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Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory by Bruno Latour. Latour is a really amazing sort of guy who seems to be trying to tackle the problems my discipline refuses to really talk about. After writing some 30-50 pages of social theory relating to Latour, i'll be able to get off the non-fiction train and head out into fiction land. Once that happens, i'll be reading Spook Country...it's time to get away from Social Theory for a little while.
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Apr 24, 2009 01:23
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Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove. Very engaging series of poems about the scandal behind Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata; even if you don't read poetry, you might enjoy this, its surprisingly novelistic. Houses are Fields, debut collection by Taije Silverman. Finely-wrought poetry about sex and death-- so yeah, you know, just about the gamut. But seriously, an exquisite book, delicate and brassy and haunting and sly all at once.
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Apr 24, 2009 01:45
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Hip-Hoptimus Rhyme posted:Starship Troopers. I've been curious about the Starship Troopers book. I've heard it was kind of irritating in a "Whoo, I'm so proud to be a Marine!" type of way. Is this true? Also, is it nearly as violent as the movie?
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Apr 24, 2009 06:45
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Anunnaki posted:I've been curious about the Starship Troopers book. I've heard it was kind of irritating in a "Whoo, I'm so proud to be a Marine!" type of way. Is this true? 1. yes 2. no
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Apr 24, 2009 13:03
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I read it when I was about 13, which is right in the age group for which it was written, and found it completely boring. Looking back it's also an endorsement of fascism. The movie is both more entertaining and intelligent.
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Apr 24, 2009 13:55
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Anunnaki posted:I've been curious about the Starship Troopers book. I've heard it was kind of irritating in a "Whoo, I'm so proud to be a Marine!" type of way. Is this true? The difference between the movie and the book is just that: there's the action movie and then there's the book. The movie is much more graphic and focuses on the battle. The book goes through the battles, but when someone is killed, it's usually just said in a way like "he bought the farm." As for the whole marine-pride thing, yeah, this book pretty much is Heinlein's love letter to the marines, but I didn't find it irritating. I guess if someone had uncontrollable adversity towards fighting, no matter what, then yes, this book would be no fun. But I'm not wholly against the marines and war and such, so really, this book didn't bother me. It was just about badass military adventures in space. In fact, I remember reading on Wikipedia before I read the book that this book is recommended reading for marines, and I definitely understand why now. I've never read or seen anything before that actually made me want to be a marine, but this book could convince me.
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Apr 24, 2009 18:53
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I finished Catch-22 a few days ago and it was wonderful. I can't believe I've never read it before. I am definitely going to reread it again soon. On the other hand, I read Catcher in the Rye today and ugh. Didn't do a drat thing for me. I'm really disappointed, because I LOVE Franny and Zooey and it made me really want to get into more Salinger. I still want to read more of the Glass family stories, but I'm a little more hesitant now.
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Apr 25, 2009 00:48
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I definitely you can split Salinger up into Catcher and Everything Else. I enjoyed all of them, but it's been a decade or so now. Nine Stories and Raise High the Roofbeams should be right up your alley if you feel strongly about Franny and Zooey. Just read Get the gently caress Back Into That Burning Plane, a chapbook by Lawrence Giffen on Ugly Duckling. Maybe not a thing anyone's interested in, but that's what I just finished.
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Apr 25, 2009 02:33
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I just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The book did not end in a sad way, not really. But for some reason I felt like crying when I read that last line. It's as if...not that I didn't want it to end, because I knew the ending would be 'just right' (as was all the rest of the novel). It was just so complete. Well, maybe it is as simple as I didn't want it to end. This book was simply fantastic. I haven't had to pleasure of reading something so fundamentally well put together in a long time. Chabon is something else. I don't even know what else to say.
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Apr 25, 2009 07:46
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Graviija posted:Chabon is something else. I don't even know what else to say. That's okay, I'll find out for myself. I just got three of Chabon's books because they seemed promising. One of them is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Also I recently finished The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat and White Noise by Don DeLillo. Both were good for very different reasons: Danticat's was straightforward and touching; DeLillo's was clever, just bordering on cleverness to a fault, but also scathing and funny.
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Apr 25, 2009 10:29
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Venus in Furs by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch - it was great, I went straight out and bought myself some fake fur, and now I'm slave hunting. grrrrr. ftshshhhh
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Apr 26, 2009 11:01
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Just finished Stacking in Rivertown by Barbara Bell, about a woman who was kidnapped or ran away and was picked up by a high class pimp who ran a high end SM prostitution ring. She is his 'star' and, when she has a surprise 'surgery', she escapes him. She decides to call him and her life falls apart...complete with repressed memories and child abuse! Really good and very twisted. Read it in a day.
