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dokmo posted:The Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver. Goddammit, I've read all 8 of the Lincoln Rhyme books and they're all terrible. I don't know what drove me to keep buying them, but I've had it. I'm done with these. Dunno if this helps or not, but the newest one is actually interesting, and the ending is pretty cool.
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Jun 17, 2010 06:23
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Just finished Suttree by Cormac McCarthy - the third book of his I've read, following Blood Meridian and The Road. It's pretty fantastic, albeit hard to parse at places, particularly during the titular character's several hallucination episodes. I'm sure there's alot to these I'm not getting, but during a late scene in which Suttree's deathly ill and in and out of lucidity, I sortof just gave up trying to interpret and barrelled through. Overall, though, the prose and the imagery is stunning in true McCarthy style. One scene in particular in which a derelict Southern mansion infested with squatters is likened to an apoclyptic church stopped me in my tracks. The role of religion and specifically Christianity plays a very complex role in the story, and its an interesting theme of McCarthy's that I look forward to tracking as I read more of his stuff. The real heart of the book are the characters, though, and they're beautifully detailed and written - a surprising contrast, for the most part, to Blood Meridian. Influence wise there are alot of obvious debts to both Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye, but the most obvious driving force is, of course, Faulkner, and to my mind it's a great tribute to his style.
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Jun 17, 2010 19:04
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The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie - A pretty goddamn amazing book. Two Indian actors - one famous for Bollywood romantic epics and near-worshipped in his home country, the other trying to distance himself from India by becoming a British voice actor - fall out of the sky above London after their flight is bombed. One becomes an angel, one becomes a devil, and that's just the start of the weirdness. I love Rushdie's writing, and it was interesting to see him take on London instead of India. I'm still turning it over in my head, but I really did love it.
Chamberk fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jun 18, 2010 |
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Jun 17, 2010 22:19
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Ran out of poo poo to read, so I scrounged my girlfriends bookshelf and came up with the nice, thick, Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Now granted, I read it over 15 years ago, and I didn't think it was all that great then, but holy poo poo has that book not aged well. The writing is terrible, and the plagiarism from Tolkien is just enormous. I've liked some of Brook's more recent stuff, though I consider on a level with Dragonlance, as kind of an entertaining read while I'm between good books. This one is just trash.
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Jun 17, 2010 22:35
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The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies. I thought the second to be much weaker than the first (pirates really aren't my thing) but I still really liked it. Maybe someday there'll be a third. I've heard people on the forum mention that this is never going to happen, though. Sadness.
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Jun 18, 2010 15:40
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hello clarice posted:The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies. I thought the second to be much weaker than the first (pirates really aren't my thing) but I still really liked it. Maybe someday there'll be a third. I've heard people on the forum mention that this is never going to happen, though. Sadness. Any reason why? I haven't been able to find the second at any local stores. Really liked the first one.
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Jun 18, 2010 16:58
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calandryll posted:Any reason why? I haven't been able to find the second at any local stores. Really liked the first one.
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Jun 18, 2010 17:05
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Finished Richard Dakwins' The Ancestor's Tale yesterday, it was a very good read. It can get boring at times, especially when he goes into all the excruciating detail about some stuff; and several times, he couldn't help but take some potshots at Creationists, which I found funny, but some may find annoying. But overall, I recommend it to anyone interested in learning about some of the varieties of life this planet houses. Dawkins is an excellent writer.
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Jun 18, 2010 22:01
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Red Pyramid posted:Just finished Suttree by Cormac McCarthy - the third book of his I've read, following Blood Meridian and The Road. I just finished that book too. And its the third book of his. And the other 2 are those books, in that order. Are you reading Outer Dark next too?
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Jun 18, 2010 22:07
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Merou posted:I just finished that book too. And its the third book of his. And the other 2 are those books, in that order. Was actually planning on following it up with Child of God. Alas, it seems our dance must come to an end.
