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Ballsworthy posted:The MTV edition is a reprint, it was originally published by an independent house in NYC; Akashic, I think. He got picked up by MTV on his third book, Dogrun, and they reprinted his first two. So I guess what I'm saying is that I like Nersesian. MTV publishes books?  They should rename themselves to EBMTV, Everything BUT...Anyway, to contribute: Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling Finally, things get serious. The last two are actually decent books, I never enjoyed the school politics crap but the whole Harry/Voldemort relationship was interesting. It really is a shame the series is weighed down by all the superficial daydream stuff of the school, because there's a really compelling story in these last two installments. Swords & Deviltry, Fritz Leiber I bought this whole series thanks to the D&D Deities & Demi-gods manual, and decided to re-read them. This one is really three short story/novelettes. The first is about Fafhrd, the viking type dude from the frosty north, the second is about the Gray Mouser a bush-wizard's apprentice, and the final story is their meeting in Lankhmar. I never really like the Fafhrd story much, but I love me some Mouser. LooseChanj fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jun 15, 2009 |
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Jun 15, 2009 00:15
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Tiborax posted:Just finished A Game of Thrones, after being instructed by numerous different parties to start reading ASoIaF. I read it in about a week, and drat. Just...drat. This. I haven't started ACoK yet, but I probably will in the next day or two. I really need to finish them all so I can participate in the ASoIaF thread, which I fled in fear of spoilers. George R.R. Martin seems pretty ruthless with his characters, which I like.
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Jun 15, 2009 07:05
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LooseChanj posted:MTV publishes books? I think it's actually a division of Penguin. Hip authors for hip readers, something terrible like that.
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Jun 15, 2009 16:12
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All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy by Jack Torrance (edited by Phil Buehler) This is the book Jack was writing in the The Shining. It is amazing and will not be leaving my coffee table. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/533398
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Jun 16, 2009 00:13
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Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut I really enjoyed the style it was written in and the way that Vonnegut unfolds the story, continuously eluding to facts and parts of the story that the reader still is in the dark on. Just when you realize that you've finally gotten one that he's been teasing you with for the past few dozen pages, you realize there are new ones that he has introduced. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Finally got around to reading this and I really, really enjoyed it. The fact that I just got done with a Shakespearean Plays After 1600 class helped me to appreciate all the Shakespeare references too.
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Jun 16, 2009 05:50
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Anna Karenina by Tolstoy I liked the psychological aspects of the book quite a bit as these people could very easily exist today. I am fascinated with Russia, so this was a great insight into the lives of nobles during the 19th century. That great insight came with the price that the book can be very tedious at times as he spends considerable periods that are not centrally related to the plot of the book. Particularly, I didn't like the very last section of the book as it felt tacked on and not very sincere.
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Jun 17, 2009 05:41
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Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, Book 2 in the Gentlemen Bastard Sequence - Good book, strong sequel, though theres a lot of pointless trivia about ships and such part way through. The kind of overly descriptive wankery that makes you skip a couple pages because you don't give a poo poo about mizzenmasts or starboard break-lines or some poo poo. Apart from that, great series.
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Jun 17, 2009 09:50
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Utopia by Thomas More. A pretty entertaining little book, surprisingly somewhat modern in its tone considering the period during which it was written. I mostly read it because I wanted something easy to digest after pounding through Ulysses. Sort of like an after-dinner mint or something. Next is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I've kept hearing good things about this book, so I'm looking forward to it.
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Jun 18, 2009 02:39
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Atlas Shrugged by, duh, Ayn Rand. Yes I am ashamed to admit I hadn't read it yet (too busy reading G.R.R. Martin!) but the looming economic crisis seemed like a good time to read it. I highly recommend it. The 'novel' portions about society breaking down and everything falling to pieces and a few people heroically trying to save bits of it are great. The end of the book is the weakest, really. There's something like a 100 page monologue by the main character that lays out Ayn Rands entire economic philosophy in rather repetitive detail...and this is supposed to be a radio address that people listen to, so some suspension of disbelief is required. Also I found the ending a little contrived, and Ayn Rand's suggested solutions not very plausible. I do think however, she was very perceptive in identifying economic practices that were atrociously bad, and appropriately calling them out for the evil to society they were.
