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empty sea posted:I just started The Once and Future King. It's really good, not at all what I was expecting. I tried to read this months ago and couldn't get far because it wasn't what I was expecting. I wanted something less humorous, not what the Disney cartoon was based on, though I guess the tone darkens later on. I'm about 15% into the Kindle ebook version of Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume One: Fort Sumter to Perryville. I've been interested in reading this series for a long time, knowing little of the Civil War, and I am enjoying it. The narrative form flows really well, though lacking footnotes can be a little confusing when you don't remember exactly what things like the Missouri Compromise entailed and he doesn't explain it. The ebook version is good, well formatted with in text pictures like maps. I'm wary of every ebook I buy as some companies just seem to OCR and be done with it, errors be damned.
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Aug 22, 2011 06:25
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I'm starting Got Fight? by Forest Griffin. I brought it when it first came out and didn't finish it. I don't know where I left off when I was reading it, so I'm going to totally restart it.
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Aug 27, 2011 03:49
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The Secret Life of Houdini. I was prompted to read this after my (amateur magician) boss recommended it. I also went to the Houdini exhibit at the Skirball and have been to the Magic Castle a bunch, so it only seems right. So far so good.
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Aug 27, 2011 18:49
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About a third into The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. The book would really benefit if the author toned down her prose a little bit. Not everything needs to be described with a simile. Not everything needs to be expressed in the wittiest way possible and not every single sentence needs to be so goddamn clever.
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Aug 27, 2011 20:20
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I just started A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I've had the thing hanging around for something like 10 years now and I'm finally getting around to reading it. I'm a few chapters in, and I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I recently finished The Evolution of God and Guns, Germs, and Steel which is probably what lead me to disagree with some of the views stated early on in the book. Specifically, I think he immensely underplays the role that disease had in the deaths of Native Americans, and he doesn't bother to examine what caused them to live a communal lifestyle or why the religions and laws of hunter gatherers are the way they are. I get that he's trying to come at the topic from a certain angle (which is why I decided to read the book) but I wish he would be more analytical. So now I'm starting off pretty skeptical, which in all honesty is exactly how one should be when they're reading history. Regardless, I am enjoying it so far and learning things which I had never even thought to question, like how Columbus made money on his voyages if he was unable to find gold or spices.
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Aug 28, 2011 15:52
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masada00 posted:I just started A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I've had the thing hanging around for something like 10 years now and I'm finally getting around to reading it. I'm a few chapters in, and I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I recently finished The Evolution of God and Guns, Germs, and Steel which is probably what lead me to disagree with some of the views stated early on in the book. Specifically, I think he immensely underplays the role that disease had in the deaths of Native Americans, and he doesn't bother to examine what caused them to live a communal lifestyle or why the religions and laws of hunter gatherers are the way they are. I get that he's trying to come at the topic from a certain angle (which is why I decided to read the book) but I wish he would be more analytical. So now I'm starting off pretty skeptical, which in all honesty is exactly how one should be when they're reading history. Regardless, I am enjoying it so far and learning things which I had never even thought to question, like how Columbus made money on his voyages if he was unable to find gold or spices. In general terms Zinn would probably concede your point, but it's not unrelated to the perspective he's trying to highlight; he's trying to achieve a focused polemic rather than a more general history, as he notes in Chapter 1: quote:My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present. And the lines are not always clear. In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.
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Aug 28, 2011 19:30
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Getting ready to start screenwritersblues fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Sep 2, 2011 |
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Aug 31, 2011 21:29
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I just started River of Gods by Ian McDonald. I'm not a sci-fi fan at all, but I'm enjoying this one so far. It's a speculative fiction of what India will be like on the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2047, told through several different character's perspectives, including a policeman tasked with hunting rogue AIs and a journalist hoping that her interview with a holographic AI soap actor will be her big break. Like I said, despite my distaste for sci-fi as a whole, this one's really grabbed me so far, unless the quality takes a nosedive at some point I'll probably end up buying The Dervish House, by the same author--same concept, but in Turkey.
