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I just picked up Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, and I'm not sure what to think about it. It's a different style than what I'm used to when reading Native American centric books. I'm having a hard time deciding whether I like it or not, but I'm not very far into it yet, so I figure it'll just take a bit more time before the reason it won an award comes forth.
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Jan 30, 2010 04:39
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Tazolol posted:I just picked up Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine Been meaning to pick that up for the longest time. At least you reminded me to put it on my Amazon wishlist. I ran out of work to do around 10AM, and since then I've been reading Paradise Lost on Google Books. I'm really getting into it, too. I think the fever helps. So, anyway, should Jesus sound like Beowulf ("I will glut the grave with [Death's] corpse," from Book III), or is that just me? That passage is very Dream of the Rood-ish, which I wasn't expecting. He sounds less like a suffering Messiah and more like a cutscene from God of War. It's hard to imagine him delivering the line without flexing and flicking the ash off his cigar.
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Feb 1, 2010 07:51
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I'm about 120 pages into The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. Someone in the GRRM thread warned people away from it, one of the reasons being it's supposedly filled with hardcore gay sex. So far there's been none of that, which is really disappointing because that's one of the main reasons I bought it!  I really hated Altered Carbon by Morgan specifically due to the graphic, vagina-juice-smearing sex scenes (well also because the characters were all completely unlikeable). But I'm enjoying this not only because of the promise of gay sex, but also because it's actually quite good! The creature/magic ideas are horrific and under-explained, in a good Miéville-esque way, and the plot is really picking up now (although it barely moved for the first 80 pages). Books I've bought online in the last few days, apart from textbooks, are Jurassic Park (my current copy is falling apart and missing several entire pages), Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, More Tales Of The City by Armistead Maupin and Naked by David Sedaris.
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Feb 10, 2010 13:07
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I had a $50 voucher so I bought myself 5 of the Popular Penguins: If you can't read it, that's: - The Classical World by Robin Lane Fox - The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene - The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski - Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux - How Language Works by David Crystal As far as I can tell, the Popular Penguin series seems to only be an AU/NZ thing. There's 100 books in the series at the moment, all priced at a super cheap AUD$9.95. 75 more will be released in July! They're so cheap and look great together on a shelf, and so many quality titles.
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Feb 14, 2010 12:40
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Received a box set of The Abhorsen Trilogy for Valentine's Day! I'm a few chapters into Sabriel and love it so far. Still working my way through Shadow & Claw as well. I may give up on Boneshaker. I love Cherie Priest but for some reason this story just isn't sticking with me.
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Feb 14, 2010 16:06
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I've just started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I've had it sitting around for about two years I think and I feel like I already know a bunch about the book before I even started reading it. I'm almost through the first section and it's actually very interesting. I'm learning a lot even about a subject I already knew something about. I've got In Defense of Food waiting in the wings. I also recently started Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman and One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. Something I really like about the former is that Gaiman includes an explanation of how each story came to be/the thought process behind that. It really adds something to reading it. The latter is a suspense/mystery but it has very good characterization. It's a pretty easy read, but the writing is higher quality than normal detective series-type books.
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Feb 14, 2010 22:43
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House of Leaves has been bothering me. I Put it down two years ago after going through a hundred pages, and I started reading it again, to get 200 hundred pages down. Does it get better? A friend told me the ending today. Is it worth reading, knowing the end? I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time and could be reading something better, but at the same time want to see what all the fuss was about.
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Feb 16, 2010 03:59
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Neon Monster posted:House of Leaves has been bothering me. I finished just about 150 pages a few months ago and haven't picked it up since. I'd like to hear some opinions about it from you guys too but either way I'm going to give it another shot. I really love the whole premise and atmosphere. Although I can't help but read that tedious text book stuff, because it's there, and I think this is what got me to go for something else. Admittedly, the very beginning is really the only slow area. INSERT COIN fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Feb 16, 2010 |
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Feb 16, 2010 06:50
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I liked it, but if you're having trouble getting through it, don't torture yourself. If you're not into it after that many pages, you probably won't get into it by forcing yourself to read more. (There are some books where I might advise you to stick with it, but this is not one.) For me it worked because I think for whatever reason, the way it was written I was able to really visualize it and it captured my imagination. I was also taken by the spooky atmosphere and found it also caught my imagination in giving me a kind of uneasy feeling. For whatever reason, it was enough to carry me through the parts others may have found tedious. That said, I've tried reading other Danielewski books and haven't gotten anywhere with them. It was only something about that one book that worked for me.
