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Irreverent Factotum posted:Just finished Joe Hill's Horns. It's horror, more or less; it's more supernatural than outright horror. I enjoyed Horns a lot more than Heart-Sharped Box. That said I think not only is his short stories much better, so is his comic, Locke & Key. I don't read horror that much anymore (outside of Dan Simmons), but I will continue to buy whatever Hill puts out.
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Mar 10, 2011 03:40
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I just finished Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus and A Man Without a Country. I especially liked Hocus Pocus as it addressed deindustrialization, America's prison system, and globalization in Vonnegut's own distinct style. My only gripe with Vonnegut stems from his repetition of themes and phrases from book to book, but he says it all so well that I really don't mind that much. Of course, nothing can touch Slaughterhouse Five, but I'm never truly disappointed by any of his works.
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Mar 11, 2011 04:59
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Richard Overy's The Road to War, which examines the decade prior to WWII by spending a chapter looking at it from the perspective of each of the participants. The overarching theme is one of constraints: each nation was prevented from acting fulling in accordance with their best interests due to various social, economic, and military constraints. For example, almost nobody (outside of Nazi Germany) wanted to fight another war -- the memory of the carnage of the great war was only 20 years old at the time -- but all were forced to fight because it was the least bad option available: Britain was forced to fight to prevent the dissolution of their empire, Japan was forced to fight because of the rise of extremist nationalists in their military who saw USA embargoes as practically an act of war, and so on. I really enjoyed this book and it's focus on ultimate causes.
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Mar 11, 2011 21:36
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Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis: I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Lewis is such a great writer that this, like everything else he does, was a quick read. Nice to see that the world of American Psycho really did exist in the late 80s. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway: I have to join the critics and say that the transliteration really pulled this one down. It took me a long time (~3 months) to make it through this one. And I did not find the story as engaging as some of his other work. Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt: The underlying information was interesting, but I wasn't crazy about how it was presented. I thought he ran a bit long in places, especially where he drifted away from the data and more into his own musings on traffic. It was quick though.
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Mar 12, 2011 07:02
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Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Interesting writer- if you aren't familiar with him he is known for sort of meshing pop culture with bits of new science to try and explain social phenomenon. He aims to sort of bring science into popular journalism. In this book he focuses in on our mental faculties for "snap judgements" in the sort of under 3 second range and when they can be awesome and when they can go wrong. Great book.
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Mar 12, 2011 17:32
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Some cool books I've finished recently: Light in August - Really fantastic prose, and pretty solid plot/characters. The description of Joe Christmas's past was definitely the highlight -- one of those things that makes a wannabe writer like me throw his hands up in despair. Faulkner seems like a clear predecessor to Cormac McCarthy, so all you Blood Meridian-heads around here should check him out. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce - Pretty decent analysis of late capitalism. Zizek's liberal-baiting leads him to some pretty noxious positions, though. I would say watch some Zizek Youtubes instead of reading this book, as you'll be much more entertained and get the same ideas. Looking Backward - Old-school utopian socialist SF. Not really a novel per se, but more a political tract with a framing device. Pretty good for what it is, though. White Teeth - Owns owns owns owns owns. Kind of a modern-day Swiftian satire, written well and with surprising emotional effectiveness. Despite being a doorstopper of a book, it's actually a fairly quick read. There are probably some points you could criticize it on, but this was honestly the most fun I've had reading in ages.
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Mar 13, 2011 06:33
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The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - a really fantastic book. I assumed it was another standard Indian rags-to-riches story, and by the end of it I was almost ashamed of having assumed that. Adiga manages to take the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of an innocent man - which also condemns the killer's family to death - and make you completely sympathise with the killer. Really struck a chord with all the thoughts about poverty I've been having after travelling across Asia last year.
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Mar 13, 2011 08:28
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nate fisher posted:I enjoyed Horns a lot more than Heart-Sharped Box. That said I think not only is his short stories much better, so is his comic, Locke & Key. I don't read horror that much anymore (outside of Dan Simmons), but I will continue to buy whatever Hill puts out. Likewise, thought Horns was much better than Heart-Shaped Box. Anyway, recent enjoyable books read include Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (urban fantasy set in Johannesburg in content, cyberpunk sci-fi in structure/style, Clarke award nominee, really good) and I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells (3rd book of a YA horror series that follows a teenage sociopath trying really, really hard not to become a serial killer, a la Dexter, but with a different twist on the topic).