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Jun 19, 2010 00:41
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Recently finished The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky. It's probably familiar to most, but in essence is a critique of the functioning of the Soviet Union after the rise of Stalin and the bureaucracy (which in Trotsky's view led to contradictions and regressions that benefited the bureaucracy as a group to the detriment of gains by workers that could otherwise have been achieved). Trotsky's analysis makes a fascinating, fact driven read, and is perhaps best summed up by Trotsky's own words: "The USSR is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism and socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from adequate to give the state property a socialist character; (b) the tendency toward primitive accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores of the planned economy; (c) norms of distribution preserving a bourgeois character lie at the basis of a new differentiation of society; (d) the economic growth, while slowly bettering the situation of the toilers, promotes the swift formation of a privileged stratum; (e) exploiting the social antagonisms, the bureaucracy has converted itself into an uncontrolled caste alien to socialism; (f) the social revolution, betrayed by the ruling party, still exists in property relations and in the consciousness of the toiling masses; (g) a further development of the accumulated contradictions can as well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i) on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a struggle of living social forces, both on the national and the world arena." On the other hand, there is more than a whiff of Trotsky's very real political struggle with Stalin and his allies in the book, and one is left wondering how those factions would have replied to the Left Opposition. I'll be digging around, therefore, for some histories of the period to put a potentially more objective light on the developments Trotsky recounts.
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Jun 19, 2010 16:15
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James Sallis's Moth, a hallucinatory. impressionistic neo-noir set in New Orleans, reminiscent to some degree of James Elroy. I liked the book, but, like Elroy, I couldn't get past the feeling that the author was trying too hard.
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Jun 19, 2010 16:44
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Cosmopolitan posted:Finished Richard Dakwins' The Ancestor's Tale Even evolution textbook do this. I don't think you can be an evolutionary biologists without taking the occasional potshot at those guys.
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Jun 20, 2010 10:07
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Wrojin posted:Fantasy goons have been burned enough by authors who drop the ball on series that they have no optimism left. The third book in this series has been announced, I'm pretty sure that it was due out this summer, but now the release date has been removed. This doesn't inspire confidence. The most recent news I'd heard is that he HAS turned in his manuscript, though it's a bit late. I'm trying to remain hopeful, because they can't all be GRRMs.
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Jun 20, 2010 19:37
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Chamberk posted:The most recent news I'd heard is that he HAS turned in his manuscript, though it's a bit late. I'm trying to remain hopeful, because they can't all be GRRMs. I will remain optimistic as well.. but I won't hold my breath.
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Jun 21, 2010 02:03
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hello clarice posted:I will remain optimistic as well.. but I won't hold my breath. I just finished both of them myself, and despite being a little disappointed with Red Seas, am certainly interested to see where another book would go. Amazon has book number three The Republic of Thieveslisted as coming out on the 17th of Feb next year. However, it seems to have been changed several times, and be with a different publisher to the others, so I won't be holding my breath either.
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Jun 21, 2010 09:12
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Kill All the Judges by William Deverell. In a just world, Deverell would be a household name. He is a Canadian ex-lawyer who writes legal thrillers usually based in and around Vancouver. Legal thrillers aren't known for the quality of their prose, but unlike, say, Grisham's or David Baldacci's, Deverell's books are incredibly well-written -- smart, funny, fast moving, with dialogue that really pops.
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Jun 21, 2010 17:01
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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. This book is basically a group of tangentially related episodes spread out over time and space. The stories appear to be set in the same world, and are all connected by seemingly random thread. The first story is hard to get through, because of some difficult language, but as the book progresses Mitchell reveals utterly fascinating worlds. While not a small book, it reads quickly and easily (once you're past the first bit) and I strongly recommend it to anyone.
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Jun 21, 2010 18:55
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The White Company - Arthur Conan Doyle - It's really too bad that Doyle is best known for his Sherlock Holmes books because his other stuff is very good and very entertaining. The White Company starts off as a pretty normal coming of age story about a 20 year old in the 14th century who leaves his monastery to see the world. He meets up with a mercenary band and has a pretty kickass time in France. Doyle knew how to write a great adventure story and if you give this a chance I guarantee you'll have a lot of fun. Really wish this was adapted into a huge summer blockbuster. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway - This is my first Hemingway and it left quite an impression. The descriptions of Spain during the civil war are vivid and its clear he had a love for the country. I don't have much to add about this book that hasn't already been said, but I thought it was a great read and it's made me want to read more of him. Next: Bleak House - Dickens, Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Influence of Seapower Upon History - A.T. Mahan.
