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Out of the Silent Planet | C.S. Lewis After dropping Green Mars (because god-drat that is just as boring as I remember it) I picked this up along with Perelandra, These two are some of my favorite stories by Lewis. I also like to pretend that the final installment, That Hideous Strength doesn't exist because it's awful. I hadn't read these in years because I seemed to have lost my old copies but it's nice to have them again.
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Jul 4, 2008 00:42
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Cao Xueqin's Story of the Stone, Vol 1: The Golden Days which is the first volume of a 18th century novel about the decline of an ultra-wealthy Chinese family. I assume it functions as the same kind of prologue that Swann's Way does though, since by the final page everyone seems to be in a just as cushy position as they were to begin with. The mixture of highly regulated social mannerisms and irreverent, bizarre asides (like an incidental character who jerks off so much it destroys his health and he dies) is strangely readable considering the plot goes on the backburner in favour of 500-odd pages of character development. Reread William Gaddis' Agape Agape on a whim and realised how many Thomas Bernhard references I completely missed the first time. Actually probably preferred it when I'd missed them as it highlighted what a pastiche it was of Bernhard's style as opposed to an original Gaddis novel. Either way it's still not much more than an enjoyable footnote to the rest of his career. Last one down was The Letters of Marcel Proust, in which he assures everyone he really is quite sick and can't come to dinner tonight. For twenty years. Interesting having read In Search of Lost Time, but the most insightful bits could quite easily be, and probably have been, unobtrusively lifted into one of the supposedly excellent biographies. Includes the rest of Gide's famous letter to him, which reveals that "not publishing your novel is one of the profound regrets of my life" was followed shortly by "but in my defence, who would have guessed that you were capable of writing anything interesting." What a bitch that guy was.
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Jul 5, 2008 04:43
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The Road | Cormac McCarthy Okay, since every loving goon has written a post in this thread about this book I finally read it. I loved it. It was beautiful and made me sob like a baby throughout the end. I only needed to be told to read it 2323987239823 times.
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Jul 6, 2008 22:23
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Wicked by Gregory Maguire I thought the book was pretty good. He certainly added an incredible amount of depth to the world of oz. Politics, religion, classes, racism, good, evil. I think knowing how it ended kind of ruined it in a way, though. It builds up some great characters, the world, and then it ends before you really have a chance to enjoy the world and characters you spend the whole book learning about. Since the ending isn't a surprise it really didn't leave much of an impression. I don't plan on reading the sequel unless I hear good things about the 3rd book, which doesn't yet exist.
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Jul 7, 2008 00:05
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Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. As someone who is into WW2 history, I thought this was a fun book. The characters are all entertaining in their own ways, and I enjoy how the book never really takes itself too seriously. The humor at times is top notch, and I like the pages long explanations of seemingly random and pointless things actually tie right into the narrative. It was definitely a fun read, and I look forward to reading some more Stephenson in the future.
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Jul 7, 2008 00:41
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This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges. This book is a transcription of a lecture series given by Borges at Harvard in the late 1960's. Amazingly, all of these lectures were given from memory, since Borges was almost completely blind at that point in his life. I'd highly reccomend it to anyone already a fan of his work. America by Jean Baudrillard. This book was a weird mix of travelogue and post-structural cultural theory about (Baudrillard's travels around) America during the 1980's. The more of Baudrillard I read, the more he turns out to be a cranky old man who occasionally has brilliant insights and consistently writes beautifully. In particular, his observations about New York City, while dated, are great. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. Not knowing anything about Chesterton that he was an ultra-orthodox Catholic I found some of the plot twists, such as "oh, Sunday is big-G God" annoying, or downright stupid, to say nothing of the ending "It was all a dream". That being said, a lot of the leadup to the book's terrible second half was entertaining. I think I may read the book again to see if it's better without any annoying surprises, but on the whole this book was mostly an interesting concept for a short story, not a 200 page novel. Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Zizek. Typical Zizekian a.d.h.d. in regarding the American response to 9/11. Probably the only (semi?)serious philosopher to write about the ideological message behind "The Land Before Time". I don't think I necessarily agree with many of his conclusions or lines of argument, but it was still a good read.