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Mar 13, 2011 20:13
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Food Court Druid posted:Faulkner seems like a clear predecessor to Cormac McCarthy, so all you Blood Meridian-heads around here should check him out. Very true. I've been reading both Faulkner and McCarthy lately, and it's hard not to notice. To contribute: lately I've also reread The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet (first read it at uni 30 years ago), which is a delicious mindfuck, and The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (first read 40 years ago), which contains some stories as amazing to me now as they were when I was a kid.
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Mar 13, 2011 23:08
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I just finished re-reading the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin. The series itself is not completed yet with 4 out of 7 of the books done along with another coming out some time in July I believe.
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Mar 15, 2011 07:23
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Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds Really freaky, twisted sci-fi. The extreme transhuman tech reminded me of Blindsight by Peter Watts, while the general plot reminded me of a hosed up version of the videogame Mass Effect. The tone of the book was terrifying. I loved the Nostalgia For Infinity, less a spaceship than an enormous, haunted, gothic castle in space, filled with horrors (technological and biological) beyond imagining. The ending was insane and rather 2001: A Space Odyssey-ish. I liked it and look forward to reading the sequels and prequels.
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Mar 15, 2011 17:02
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Ayabi posted:The Hunger Games was pretty good, actually. The writing wasn't, but I blame that on the author originally writing it as a screenplay. But I finished it in two days because the actual story was really compelling, and I think Katniss was an awesome main character. I just finished The Hunger Games last night and I liked it a lot too. The setting was interesting and Katniss is a great narrator. I'll read the last two books but I hear they aren't nearly as good as the first.
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Mar 15, 2011 17:37
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GoldenNugget posted:I just finished The Hunger Games last night and I liked it a lot too. The setting was interesting and Katniss is a great narrator.
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Mar 15, 2011 18:15
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In my opinion, the second Hunger Games book is absolutely awful - a complete rehash of the first. The third tries something different and is a much stronger book. Weirdly, the writing gets worse from book 1 to book 2, but better again by book 3. Book 2 reads like a draft, with entire scenes feeling like Suzanne Collins typed in her draft "this is the scene where x will happen, note to self: expand later" then never went back and changed it. The big reveal at the end of book 2, for instance, isn't revealed through plot progression or dialogue, but is instead given in a two-page info-dump. For about 100 pages you are like "what the gently caress is going on??" then in the final two pages of the book, Collins is like "OK, so here's what was going on:" and quickly sums up the novel. It's terrible.
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Mar 15, 2011 22:56
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Finished The Ask by Sam Lipsyte last night. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't see how it got as much critical praise as it did. Still, it contained some good laughs and a couple of surprisingly touching moments, and being the first Lipsyte book I've read, I'm definitely going to check out his other stuff. Up next, The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington.
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Mar 16, 2011 17:09
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Just finished The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, my first Heinlein book and one of the few sci-fi novels I've read. It was extrememly entertaining and somewhat thought-provoking as well. Early on I could see that Mike might involve a quis custodiet ipsos custodes? issue but still became pretty bummed at what happened to him in the end. The characters were all intriquing and easy to sympathize with, yet realistic in that they had peripheral interests and suffered from occasional burn-out just like anyone else might.
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Mar 16, 2011 22:40
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Just finished Michael Moorcock's Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles and Modem Times 2.0 in preparation for my  interview with him. The Doctor Who book is great if you're even a casual fan of Moorcock's Eternal Champion/Jerry Cornelius stuff. Moorcock, as you can imagine, turns the Doctor into yet another aspect of the EC and manages to work Cornelius into it. It's about a hundred times more well written than any other licensed book I've read, and you get the feeling he's been thinking about the Doctor a long time. Modem Times 2.0 is for hardcore Moorcock fans only. It's a little booklet full of experimental snippets of Cornelius slipping back and forth through time and little sketches on what he finds. There's no real narrative or conventional structure. The interview and essay in the back are worth the read alone, though, for fans.