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Apr 26, 2009 21:37
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Just finished The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls about her childhood.My favorite book of 2009 so far.
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Apr 26, 2009 23:15
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Notes from the Underground. Think your depressed? Give it a read, will make you feel heaps better.
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Apr 27, 2009 09:46
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I read six Mickey Spillane books--the first five Mike Hammer novels and the standalone The Long Wait, which was by far and away the best of them--and then took a break to read The World Of Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. This is akin to the literary equivalent of whiplash, or of smashing myself in the face with a splintered board six times before staggering off to attend a formal tea party. Somewhere in there I also read A Drifting Life, Yoshihiro Tatsumi's enormous manga autobiography, which I found absolutely fascinating.
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Apr 27, 2009 11:48
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River Town by Peter Hessler Excellent book about a PC Volunteer put in an area of China that hasn't had a foreigner for 100 years. It takes place in 1996. The most interesting is his interaction with the students and Party cadres at the university he teaches at. It's pretty interesting way to understand the mind-set of the Chinese lower-classes in rural China. I really, really enjoyed it a lot. Read this book.
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Apr 28, 2009 03:14
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Beichan posted:I finished Catch-22 a few days ago and it was wonderful. I can't believe I've never read it before. I am definitely going to reread it again soon. On the other hand, I read Catcher in the Rye today and ugh. Didn't do a drat thing for me. I'm really disappointed, because I LOVE Franny and Zooey and it made me really want to get into more Salinger. I still want to read more of the Glass family stories, but I'm a little more hesitant now. Try Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction. To contribute: I recently finished Oil! by Upton Sinclair (on which There Will Be Blood was based) and loved it. I was surprised by the number of differences between the book and the movie, but for once that didn't annoy me. While the book and the film told essentially the same story, they told very different but equally great stories. I also finished The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes, which I only really picked up because it was about Ambrose Bierce. It wasn't bad, but I was a bit disappointed.
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Apr 28, 2009 07:52
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Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon Besides this I've only read V. and Gravity's Rainbow by him, but I found this to be a superb middle-ground for them both. It's really wonderful to see how he's actually been able to become a better writer than when he wrote his first book. Every sentence is masterfully constructed and the pretty hardcore Pynchon-ian plot is actually rather easily followed and has characters that are very identifiable. He jumps from genre to genre of fiction including, but not limited to: dime novels, noir detective novels, Jules Vern style tales of the fantastic, Westerns, industrialization era pieces a-la The Jungle by Sinclaire, and even romance/soft-core type novels. It really has it all. I only found the middle part to drag a slight bit, but he changes between each of the numerous characters to keep it fresh. Plus, I found that this book actually wraps up comparatively well. At the end of the story I had a good idea of what characters were up to and would go on to do, salient plots that were the most exciting were taken care of (usually with quite an interesting twist) and the final portion really touched me in an emotional way. [emo] I would recommend it to anyone, but Gravity's Rainbow is still my favorite by him. Now on to much shorter novels for a while.
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Apr 28, 2009 10:33
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Werewolves In Their Youth, a collection of short stories by Michael Chabon. Echoing this earlier comment -Graviija posted:It was just so complete. Well, maybe it is as simple as I didn't want it to end. This book was simply fantastic. I haven't had to pleasure of reading something so fundamentally well put together in a long time. Amazing how complete even his shortest stories are, full narrative arcs, character development, and usually a measure of closure. I found a couple of the narrative twists in these stories to be a touch on the hokey/contrived side, but given the fact that most of these stories revolve around very personal and intimate experiences (divorce, parenthood, and the disappointment that often accompanies such ventures), the rhetorical flourishes didn't seem as out of place after re-reading some portions of the story. All told, another satisfying effort from Chabon.
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Apr 28, 2009 23:17
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The Selfish Gene. Geez, why did I put this one off for so long? Awesome. I particularly enjoyed the parts about game theory; the prisoners dilemma, hawks and doves, etc. Can anyone recommend a good introductory game theory book for a guy who has no background in it?
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Apr 29, 2009 00:10
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zeke_denaughty posted:Werewolves In Their Youth, a collection of short stories by Michael Chabon. Echoing this earlier comment - The title story in this collection is a testament to what short stories can still do, and it's such a shame that they have such a limited audience. I taught it this semester in a sophomore lit. class, and it was easily my students' favorite. Speaking of complete, I am about to wrap up 100 Years of Solitude, and wow, what a fantastically rich novel. Marquez has a way of capturing humanity in such little things. It's one of those books that seems daunting, since it covers multiple generations of a family and has at least twenty characters named Aureliano, and to be honest it sat on my shelf for quite some time while I tackled easier reads, but it's not so confusing as it at first appears and the mental effort involved in keeping track of everyone is well worth it. Actually, since part of the point is how time is cyclical or permeable, you really don't have to know which Aureliano it is or what generation you're on to get a great deal out of the novel.
