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Jekub posted:Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. Aha! I've just finished this myself. I agree with you, it's a nice little standalone tale but it is too long. I also think the pacing is really off. It's just one set piece after another and it becomes kind of tedious. Character-wise I found Monza to be thoroughly unlikable in every way and Shivers seemed to me to be nothing more than Logen v2.0. On a more positive note, Friendly is a brilliant invention and the returning characters are really nicely built on. One in particular (I won't name names) is the undisputed star of the book. It's not as good as the First Law trilogy but it is still good. The best moments are the little nods to characters from the earlier books and the big underlying story that unites them.
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Jul 3, 2009 16:39
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Finally finished The Amber Spyglass after avoiding the last one hundred pages for a few weeks. Basically I thought it was terrible and wished I had just stopped after the first book. I felt that the writing was disjointed, the plot wasn't well thought out, and everything was just sort of a huge mess. Next is The Woman In Black!
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Jul 3, 2009 20:17
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I finished Under The Net by Iris Murdoch today. It was ranked #95/100 of the top 20th century novels by the Modern Library panel. I thought it was a very interesting novel -- well written, interesting characters (and their associated psychology), deft use of philosophy, etc. -- though I feel there were some things I was not getting... It is definitely a book to re-read.  I may read Bastard Out Of Carolina by Dorothy Allison next.
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Jul 3, 2009 21:28
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Just finished reading The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille. Not sure what i think of it, on one hand towards the end of the book it got pretty interesting, but the start of the book seemed so slow and i had a real hard time following john because his character didn't appeal to me. I guess DeMille got the snobbish character spot on, just couldn't enjoy it because well he was too much of a snob. Overall it felt really slow, and i thought it was going for some big build up of john getting more and more involved, but yeah seemed a little flat and i don't know how i feel about the end. Kinda felt like you know, "and then i woke up".
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Jul 4, 2009 08:22
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Just finished reading Cobra II. Pretty rough indictment of the war although I thought some of the conclusions were really only through hindsight. I don't think it goes well enough in giving credit where credit's due; that is blaming Wolfowitz, Feith, and Cheney for the reasons why we had too few troops in the region post-war.
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Jul 5, 2009 09:40
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I just finished Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, and it was fan-loving-tastic. If you like sci-fi, you will like this book. I also just finished a compilation of Vonnegut's short fiction called "Welcome to the Monkey House", and although it was as depressing as Vonnegut is reputed to be, it was a good read. Next, I'm going to read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Edit: Actually, I'm going to switch gears and read Infinite Jest, after I finish House of Leaves. I have a few days until IJ gets here from Amazon, which should be plenty of time. Maybe I'll finish some other books I've stalled out on while I'm waiting. ejstheman fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jul 9, 2009 |
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Jul 5, 2009 22:26
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Moby Dick - Finally got around to reading it and really enjoyed it for the most part. Melville's use of language and imagery is incredible. Although, the bits about whale biology and the like (while informative and interesting) did break up the mood of the book a bit when he'd break away from the main narrative to talk about them for a while.
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Jul 6, 2009 05:07
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The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands. Enjoyed it, but I wish they spent more than ten pages on the actual waste lands themselves. I guess it's sure to get page time in the fourth book, though.
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Jul 6, 2009 05:23
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Before They Are Hanged & Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie, 2nd and 3rd books in The First Law Trilogy - Well, say one thing for Abercrombie, say he's a cold bastard. Gritty realistic fantasy taken to the extreme. Characters are suprisingly endearing, for all of their faults. Still, very depressing. Also remarkably predictable once the story gets going, and you get used to Abercrombie's style. You always expect the worst and rarely come away wrong. Plot didn't really end up going anywhere, there wasn't any resolution, it just tapers off. But in this series the plot is just a way to introduce the characters, by the end you really don't care about the plot as much as you care about your favourite character having a a happy ending. Still, extremely depressing. I highly recommend it, as long as you don't mind being bummed out. Seriously the author trys to make George R. R. Martin seem sentimental. It was well written and far from an embarrassing addition to the fantasy genre.
