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Just started Infinite Jest last night and love it so far. We'll see how much I like it a year from now when I finish!
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Mar 4, 2010 05:42
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Invicta{HOG}, M.D. posted:Just started Infinite Jest last night and love it so far. We'll see how much I like it a year from now when I finish! It really is an incredible book, though as a doc you might find some of the information on drugs suspect. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Mar 4, 2010 |
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Mar 4, 2010 16:29
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Busted out Europe Central by W.T. Vollmann. Only a hundred pages through. Rather than try and come up with some eloquent adjectives I'll just say it's really awesome and I'm totally loving it. I havn't read Vollmann before and it's interesting how he occasionally writes directly to the reader as author. For example he'll note that "I'm writing this in 2002".
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Mar 4, 2010 20:10
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Got The Plague by Camus the other day and I'm halfway through it, fantastic so far.
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Mar 4, 2010 23:01
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robomechatronsaurus posted:Busted out Europe Central by W.T. Vollmann. Only a hundred pages through. Rather than try and come up with some eloquent adjectives I'll just say it's really awesome and I'm totally loving it. I havn't read Vollmann before and it's interesting how he occasionally writes directly to the reader as author. For example he'll note that "I'm writing this in 2002". That book is amazing. Need to read it again. Be sure to listen to Shostakovich while you read it!
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Mar 5, 2010 01:33
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Patriot Games by Tom Clancy. Excellent so far, more than half way through.
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Mar 5, 2010 01:38
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Just started Tales by Edgar Allan Poe today since it's part of my upcoming exam and couldn't read that much of it because it's... boring. I can see why Poe was so influential and I've enjoyed books written by whom he influenced (Lovecraft, King). But the gap between 19th century and the present is more than visible. The painfully descriptive painting of the surroundings and the endless monologues that the characters exchange in their "conversations" are just too much for me. "Tales" indeed, since these stories would be much better suited for telling around a campfire than read from a book. So far I have read William Wilson, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, The Domain of Arnheim and The Sphinx. I hope the rest of the stories will be better, else I'll have to focus on the canonical ones only.
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Mar 5, 2010 16:15
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The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One Grabbed this based of a recommendation found on the front page of Penny-Arcade and a few chapters in it's a pretty solid fantasy-type book.
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Mar 5, 2010 17:22
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Starship Troopers Anyone else have the overriding urge to join the military after reading that?
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Mar 5, 2010 19:23
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Warrener's Beastie by William Trotter. I found it laying out in an aisle at my local secondhand book shop and decided to give it a go. It has been a wonderful decision so far, and I can't wait to finish it.
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Mar 7, 2010 03:40
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Panas posted:Starship Troopers Finished this a little while ago and was not surprised to find it was about 1000x better than the movie. In fact, it still sticks out as one of my favorite books of recent memory.
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Mar 8, 2010 02:36
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Panas posted:Starship Troopers I read Starship Troopers back in the mid 90's while in the Marines. It was part of the USMC reading list. It gave me a few flights of fancy, but since I was already a Marine I knew it was all bullshit. Still a great book. Funny fact Ender's Game was also on that reading list. Good book but weird if you consider how everything ends.
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Mar 8, 2010 22:10
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I started reading Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence just the other week. I like it so far, except Mr. Morel is a huge rear end in a top hat and I haven't read a book in a while where a character pisses me off as much as he does.
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Mar 8, 2010 23:28
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I just started Foundation by Asimov and even though I'm only 5-6 chapters in I think I'm going to enjoy it a lot. I like the concept of a mind-bogglingly huge human empire.
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Mar 9, 2010 04:37
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Just got back from a short trip to Italy where I couldn't refrain from getting a few books: Novecento. Un monologo by Alessandro Baricco (Novecento: pianist) Solo per giustizia by Raffaele Cantone (about the author's work as a public prosecutor in the antimafia section in Campagna; no English translation available) Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi (If This Is A Man) Il peso della farfalla by Erri De Luca (no English translation, yet) La coscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo (Confessions of Zeno) Ti prendo e ti porto via by Niccolò Ammaniti (don't think there's an English translation) Il giorno in più by Fabio Volo (no English translation) Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore by Italo Calvino (If On A Winter's Night A Traveler) I've already read Novecento (it's just 50 pages) and have started with Solo per giustizia. Looking forward to all of the others, they represent about 20% of my "to read" list of Italian literature. schoenfelder fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 15:02
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I just picked up the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. A little less than halfway through the first book, but it's pretty entertaining so far, if not the deepest thing I've ever read.