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Jun 22, 2010 02:59
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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I think it was a Book Club read a few months back, so I'll spare talking about the plot. It was a nice read, nothing too provoking story wise. I enjoyed the rotating the narration to different characters every chapter, he pulled it off quite well. Before that I read Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson which did similar rotating narration. Is that becoming a fad in recent novels? It seems tricky to pull of but when it works it enhances the story for me.
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Jun 22, 2010 15:34
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McCarthy's Bar by Peter McCarthy I am a huge fan of travel literature but had not, up until reading this book, found anyone who could even hold a candle to Bill Bryson. McCarthy comes close, and having always wanted to visit Ireland myself, found the book gave me a taste of what it might be like. I'm sure I missed out on some British inside jokes, but all in all it was a great, funny, light read in the same vein as Bryson. As a side note, anyone have any other similar travel author's who are not Bryson or McCarthy?
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Jun 22, 2010 21:46
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Elantris - I was actually really disappointed by this. It had a great concept like most of Sanderson's stuff, but I thought there way waaay to much political intrigue and "oh no my husband D:"ing. I remember putting it down and wishing it was the rough draft of a longer and more polished book. The Forest of Hands and Teeth - I thought this was fantastic, even though it was essentially The Village with zombies and without the stupid twist . It was very short (I read it in less than a day), and something just kind of mesmerized me about it. Thinking back on it as I type this, though, I'm a little disappointed by the loose ends that weren't wrapped up, like Gabrielle and how the sisters 'created' her and exactly what the sisters knew and what they didn't. I still liked it, though.
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Jun 23, 2010 05:57
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hello clarice posted:The Forest of Hands and Teeth - I thought this was fantastic, even though it was essentially The Village with zombies and without the stupid twist . It was very short (I read it in less than a day), and something just kind of mesmerized me about it. Thinking back on it as I type this, though, I'm a little disappointed by the loose ends that weren't wrapped up, like Gabrielle and how the sisters 'created' her and exactly what the sisters knew and what they didn't. I still liked it, though. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only who got The Village vibes out of it, though thankfully without the inanity. There's another book in the series now, The Dead-Tossed Waves, which supposedly has more answers. I haven't read it yet though.
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Jun 23, 2010 18:10
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Just finished Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is a monologue by the narrator, a twentysomething Pakistani immigrant, to a nameless, faceless American in a Lahore market, documenting the main character's rise in elite educational and financial circles in late-twentieth-century New York, and the change in atmosphere of the city, and in his mindset and loyalties, in the weeks following the September 11th attacks. Alas, much left unresolved at the end...
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Jun 23, 2010 21:52
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Love Medicine Just read this for a summer class. It's basically the story of families on a rundown Native American reservation living out their lovely 20th century lives. After reading the first chapter, I was expecting sappy crap about family togetherness through tough times. Actually ended up enjoying it quite a bit. It had some very dark moments, the characters were all completely irrational in some kind of crazy believable way, and I was impressed with Erdrich's ability to switch narration between multiple characters. There is not an obvious message about how much better things were in the past, life on the reservation just is what it is.
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Jun 24, 2010 03:30
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Recently finished up Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk. I have read all of his fiction works and this was not one of the best. It was really short and a bit light on the story overall, which was a little bit disappointing. At least at the end it had some of the normal Chuck tricks and surprises, even if they were a tad predictable. I did however think that the narrative was interesting overall and helped make it a bit more bearable.
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Jun 24, 2010 20:07
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ngeunit1 posted:Recently finished up Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk. I have read all of his fiction works and this was not one of the best. It was really short and a bit light on the story overall, which was a little bit disappointing. At least at the end it had some of the normal Chuck tricks and surprises, even if they were a tad predictable. I did however think that the narrative was interesting overall and helped make it a bit more bearable. I had a good streak going. I've read every Palahniuk book except Tell-All, but after Snuff and then Pygmy, I don't think I'll be able to continue. Diary wasn't his best, but the painting stuff and the detective story atmosphere at least made it entertaining. I even found Lullaby at least worth the read. But Snuff was just kinda meh, and Pygmy was just annoying to get through, and had a very lovely, very un-Palahniuk ending. What's going on, Chuck? 