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Jul 7, 2008 01:20
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I finally finished Moby Dick ! It really is a wonderful book and is well worth struggling through the middle parts where Melville forgoes plot progression for chapter upon chapter of whale taxonomy. The ironic thing is that some of these "non-essential" chapters contain some of the best symbolism in the book, so you really are punished if you skim any of them. I will definitely have to read this again in another few years, as I know there's much more to this book than can be gleamed from the first reading.
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Jul 7, 2008 01:47
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DFu4ever posted:As someone who is into WW2 history, I thought this was a fun book. The characters are all entertaining in their own ways, and I enjoy how the book never really takes itself too seriously. The best 5 pages were the bit where he talks about how to eat Cap'n Crunch.
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Jul 7, 2008 02:07
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Rendezvous With Rama, a sci fi classic by Arthur C Clarke. In this book, scientists in the 22nd century detect a huge cilinder of alien origin hurdling through the solar system. They send astronauts to rendezvous with the object, only to find that it's hollow, and that there's a planet (of sort) covering the entire inner surface of the cilinder. The book covers their exploration of the inside of the cilinder, which is dubbed Rama (apparently in the 22nd century astronomers have ran out of greek/roman deities to name stars and planets, and start working through the hindu pantheon. A great premise, the book is very compelling. Just started with the sequel and, as all the reviews promised me, it's poo poo. It was authored by Gentry Lee and only based on the universe created by the first book. Instead of hard sci fi we're treated to the dilemmas faced by the new characters, all of which are so clichéd and one-dimensional, it's hard to care about what's going on. In any case, the first book is great.
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Jul 7, 2008 03:00
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God is Not Great | Christopher Hitchens I've had a lovely night tonight so I finished this in an attempt to fall back asleep. Needless to say, this has been my least favorite of the late atheist litanies. It's very dry and seems to suck all the fun out of some very interesting subjects. I would not recommend this to anyone interested in the subject but would ask that you seek out books by Dawkins or Harris instead.
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Jul 7, 2008 10:37
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Valis by P.K. Dick was pretty great. I've read a lot of his earlier stuff, and this is essentially in the same vein, just a lot more autobiographical. I guess. It's hard to determine where the fact ends and the fiction begins, but considering that it's, to a large extent, a crazy person writing about his craziness, I think the ambiguity between reality and fantasy is highly appropriate. Interesting enough, though, it feels a lot less paranoid than his other novels I've read. In the end, I enjoyed it for the insight it gave me in to one of my favorite author's state of mind moreso than for the story, though I did enjoy the story a great deal, especially when I realized VALIS is the inspiration for MGS4's GW. I will say, if you enjoy the works of PKD, you need to read this book.
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Jul 7, 2008 18:59
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pingofdeath posted:I also read American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. While I thought it was a terrific book, many sex and torture scenes, particularly of violence towards women, seemed a bit much and essentially precludes any and all women from reading the book. I have a strong stomach and am no fan of censorship, but when a passage in a book makes even ME feel sick, someone's stepped over a line somewhere. In some cases, as well, the scenes just sort of felt like filler. Other than that I thought it was terrific and the few segments where Bateman reflects on himself and his life were some beautifully written prose. I can't wait to get my hands on more of Ellis' writing. I'm thinking of picking up The Informers next, which I understand is in the style of movies like Crash and Babel, or loosely interconnected stories, except with a lot more nihilism. most of the stories in the Informers are actually ones he wrote prior to writing American Psycho and in some cases before he even wrote Less Than Zero I'd recommend moving on to either Rules of Attraction or Glamorama....or actually just start from the very beginnning with Less Than Zero
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Jul 7, 2008 23:09
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I recently finished The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. It was an excellent read and was very well-written. His major premise (skeptical thinking is useful throughout your entire life as it stops oneself from being swindled by authority or otherwise) was not new to me, but how he wrote about it and the examples he used were very compelling. I really enjoyed the depth and breadth of his study of superstition and/or pseudoscience and how it affects society and cultures as a whole. And furthermore, how having a "baloney-detection kit" can root out these sometimes not-as-apparent errors in thinking. My only complaint about this book is that the people who really need to read this--those people who lack an ability, for whatever reason, to think in a skeptical manner--largely won't have heard of this book and thus could not read it. Even worse, the people who choose to remain ignorant about thinking skeptically because they feel it is "dehumanizing" or soulless or whatever. I definitely need to buy a second copy and try and get some of my less-skeptical friends to indulge if they're willing to do so. Up next: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins! (I'm three chapters in thus far and it's quite funny and, of course, interesting as well as informative. I enjoyed his rebuttal of criticisms he received after he initially published the book, too, such as "I'm an atheist, but...".)
