20:34
|
|
|
Ozma posted:This sounds really fascinating, actually. I'll add this to my list. How's Guns, Germs & Steel? Put it down?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 20:36
|
|
|
perceptual_set posted:How's Guns, Germs & Steel? Put it down? AUGH I gave up on it for a while. I'll get back to it eventually but between that temporary frustration I related here and the fact that I've been sick so much lately that I can hardly even focus my attention on anything beyond pop fiction, I haven't the nerve to get back into it. I imagine I'm going to have to start from the beginning. I did put a book about native american history in South Dakota in my handbag today but I think that was wishful thinking.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 20:42
|
|
|
Ozma posted:I did put a book about native american history in South Dakota in my handbag today but I think that was wishful thinking. What book?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 21:14
|
|
|
reactor9 posted:What book? Oh, just one I grabbed from a "local" section of a bookstore in Spearfish, SD. "The Black Hills and the Indians." Know nothing about it and am a little concerned as, given the info on the back, it seems to be damned with faint praise. Since it's a local yokel book it doesn't even register on Amazon. I find something kind of appealing about local writers over glossier history books you can find elsewhere- not because I imagine it's more well researched but because it's a little more rough around the edges. A lot of my poetry these days is centering around the black hills so I like the background. So basically I'm justifying my purchase of what may be a very bad book!
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 21:56
|
|
|
Lord Rupert posted:I just finished Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. I really enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it so much in fact that I am now reading Killing Yourself To Live by him. I read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Is Killing Time any good, so far? As for myself, I've recently finished Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris. I'd read the hype about this book in so many places I was afraid I'd be let down, but I genuinely enjoyed it. It's written in the first person plural perspective, and you'd think it would be grating but it lends itself really well to the book (which is about, well, being a cog in the corporate machine, but it somehow manages not to simply rehash things like "The Office" or "Dilbert"). Before that, I finished The New Kings of Nonfiction as edited by Ira Glass, because I have a nerdcrush on him. Most of the essays were good (and actually there was one by Chuck Klosterman--yay!), though a couple really dragged (James McManus's retelling of a poker tournament was really boring, probably because I don't give a drat about the game). Right now I'm halfway through Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum, and it's pretty fascinating, if a little depressing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2008 23:12
|
|
|
I just finished Flowers for Algernon holy crap I am so depressed. I mean it was a fantastic book I read it in a day and it was just immensely engrossing but god drat what a depressing book.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2008 03:18
|
|
|
I'm going through TBB's Hall of Fame thread and reading everything I haven't already, just to form a nice foundation for future posting here. I just finished Lolita and am now beginning House of Leaves. Absolutely loved Lolita. The only problem was that it made me feel guilty for not reading it beforehand.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2008 17:44
|
|
|
Just got through a couple months' worth of the Moss Roberts translation of Three Kingdoms, commentary and notes and all. You can tell it was written by a bunch of Chinese dudes for dudes to remember other dudes and their minutiae forever. Almost finished with House of Chains by Erikson and I love his ideas, but hate most of his prose.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2008 20:28
|
|
|
Haven't posted here in a while, but here's the last couple of books I've read: Just finished A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. It was an excellent suspense novel which was a step up from most books in the genre, both in terms of writing quality and depth. I can't recommend this enough to anyone looking for a fairly quick read that also has some weight to it (it was also made into a movie a few years back directed by Sam Raimi; I hear the movie is excellent but I haven't seen it yet). Right before that I read Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (on the recommendation of McCaine). It's the first in a series of ten Swedish detective novels featuring the same main character, Martin Beck. This was a definite change of pace from the detective stories I'm used to (I love hard-boiled, Raymond Chandler-esque stuff), as it took a more low-key and realistic approach to the story. My only complaints were 1) keeping track of the different characters, as there isn't much formal introduction to them even though this is the first book in the series, and 2) the downside to the more "realistic" plot is that the story drags a bit when the investigation is in its early stages and the detectives have almost nothing to work with (though I think it was a good approach, and the story picks up considerable momentum as it goes on). Still a great read, and I have the next few entries in the series ordered up on Amazon.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 01:26
|
|
|