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Jun 18, 2009 04:24
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Ulstan posted:I do think however, she was very perceptive in identifying economic practices that were atrociously bad, and appropriately calling them out for the evil to society they were. Ugh. Just finished two, The Crow Road by Iain Banks: Pretty interesting setting and story (at first) that felt like it went on and on after a while. Banks is really good with dialogue and really horrible with sex scenes. The jumping back and forth between first and third person was really confusing until it clicked about half way through. And Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaņo which was half amazing and half totally prosaic. The 1-2 page biographies all read like wikipedia articles of fictional characters. While these add something to the depth of his imaginary world they do feel unfinished. Best description of a fatal car crash: "The explosion was considerable."
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Jun 18, 2009 05:54
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Pfirti86 posted:Next is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I've kept hearing good things about this book, so I'm looking forward to it. It is a really good book. Wonder how many readers went buddhist after readning it... I just finished Oswald Spengler: The Decline of the West. A forgotten german philosopher who thinks that the western world soon will fall. Like most germans at that time, he hated communists and flirted with the nazis. Nice reading. I read Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness at the same time. Can't say I understand everything and will definitely read it again. Most people know who he is, and if I thought Spengler was a grumpy man than Sartre must be the king of grumpyness. As most frenchmen, he hated God and similar stuff.
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Jun 18, 2009 09:51
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I just finished Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson which was all in all a pretty entertaining biography. Though what I didn't know until after I bought it was that this particular biography has been criticized by Hunter's closest friends for being a negative shitfest produced by a bitter Jann Wenner. As a result, there are some negative traits of his outlined heavily through the book. The funny thing is, though, a negative portrayal of Hunter Thompson is still entertaining. More information on the book for anyone interested here.
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Jun 18, 2009 20:53
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I just finished the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. The three books are The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate. These are considered Young Adult, and I was skeptical when I was given the first book to read. These are some of the fantasy books that I've most enjoyed. Basically events take place in a sort of present day, but in an world where there have always been magicians. There are many (some are subtle) references made to real figures/landmarks/events in ancient history which makes it even more interesting. Events are almost entirely in England, where only magicians are in power. Generally magicians aren't considered very nice, since they essentially enslave demons. So what commoners don't really know is that magicians' only power is from being able to summon and control demons, called djinn. You have to do things right. If there are any mistakes in the pentagram that you draw (before summoning), then the demon will get out and kill you. If you issue a command, with the wrong inflection or leave any possibility for a misinterpretation, then the demon will use this to his advantage. The main characters of the first book are Nathanael a young magician's apprentice, and Bartimaeus, the djinn he summons to get some revenge. There is so much more that I could say about this series, but check out the first book and you will be hooked.
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Jun 18, 2009 21:50
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The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Read it during my morning commute, and got some odd looks on the subway. Sort of an odd kind of fiction: a serious, practical treatment of a completely fictional problem, but a fun read. It has prompted me to start Brooks's other book, World War Z.
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Jun 18, 2009 21:50
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I just finished The Road. Its the first Cormac McCarthy book that I've read, I thought his writing style was a little weird at first what with no chapters and no quotations when people are talking but the book was still pretty awesome. I managed to get a copy without the movie cover or oprah's book club on the front of it too. From what I've read in some McCarthy threads I'm going to save Blood Meridian for later and read his other books first. I think I might have a good sit down with the border trilogy.
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Jun 18, 2009 22:36
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Got round to reading Kingsley Amis' comic novel Lucky Jim, which had been gathering dust on the shelves. Entertaining enough to be able to whip through it, but hard to shake the feeling that the best parts only reminded me of a slightly sozzled Evelyn Waugh (sounds a bit negative; it's a good book). That said, Amis is well and truly initiated into the subtleties of poo poo-faced drunkeness, so I wouldn't be surprised if his collection Everyday Drinking turned out to be his gift to posterity. Also Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, which covers the development of classical music in the last century. Up to about 1955 or so, it's about as good a popular history as you'll probably find, but after that the infectious enthusiasm seems to trail off a bit. I don't know if that's necessarily his opinion, but it seems the earlier the better with Ross; Schoenberg and Stravinsky are pretty much the heroes of the book, but if you're after more insight into Messiaen than being religious and liking birds, you might be disappointed. John Adams seems to get pride of place at the end as the culmination of musical history too, which hopefully Ross got paid handsomely for. Last but not least is W G Sebald's Austerlitz. Managed to lose my copy about halfway through, only to have it turn up a week or so later, so not the closest reading, but still an excellent book. Apparently Laurence Sterne was hugely popular in Germany during his lifetime, and Sebald's work reads like Sterne's much-delayed German lovechild. Sebald's a little more successful in getting through the life story of the eponymous character than his predecessor though, even propped up as the narrative is on digressions through modern European history as expressed through its architecture. Whole thing turns out to be a bit of an enigma really, especially seeing as a lot of it seems slyly autobiographical (like a detectable resemblance between a photo of 5 year old Austerlitz and the author's portrait at the back). Easily the best of the last three. inktvis fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jun 19, 2009 |