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Jul 8, 2008 15:48
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I just read The Baum Plan for Financial Independence by John Kessel. It's a collection of short stories that span several genres, but the most famous of these are the four "Lunar Cycle" humanist sci-fi pieces. One of these, "Stories for Men," won him a Tiptree Award for exploration of gender in speculative fiction. He's also previously won a Nebula (among other things). Kessel really captures people and the ways they interact with each other. "The Snake Girl"--about a college fling--is by far my favorite story in the bunch. As a side note, I think the story with the most creative premise is "Pride and Prometheus," in which Mary, one of the daughters from Austen's Pride and Prejudice meet up with a Henry Clerval and his dark friend, Victor Frankenstein in London.
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Jul 9, 2008 04:11
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Finished Ulysses and feel confident that I could say something meaningful about around 20% of it. Also finished The Quiet American by Graham Greene, it was better than I expected but I like stories with a seedy, opium smoking narrator. The story was a pretty good blend of entertainment, colonialism, mystery, and war suspense. Most of the ideas of the book are very surface level (like each major character representing the ideals of whatever respective country that they are from in Vietnam in the 50s) which is nice. Overall, read if you're into the history that led to the Vietnam war or just want a totally readable, well paced story.
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Jul 9, 2008 04:49
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This is more of a question than a review, but I'm dumping The Grapes of Wrath. I know it's an American classic, but I am constantly dozing off reading it, and, frankly, I just can't stand reading a history of the lives of ignorant people, as awful as that sounds. Is East of Eden better? I've already read Of Mice and Men and loved it, though it was absolutely heartbreaking. I think I'm going to skip it and move on to It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.
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Jul 9, 2008 15:12
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American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Man, what a trip that was. The book in itself is kind of slow but very well told. The last hundred pages or so really make the entire book a modern classic. I mean Shadow finding out he's Wednesday's son, finding out who the buffalo man is, Laura mortally wounding Loki, and finding out the entire plot between Loki and Odin. Neil Gaiman is such a gifted writer with imagery that could even gice Dickens a boner.
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Jul 9, 2008 17:38
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I finally read 1984. Finally! I made a promise to my friend that I'd read it before thirty or he could castrate me. My junk is spared, hallelujah. The book is a total loving bummer though.
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Jul 9, 2008 18:03
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The Stranger by Albert Camus It was a quick read, and I've been on an existentialist shtick recently. It was eye-opening trying to relate to a man who had a completely different priority on his emotions. His interactions with the other characters doesn't seem too far off from what a normal person might do, but any intimate moment, as in love or in the murder he commits, are so far from what you'd expect from any rational person. The last 20-30 pages of him arguing with the priest were some of the most epic lines of humanity I've ever read. I am continuing to read more Camus. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Plague at the moment, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. lobotomyboy fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jul 9, 2008 |
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Jul 9, 2008 19:25
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lobotomyboy posted:The Stranger by Albert Camus The Plague is probably his best, most comprehensive novel... I've enjoyed just about everything I've read of his. His short stories (Exile and the Kingdom) and the collection of his plays are excellent as well. He has some pretty good essays on the global political happenings of the 40's and 50's, especially his stuff on Algeria and capital punishment. The Fall is really great too, it's not as cohesive as his other stuff but is full of great anecdotes as the entire novel is an extended conversation.
