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The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum This first sequel in the Oz series wasn't quite as satisfactory as the original, and I think it suffered a little from disorganization. Still, it was a nice pleasant read and I'd recommend it. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque It says on the cover "The greatest war novel ever written", and while I think that's marketing hyperbole, it's not that far off. Brilliantly myopic, it's pretty much one man's description of the effect World War I had on him. There are some rather brutal sections, remarkable in not being extremely graphic.
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Jan 9, 2009 14:07
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The Trial by Kafka. I liked The Castle more, but I might suggest this one as the one piece of Kafka to read if you can only read one. It was a pretty chilling tale of bureaucracy, and holds up very well today. The fate of the protagonist, K., and his trial was completely unexpected.
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Jan 9, 2009 16:12
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Mother Night by Vonnegut. I'm a big fan of Vonnegut and don't know exactly how I feel about it. I'll have to sit down and read it again and see how I feel about it.
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Jan 10, 2009 03:59
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Just finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I really, really enjoyed it, but felt it couldn't gone on for another 100 or so pages. It was just too short for my taste, though I realize it is a young adult book. Next up I'm thinking of reading The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent, though I don't have it readily available.
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Jan 10, 2009 04:01
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Gary the Llama posted:Just finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. No poo poo! I just read Coraline in one sitting. Good stuff. Very creepy and spooky. Gaiman is good at fairy tales (although I didn't much care for Stardust) and it shows. He is good at making incredibly simple language/sentence structure/descriptions quite evocative.
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Jan 10, 2009 12:25
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Diligent Deadite posted:I just finished A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre. It's one of those books that slowed my reading to a crawl because while it was pretty good, it certainly wasn't involved enough to propel me through it. 'Thrillers' aren't really my thing and the satiric undercurrent this book was supposed to possess wasn't that strong. The chapter where the main character is suspected of kidnapping two children and has his house picketed by a chavvy lynch mob is far too broad in its satire, for example, and relies on poor and easy stereotypes. err you do realise that he writes satirical comedies, not thrillers? That's the point. Also he didn't research FPS games, he is apparently just a massive gamer who was a quake and half-life nut when they came out. Which is why the entire end sequence plays out like something out of half-life such as him having to turn a large red valve to open the outlets and save the day, and names like Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard popping up in the story. I quite liked the chav-mob bit actually, and the funny thing is that stereotypes are usually based in reality. Being that I work in a courthouse, I'd have to say that was pretty bang on actually.
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Jan 10, 2009 15:26
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kizeesh posted:err you do realise that he writes satirical comedies, not thrillers? That's the point. Also he didn't research FPS games, he is apparently just a massive gamer who was a quake and half-life nut when they came out. Which is why the entire end sequence plays out like something out of half-life such as him having to turn a large red valve to open the outlets and save the day, and names like Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard popping up in the story. You seem to forget that satire is a mode and not a genre. What your saying is a little like saying that RoboCop isn't a sci-fi movie because it has satiric undertones. Either I'm missing something crucial or it just wasn't as strong as I hoped. There were satirical moments (concerning topics including, but not limited to, lynch mobs, video game violence, rock music), but the vessel used to deliver them wasn't really used to my taste. If I'm missing something crucial, please tell me because I'm always prepared to reappraise a work if I'm wrong about something. I found the mob excessively cartoonish, in all honesty. Yes, yes, tabloid reading parents are dumb and reactionary. Satire is often exaggerated by its very nature, but the section in question seemed to stray into contempt for those who weren't one of the novel's middle-class featured cast. You're right that 'researched' was probably the wrong word. I did get the impression that Brookmyre really knew his onions when it came to gaming and picked up on the references you mentioned. Disco Pope fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jan 10, 2009 |
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Jan 10, 2009 17:33
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Bag Of Ghosts posted:No poo poo! I just read Coraline in one sitting. Good stuff. Very creepy and spooky. Gaiman is good at fairy tales (although I didn't much care for Stardust) and it shows. He is good at making incredibly simple language/sentence structure/descriptions quite evocative. I keep forgetting about Coraline. Thanks for reminding me, I'll have to pick it up before the movie comes out. His short story collection for young adults, M is for Magic, has some really great stories in it too.