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Jun 19, 2009 01:51
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I banged through Siddhartha in roughly a day. Very well written, and a nice story overall. Reminded me a lot of the material in my world religions class back in college. Next up is Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. That should take a little longer. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jun 19, 2009 |
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Jun 19, 2009 02:13
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inktvis posted:Got round to reading Kingsley Amis' comic novel Lucky Jim, which had been gathering dust on the shelves. Entertaining enough to be able to whip through it, but hard to shake the feeling that the best parts only reminded me of a slightly sozzled Evelyn Waugh (sounds a bit negative; it's a good book). That said, Amis is well and truly initiated into the subtleties of poo poo-faced drunkeness, so I wouldn't be surprised if his collection Everyday Drinking turned out to be his gift to posterity. Everyday Drinking is great but uneven-- as far as I'm concerned Lucky Jim is his best, and if he does owe a stylistic debt to Waugh I'd still give it props as one of the great campus novels. Even the cream of the crop of the genre usually strike me as just a little bit masturbatory-- Amis is all spite all the time and I love it. inktvis posted:Also Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, which covers the development of classical music in the last century. Up to about 1955 or so, it's about as good a popular history as you'll probably find, but after that the infectious enthusiasm seems to trail off a bit. I don't know if that's necessarily his opinion, but it seems the earlier the better with Ross; Schoenberg and Stravinsky are pretty much the heroes of the book, but if you're after more insight into Messiaen than being religious and liking birds, you might be disappointed. John Adams seems to get pride of place at the end as the culmination of musical history too, which hopefully Ross got paid handsomely for. I agree, to the extent that I completely failed to make it through the last 150 pages or so. I was riveted for about 2/3 of the book, but I felt like it petered out fast.
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Jun 19, 2009 03:21
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I just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch, a few days ago. It's the second book in the Gentlemen Bastard sequence, following the conman Locke Lamora and his partner, Jean Tannen. A pretty good fantasy series thus far. In this book, Locke and Jean are put into a situation in which they must take on the role of pirates. Very interesting stuff, although I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the first book, The Lies of Locke Lamora. There's not much else about it that I can say that Xachariah said about the first book already. I love this series. The next book in the series, The Republic of Thieves comes out late next month, so now I'm searching for something new to read in the meantime. Also, like Xachariah, I finished The First Law Trilogy some time ago. An amazing series, again, for all the reasons he wrote before me. I can't wait for the next book, Best Served Cold, which comes out... shortly. Very exciting!
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Jun 19, 2009 03:42
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Got around to Iain M Banks's Consider Phlebas, after having meant to read it for ages. Interesting that the main character is more or less the bad guy, although the book is a little over-the-top as far as putting him in "tied up, ticking time bomb" type situations, and stuff like Horza seeing that famous undercover reporter at the card game, then running into him later and forcing their cab to help him chase down the captain seemed really contrived and tacked-on. It's the first Culture book written (and one of the last ones I had left to read) and it doesn't really feel as polished as the other ones. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but there weren't really any characters aside from Horza and maybe the Culture agent that I really cared about, and even those two were a bit of stretch. It was probably better reading the book in the order I did though, I think it enriches the story knowing all the background info about the Culture Banks fleshed out in the later novels. I picked up The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer after hearing it mentioned in an educational program as one of the best WW2 novels. It can be a bit confusing to read at times, since it's an omniscient narrator that jumps into different characters' points of view without much warning or formatting (starts a new paragraph but doesn't skip a line), which in a way it gave me an almost cinematic reading of the book, sort of like different camera angles/shots. On the other hand, it's annoying in that he uses it to tell you exactly what everyone's feeling about everything, rather than "showing" and letting the reader figure it out for themselves. It's very character-focused, never mentioned the particular significance of the island they're fighting on, or spending much time dwelling on tactics and strategies, but rather following everyone from the commanding general to the non-coms and privates in a single recon squad, interspersed with biographical flashbacks of the PoV characters. The book overall is very dark; in the flashbacks most of the characters have unhappy family lives and treat women pretty abominably, there's no mercy shown towards the Japanese, the fairly costly recon mission yields no rewards, and the sociopathic senior sergeant never gets his comeuppance. In that, I suppose it's fair to say that it's probably an accurate picture of how the war was fought, but it was kinda draining to read. The prose veers towards the purple at times, but it's overall not that bad. There's some interesting commentary on the white, Protestant society and its treatment of outsiders (Martinez, the Mexican-American sergeant, and Roth and Goldstein, the two Jewish soldiers).