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Jul 9, 2008 19:36
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Grigori Rasputin posted:The Plague is probably his best, most comprehensive novel... It took me a while to get into the book. At first I was just reeling off of the Stranger, and the feel of the Plague was a very abrupt change. Now that I'm a good way through the book I'm enjoying it on par with The Stranger. It was, oddly, harder to accept the characters from the Plague at first for me. But as the mayhem of the plague ensues and the characters are fleshed out a bit more the story is becoming more human, and that's what I was looking for.
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Jul 9, 2008 20:02
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I just finished reading Hominids, which is the first part of Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax. I enjoyed it so much that I checked out the next book in the series as soon as I returned the first one to the library. I'm glad I took the time to read it because it's honestly the nerdiest thing I've ever read and I've been worried that my co-workers will ask what I am reading when they see me toting it around. "Well," I'll tell them, "it's about Neanderthals who accidentally open a portal from an alternate universe and one of them enters our world." 
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Jul 10, 2008 16:46
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Chinaski posted:I just finished reading Hominids, which is the first part of Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax. I enjoyed it so much that I checked out the next book in the series as soon as I returned the first one to the library. I'm glad I took the time to read it because it's honestly the nerdiest thing I've ever read and I've been worried that my co-workers will ask what I am reading when they see me toting it around. If you want to read another good novel by Sawyer I recommend Flashforward. I don't know how to write a summary without ruining anything so I'll just post this from amazon: In April 2009, Lloyd and Theo, two scientists at the European Organization for Particle Physics (CERN), run an experiment that accidentally transports the world's consciousness 20 years into the future. When humanity reawakens a moment later, chaos rules. It is a good short read.
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Jul 10, 2008 21:29
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I just finished Naked by David Sedaris and The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I read Naked since I bought it, and after reading Dress and Pretty I figured I'd read it. Stuff came up and it didn't get read, but now his new book is out which I just started. I couldn't justify buying it without reading the Naked, since I bought it and didn't read it. Good stuff, more of the same really, which is in no way a bad thing. I don't read Sedaris for him to experiment, I enjoy his formula. Obama was 350 pages of policy, which doesn't really count as literature but I found it very enlightening. He's not as good of a writer as an orator but I felt obliged to read it since I've been a supporter of his since before he announced his candidacy and this is my first presidential election I can vote in. I feel like he has really thought out what he plans to do and is laudable for publsihing a book that he could basically call "My Plan". The only thing that annoys me is that since reading this book it's become very clear that not a single reporter or pundit has read it.
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Jul 10, 2008 21:50
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God, Robert J Sawyer is such a loving hack. If he wanted to write speculative science theories, write a book like David Deutsch, don't give me horribly stilted dialogue explaining your phenomenon and poorly sketched characters and basic film structuring and lame plots and oh god, furthermore
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Jul 10, 2008 22:27
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discore posted:Also finished The Quiet American by Graham Greene, it was better than I expected but I like stories with a seedy, opium smoking narrator. The story was a pretty good blend of entertainment, colonialism, mystery, and war suspense. Most of the ideas of the book are very surface level (like each major character representing the ideals of whatever respective country that they are from in Vietnam in the 50s) which is nice. Overall, read if you're into the history that led to the Vietnam war or just want a totally readable, well paced story.
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Jul 11, 2008 07:36
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Grigori Rasputin posted:I finally read 1984. Finally! I made a promise to my friend that I'd read it before thirty or he could castrate me. My junk is spared, hallelujah. The book is a total loving bummer though. I liked it all the way through, but I hated the ending.
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Jul 11, 2008 15:22
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Jake007 posted:I liked it all the way through, but I hated the ending. What was it you didn't like? If it was the bum ending, it's pretty apparent from page 20 on or so that everyone party member ends up vaporized/disappeared/killed.. I did like O'Brien's re-education process and chats with Wilson and the scenes reuniting Julia and Winston. Totally brutal.
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Jul 11, 2008 17:44
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Jhegaala by Steven Brust. I was kind of hoping it would take place after Dzur, but other than that it was interesting to see what Vlad was up to back East. It also explained what happened to his hand, which had bothered me when reading Issola and Dzur.