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Jan 10, 2009 18:11
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Gary the Llama posted:I keep forgetting about Coraline. Thanks for reminding me, I'll have to pick it up before the movie comes out. His short story collection for young adults, M is for Magic, has some really great stories in it too. Haven't read M is for Magic, but I have read Fragile Things, (his other short story collection) which didn't really grab me. The stories in there seemed kind of half-assed. Unfinished. Also there was poetry in Fragile Things. I love Neil Gaiman and I worship American Gods and Sandman like every goon ever, but holy hell that man should not write poetry. poo poo was high school quality.
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Jan 10, 2009 18:52
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I just read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I loved the imagery which gets more and more fantastic as the book progresses, and the dialogues felt perfectly placed. After every conversation between Polo and Khan it felt like I appreciated the book on yet another level. Going to re-read this one soon and maybe even understand it. Really good! Five stars! You can easily read this in a single sitting (though I read it in two)
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Jan 10, 2009 21:29
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LooseChanj posted:
To be fair, the first two books are sort of your standard "I got whisked away to a magic school!! Isn't this neat?!" fare. It gets better with the third book, I think. Autobiography of Malcolm X, with help from Alex Haley - I enjoyed reading about how I was the devil.  Really, though, this was a really good book both as a character study of one of the most interesting people of the 20th century and as a historical document.
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Jan 10, 2009 23:17
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Just finished Human by Michael Gazzaniga. Having seen him speak and enjoying it I had high expectations going in. Ultimately I didn't like it very much and had to force myself to finish it. I thought it was overly conversational to the detriment of explaining what he wanted to explain. There was very little presented which hadn't been written about (much better) elsewhere. I thought some of his conclusions were weak. I thought some of his analogies were bad. I also felt he wandered a bit at times, and the last third of the book felt like navel gazing. 2/5
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Jan 10, 2009 23:56
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Bag Of Ghosts posted:...but holy hell that man should not write poetry. poo poo was high school quality. I'm not much of a poetry reader, in fact I wouldn't know a good poem if it bit me, but I disagree with you simply because I love this poem: quote:That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
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Jan 11, 2009 03:58
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I've just started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy but there something about his writing style that irritates the hell out of me and I can't really tell you what it is. Am I the only one? Maybe going from The Great Gatsby (which I loved) to McCarthy's writing was too big step in terms of writing style? I don't know but I won't give up just yet!
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Jan 11, 2009 16:03
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Xabi posted:I've just started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy but there something about his writing style that irritates the hell out of me and I can't really tell you what it is. Am I the only one? Maybe going from The Great Gatsby (which I loved) to McCarthy's writing was too big step in terms of writing style? I don't know but I won't give up just yet! The Road is not a very good example of McCarthy's writing style. It's a good book but his true style really shines in Blood Meridian, Suttree, and All The Pretty Horses. I enjoyed reading The Road but the style just didn't affect me as much as his other books.
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Jan 11, 2009 20:31
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Gary the Llama posted:I'm not much of a poetry reader, in fact I wouldn't know a good poem if it bit me, but I disagree with you simply because I love this poem: No, he's right. That is pretty much "high school quality". But hey, enjoy what you will. content: I just finished reading the deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass. It sucks for Whitman that only Song of Myself ever gets read. When Lilac's is a fantastic poem and despite surface similarities it's pretty different. I think Thomas Hardy is next on the list for this poetics class. No personal reading time during the quarter. 
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Jan 11, 2009 20:32
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I just finished Spellbinder by Melanie Rawn. I'm really happy to see her writing again, it has been an eternity since her last book. The book was only okay, though. It's set in more-or-less the real world and prefer her fantasy world stuff that many of her older books used. I also found the climax and final confrontation contrived and a big letdown. Hopefully her next book(s) will be better, although I'm disappointed to see that apparently the next two will be in this series.