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Jul 6, 2009 05:57
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Just this morning I posted in the "what did you just begin/buy" thread Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis (yep, I jumped straight into it after American Psycho). At the time I was less than a quarter of the way through, with only a vague impression of what the story had in store (references to strange murders, missing children, etc). Having just finished it, all I can say is: Holy. poo poo. I'm not sure if it was brilliant, but it was certainly impressive. One second it's suburban nightmare, kind of like Revolutionary Road with everyone dosed to the eyeballs on Xanax, the next it's The loving Shining! The last third swings between slow-burning psychological thriller and Cronenberg style body-horror, introducing a cast of demons, psychos and excorcists. Just when you thought you were reading a perceptive satire of post-columbine/9-11 mass-medicated suburbia, a dog gets possessed by a demon via the rectum. It's especially bizarre when you think back to the prologue establishing the narrative in a real world outside of Ellis's peronal View-Askiewniverse of glamorous sociopaths. Having said all that, I really enjoyed it! While the style varies wildly and unpredictably, each tonal shift is handled perfectly. The horror is genuinely chilling, the suburban satire is so incisive it made me cringe, and the personal moments are more emotionally powerful than anything else I've read by Ellis (possibly because personal moments never existed in his work before). In short: yeah, read Lunar Park, it's pretty cool.
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Jul 6, 2009 14:57
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I just finished reading Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Very similar format to a favorite of mine, Conversations With God, but without the spiritual theme. If you're interested in an analysis of humankind and why we're heading for the twelfth hour, I recommend it. Tonight I started Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I loved Stranger in a Strange Land, which I read just before Ishmael, and I want more sci-fi. It was between this and Lucifer's Hammer, and I'm not in the mood for post-apocalypse.
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Jul 7, 2009 09:34
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Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll. A pleasant, darkish, nutty book. Carroll has become an acquired taste for me, to the point where I want to own/reread some of his books that I've read from the library. I guess gentle absurdism strikes a chord in me.
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Jul 7, 2009 13:15
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After finishing A Storm of Swords - which, by the way, was fantastic - I blazed through A Feast for Crows in a scant few days. While I definitely missed most of my favorite characters in this book, I still enjoyed it, particularly when watching Cersei spend the entire book setting up her own extreme downfall. All in all, I thought it was pretty good, but not as enjoyable as the others in the series.
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Jul 7, 2009 17:52
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I just finished Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. It's really amazing. Old-school hardboiled detective fiction with a major plot twist every couple of chapters - and the chapters are short. It's a quick read and written vividly and straightforwardly, but I kept having to take breaks to wrap my head around everything. The way all the different plot lines were woven together was really organic. My only real problems with it were some minor homophobia on the part of the main character, and one of the main female characters (who is mentally unbalanced) comes off as retarded, but taken with everything else going on they're minor blemishes on a nearly perfect book. If you're into convoluted plots at all, I highly recommend it.
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Jul 9, 2009 08:09
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I just finished The Woman In Black by Susan Hill. I was lucky enough to see the play in London, which I really enjoyed, so I was really excited to read the book. Sadly I thought the whole thing was quite the let down and I wanted to put it down after 40 pages. It was just written so blandly. Next up after a short break is Catch 22.
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Jul 9, 2009 08:44
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Legacies by L. E. Modesitt Jr. 1st book of the Corean Chronicles - A refreshing change from the last fantasy series I read, which was The First Law Trilogy. It is the opposite of gritty realistic fantasy, and the epitome of older conventional fantasy. A young boy grows up to be a hero, he can use a form of magic ('Talent'), is impeccably well mannered and stands for all that is good and just in the world. Rags to glory, the very foundation fantasy is built on. Our hero this time is a shepherd called Alucius, sometime after his 18th birthday he is conscripted into the local militia. He is trained beforehand by his grandfather and quickly becomes a decent swordsman. He also happens to be an expert marksman due to having to protect his flock from various monsters. Modesitt never gets philosophical, and the books arn't especially deep or designed to make you think; But they don't need to be, they are well written and immensely entertaining. It was a good read. EDIT: How do I grammar. Xachariah fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 9, 2009 |
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Jul 9, 2009 09:09
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Arvestålet by Sigurd Hoel. A great book I really enjoyed. It just bugs me that I didn't find that book before I read the follow-up (didn't know there were a book before it when I read it, not sure if I want to read the second book again, since I finished it 2 weeks ago).