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Jun 21, 2009 00:30
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Finsihed the entire Deathstalker series, which I picked up because of this forum. Ugh. Thanks guys.
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Jun 21, 2009 18:55
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Just finished The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. I originally read it in school but I was a young and stupid then as opposed to slightly older and stupid now. I have to say I enjoyed it, it had kind of a somber tone but an overall uplifting theme. It was a short read, was going to start The Sun Also Rises but I had to reread the Old Man before I could. Next I'll probably be reading either that or Ulysses. If you like ordinary men with a stoic/quiet personality Hemingway's protagonists seem to fit the role.
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Jun 21, 2009 23:47
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I just finished re-reading The Catcher in the Rye. I read it way back in high school, but I didn't finish the whole thing, nor did I really appreciate it. Upon rereading it, I don't feel a whole lot different about it to be honest. It was a good read, but it didn't really click with me. Before that, I read Norwegian Wood, by Murakami Haruki. That was a really great read.
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Jun 22, 2009 06:07
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Finished On Basilisk Station by David Weber, the first, chronologically I guess, book in the Honor Harrington series. It was excellent, and I've finally found an author who can give me more Horatio Hornblower-esque adventures and characters while also having a lot of individuality.
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Jun 22, 2009 17:01
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spixxor posted:George R.R. Martin seems pretty ruthless with his characters, which I like. Indeed, good sir; indeed. I finished with A Clash of Kings, and I am about a quarter of the way through A Storm of Swords. I actually had a dream last night that Stannis marries Lysa Arryn to gain the might of the Vale, but that hasn't come to pass as of yet. I'm still waiting for some mind-breakery; nothing has happened like that as of yet, although Daenerys did sack Astapor with the Unsullied, which was pretty badass.
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Jun 22, 2009 23:07
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Just put down The Scar by China Mieville. It was certainly better than Perdidio Street Station although just as bleak. He has a way of crafting a world that stays in your imagination. This book was more fantasy than science fiction but that said, it was the best book of fantasy I have ever read. The world he crafts is internally coherent, and the races he invents are quite unique and consistent. I noticed in the author's note at the end of this book that he has a degree in social anthropology and it's immediately evident in his stories. The cultures and subcultures that clash and interact in his cities are so well formed and so believable that it helps mask some of the pseudoscience bullshit that moves the story along. I suppose I'll eventually read the other books in his Bas-Lag series but I'm going to have to take a break from that kind of fiction for now. Ghotli fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jun 23, 2009 |
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Jun 23, 2009 02:28
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Just finished Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. Parts were genuinely hilarious, I can't remember lol'ing while reading since Fear and Loathing but overall, what a depressing book. Of all the people he meets, one, maybe two, aren't "crummy" as he says. Part of me feels like I need something to pick me up a bit after reading it, but more than anything I want to get Death on Credit ASAP and fall a little lower.
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Jun 23, 2009 03:28
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Last night I finished my dad's copy of The Strain, which was co-written by Chuck Hogan and Mr. Pan's Labyrinth himself, Guillermo Del Toro. The book definitely has its moments, especially during the first half; there were times when I was genuinely freaked out by it. Unfortunately, it seemed like the story got away from them towards the end and it stopped being creepy at all. Still, it was a pretty good read, and at 400-ish pages, it's not a huge investiture of time. I imagine we'll be seeing it on the screen sometime in the not-too-distant future, seeing as Del Toro was involved.
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Jun 23, 2009 10:55
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Just finished The Secret Agent by Conrad, pretty engrossing and ahead of its time. It's not concerned like his other books with "black bucks" and colonial shenanigans either; it's really the first modern novel about terrorism, in this case a bunch of motley anarchists in London. Can't believe it hasn't been remade into a movie since 9/11, after a lovely '90s version starring Bob Hoskins - then again, I think that got bad press when it turned out Ted "Shades" Kaczyinski was obsessed with it...
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Jun 23, 2009 11:36
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Finished Gardens of the Moon, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1, a book as dense, clumsy and awkward as it's title. I was hoping for another good long epic to keep me busy on my daily train ride but unless anyone can tell me that the author improves dramatically then I don't think this is it. Whilst waiting for the new Joe Abercrombie book I grabbed a couple of short books I'd not read in ages, Starship Titanic by Terry Jones, based off the Douglas Adams game I never actually played was utterly forgettable. The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett was short and fun, just as I remembered it, I look forward to reading it to my son when he is a bit older.