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Mar 10, 2010 15:32
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I just started The Secret History by Donna Tarte. 16 pages in and I'm already hooked by the characters and the writing style. It's a chunky book too, 630 pages in my edition, this one will take me a while. For whatever reason (maybe because I've been on break from university for 4 months and have been pining to be learning), I've been fixating on stories involving academia lately. I've recently read The Liar by Stephen Fry and the third and fourth Harry Potter books, and after seeing the musical Spring Awakening I ordered a copy of the original play by Frank Wedekind. Can anyone recommend any other good college/campus/school stories?
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Mar 11, 2010 14:57
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Just started Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. I don't really know anything about the author or the book but I just randomly picked it from this year's Nebula nominees.
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Mar 11, 2010 18:59
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Hedrigall posted:I just started The Secret History by Donna Tarte. 16 pages in and I'm already hooked by the characters and the writing style. It's a chunky book too, 630 pages in my edition, this one will take me a while. Don DeLillo's End Zone and Jonathan Lethem's As She Crawled Across the Table are both pretty awesome
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Mar 11, 2010 19:19
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Syrinxx posted:Just started Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. I don't really know anything about the author or the book but I just randomly picked it from this year's Nebula nominees. Heh, I just bought/started Not Flesh Nor Feathers by the same author. It's the first topaz format kindle book I've purchased. She does excellent ghost stories.
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Mar 11, 2010 19:27
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Just bought the first four ASOIAF books, having only read the first one a couple years ago. Im hoping by the time I finish all of them the next one will be out :/
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Mar 11, 2010 23:13
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I've been tearing through the Discworld novels. I just started Soul Music this morning. I can't quit reading Terry Pratchett and I don't know what I'm going to do when I reach the end of the Discworld series. Probably start it all over again while waiting for the new GRRM novel.
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Mar 11, 2010 23:14
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I have always been getting a bunch of books for birthdays/christmas from my aunt which I have never been able to keep up with. I started reading a lot more lately though and now I'm down to the last book which I've sort of avoided: 1632 by Eric Flint. Reading the backside of this (it's about time travling Americans ending up in Germany in the middle of the thirty year war, tagline: "Freedom and Justice - American Style") it sounds pretty ridiculuous. I guess I will find out soon.
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Mar 13, 2010 13:06
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Just picked these up at a local used store: 
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Mar 13, 2010 23:07
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Dacap posted:Just picked these up at a local used store: I've had The Satanic Verses on my list for quite some time; I hope you'll come back and post your impressions in the "What Did You Just Finish?" thread after you're done.
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Mar 13, 2010 23:16
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Started reading 2666 after having it since Christmas and I'm about 100 pages in and I already can tell I'm going to be addicted to reading this book until I finish it. When I want a lighter read I'm reading Ball Four by Jim Bouton which is a great book that I've read before but I'm all psyched up for baseball and wanted to read it again. I also started but put down How to make love like a porn star by Jenna Jameson, not because it was bad but because it was really depressing.
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Mar 14, 2010 02:57
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Folderol posted:I've had The Satanic Verses on my list for quite some time; I hope you'll come back and post your impressions in the "What Did You Just Finish?" thread after you're done. I really enjoyed it when my bookclub read it last year. It's really neat how Rushdie develops and crafts characters, and the conflicts of Eastern and Western culture makes for a good story.
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Mar 14, 2010 03:01
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Delicious Sci Fi posted:I also started but put down How to make love like a porn star by Jenna Jameson, not because it was bad but because it was really depressing. I don't really ever plan on reading this but can you describe what made it so depressing that you couldn't finish it?
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Mar 14, 2010 03:58
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xwonderboyx posted:I don't really ever plan on reading this but can you describe what made it so depressing that you couldn't finish it? The first chapter starts with her finding her best friend dead under suspicious circumstances and then it goes right in to the story of how she got raped for the first time. In between these two depressing stories are sexy pictures of her mostly nude. I get the point of what they are doing, trying to show how messed up even the most successful porn star is, but I am not in the mood to read a story like that right now. I have to be in the mood to read a depressing story and I'm not right now. I have to admit, I picked it up thinking it was going to be a fluff piece I could read before I go to sleep and was surprised by the serious tone it set from the beginning.