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Jul 9, 2009 15:59
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Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll. Whimsical and readable, but more flaky in a way that fell flat for me. I don't mind absurdist takes on religious subjects, but not so much when I suspect the author might really believe it. Not bad, I guess, but not a favorite.
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Jul 9, 2009 22:02
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Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. This was really good, if you like Steinbeck's writing and want to feel like you're having a conversation with him you should read this. The conversations he had with people were probably my favorite part of the book despite their being a shortage for a trip across America. Steinbeck did have some great predictions back in 1960 that are proving true today such as the retreat from the cities into the suburbs. He fit Charley the dog into the book really well too, he wasn't just ignored the whole trip as you might think. It was a mistake for him to choose to visit the South as the last region of his trip as the racial tension was too much for a man who had been driving through the country for months and it showed in the conversations he had. Read this if you like Steinbeck
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Jul 10, 2009 01:04
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Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews and Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Both rereads, kind of comfort non-fiction as I was changing apartments. The Dylan interviews I especially love, there's plenty of contradictory, interesting stuff one could choose to live by, and worth reading even if you're only casually aware of his career, I think.
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Jul 10, 2009 02:25
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Almighty Pod posted:The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands. Enjoyed it, but I wish they spent more than ten pages on the actual waste lands themselves. I guess it's sure to get page time in the fourth book, though. If only, my friend. If only. 
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Jul 11, 2009 03:56
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Stagger_Lee posted:Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews and Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Both rereads, kind of comfort non-fiction as I was changing apartments.
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Jul 11, 2009 04:13
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Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan. I decided to gradually reread all of the Brautigan that I read 20-30+ years ago. gently caress me, but I love it even more now. So go read some Brautigan. Next maybe I'll reread the Vonnegut I read 20-30+ years ago. I imagine that would go pretty well also ... and I've replaced some of my old, yellowed Pynchon. If I continue with this oldies trend and reread all of my old Barthelme, it's possible that my head will explode, but it might be fun to try anyway.
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Jul 11, 2009 05:59
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Just finished 'World War Z', by Max Brooks. It's a novel about the zombie apocalypse told in an interview style. Very clever, very scary. Not the "boo" scary, but scary in the fact that if there was such a thing as a zombie uprising, this book's accounts seem very realistic as far as how the infected population spread, dealing with zombies, dealing with the other survivors..etc. I highly recommend.
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Jul 11, 2009 06:44
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The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I liked it a whole lot, probably more than The Shadow of the Wind. I'm not sure it's a better book, exactly, but it's darker and more adult and the protagonist is of an age with me, so it easily has more personal resonance for me. The ending's pretty ambiguous--Murakami-esque, almost--but that's alright with me.
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Jul 11, 2009 19:49
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The Strain by Del Toro and Hogan - The newish book about a vampire virus taking over New York. This might have the absolute best, most suspenseful opening to a book that I've ever read. It's all downhill from there - and in a rapid fashion. Scratch that, it doesn't really go downhill, because it really doesn't go anywhere. That's the problem - the main characters don't have much to do. Most of the book is spent covering characters besides the ones we want to care about. I use the phrase "care about" loosely though, since the characters are all paper thin. My disappointment grew exponentially as this went on because it had the potential to be a really fun and thrilling read. When the final act of the book finally seemed to get the story back on track, it ended in the most insulting and cliched way. I can't say anymore without giving it away, except to say that you'll be left scratching your head at the lack of originality. My only gripe with Guillermo Del Toro is that he stumbles when executing his amazing ideas, in his movies and now in this book. I'm not sure if I'll read the next one, for this one was not at all memorable save the incredible opening.
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Jul 11, 2009 21:20
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Juanito posted:How was Live From New York? I'm rereading Gasping for Airtime by Jay Mohr, which is about his short time at SNL. I really enjoy reading SNL anecdotes. It's got plenty of great anecdotes. The editorial comments themselves read a little like PR copy, and don't really offer any insight, but the stories are good. Especially from the earlier years - the last parts tend to get a little self-referential, it's less interesting with people who grew up watching the show, I think. Or maybe just people who never did a whole bunch of drugs.