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Feb 16, 2010 08:15
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Recently started on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Just finished part 1 and so far I think it's awesome. Unfortunately my English isn't the best and I find I need to look words up all the time so whenever I'm not around a computer I'm reading Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. I haven't gotten very far yet and while it's entertaining I find the characters a bit annoying.
Cakebaker fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Feb 16, 2010 |
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Feb 16, 2010 12:18
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Just started The Dark Tower by Stephen King and The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. Hope I don't like the Geralt of Rivia series too much because the publisher are being a quite slow on the translation front. I got the first two but the next one isn't out until next year.
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Feb 16, 2010 17:23
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Cakebaker posted:Unfortunately my English isn't the best and I find I need to look words up all the time so whenever I'm not around a computer I'm reading Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. I haven't gotten very far yet and while it's entertaining I find the characters a bit annoying. Meanwhile I thought Charles Stross' Accelerando was worth the read, but Halting State was rubbish. My friend and I have joked that Halting State must have been written by someone else and for children.
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Feb 17, 2010 14:47
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Just started Soul Identity because it was only a penny 
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Feb 17, 2010 16:21
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I just started Perdido Street Station by China Mieville and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I'm mostly concentrating on Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe for now since I've been reading it for a while and it's started to get good.
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Feb 17, 2010 16:26
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Just started Tau Ceti Agenda by Travis S. Taylor. This is the squel to One Day on Mars. One of the things I enjoy about Doc Taylor's books is the actual Science in the science fiction.
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Feb 18, 2010 06:31
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I just started reading Bomber by Len Deighton. I also bought Churchills Wizards, which is about the art of deception during WW1 & WW2. I also got The Terror by Dan Simmons, which I'm hoping satisfied my Mountains of Madness/Arthur Gordon Pym kick.
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Feb 18, 2010 21:51
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I just started Goethe's Faust. I really like it so far. I'm reading it while keeping Master and Margarita and Kerouac's Dr. Sax in the back of my mind at all times.
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Feb 19, 2010 17:45
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I just grabbed Nausea by Sartre after rereading some of his plays for the first time in years. My guess is I'm going to enjoy it.
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Feb 22, 2010 00:43
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I just started King's Under The Dome. I haven't read any of his books in over 15 years but it's gotten some positive feedback so I'm excited to get into this 1000+ page monstrosity. Yes I know I'm late to the party.
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Feb 22, 2010 16:44
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Bought a ton of books over the weekend, including some really nice looking Hemingway hardcovers. Goodwill is my favorite place for books. I just finished Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and found Margaret Salinger's memoir Dream Catcher which sounds kinda interesting, even if I heard some of it isn't exactly true. That'll be on the shelf for awhile though, I have a huge list of stuff to get through first! I just started reading a buncha stuff for school, mainly LeMay's The Searchers and Atwood's Oryx and Crake. I'm really excited for both! Syrinxx posted:Yes I know I'm late to the party. You are? In all my Goodwill shopping this weekend I found ooold editions of It, Firestarter, and a nice new-looking hardcover of On Writing. Join the late party, I'll bring the disco ball.
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Feb 22, 2010 18:20
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I'm in France on exchange so I figured I'd pick up some French books to actually improve my French beyond the swear words and slang I pick up in daily conversation. One of my French friends took me to a second-hand bookshop and started handing me books to buy. Her favourite happened to be L'ecume des jours, or in English Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian, a jazz trumpeter/engineer/translator/author who died really young and only really got appreciated post-mortem. This book is like stepping inside a Dali painting. It's magical realism to the nth degree and it's absolutely brilliant, weird, wonderful stuff. I had no idea this guy existed and now I want to read everything he ever wrote. The chef cooks an eel he caught in the bathroom sink, sunlight literally forms droplets you can pick up and there's a piano that mixes cocktails depending on what notes you play. Plus there are lovely little notes explaining to the poor French all the references he makes to jazz and American culture. And here I was thinking French literature all ended with Hugo and Zola... Segue fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Feb 22, 2010 |
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Feb 22, 2010 19:32
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Segue posted:now I want to read everything he ever wrote.
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Feb 22, 2010 19:50
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Ha, yeah I figured. I meant his non-made-to-cause-controversy-by-being-insane books. It's really horrible that those are what made him money rather than the really good, arty ones. Not much changes in popular fiction I guess. I have some Daniel Pennac books that I need to start too, including his memoir Chagrin d'ecole. Seems like the French version of Frank McCourt so I'm looking forward to it.