Imagined fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Mar 17, 2011 |
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Mar 17, 2011 18:50
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Finished All the Pretty Hroses last week and I can't start anything new. Keep thinking about the honesty of Cormac's characters,, and the glinting, solemn landscape. Maybe I'll take a break until I get thle next one.
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Mar 18, 2011 02:51
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milk teeth posted:Finished All the Pretty Hroses last week and I can't start anything new. Keep thinking about the honesty of Cormac's characters,, and the glinting, solemn landscape. Maybe I'll take a break until I get thle next one. after i finished Blood Meridian, it was 4 months before i could pick up another book. McCarthy is one of the greatest living writers, hands down.
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Mar 18, 2011 07:39
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Just finished Hell's Horizon by Darren Shan, the second book in his The City series. While the ultimate mystery of who was behind the murders was a little obvious it was still a fun book. Like the first book though its pretty unrelentingly bleak and doesn't pull punches. In case anyone who has read the first book was wondering how it deals with the fallout of that ending the answer is that it doesn't and instead this story happens at the same time as Procession of the Dead.
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Mar 18, 2011 17:34
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Just finished Slaughterhouse-Five, but that's no big deal, because it was for the 30th time or so.
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Mar 18, 2011 18:38
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Finished Dog On It by Spencer Quinn. A mystery novel, about a detective that is hired to find a missing girl, but is told through the perspective of his dog. Its so well written, the book flys by. Just the right amount of twists, turns and red herrings. Its the first of three books, will be reading the other two (Thereby Hangs A Tail and To Fetch A Theif) next.
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Mar 19, 2011 02:54
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Wicked River by Lee Sandlin. The book is a not-quite narrative history of the Mississippi River, its people, and its various excentricities prior to its dredging, locking, damming, and taming. It loving owns because it is a well written, hilarious, meandering look at all kinds of crazy poo poo from a very weird time in American history. 1812 to 1861 is a period that has been best categorized as that Old, Weird America. Old, Weird America was a place of relentless thievery, drunkeness, debauchery, religious fanaticism, piracy, and general insanity. Imagine that everybody in the world acts like the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and you have a rough idea. The closest parallel I can think of is comparing the modern UFC to the early 90s UFC. That Old, Weird UFC where sumo wrestlers fought gymnasts and where Kimbo Slice would have made sense. Sandlin covers a wide range of topics, from hydrology to dueling, and has amassed some pretty impressive and hilarious stories and assorted folklore. Davey Crockett, it is claimed, once fought a bison that was a thousand years old. These pleasures and much more await you on the Wicked River.
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Mar 19, 2011 07:38
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Joe McKinney's Quarantined. San Antonio is ravaged by a virulent flu virus in the near future and is quarantined off from the rest of the world, surrounded by a large wall and patrolling helicopters to keep people in. A murder is committed on one of the flu researchers, and the narrator cop and her partner are sent to solve the crime. Really good premise. The writing was meh, but the book was short enough that this didn't make a big difference to me. The book could have used a few more pages, however, it felt like everything was tied off at the end too quickly without exploring some of those things with the depth they deserved. Good book overall.
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Mar 19, 2011 15:55
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Just finished Roberto Bolaņo's 2666. Reading the book took me considerably longer than I expected, sailing through the first parts quickly, until I reached the part about the murders. God drat, that was a depressing slog through it, I could not read more than a couple paragraphs in there without feeling sick. Especially since the events happening there are still going on and whatnot. That section was just completely devastating, even considering that the other parts are not exactly cheerful either. I do not really understand the book, and I will have to eventually re-read it. Very depressing, but I liked it for the most part. Strange how all the settings and characters end up converging in that point, but I guess that was part of the point.
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Mar 19, 2011 18:00
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Cover by Jack Ketchum. It was... well, it was odd. It's sort of like Rambo : First blood, since the story is basically a vietnam vet losing his poo poo and killing people in the woods. The story was kinda interesting, and the writing really showed the guy losing his mind very well. The ending was kind of lovely though. All in all, I paid 1.99 for it at wal mart, and I got my 1.99 worth of enjoyment out of it. I can't really recommend it unless you are really looking for a "vet going insane" book. It's not quite horror, or thriller, but an odd combination of both that somehow seems less because of it. If you enjoyed Rambo, you will like this book.