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Jan 11, 2009 21:44
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Just finished the Ignat Avsey translation of The Karamazov Brothers, by Dostoevsky. I enjoyed it a lot. The only thing that kind of bothered me was how he gave away some plot elements prematurely in his first-person narration--such as saying "perhaps the final court decision would have been different, had Katerina Ivanovna not given this piece of evidence." Well, thanks, now I know how it's going to turn out. Also, he never reveals who this first-person narrator is supposed to be. Next book up is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
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Jan 12, 2009 04:55
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ProfessorFrink! posted:Slaughterhouse V was the first Vonnegut book I ever read and since I have read quite a few. With every new Vonnegut I read, I feel like Slaughterhouse V just gets separated from the bunch. While it's a good book, I don't feel like it's typical Vonnegut by any means. Maybe it's just me. I can see where you're coming from. My point was really just that hearing hype and praise for it sort of mis-prepared me for the book itself. calandryll posted:Mother Night by Vonnegut. I'm a big fan of Vonnegut and don't know exactly how I feel about it. I'll have to sit down and read it again and see how I feel about it. Just finished this myself and I feel for you. I guess knowing the moral from the outset is a bit overrated haha. Tom Toddlesworth fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jan 13, 2009 |
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Jan 13, 2009 04:40
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I recently finished "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Sartre. Having read some of his philosophy, it was interesting to see the characters espouse little existentialist snippets here and there. I'm surprised it took me this long to finally read it, as it seems like one of those works most people read in high school. I loved watching Inez play with the other characters the way a cat plays with a half-dead mouse, and their gradual realizations about where they were and why they were there was pretty compelling. I'm thinking of reading "Dirty Hands" by Sartre next since I'm having that theory vs. praxis battle myself.
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Jan 13, 2009 18:09
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No exit is classic fo sho.
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Jan 13, 2009 21:19
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Just finished a quick read, Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers by Brian Ashcraft and Jean Snow. I was excited about this one since I'm a fan of Japanese culture and their arcades. It was okay, but I was pretty disappointed. The authors rambled off on tangents frequently and went into little depth on any of its topics. Apparently I'm the only one who didn't love it, as everyone on Amazon gave it 5 stars.
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Jan 13, 2009 22:22
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Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey's third book of poetry. Very nice, deeply personal but socially conscious with a slightly James Merrill-esque way of using formal playfulness to obscure or draw attention to psychological wounds. I guess it earned that Pulitzer. Before that I finished Hermit in Paris a catch-all collection of Italo Calvino's autobiographical writings. I admire its encompassing nature but as many of the pieces were biographical sketches for different journals and papers, it tended to cover the same ground multiple times. The centerpiece of the book was definitely his letters from his first trip to America. Really fascinating look at early 60's US culture from the outside-- he brings his usual discernment and insight to the table but, since these were personal letters, also a lot of breezy and sometimes surprising bias. Worth a look for this section alone.
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Jan 13, 2009 23:40
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What a great thread. Added a few books to my list based on all of your excellent descriptions! Here's my last few: Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Much like the other Stephenson books I've read, it was pretty good, but needed a little bit more to make it really excellent. I don't really sympathize or connect with any of his characters, and he doesn't write believable relationships into his books. The idea behind the book was engaging and helped me get through the first third, but the plot starts to ramp up after that. The ending was pretty satisfying, so I wasn't too disappointed. Also the first book I read entirely on my iPhone. It was nice to not have to drag a 900+ page hardcover around. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. Talks about what would happen to everything if humans suddenly disappeared. It's a great thought experiment and deals with the negative and positive (and also the negligible!) impact we've had on the Earth. The second half gets kind of preachy and kind of forgets the thought experiment that was so interesting in the beginning, but it was worth finishing. The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth by H.G. Wells. I love Wells. So much. This is easily as good as the big 4 Wells novels, and a lot like The Invisible Man: humor, biting satire, drama, tragedy. Definitely recommended if you've enjoyed any Wells. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. This was basically an Ellis comic without pictures. Fun, fast little read. Also kind of unsettling. Sexually. The Complete Novels of Dashiell Hammett, which includes Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. I loved all of these books, mostly Red Harvest and The Glass Key. I think it was the gang war plots of both that drew me in. I'm going to start reading some Chandler soon, hopefully he'll pick up where Hammett left off. Currently reading Augustus Carp, Esq. by Sir Henry Bashford. It's ridiculous. Great for a few laughs, and free! Yay ebooks!