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Jul 12, 2009 01:36
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Picked up an old secondhand copy of Proust: a Collection of Critical Essays, which compiles a bunch of short-form articles on aspects of his work. Bit of a mixed bag as there's about 4 or 5 interesting ones padded out with a bunch of shockers. Some of the worst ones hit a level of flamboyant awfulness, one particularly zealous one linking Proust to about 25 philosophers within the first two pages of the essay, and another starting with the old chestnut: "The Larousse dictionary defines profundity as...". Also love the fact that some of them were written in the 40s and bear a note asking that you bear in mind the full English translation wasn't finished, so any analysis is only based on what's available. So they're Proust scholars who can't read French then? Also bought another of W.G. Sebald's books, Vertigo, which happens to be his debut. I'm really curious to read a biography of the guy now, cause his books read like they're contained almost entirely within the scope of his own experience, and yet they're too improbably well-constructed to be all that reliable as memoirs. The thing that keeps popping into my mind with Sebald is Schwitters: quote:a fantastically constructed interior, as bewildering as it was abstract. The walls and ceiling were covered with a diversity of three - dimensional shapes and the room itself was crowded with materials and objects - or "spoils and relics", as Schwitters himself put it - which were contained in countless nooks and grottoes, some of them totally obstructed by later additions to the work, with the result that their contents then existed only in one's memory of the Merzbau in one of its former states [...] Souvenirs of friends and other things of sentimental value were stored in niches and later walled in. There were grottoes, for example, for Hans Arp and Theo van Doesburg, two caves for Hannah Höch, a cave for Lissitzky and one for Mies van der Rohe, as well as grottoes dedicated to abstract things and ideas, e.g. a Goethe Grotto, a Murderers' Cave, and even a "Love Grotto". Consequently, the Merzbau was also a kind of "constructed autobiography, a building of personal and historical reminiscences. Had a long plane flight which was ample opportunity to get through Kazantzakis' Christ Recrucified. Probably one of the most overtly religious writers in world literature (notably infamous for The Last Temptation of Christ), this one is based around an old Greek village tradition of picking villagers every 7 years to enact the Passion. The villagers chosen a year beforehand are told to mould their lives and values as closely as possible to those of their allotted figure - too closely as it turns out. What follows is a strangely compelling but otherwise entirely predictable sunday school lesson, albeit pessimistic and violent. Don't know if I'd necessarily recommend this one in particular to folks interested in Kazantzakis, but, like the majority of his other books, if you're looking for something with explicitly Christian themes and ideas, then go right ahead. As a note, I'd tracked this one down after hearing the Martinu opera that was based on it, The Greek Passion, which is hilarious in that it's a Czech opera based on a Greek book with a Welsh cast; hearing Greek Orthodox priests speak with a broad Welsh accent may or may not enhance your enjoyment of the book. Last (and probably least if it weren't for the Proust essays) was Cees Nooteboom's novella The Following Story, which wasn't really terrible so much as it was finely crafted forgettableness. You could take a page at random and feel like you've struck a good one, but somehow it just doesn't add up to anything all that exciting. Ex-classical scholar turned guidebook writer wakes up in Lisbon after falling asleep in Amsterdam, reminisces on past loves, platonic and otherwise, realises is dead. Maybe victim of its awkward novella length, since it seems stuck in a bit of a no-man's land when it comes to developing anything.
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Jul 12, 2009 06:49
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I read Umberto Eco's "Serendipities," on a trip to Maine. I can't really fault the book too much for reiterating itself a little frequently, since it's essentially just a collection of lectures, but it still felt a bit padded here and there. I felt that at times Eco was a little rough on Joseph de Maistre- I mean granted, he isn't really the most lovable of figures, but sometimes his points are painted as more dogmatic than I think they really were in context. The best parts of the book are when Eco is indulging in his longstanding attachment to Popper-style conspiracy semiotics, that is to say the first couple of essays, so its difficult not to feel that the momentum peters off after awhile.
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Jul 12, 2009 19:19
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I finished The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson the other day. For a nonfiction book it was really well written and easy to read. I didn't particularly care about serials or the worlds fair before reading the book, but I someone suggested it in some thread for someone else and I added it to my amazon list and eventually I just got to it. For the first 3 parts of the book I was a little disappointed about the lack of time being spent talking about Holmes and his killings, but the majority of part 4 is devoted to him and wraps everything up fairly well considering he lied all the time. I added another of Erik Larson's book to my list, Issac's Storm just because the white city was so good.