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Apr 29, 2009 05:10
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After finishing All the King's Men, I found myself dumbfounded at how much I enjoyed it. I can't really find the words to describe what makes the novel so incredible (believe me, I've tried). All I can say is that it is one of the most unique and most adeptly written books I have ever read.
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Apr 29, 2009 23:32
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London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd - An unusual (but well-written) book that approaches London as a "living organism" and charts its growth over the years from prehistoric times through Roman occupation to the present day. As he explains in his introduction, Ackroyd's intention wasn't to write a straight history, so the book is broken into themed chapters that focus on numerous aspects of London over the centuries (everything from food to the Great Fire of London) and how they've shaped the city's unique character. Lots of lesser-known history and little bits of trivia keeps it interesting throughout.
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Apr 30, 2009 04:43
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I just got done reading Noir: A Novel by Olivier Pauvert The underlying story had a good premise, but it was ruined by terrible writing. It probably doesn't help the original was in French, so maybe some things got lost in translation. But the story really didn't flow well at all, and the ending sucked a huge dong. All in all I was extremely unsatisfied with this book.
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Apr 30, 2009 06:09
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The last book I finished, just a couple days ago actually, was Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. Even though I don't read popular science all that often it is quite an interesting take on the development of human society from Cro-Magnon to "NATO humans" in different parts of the world, not just Eurasia, but also Africa south of the Sahara, the Americas and Australia/Oceania with a special emphasis on Papua New Guinea (given the immanent differences of different parts of the populace there). As the author keeps on talking about how geographical differences and the availability of domesticable plants and animals had a huge impact on the different development speeds of societies it actually sucks you in more and more. I can recommend this book to everybody who is tired of the eternal discussions about how some societies were faster than others because they are more intelligent/blessed, especially in the days of the pig flu, since germs are quite an important part of the book, as the name suggests.
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Apr 30, 2009 13:12
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Just finished Northanger Abbey last night. Fun and charming, though sort of less serious than Austen's other novels, mostly I think because the satire is a little broader, and the contrivances of the narration aren't as tight. I still admire what she can do with an omniscient narrator here, though - using the fact that it's main interest is a girl who understands much less of what's going on around her than anyone else to manage what the reader knows and/or is concerned with. "She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."
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May 2, 2009 16:44
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Line War by Neal Asher, the fifth and final novel in the Ian Cormac series (not counting the prequel). The last behind-the-scenes antagonist is, while not terribly surprising, utterly satisfying in his comeuppance; particularly in terms of who, ultimately, delivers it. A great ending to a great series.
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May 2, 2009 19:05
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A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. An enjoyable absurdist romp.
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May 2, 2009 19:49
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Orwell by DJ Taylor. I little dry in places, lots of dates, but fascinating subject matter. A good, objective account of a great man who died, sadly, quite young. Northanger Abbey is in my pile to be read. Just bumped!
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May 3, 2009 12:32
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 only one of the stories was really weak ("we get along"), but overall it was a great read with many entertaining stories and essays. I am still wondering if the two guys on the cover are famous or something..
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May 3, 2009 17:21
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The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers, and Two Stories, a collection of novellas and short stories by Henry James. Overall, I think I liked the Aspern Papers the most. Henry James has a very dense writing style and it's pretty easy to get lost with what exactly is going on. I'm still not really sure what The Beast in the Jungle was really about. I liked Turn of the Screw okay; it's very ambiguous which makes it all the more entertaining. I'm pretty sure the nanny was crazy, but it ends on a really weird note with the older child she's charged with apparently dying after he admits to gossiping about school mates of his. WTF? Maybe I just completely misread it, I don't know. The Jolly Corner was a good story too. Currently I've started reading James Joyce's Ulysses, which has been really good so far (currently on page 150). I cheated and bought a book of annotations for it the other day as I was randomly shopping at Barnes and Noble, but it's perfectly readable without that. I just like reading through it to get all the allusions after I read whatever chapter I'm on; it gives you a better idea of Dublin anyways. I also want to try my hand at getting through Finnegans Wake. I bought Tindall's guide to it in order to help flesh it out; otherwise I'd never get all the multi-language puns. I really want to try and get to the bottom of it; I guess I could "read" it by just looking at every word, but I'd rather work a little harder than that. Finally, I'm going to start reading Das Nibelungenlied, a Middle High German epic poem (translated thankfully into English) upon which Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is sort of based. Apparently it also influenced Tolkien. I'm pretty excited about this book. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 21:22 on May 3, 2009 |
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May 3, 2009 21:17
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Open Veins of Latin America- Yeah, I'm one of those people that bought it becuase Hugo Chavez gave it to Obama. I knew Latin America got hosed over pretty good by almost everyone, but now I know more specifically HOW they got hosed and the insane duration of that loving. Good book, makes you feel like poo poo.