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Jan 14, 2009 01:28
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K.Rowling I'm beginning to sense a pattern here. This novel was almost identical in structure to the previous two. Bits of plot interwoven between lots of "mundane" life peppered with exotic references, and finally a climactic confrontation. At least there was a fakeout and we got a second confrontation this time. ZzZz. Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine The guy who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teams up with a tree hugger to go have a look at various animals on the verge of extinction. The bits involving the hoops they have to jump through are very humorous, but the message is serious.
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Jan 16, 2009 10:41
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Pale Fire Vlad Nabokov. Interesting concept, tells the story (several stories actually) through the footnotes for a poem by a fictional author. Beautifully written, traces of wry humour, typical Nabokov. I'd have enjoyed it a lot more without the huge loving spoiler out of nowhere in the motherfucking introductionary essay thanks a lot Mary McCarthy you stupid bitch . Seriously what is it with introductions that explain every single part of the book you are about to read and leave absolutely nothing to the reader's own interpretation? edit: It's actually a really good essay that helps the average reader extract much more from the story than he could on his own but why was it put before the actual book? Argh. married but discreet fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Jan 18, 2009 |
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Jan 18, 2009 09:21
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:huge loving spoiler out of nowhere in the motherfucking introductionary essay thanks a lot Mary McCarthy you stupid bitch This is one reason why I don't read introductions. Sometimes I do, but after I've read the book.
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Jan 18, 2009 11:39
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LooseChanj posted:This is one reason why I don't read introductions. Sometimes I do, but after I've read the book. yea same here. They always contain spoilers no matter what, because it's always somebody talking about the book. I don't want anybody else's interpretations getting in mah way 
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Jan 18, 2009 20:18
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:edit: It's actually a really good essay that helps the average reader extract much more from the story than he could on his own but why was it put before the actual book? Argh. There shouldn't ever be an intro essay to a Nabokov book. He always refused them. What edition was this of Pale Fire? On the other hand, they do try their best to spoil his books. The back synopsis of Invitation to a Beheading tells the entire story including what happens on the last page. Gives away both plot twists, everything. I don't get why they'd do something like that.
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Jan 18, 2009 20:23
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:huge loving spoiler out of nowhere in the motherfucking introductionary essay thanks a lot Mary McCarthy you stupid bitch Yeah, gently caress this. The intro to the copy of Catch-22 I read did the exact same thing. It's easy to get seduced by wanting to know more about the context it was written in, relevant biographical details about the author, etc before you begin to help you get more out of it as you read... but then half of them will go and do something like that.
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Jan 18, 2009 20:42
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QVT posted:There shouldn't ever be an intro essay to a Nabokov book. He always refused them. What edition was this of Pale Fire? Penguin Classics edition. It's annoying but on the other hand it makes me realize how much I'm actually missing in many books as someone who's not intimately familiar with history, art and literature. Nabokov books have always been pretty mindblowing in that aspect.
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Jan 18, 2009 20:56
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Just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. It was okay overall, but I really think it could have been better if it were done by somebody else. I thought the ending was really disappointing. For a poet/playwright, he could've done something a little more artistic. Maybe it was just lost on me, but I think it would have been way better if he ended it with something like Dorian showing some small sign of aging, like a wrinkle in the mirror or something. Anyway, just my opinion.IM_DA_DECIDER posted:Penguin Classics edition. It's annoying but on the other hand it makes me realize how much I'm actually missing in many books as someone who's not intimately familiar with history, art and literature. Nabokov books have always been pretty mindblowing in that aspect.