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Mar 20, 2011 00:22
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MillionsV posted:Just finished Slaughterhouse-Five, but that's no big deal, because it was for the 30th time or so. You have my respect. I read that book every couple years and it has never failed to amaze me each and every time. I just finished Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. In the way that the book flowed very simply through a character's story while largely reserving judgment and shying away from dramatic sequences, it reminded me a lot of Kazuo Ishiguro's works. But Sebald added a texture there that is not present in Ishiguro's (and this is in no way a knock on the latter's work) which made the book really stand out for me. I especially enjoyed the departures into architectural theory and the way each of these partial tangents was worked into the story so artfully.
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Mar 21, 2011 19:26
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Just finished 'If on a winter's night a traveler' by Italo Calvino. It was one of the strangest books I've ever read. A friend recommended 'Invisible Cities' by the same author, but when I couldn't find that in the library, I instead picked up if on a winter's night a traveler. Much of it was written in second person, and many of the short story introductions left me wanting to finish reading that particular story. I guess I'll have to read some more of his other books. It's been such a long time since I've read much fiction other than Terry Pratchett. I'll try track that down. For now I have a book of his short stories VVVVVVVVVVV thefoozl fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 03:59
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thefoozl posted:I guess I'll have to read some more of his other books. It's been such a long time since I've read much fiction other than Terry Pratchett. In that case I'll have to recommend Cosmicomics.
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Mar 22, 2011 08:41
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Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze. A dandy little bit of noir about an escaped con keeping a low profile and a high-priced call girl lying low as a $5-a-night whore, and their plan to stage a daring armed robbery. People who know about the genre claim this is one of the best noir novels ever written, and I'm inclined to agree. There's real power and intensity in it, and Chaze really invests a lot of time in plumbing the depths of his characters instead of just hammering at plot-plot-plot. After this one novel, the author wouldn't return to crime fiction for another sixteen years. Out of print for nearly 60 years, but since the copyright (supposedly) lapsed under the old system, e-book versions have been popping up like mushrooms. Also, a movie version has been in development for several years, so we'll see how they screw that one up.
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Mar 22, 2011 18:30
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Just read The Thieves of Heaven. The summary makes it sound like a DaVinci Code knockoff, but the author is worse then Dan Brown. A reformed thief's wife has cancer. The only way he can pay for her treatment is go back to his thieving ways and pull off a heist from the Vatican for a mysterious man. The mysterious man turns out to be the devil, and the theft he performed is going to prevent his wife's soul from reaching Heaven. Oops. Now he must race to fix it! The book is full of plot holes, unlikeable characters, and doesn't even come close to making theological sense. Although, it does feature a "Vatican Assassin", which is kind of interesting given the recent Charlie Sheen comments. Apparently there is a whole series of these books, but I won't be reading any more.
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Mar 23, 2011 04:02
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Watership Down- I read it because many people told me it fell under the "must read" category-- as in, everyone has read this. A good number of my friends (even ones who don't read a lot) have. It was worth the read. I made myself put it down and start another book so I wouldn't finish it too quickly. The personification of rabbit life while maintaining scientific fact mixed with imagination makes the plot excellent, as well as excellent pastoral prose. I will definitely read this again.
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Mar 23, 2011 04:14
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thefoozl posted:Just finished 'If on a winter's night a traveler' by Italo Calvino. It was one of the strangest books I've ever read. A friend recommended 'Invisible Cities' by the same author, but when I couldn't find that in the library, I instead picked up if on a winter's night a traveler. I just recently read Calvino's The Baron In The Trees and The Nonexistent Knight and the Cloven Viscount which are both really good as well.
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Mar 23, 2011 06:32
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Finished "The Magnificent Ambersons" yesterday. I enjoyed about 4/5ths of the book, but the ending was AWFUL. It was like Booth Tarkington was forced to write a happy(ish) ending, but then decided to arrive there by the most astoundingly random and stupid means imaginable. Also, Pulitzer Prize? Really? At any rate, I wish the Orson Welles movie existed in its intended form, because he would have probably made something awesome out of the book, but I don't really want to watch the studio patch-job that was ultimately released. Up next, probably something cheesy and sci-fi/fantasy-y to douche my brain.