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Jun 23, 2009 12:20
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Suttree by Cormac McCarthy and The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. The Pynchon I already read 30+ years ago, and I think I'll reread V. and Gravity's Rainbow this summer as well.
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Jun 23, 2009 13:16
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Jekub posted:Finished Gardens of the Moon, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1, a book as dense, clumsy and awkward as it's title. I was hoping for another good long epic to keep me busy on my daily train ride but unless anyone can tell me that the author improves dramatically then I don't think this is it. (Apologies for going off topic to reply to this) Gardens of the Moon was written roughly a decade before the rest of the series. Even many fans admit it isn't the greatest debut novel, there are even discrepancies in the universe refered to as GoTMisms. However the following books Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are (in my opinion) vastly better books than Gardens of the Moon. I reccomend you give Deadhouse Gates a try and see if it piques your interest, if not, then no harm done.
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Jun 23, 2009 13:24
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Mediocre_Dane posted:Last night I finished my dad's copy of The Strain, which was co-written by Chuck Hogan and Mr. Pan's Labyrinth himself, Guillermo Del Toro. I gave up on Tom Lloyd's The Stormcaller part way through. I'm a pretty indiscriminate reader, but this really didn't do it for me. Take psychotic, murderous elves, a suit of liquid metal armor, and a berserker main character who might be the cause of the apocalypse. Sounds interesting? Unfortunately, Lloyd doesn't follow through with his germ of interesting ideas and the result is a big sloppy mess. He makes a lot of goofy mistakes, for example, the main character and his entourage are travelling and stop at a village, where they were "... treated like royalty" - which wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that they are, in fact, royalty. In another part, one character (a villain?) changes his last name, which is supposed to be a big deal. Several chapters later why this is a big deal is explained. This is also one of those Big Fat Fantasy novels where the world building consists of endless lists of characters and places but the author never gives us any clue as to who they are and why we should care. I'd had good luck with books from this publisher (Pyr) but this was a dud.
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Jun 23, 2009 13:32
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Xachariah posted:Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are (in my opinion) vastly better books than Gardens of the Moon. I agree. I started with Deadhouse Gates because I found it at a remaindered book sale, and I read it three times before I got around to acquiring the other books. When I sat down with Gardens of the Moon, I said to myself, "Finally I'm going to get filled in on the background of this story ..." and that never happened. I don't feel as if I needed to have read that first book at all.
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Jun 23, 2009 13:36
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Finished Half the Blood in Brooklyn and Every Last Drop by Charlie Huston. Great hard-boiled vampire series, comparable to the Repairman Jack books.
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Jun 24, 2009 03:28
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I read Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. It was mentioned in this thread a few times, and it is definitely an interesting idea (or gimmick) for a book. Basically a collection of letters in a country where letters of the alphabet are banned as they fall off of a memorial statue. This wasn't bad for a quick read, although not terribly thrilling. Just finished Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I really enjoyed this book. It is about a veterinarian student who ends up working on a circus train. This was an interesting book to learn a bit how the circus culture would have been 30s, pretty rough stuff in general. Drama in almost each town they visit. He falls for a married performer, etc. Fun book, I enjoyed it.
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Jun 24, 2009 05:48
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Just finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. I didn't like it that much; perhaps I need to dwell on the book and what Mr. Camus was trying to say for a while longer. It seemed to me that he created an awkward main character only to demonstrate his ideas and theories. His 'absurdism' seems to me to be based on his inability to come up with an answer to "why does anything even matter?" Maybe I just need to read more and try to see his point better. He did win the Nobel prize in Literature, after all. Enough philosophizing, I suppose.
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Jun 24, 2009 08:29
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Anamnesis posted:Just finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. I didn't like it that much; perhaps I need to dwell on the book and what Mr. Camus was trying to say for a while longer. It seemed to me that he created an awkward main character only to demonstrate his ideas and theories. His 'absurdism' seems to me to be based on his inability to come up with an answer to "why does anything even matter?" Maybe I just need to read more and try to see his point better. He did win the Nobel prize in Literature, after all. That book grew on me as time went on. I remember being just stunned and confused when I finished it. A second read a few years later was actually quite worth it.
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Jun 24, 2009 16:33
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Tiborax posted:Indeed, good sir; indeed. Stannis is still married. Just you keep on reading, though, boy-o.
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Jun 25, 2009 08:17
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World War Z by Max Brooks. More entertaining than the Survival Guide, but really just a mindless bit of entertainment.
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Jun 25, 2009 13:34
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