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Jan 18, 2009 22:48
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David Sedaris-Me Talk Pretty One Day This is my first foray into David Sedaris and I am impressed. Looking forward to reading the rest of his books.
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Jan 19, 2009 02:13
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Nova by Samuel R. Delany. Knew almost nothing about this book when I bought it, but it was staff recommended and I've been meaning to check out Delany for a while. Was apprehensive when I started reading because it's known as a space opera, but it wasn't the pew-pew laser poo poo I was expecting. Very well written, great plot, great characterization, great settings... after the string of awful books I just read (which will go nameless), this one was a very pleasant surprise. Highly recommended to any sci-fi readers who haven't read it yet.
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Jan 19, 2009 05:38
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LooseChanj posted:Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine I just finished Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. I'm awestruck at how good this author is.
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Jan 19, 2009 06:04
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The Plague by Albert Camus. It's about the plague. Writing seemed very dry and almost bureaucratic at first so I wasn't that impressed. Later parts were better, more emotional. Maybe it's the English translation. Once again I missed the subtext plague = Nazis in France and the absurdist message was lost to me. Thanks wikipedia.
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Jan 19, 2009 12:48
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Just finished Das Parfum (Perfume) by Daniel Süskind. Even for absurdism, it's pretty bland and uninteresting, all the worse because it actually tries for an interesting story. The author throws in the stupidest silly poo poo possible at the worst moments just for some sort of effect where the reader starts taking the book seriously. An orgy breaks out at a hanging, for example, and later the same guy who was going to be hanged is eaten because his perfume is so good. These aren't unusable plot elements per se, but if you want to put them in a book you have to be very, very careful about it, and Süskind just sort of puts them there and expects the reader not to laugh and put the book down or be creeped out by his obvious excitement during the orgy scene. It's also very much just The Stranger with some fantasy elements. It's literally the exact same protagonist and a strikingly similar basic story. IM_DA_DECIDER posted:Penguin Classics edition. Oh god, was that the one where the writer literally describe the reader's progression through the book from beginning to end? gently caress, I read that thing when I was halfway through and saying it ruins it doesn't begin to describe it. Sure, Nabokov stands on his own even when you know the plot, but that essay ruins the first reading. Anunnaki posted:Speaking of Nabokov, I just started Lolita, and he seems to be convinced that the reader just knows how to speak French. It gets kind of annoying having to stop every other paragraph to use Google Translate. I just skip over it, not just with Nabokov but any writer. It's rarely crucial, and if you're really interested you can just look it up on a later reading (or, in the case of Lolita, get the nifty annotated edition)
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Jan 19, 2009 13:45
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Jackfruit posted:(or, in the case of Lolita, get the nifty annotated edition) Great as it is, Appel spoils a lot of other Nabokov books in both the essay and the annotations. Buyer beware.
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Jan 19, 2009 14:00
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Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin. A very interesting read if you are interested in other ways to view our economy and why we are currently having these economic problems. It is fairly factual (facts from early 20th century), but IMO things are similar now and then in many respects. Pretty much describes why Enron occurred and why Frannie Man failed.
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Jan 19, 2009 23:05
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Flaggy posted:David Sedaris-Me Talk Pretty One Day This is my first foray into David Sedaris and I am impressed. Looking forward to reading the rest of his books. I recommend Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, and then, if you're still not sick of him, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. His older stuff feels uninspired after you've been exposed to his new stuff. I loved Me Talk Pretty and Dress Your Family, but then I got the rest of his stuff and was kind of bored. When You Are Engulfed in Flames brought me back in, though. Also, he's probably the only author I like better in audiobook. In fact, he's the only one I can stand. He's a great storyteller.
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Jan 20, 2009 06:07
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