Cosmopolitan fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jun 25, 2010 |
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Jun 25, 2010 05:12
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Elantris by the illustrious and splendiferous Brian Sanderson. Having loved the Mistborn trilogy and the novel Warbreaker, I was surprised at how long it took me to get into it-but then it hooked me good.
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Jun 25, 2010 05:29
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Cosmopolitan posted:I had a good streak going. I've read every Palahniuk book except Tell-All, but after Snuff and then Pygmy, I don't think I'll be able to continue. Diary wasn't his best, but the painting stuff and the detective story atmosphere at least made it entertaining. I even found Lullaby at least worth the read. But Snuff was just kinda meh, and Pygmy was just annoying to get through, and had a very lovely, very un-Palahniuk ending. What's going on, Chuck? Yes, I did pretty much the same thing. I thought Diary at least had a fairly interesting story to it and yea Snuff was really just mediocre. I was not the largest fan of Pygmy much at all, definitely my least favorite of his stuff. Tell-All was at least a little better than Pygmy but yea, if you read Snuff and Pygmy there in that vein.
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Jun 25, 2010 14:22
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kissyboots13 posted:Elantris by the illustrious and splendiferous Brian Sanderson. I wasn't a giant fan of either Elantris or Warbreaker. I'm starting to find that his books all feature some silly princess and some overarching political intrigue based on freeing the oppressed masses... pick a new theme, man. I liked a lot of the original concepts (that's my favorite thing about Sanderson) but I thought both Elantris and Warbreaker could've been a lot better if they had been expanded and given more attention to detail like Mistborn they would've been a lot better. I'm a big fan of 1-shot books and I don't necessarily believe that everything has to be a series, but I feel a little like Sanderson's books suffer when he just makes them 1-shots.
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Jun 25, 2010 14:59
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In response to all the Chuck P. talk... I thought Pygmy was just ok (I liked the style in which it was written and how you reeeally had to adjust to it before it became readable), I really liked Survivor, I LOVED Rant, I thought Lullaby was nonsensical and the ending pretty much ruined what was a really great concept, and I can't even remember Snuff which means I probably didn't like it. I haven't read Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, Diary, or Haunted. Are these worth reading? Or is Chuck going to write himself into a corner and pull off some weird twist that isn't as awesome as his other weird twists and just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth?
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Jun 25, 2010 15:48
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hello clarice posted:In response to all the Chuck P. talk... I thought Pygmy was just ok (I liked the style in which it was written and how you reeeally had to adjust to it before it became readable), I really liked Survivor, I LOVED Rant, I thought Lullaby was nonsensical and the ending pretty much ruined what was a really great concept, and I can't even remember Snuff which means I probably didn't like it. I actually did like Lullaby quite a bit, but not as much as Survivor (my favorite Chuck P novel) and Rant. I would absolutely recommend Fight Club, especially if you liked the movie and I really liked Invisible Monsters a lot too. I would also recommend Choke too. I think a lot of fans consider it to be their favorite (or close to it). Haunted is, lets say interesting. It is a collection of short stories, some of which are hit, some of which are miss, and it is pretty okay overall. Here is one of the better stories that is from the novel: Guts. Warning it is really really graphic and disturbing. Finally, I personally liked Diary, but I know a lot of people, even including one of the other members in here who did not like it so much, so there are a lot of mixed opinions of it overall.
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Jun 25, 2010 17:01
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ngeunit1 posted:I actually did like Lullaby quite a bit, but not as much as Survivor (my favorite Chuck P novel) and Rant. I would absolutely recommend Fight Club, especially if you liked the movie and I really liked Invisible Monsters a lot too. I would also recommend Choke too. I think a lot of fans consider it to be their favorite (or close to it). Haunted is, lets say interesting. It is a collection of short stories, some of which are hit, some of which are miss, and it is pretty okay overall. Here is one of the better stories that is from the novel: Guts. Warning it is really really graphic and disturbing. Finally, I personally liked Diary, but I know a lot of people, even including one of the other members in here who did not like it so much, so there are a lot of mixed opinions of it overall. This is more or less how I feel about all of them. Survivor and Invisible Monsters were fantastic, and Fight Club is a must read even for non-Palahniuk fans.