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May 6, 2009 06:01
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The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi (it is the sequel to Old Man´s War) The book is easy to read and highly entertaining, i recomend it for every SF/F fan.
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May 6, 2009 06:40
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Rama II by A. C. Clarke, and it took me like two loving weeks to get through. (Rendezvous with Rama took a few days.) Now I'm already halfway through The Garden of Rama (Rama III), having read almost half of it just today. Why? (Disclaimer, I have read the entire Rama series before, in the early 90s, but largely forgotten it): Because Rama II is so damned excruciatingly slow to get the gently caress going at first, and also because that mostly dysfunctional crew of borderline psychopaths is just too hard to swallow. I mean seriously, would the gigantic egotists that were David Brown and Francesca Sabatini have actually passed all the psych tests to which we subject even current day astronauts? One could, maybe, argue that they are so intelligent that they know how to pass all the tests, but that notion wasn't quite enough to completely suspend my disbelief, and for christ's sake, it wasn't even strictly sci-fi yet which I was being asked to suspend my disbelief for. But, holy poo poo, it really does pay off to tough it out with Rama II, just as I remembered (and yet didn't remember). Rama II is (finally) engrossing toward the end, and The Garden of Rama kicks right the gently caress off with no delay. By the time I was 1/3 into Garden, let alone 1/2 through, I was shocked by how much amazing poo poo I had forgotten from the first time I'd read it. I can hardly wait now to finish Garden and continue plowing right on through Rama Revealed (Rama IV). I do remember enough of the general idea that I know I won't be disappointed. In fact I think I'll love this a lot more than I did the first time through, when I was only in my early 20s. Hipster_Doofus fucked around with this message at 11:19 on May 6, 2009 |
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May 6, 2009 11:02
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Just read Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (or is it Rob Tom Smith?). Stripped of it's setting it's really nothing more than a mediocre-at-best airport serial killer thriller. However, dropping it all in the middle of Stalin's Russia really elevates it into something different. It ended up being quite an enjoyable page turner and made me keen to read some other books set in the same period.
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May 6, 2009 12:23
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I just finished The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I think that the city of Jahilia was a fairly accurate representation of pre-Islamic Arabia. The "dream" stories were more engaging than the central story arc about Saladin and Gibreel. It's certain worth a read, if only because it angered so many people.
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May 6, 2009 14:46
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Just finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was good, though extremely flamboyant. That was expected anyway, so it was thoroughly enjoyed.
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May 6, 2009 21:16
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Hello Pity posted:Just read Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (or is it Rob Tom Smith?). Stripped of it's setting it's really nothing more than a mediocre-at-best airport serial killer thriller. However, dropping it all in the middle of Stalin's Russia really elevates it into something different. I felt the same way. I would've liked the book to be a little more realistic and gritty, but it was still enjoyable as a thriller. The ending was a total franchise setup though so we'll see where it goes from here. Just finished Pygmy by Chuck Pahlahniuk. Awesome book, a return to form, etc etc etc. My favorite of his recent batch, and up there with Survivor for me. It could've been another "Look at how stupid and empty American culture is!" type of book, but it's actually pretty fun. It really feels like an evolution for Palahniuk. I don't want to ruin any of it for anyone, so I'll just say if you've ever liked this guy's writing before, check it out. It reminds me why I liked him inthe first place. Also finished The Icarus Girl a couple days ago and thought it was okay. A troubled girl goes on vacation with her parents (mother African, father English) and meets a strange friend. There are some good parts that draw you into the story, but overall the story is toooooo slooooow, and the ending is weak. Apparently the author wrote it in high school though, with that in mind I look forward to her next book.
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May 6, 2009 22:19
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Hipster_Doofus posted:But, holy poo poo, it really does pay off to tough it out with Rama II, just as I remembered (and yet didn't remember). Rama II is (finally) engrossing toward the end, and The Garden of Rama kicks right the gently caress off with no delay I thought Rama II was so bad that by the time I got near the end I had been completely stripped of all interest in the story or the characters. All I even recall was that it was an attempt to nuke it, which I thought was terrible because that's exactly what happened in the first book.
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May 7, 2009 05:56
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 Darkness of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón This is maybe one of the best books I have read in the recent past. I enjoyed it highly, and I am looking forward to his next book.
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May 7, 2009 06:05
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