Ozma posted:Oh, just one I grabbed from a "local" section of a bookstore in Spearfish, SD. "The Black Hills and the Indians." Know nothing about it and am a little concerned as, given the info on the back, it seems to be damned with faint praise. Since it's a local yokel book it doesn't even register on Amazon. I find something kind of appealing about local writers over glossier history books you can find elsewhere- not because I imagine it's more well researched but because it's a little more rough around the edges. A lot of my poetry these days is centering around the black hills so I like the background. Sometimes you see some really odd or interesting local literature floating around there. The funniest are the books the fanatical christians leave sometimes at tribal courthouses and ihs hospitals usually saying how the tribe's all going to hell for being pagans. Why the Black Hills, if you don't mind me asking? e:Finished a short story collection called 'Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking' by Malcom Gladwell on a flight recently. Interesting in that it's about how fast people make judgements not on a conscious level and examining gut feelings. Quick read, nice if you're in a flight or in a waiting room. futurestate fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Apr 9, 2008 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 02:12
|
|
|
I thought it would be worth mentioning Giraffe by J. M. Ledgard, which I just finished. It's based off a nearly-forgotten event in the 1970s involving the capture and transport of a herd of giraffes to a Czechoslovakian zoo, where they eventually met a terrible end (not trying to spoil anything, that's in the first sentence of the inside jacket). It's disappointing that the book seemed to go straight to the bargain bin, because it really is a wonderful piece of writing. The narrators are mostly stuck in their own heads, sleepwalking to a point where the actual events of the novel are hardly important next to their thoughts, which are contemplative, peaceful, and often beautiful. I didn't really care where the plot went as long as I could keep listening in. There are definitely some flaws, though, which I was mostly able to accept or overlook but might annoy others. While the writing is excellent, nearly all the characters have an identical detached, philosophical view of the world around them, which makes things a little less believable. Along with this, each narrator has a few bits of imagery that they endlessly repeat, and while it usually works well it can get irritating when a half dozen of them are paraded out in the same paragraph. The central event of the novel was the biggest disappointment for me, because what could have been relayed very well in 10 pages ends up being described in 75, from multiple viewpoints, which for me weakened the emotional impact. Like I said though, it was easy for me to overlook these things because everything else was done so well, and I would highly recommend picking it up, probably from a used bookstore where most of the stock has been dumped. For the people on this page who put down The Terror, I think it would be worth your time to give it another chance. Things happen slowly for the most part (they are frozen in a sea of ice after all), but it's a great, cold, painful, depressing survival story and the last hundred pages are absolutely worth the time you spend on the rest 
VOICEOFTHEDRAGON fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Apr 9, 2008 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 06:02
|
|
|
I finished two books this past week. The first one I finished was The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, who is more known for his book Moneyball. I loved Moneyball, and this book was excellent as well. The book talks about how the NFL has changed over the past 20 years towards defenses that have fast defensive ends or linebackers who blitz the quarterbacks backside. He chronicles this with many stories about Lawrence Taylor and Bill Walsh, and just talks about the history of this change. Although this is part of the book, the main focus is on Michael Oher, a poor black student from Memphis who is perfect as a person to protect the blindside as a left tackle. He's never played football before and is a brute, but his life changes when he is adopted by a family of white Christians who live a very well off life. My favorite part is the character focus in the book, that of Oher. I felt such pity for him, and such a connection to him. Lewis did this wonderfully in Moneyball, focusing on many different players, but this was a specific player he focused more time on, and it paid off, as I felt he did a wonderful job. The flow is great too, as the chapters about history and Michael Oher are split up very well. Wonderful in every sense. The other book I finished was Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. This is the book that the new movie 21 is based on, and I wanted to read the book because I'm generally interested in the ideas of card counting and gambling. I really liked the book, as I stayed up way too late and missed class to read the book. It was paced well and had some interesting stories. Although much of the story focused on the blackjack being played, I think that some of the blackjack stories were cut short. Yes, Jeff Ha's life is interesting enough as the main character, but I didn't really care about some of his personal stuff. I would have liked to have heard more about defeating Vegas. Also, the way the book and movie make it seem is that these kids absolutely ransacked Vegas, which they didn't do, as they came away with a few million over a few years, which was then split up among many people. Ya, they made a nice living, but the writing and scripting make it seem like they were the baddest asses in the world. Ha, the main character, is still barred from many a casino though, so I guess he did enough. It was a fun read, and I did enjoy it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 07:20
|
|
|
I just managed to trudge through another Brett Easton Ellis novel. This time I read The Informers. It was fairly typical of Ellis for roughly 80% of the book, but closer to the end the vignettes get darker and more disturbing. Vampires and cannibals, rape and murder in Los Angeles; moral wasteland! Woohoo! I think I'd like to read something less nihilistic now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 15:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
Kentucky Shark posted:(it was also made into a movie a few years back directed by Sam Raimi; I hear the movie is excellent but I haven't seen it yet). If it's the one with Bill Paxton, then yes it's pretty awesome.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2008 15:59
|
|