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Jun 25, 2010 21:36
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I finished Gods of War by John Toland.It's a pretty straightforward novel about WW2 in the pacific told from the POV of Americans and Japanese.Decent beach or airport reading.The most interesting parts take place in POW camps and in Japan during bombings and deprivation. After finishing that I started reading Koko by Peter Straub.It's a thriller about a Vietnam vet serial killer.Straub was the coauthor of Talisman along with Stephen King.After reading about 300 pages of this book it was apparent why Straub's career never took off.I can usually finish bad books just for the plot resolution or if there's a decent character or two.Koko was just unbearable.It had every Vietnam war cliche available,the characters were uninteresting,and after 300 pages the plot was going nowhere.I was hoping for more out of this novel because I really enjoyed Talisman and Black House(another collaboration with King)and was expecting a much better book.
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Jun 26, 2010 01:15
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hello clarice posted:I wasn't a giant fan of either Elantris or Warbreaker. I'm starting to find that his books all feature some silly princess and some overarching political intrigue based on freeing the oppressed masses... pick a new theme, man. I liked a lot of the original concepts (that's my favorite thing about Sanderson) but I thought both Elantris and Warbreaker could've been a lot better if they had been expanded and given more attention to detail like Mistborn they would've been a lot better. I'm a big fan of 1-shot books and I don't necessarily believe that everything has to be a series, but I feel a little like Sanderson's books suffer when he just makes them 1-shots. Well, Elantris was his first novel. And, I agree about the 1-shot novels-I had really hoped Warbreaker would be the start of a new series. I just really enjoyed the system of magic he created. Honestly, that is really what draws me to Sanderson in the first place-his worlds are vivid and the systems of magic he sets up are often very original. And, I am a girly chick who loves her some silly princesses. And political intrigue.
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Jun 26, 2010 02:32
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Just broke in my iPhone and iBooks app with poo poo My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. Short but hilarious, this book made me cry more than once because I was laughing so hard. The ending is also very sweet.
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Jun 26, 2010 08:06
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kissyboots13 posted:And, I am a girly chick who loves her some silly princesses. And political intrigue. I agree with this most of the time, but I just sorta feel like his books almost always follow the same or a similar path. Foreign princess meets prince who she initially doesn't like but then she comes to respect his political ideals and they fall in love.
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Jun 26, 2010 19:14
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hello clarice posted:I agree with this most of the time, but I just sorta feel like his books almost always follow the same or a similar path. Foreign princess meets prince who she initially doesn't like but then she comes to respect his political ideals and they fall in love. Point. Although, Mistborn had a lot more to it than that-but, perhaps (like you said) that is due to him being much better at series than 1-shot novels? Isn't Sanderson finishing the Wheel of Time series? He's also just come out with a new book that is the start of a new series for him. I plan on picking it up soonish. We'll see if he's found new tricks, I suppose.
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Jun 27, 2010 02:13
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Last night I finished Those Who Went Remain There Still by Cherie Priest. Tonight I finished Feesters in the Lake by Bob Leman. The former was a pretty straightforward monster story, but it's very well written. The latter was an interesting look at the transition from writers like Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith to the modern writers of weird tales (Ligotti, Samuels, etc.). I'll probably read The Darkly Splendid Realm by Richard Gavin next, if for no other reason than it's closest to me.
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Jun 27, 2010 05:30
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I finished Maugham's Moon and Sixpence a few days ago. His books are pretty varied, but I guess this one is sort of like Razor's Edge in its Maugham-ish first-person narrator and its mingling of novel and non-fiction styles and subjects. Charles Strickland would be an interesting character even leaving aside the parallels between him and Gaugin, and bit players like the kind-but-ridiculous Dutch hack-painter and the fat Tahitian cooking lady were, I think, really good examples of economically sketched characters who come to life in fairly brief passages within a short book. I find writers like Maugham (or Bernard Shaw, or Forster) who were born into the Victorian era but wrote well into the 20th century pretty interesting, but I particularly like Maugham and am grateful that he was so prolific.
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Jun 27, 2010 20:06
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