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Sep 1, 2011 04:17
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I just got and have nearly finished All Creatures Great and Small, and it really turned out to be an excellent book. James Herriot's stories about life as a vet in rural England and the strange people who live there run the whole gamut from sad to suspenseful to hilarious, although the stories are largely upbeat and lighthearted. The cast is great too, Herriot himself seems to be mostly an observer while his high-strung boss, his boss' cunning but lazy brother, a rich old lady and her pampered dog (and later pig), a livestock butcher who makes up diseases, and an entire cast of bizarre Yorkshire farmers steal the show. Basically, if you've ever seen Father Ted, this book's Yorkshire Dales are basically Craggy Island, just slightlly more grounded in reality, and with more people shoving their arms up cows asses.
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Sep 1, 2011 18:01
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Hondo82 posted:I tried to read this months ago and couldn't get far because it wasn't what I was expecting. I wanted something less humorous, not what the Disney cartoon was based on, though I guess the tone darkens later on. I haven't read The Once and Future King in ages (I keep meaning to reread it) but I strongly suspect you could simply skip the first part (labelled as Book 1 or Part 1 or whatever) and start with Arthur as King & get the book you're looking for. IIRC, White wrote the Wart & Merlin sections later and added them into the book.
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Sep 1, 2011 20:53
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I just started Pastoralia by George Saunders. He came highly recommended, since I'm into guys like DFW, Dave Eggers, Vonnegut, Pynchon, etc. -- but I just can't get into it. Almost finished with the opening novella and it's just not doing much for me, for some reason or another. Thinking of switching over to one of DeLillo's books -- probably Players.
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Sep 2, 2011 02:42
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Just started Dune Messiah, as I finished reading the original Dune just yesterday. Looking forward to it!
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Sep 2, 2011 02:50
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Major Isoor posted:Just started Dune Messiah, as I finished reading the original Dune just yesterday. Looking forward to it! I just started reading the original Dune. My first time!
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Sep 2, 2011 02:51
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Started reading Sixty Days and Counting the 3rd book of the Science in the Capital series by Kim Stanley Robinson. Really liking the characters in this series and the usual science and pseudoscience bits all Robinson books have. The writing and the side stories remind me of his Mars books, which I liked a lot. Might try Three Californias or The Years of Rice and Salt next, anyone got any feedback on those?
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Sep 2, 2011 07:44
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No More Raccoons posted:I just started Pastoralia by George Saunders. He came highly recommended, since I'm into guys like DFW, Dave Eggers, Vonnegut, Pynchon, etc. -- but I just can't get into it. Almost finished with the opening novella and it's just not doing much for me, for some reason or another. PLEASE keep going. His novellas didn't do much for me, either, but the short strories are really, really worth it. Especially the one about the lab monkeys. I promise.
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Sep 2, 2011 15:49
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About 90 pages into The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman - I read Gilman's debut a few years ago and picked this one up because the central idea was interesting (a world still in the process of creation on the far western frontier, with the East long-settled and a war between two rival factions still raging in the wild West). So far, very good - I dig the fusion of the Western with some fantasy elements, and the Line/Gun rivalry is interesting - sort of Blood Meridian meets Once Upon A Time In The West. Gilman's writing has definitely gotten better from what I remember as well.Hondo82 posted:I'm about 15% into the Kindle ebook version of Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume One: Fort Sumter to Perryville. I've been interested in reading this series for a long time, knowing little of the Civil War, and I am enjoying it. The narrative form flows really well, though lacking footnotes can be a little confusing when you don't remember exactly what things like the Missouri Compromise entailed and he doesn't explain it. Yeah, that was really good when I read it last year. There's probably a more exhaustive and scholarly history out there but Foote's style really makes this one.
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Sep 3, 2011 01:08
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After not being able to finish The Once and Future King, I've started on Bleak House by Charles Dickens and I'm rereading The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. The Years of Rice and Salt is an amazing book that looks at how the last 700 years or so of history would have turned out if the Black Plague had killed off 99% of Europe's population. Basically history without Europeans. Just really cool. There's an awesome scene of the character exploring an empty Europe that's creepy as hell. 