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Mar 23, 2011 17:01
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a few ARCs of note: Robopocalypse, by Daniel H Wilson, which is due out in June and is set to be translated into movie form by none other than Mr Steven Spielberg. If you've read the excellent World War Z, you will be entirely familiar with the structure, and if you've seen The Animatrix(or, like, a million other things), you won't be surprised at the plot, but it's still a pretty enjoyable read. It's a little uneven, but a few of the minor details/subplots are really good and it basically does what it sets out to accomplish. edit- Robopocalypse is definitely not a hardcover buy. honestly, the movie has a shot at being better than the book because I don't think Wilson is much of a writer. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. I have not read his collection of short stories, so I was totally unfamiliar with Wilson's work, but this was pretty good- I read it in a day. If I had to sum it up in one line, I'd say "Geek Love by way of Kurt Vonnegut." There are no circus freaks, but there is a married couple who raise their two children to be part of their guerilla-style performance-art pieces, severely effing them up in the process and leaving them as adults struggling to separate themselves from their art. There is also a lot of KV-style pathos, some seriously funny moments, and a somewhat Kilgore Trout-esque story-within-a-story. This is due out in the summer and will probably get a lot of attention from the hip, indie-bookstore community. funkybottoms fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Mar 24, 2011 |
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Mar 23, 2011 18:59
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terrorist posted:Watership Down- I read it because many people told me it fell under the "must read" category-- as in, everyone has read this. A good number of my friends (even ones who don't read a lot) have. It was worth the read. I made myself put it down and start another book so I wouldn't finish it too quickly. The personification of rabbit life while maintaining scientific fact mixed with imagination makes the plot excellent, as well as excellent pastoral prose. I will definitely read this again. Tales From Watership Down is pretty good, so definitely check that out. I had problems getting into his other work, though.
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Mar 23, 2011 19:01
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The Black Company - Shadows Linger - The White Rose (the first trilogy of the Black Company series) by Glen Cook. The Black Company moves at an incredible pace, each chapter is like a whole story in itself. It also sketches out just enough of the world to know you would never want to go there. I loved the series' naming convention - Nearly everyone's name is descriptive, GW Bush press corps style. It made it much easier to remember even minor characters in a fast narrative, and fit with the idea of nearly everyone trying to dodge the past. Shadows Linger had some pacing problems due to a structure where a new character's perspective is used every other chapter, but it's creepier and more personal. The White Rose is pretty strange overall. There were points that I could imagine battle scenes being animated by Ralph Bashki. It also has an uncharacteristically positive ending, which I was not really expecting. I actually went into the series expecting a "low magic" setting, since it's been mentioned as an influence on some other low magic fantasy. Definitely not low magic. But, it still has a certain kind of voice you don't see in most similar settings.
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Mar 24, 2011 01:09
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thefoozl posted:Just finished 'If on a winter's night a traveler' by Italo Calvino. It was one of the strangest books I've ever read. A friend recommended 'Invisible Cities' by the same author, but when I couldn't find that in the library, I instead picked up if on a winter's night a traveler. Check out David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Its got a "short stories intersecting" structure similar to Calvino.
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Mar 24, 2011 02:16
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Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote See the thread. David Morrell - First Blood The book that introduces Rambo. loving amazing. Where the movie was war porn, the novel is gripping psychological drama. The POV alternates throughout between Rambo and the Sheriff, showing how each dealt with the confrontation. Moral ambiguity abounds, the Sheriff certainly provoked Rambo, but Rambo's response is so extreme it's impossible to justify.
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Mar 24, 2011 12:13
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Just finishing up Catching Fire, the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. I've really enjoyed the first 2 books, especially the survival tactics they use in the arena. I see Suzanne Collins has another trilogy, The Underland Chronicles. Has anyone read it? I'd love opinions. I'm also open to any recommendations of other young adult literature (I guess that's the genre?) along the lines of Harry Potter/Series of Unfortunate Events. I'm a sucker for books that don't make me think hard and let me just enjoy a story.
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Mar 25, 2011 04:03
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