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Jul 12, 2008 22:27
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Last Human, one of the Red Dwarf books. It sucked balls in comparison to the other three Red Dwarf books, so I recommend any of them (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Better Than Life, Backwards) over this one any day.
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Jul 13, 2008 02:39
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Briefing for a Descent Into Hell by Doris Lessing. It's the story of a guy who was found wandering by himself by a river and taken to the hospital. He does not know who he is and is rambling incoherently about being on a ship with an important voyage ahead of him. Most of the first half of the book is a somewhat hard to follow stream of consciousness style that is the mind of this "crazy" person with occasional interludes to the doctor's point of view that are treating him and completely dumbfounded by what is wrong with him. He tells the story of being on a ship, finding an island, finding an abandoned city, and some very bad things happen before he is taken off into space by the mysterious "Crystal" that he has been seeking. That's where the style changes dramatically from hard to follow writing to a very meaningful story. I can't say much more without giving away huge plot details that are purposefully revealed at certain times as the novel goes on. Much of the story from this point on is told through letters to the doctors who are trying to treat the now identified man, telling them who he was before this happened. Some of it is written by the "insane" man at the request of the doctors about his time in WWII and they are amazing - a stark contrast to the dark happenings of his earlier voyage. Anyway, extremely good, sort of hard to get into, very thought provoking book. The use of any fantasy elements (it's too big of a stretch to call it sci-fi) is minimal and secondary to the story. While it can be called a fantasy book, there is nothing you might find in a stereotypical fantasy book. It's much more on the magical-realism vein, but exaggerated to the point where it's definitely fantasy. Highly recommended.
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Jul 13, 2008 03:09
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The Hooligan Nights by Clarence Rook, which is book #2 off of my 1899 list. Basically, Rook was an American-born (I'm told) journalist/mystery writer who was in right place to witness the rise of a new class of youthful petty thieves in late-Victorian London...or the creation of a new name for an existing problem, depending on which sociologist you trust (those are the capital-H Hooligans, so you don't get 'em mixed up with modern soccer fans). Rook connected through his publisher with a self-proclaimed "leader of the Hooligans", and the stories the young man told the author about his experiences make up the bulk of the book. How much of it actually happened the way it was written and how much of it was Rook goosing the story? Nobody was ever able to decide. I call it a docudrama, just to be safe. The whole thing had the effect of sitting down in the back room of a pub listening to a small-timer spin a few yarns about his brilliant career. We're told early on that this is a story without a moral...Alf the Hooligan is allowed to tell his own tale with very few authorial interventions, so whatever lessons an old-timey reader took away depended on their predispositions. But it does fall into a longstanding gambit of condemning behavior while presenting it meticulously--almost lovingly--for the entertainment of people who want to feel superior but also want to wallow in second-hand sin. On that level, The Hooligan Nights is a success and points the way to, among other things, the Fox Network Saturday night lineup. And yes, I enjoyed it.
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Jul 13, 2008 03:53
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Just finished the most recent Recluse novel by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. They are my guilty pleasure for when I want a quick and dirty fantasy novel. Plus he's a really nice guy the few times I've talked to him through email. Next up is either Blood Meridian or a Philip K. Dick novel that was supposedly never published until now.
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Jul 13, 2008 04:32
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I just finished The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist and it was pretty much awesome. Piccoline is one of the most interesting characters I've encountered. I for the most part read sci-fi and fantasy but this book makes it to my "one of the best books I've ever read" list. I will probably check out The Sibyl or something else by the same author.
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Jul 13, 2008 04:33
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I've finally just finished People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Personally, I found it pretty mediocre. My mother recommended it to me because the main character does something that I'm interested in, and some of the side plots were interesting. However, the overall storyline was a bit too...easy, I felt, and I didn't love the characters. Looking for something new to read now, so maybe I'll skim through here for ideas!
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Jul 13, 2008 06:52
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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. poo poo. poo poo poo poo shiiiiit. I don't think I've ever read a book like that. Depressing, yes, but unbelievably controlled. Instead of a big twist at the end, it's like the whole plot twists around throughout the entire book without you really realizing it. When I finished it, I just closed the book and sat and thought. I really liked it while I was reading it, but it was even better looking back on it after I was done.