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Jul 12, 2009 20:59
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The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan. Another reread that I enjoyed. These books are really fast to burn through, and they're like somewhat elaborated and extended Zen koans; or whimsical vignettes of an alternate reality from a good-natured schizophrenic.
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Jul 13, 2009 12:55
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destructor muffin posted:
I just finished this book and it was hilarious. The back-and-forth comedic dialogue makes it a great read. The movie isn't even close to being as good as the novel.
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Jul 13, 2009 15:48
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Just a bit too late for the Russian thread, I had a family vacation and thoroughly enjoyed Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov thanks to a couple of flights and sleepless nights. Really, there are things to nitpick about the novel that better critics than me have already said much more fluently, but the entire thing is worth reading just for those chapters where the novel hits its stride. Pretty much all of Ivan's chapters felt like intense, infinitely quotable masterpieces (as well as the chapter about Father Zosima), and just when I felt like the story was in a rut a chapter like "Little Demon" would come out of nowhere and pretty much blow me away. Easily beat out Crime and Punishment as my favorite Russian novel, though the Russian lit thread has really made me want to give Petersburg a go.
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Jul 15, 2009 04:05
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JustNoSkill posted:Easily beat out Crime and Punishment I can attest to that. I read The Brothers Karamazov and I loved it, so I figured I'd read more Dostoevsky. I read Notes from Underground, and I loved it for the most part. But I'm about 150 pages from finishing Crime & Punishment, and I must say that it just feels like it was written purely for length. So far, two of the chapters could've been removed in their entirety without damaging the plot at all. I hate it when I read books like that, because it slows down my reading process, especially when they're as dense as C&P. I never read more than one book at once, and I always finish reading what I start. So, when a book isn't interesting me, I don't read it as often, so books on my "To Read" list sit on my book shelf for months.
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Jul 15, 2009 08:11
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Larry Niven's Ringworld I thought I'd be really into the science of this book but frankly now I wished more was written about the fall of civilization and how it spread out.
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Jul 15, 2009 22:58
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Just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and I thought it was amazing. It definitly forces a second read thru though; I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of historical and geographical references, but it is definitly one of the best books I've ever read. The descriptions that McCarthy writes are so detailed, it really transports you to a different time and place, and they way he describes some of the brutality and violence really set the tone for the book early on. Does anyone know if theres a thread devoted to it? I would love to get into the symbolism and analysis of it, especially Judge Holden. *edit* Nevermind, found it on the second page.
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Jul 16, 2009 21:27
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As much as I hate to admit it, I read a buttload of terrible books. I'm drawn to them like a bug to a zapper. I'd say 75% of the books I read are total crap. Last night I finished 2012 by Whitley Streiber. It starts off well enough, but then just spirals into what basically amounts to less than a Sci-Fi Original script. I have to go back and read some P.K. Dick just to get the film of shame off of my brain.
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Jul 17, 2009 09:07
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Joshtafari posted:I finished 'Horror: Best of the Year 2006' a new Best Of anthology of short horror fiction. Overall I thought it was pretty average. The one standout story for me was 'The Cape', by Joe Hill. It's a story about a down and out drifter who finds his childhood superhero cape which has more power than just nostalgia. Joe Hill is Stephen King's son and I had heard some buzz about him. I will definitely be looking out for more stuff by him. If you liked The Cape, you should pick up 20th Century Ghosts, which is a collection of Joe Hill's short stories. "The Cape" is in there alongside some really great horror stories. I didn't know he was Stephen King's son until just now, but I can definitely see some similarities in their writing styles. He has a very easy, engaging writing style and he has a knack for conveying emotional realism inside these surreal horror stories.
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Jul 17, 2009 11:37
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The Mack and Cheese posted:As much as I hate to admit it, I read a buttload of terrible books. I'm drawn to them like a bug to a zapper. I'd say 75% of the books I read are total crap. I'm kind of the opposite. I will not read something unless it is significant in some way. I won't read a book just to pass the time. That's why I stay away from Stephen King, mostly any series of any kind (Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight, any other book I see everyone else reading), and pure comedy books (Zombie Survival Guide, etc.).
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Jul 17, 2009 12:06
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I reread all the remaining Brautigan novels I could dig up on my shelves:
Trout Fishing in America In Watermelon Sugar Dreaming of Bablylon
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Jul 17, 2009 12:38
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