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Mar 14, 2010 04:42
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Started Penguin's collection of German Romantic Fairy Tales, and they're just remarkably strange and imaginative. I've only gotten through Goethe's Fairy Tale so far, but I suppose if you like fantasy, you should be reading this instead. I can't wait to get to Brentano's Tale of Honest Casper and Fair Annie which sounds so ridiculously Gothic and tragic that the brief synopsis in the Intro reminded me of a giallo film:Carol Tully posted:The tale is the tragic depiction of the folly of false honour. The inner narrative tells of the fate of a young couple, Honest Casper and Fair Annie, both doomed to be destroyed by a false understanding of honour. Casper, a proud young soldier, is driven to suicide after discovering the immoral ways of his father and brother, whereas Annie, having been betrayed by her noble lover, kills her own child and is then tried for infanticide. The outer narrative tells of the efforts of Annie's godmother, Casper's grandmother, to have the couple buried together in an honourable grave. She is assisted in her quest by the narrator, the unnamed writer. The tragedy is heightened by the grandmother, who, despite her great age, faith and resignation, adheres to the same sense of false honour that has claimed both young people's lives. . . . There are further grotesque reminders of the Nachtseite, in particular the shocking image of the executioner's sword, which moves of its own accord before Annie, and the severed head of the hunter Jurge that bites into the young girl's dress. 7 y.o. bitch fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Mar 14, 2010 |
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Mar 14, 2010 05:31
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ONE TWO THREE TIMES TWO TO THE SIX/JONESING FOR YOUR FIX OF THAT LIMP BIZKIT MIX
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I'm about half way through Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot and it's excellent, I only wish I could hear him talk on more recent space discoveries.
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Mar 14, 2010 15:14
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7 y.o. bitch posted:Started Penguin's collection of German Romantic Fairy Tales, and they're just remarkably strange and imaginative. I've only gotten through Goethe's Fairy Tale so far, but I suppose if you like fantasy, you should be reading this instead. I can't wait to get to Brentano's Tale of Honest Casper and Fair Annie which sounds so ridiculously Gothic and tragic that the brief synopsis in the Intro reminded me of a giallo film: This sounds really sweet, I just started getting into old fairy tales last year and so far have read a couple of collections of Irish tales and one collection of Japanese tales. Got any other good recommendations on fairy tales and are there any translations of tales I should avoid?
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Mar 14, 2010 20:03
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Dacap posted:Just picked these up at a local used store: You should read this with this study guide after every chapter, it helped me understand a lot of the more obscure references: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/anglophone/satanic_verses/ Also the guy that wrote it is super friendly and responds to questions almost immediately.
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Mar 15, 2010 01:44
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I'm starting August 1914. It's good but not great so far. I read Doctor Zhivago not long ago, so maybe I'm a sucker for novels on World War One era Russia.
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Mar 15, 2010 04:49
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I'll start "Satanic Verses" soon enough, but "Midnight's Children" is pretty impressive as well... even if it takes me a while to read.
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Mar 16, 2010 15:54
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Just picked up Gardens of The Moon by Steven Erickson, and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Really enjoying Name of the Wind so far, about two hundred pages in. Something about his writing style is just extremely enjoyable to read. Been a while since I read the first paragraph of a book and could tell I would like it.
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Mar 16, 2010 18:09
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Just started reading The Phantom Tollbooth since I haven't read it since I was a kid and just found a copy for $2.
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Mar 16, 2010 20:43
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I just found a beautiful hardcover copy of Wuthering Heights at a local bookstore- I've always meant to read it, but never got around to it. Now I can! Also, my wife got my Against the Day by Pynchon. Excited about that one, too.
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Mar 16, 2010 21:02
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Just bought: and  Man I'm pumped. Anyone have any feedback on either of these books?
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Mar 17, 2010 01:08
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SilkyP posted:Just bought: I haven't finished 2666 yet, but it's been fantastic so far.
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Mar 17, 2010 08:53
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