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Jul 13, 2008 09:47
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Shogun by James Clavell - I'd been meaning to read this for years and finally got around to it a couple weeks back. Great read if perhaps a bit too long and I almost wish there had been a list of characters, as it sometimes got confusing trying to remember who was supposed to be who. White Noise by Don DeLillo - Definitely the most accessible book I've read by DeLillo so far and easily the most enjoyable as well. Interesting look at death and the fear of death, as told in DeLillo's usual style.
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Jul 14, 2008 04:15
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Just finished with VALIS by Phillip K Dick. I've previously only read A Scanner Darkly and Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, and out of the 3 - I liked VALIS the most. It's actually the best book I've read lately. Nevertheless both me and my mom (who's more of an avid reader than me) agreed that it lost it and deteriorated it as soon as Mother Goose and his movie were introduced.
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Jul 14, 2008 04:16
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Just finished Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon of course. I went in expecting something difficult that I would have to work through like Ulysses (which I haven't finished). What I found was an immensely enjoyable book with great mini stories, excellent characters, and moments of such immense comedy as well as touching moments it had time for everything. Absolutely loved it, which is my biggest surprise. Planning when to re-read it already. Just moved on to 2010, though.
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Jul 14, 2008 06:21
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I just finished finals a week and a half ago, so I've been using my newfound free time to catch up on a lot of reading. First thing I finished was The Picture of Dorian Gray. I had been trying to read it during the semester, but I didn't have the time to devote to really get involved in it, and there are sections that really punish you if you try to just read a few pages at a time. We're talking pages and pages of descriptions of jewels and tapestries and musical instruments, all hobbies that Dorian picks up. But when I was able to focus solely on it for a few hours, it was extremely enrapturing. The plot itself is wonderful, but even all the babbling between Dorian and Henry about the nature of life is fascinating. There's a whole lot to disagree with (on purpose, I believe - I don't think Wilde is ever really speaking directly to the audience about his views but instead showing what kind of views he feels certain classes of people have), but some of the insights are still very thought-provoking. Next was I Am Legend. I already knew the gist of the ending, after looking for info about the "controversial" alternate movie ending, but I really had no idea how good this book was going to be. To say the movie pales in comparison is a vast understatement. Third was The Zombie Survival Guide. While a humorous little book, I can't say it really held my attention. If anything, it's too authentic to the guidebook genre it is aping. Some of the "science" behind zombies is fleshed out pretty creatively, and there are some humorous anecdotes and comments on society, but by the 100 page mark I was ready to be done with it. You can only read about terrain types or suitable weapon choices so many times before they lose their luster. Certainly in a real zombie attack, the information would be presented in an easy-to-find manner so you could learn the tactics you needed - but there are no zombies, and I assume the real goal of this book is to be an entertaining read, something it frequently falls short of. I look forward to reading Max Brooks' World War Z to see if he can hold my attention longer in a narrative setting. Fourth was Watchmen. Don't know if that really fits here, but it is on Time's 100 Best Novels list, so meh. From the moment I started, I could not put Watchmen down. The characters and the way the story was woven and the implications on society and the human condition - it's all masterful. The most recent was Choke, by Chuck Pahalniuk. I've seen Fight Club, but this was the first actual novel of his I've read. I have to say I really like his style and can't wait to read more. His actual mechanics can be jarring (the fragments, the ambiguity over whether characters are saying or just thinking things, the constantly jumping timeline), but they normally aren't enough to take you out of the story or make you re-read passages. Choke is no masterpiece, don't get me wrong - but there is something about it that is just so endearing. The pathetic but redeemable characters, the addiction, the deconstruction of everything most people do on a day-to-day basis. Above all, it's the cautious optimism that really got me. Next on the list is Catch-22. Was going to be The Count of Monte Cristo but I couldn't find an unabridged copy at any local bookstore and had to send away for one.
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Jul 14, 2008 20:04
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