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Feb 22, 2010 20:00
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Just started Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. The story is about a society where your place is determined by what colors you can see. For instance, Greens are ranked higher than Reds and Greys are at the bottom. Very funny and interesting, so far.
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Feb 23, 2010 03:41
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I got The Child Thief by Brom for Christmas a couple months ago and finally started it. So far I'm loving it, it's a really disturbing retelling of the Peter Pan story.
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Feb 25, 2010 12:20
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I just started The Next Step in the Dance, and it looks really promising. One of my professors recommended it to me, so it should be pretty good.
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Feb 28, 2010 08:11
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Finally let myself start on The Last Argument of Kings and am p. downhearted. The First Law trilogy has been the best fantasy I've ever read by quite a long margin, and when it's done it's done. 
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Feb 28, 2010 11:24
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Evfedu posted:Finally let myself start on The Last Argument of Kings and am p. downhearted. The First Law trilogy has been the best fantasy I've ever read by quite a long margin, and when it's done it's done. Good news! Best Served Cold brings back a healthy chunk of characters and at least indirectly continues the core conflict of the trilogy. I suspect his fifth book will follow the same pattern (I'm guessing Bremer dan Gorst for one of the main characters).
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Feb 28, 2010 20:49
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Well I finished Bomber. Starting on Churchills Wizards now.
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Feb 28, 2010 23:46
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Yesterday I bought Wingnuts by John Avalon, a CNN guy, who attempts to assess growing trends of partisanship in politics. I've only read a bit so far, but I'm not yet impressed. It's a bit simplistic on a few levels, takes a few accusations out of context, or in some cases, provides no context, like a pull quote at the beginning of the chapter that is not expanded upon later. The author also gives CNN a complete pass, arguing they are neutral, which I think is a bit disingenuous. He says he's an ardent centrist and non-partisan, a claim I always am suspicious of. He attempts to paint himself as holding the beliefs that most Americans do. He backs this up pointing to a poll in which most Americans define themselves as independent, when given a choice between parties to identify with, taking the mantel away from Democrats who previously held the title. While true, it ignores the fact that conservatives are the largest ideological group (at 40 percent). Moderates are in a close second at 35 percent. His solutions to increased partisanship is a bit simplistic as well, basically we need reform in Gerrymandering to reduce partisanship in the House, an idea I thought of in High School. So I'm 20 pages in and already I feel as though I could have written a better book. I'm not even sure I disagree with him on anything, but drat it reads sloppy. EDIT: I also bought Heavier Than Heaven, a biography of Kurt Cobain which I've been wanting to read for about 8 years now. I've given it a brief look and it seems OK, but it's going to take a lot to top the band's main bio, Come as You Are, which was pretty drat good. StickySweater fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Mar 1, 2010 |
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Mar 1, 2010 18:12
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Joe Hill's Horns. Read about 250 pages yesterday. Fun story and honestly better than anything his dad, Stephen King, has written in years.
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Mar 1, 2010 18:18
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Just got House of Leaves as a birthday gift. I've been planning to read it for years, but now that I have a chance, I don't think I'll have time for it for some time.  Oh well. I'll get to it eventually.
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Mar 1, 2010 19:26
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I just got Crime and Punishment today. Is it any good?
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Mar 1, 2010 20:41
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juliuspringle posted:I just got Crime and Punishment today. Is it any good? Ugh, shoulda went with The Idiot instead. You still have the receipt I hope??
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Mar 2, 2010 00:59
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juliuspringle posted:I just got Crime and Punishment today. Is it any good? WoG fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 2, 2010 |
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Mar 2, 2010 05:23
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Just started Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. Like his other books his philosophy comes on pretty hard but it still makes for a really good read.
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Mar 2, 2010 05:47
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WoG posted:Oh, you should've waited -- no point reading that tired old nonsense when Crime & Punishment & Chupacabras (or something) will surely be out in a year or two. Jesus, man, watch that poo poo. They're watching...
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Mar 2, 2010 06:33
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i don't care what anyone thinks, i finished the latest Jim Butcher and needed something new so i started reading percy jackson and it's fun.
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Mar 2, 2010 07:49
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Let me know what you think of it. I saw the movie a few weeks back, and it was pretty cool. I think the movie had the ages around 17 or so, but I think the book has em around 12? It's an interesting concept though.
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Mar 3, 2010 06:02
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I just started The Next Step in the Dance by Tim Gautreaux, and so far it's very good. I can't wait to pick up a collection of his short stories next.
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Mar 4, 2010 02:37
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