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Sep 3, 2011 02:43
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I'm about to start Swann's Way with the goal of reading In Search of Lost Time in its entirety. I've been wanting to read this for awhile and decided to quit Outlaws of the Marsh half-way through to start this instead.
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Sep 3, 2011 23:42
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I'm about ready to get on to the last leg of the Black Company, Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live. I can't say I've enjoyed the series as much since they went south (a good three books are the same events and times from different perspectives and the last one drags a good bit), but it's still very entertaining, especially considering I don't care much for fantasy. That said "Soldiers Live" sounds like a fitting name for a final book in the series (though two more are being written).
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Sep 4, 2011 02:35
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Picked up Penguin's Li Po and Tu Fu collection today. Since reading The Pillow Book, I've been interested in reading classical Chinese poetry and this, plus Songs of the South, seems like a good place to begin.
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Sep 4, 2011 04:06
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Due to a Gentleman's Agreement with a friend, I am being forced to read the copy of Grandma's Sex Handbook she gifted me through Kindle Store. This book is preparing me for a kinky and Christian life with my Husband. I'm Male, so this is a very hard book to read. In retaliation, I got her Autobiography of a Flea, so I feel as though justice was done.
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Sep 4, 2011 08:37
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commish posted:I just started reading the original Dune. My first time!   Mine too! I hope you either have the following two books already, or don't have too much difficulty in finding them, like I did for a while! (until just a couple of days before I finished the original, thankfully - so I was able to go straight into the second book)
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Sep 5, 2011 05:54
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Woo, is it first-time-reading-Dune month or something? I'm about a hundred pages in and loving it. All the little passages from various Muad'Dib texts throughout are really cool. Why did it take me 24 years of my life to get into these books... My best friend at high school raved about them all the time but I never really paid attention. 
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Sep 5, 2011 06:20
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Hedrigall posted:Woo, is it first-time-reading-Dune month or something? I'm about a hundred pages in and loving it. All the little passages from various Muad'Dib texts throughout are really cool. Why did it take me 24 years of my life to get into these books... My best friend at high school raved about them all the time but I never really paid attention. The only bad thing (or perhaps good thing) about reading Dune is that you can't look at a lot of modern/pop sci-fi without seeing the influence from that book. A lot of the concepts in pop culture sci-fi like Warhammer 40,000 is ripped from Frank Herbert's books.
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Sep 5, 2011 14:58
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barkingclam posted:Picked up Penguin's Li Po and Tu Fu collection today. Since reading The Pillow Book, I've been interested in reading classical Chinese poetry and this, plus Songs of the South, seems like a good place to begin. I'm not stalking you, honest, but I too got into classical Chinese poetry from The Pillow Book so I'm excited to hear what you think. And the Chinese Literature thread needs more input!
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Sep 6, 2011 03:38
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I have hit the point in reading non-fiction in which I am sick of it all, all, all, and so it's time to pick up a novel. I think I'm going to go with The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne -- yes, a detective novel by the author of Winnie the Pooh, but he wrote this first! (He actually wrote a ton of stuff other than Pooh, but I've no idea if I'll like any of it.)
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Sep 6, 2011 03:40
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Just started The Count of Monte Cristo (the unabridged version) after being recommended to it by a friend. Now I know why they made e-readers, this thing is a freaking monster to carry around. I am really liking the translation so far by Robin Buss and I am looking forward to the remaining 1100 pages.
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Sep 6, 2011 16:43
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About 250 pages into The Corrections. My god, Franzen's a beautiful writer.
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Sep 7, 2011 02:02
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Idonie posted:I'm not stalking you, honest, but I too got into classical Chinese poetry from The Pillow Book so I'm excited to hear what you think. And the Chinese Literature thread needs more input! Oh, I haven't started them yet, I'm petty deep into some other stuff at the moment.
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Sep 7, 2011 03:01
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I'm about 250 pages into Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, which technically is still near the beginning of that book. It's one of the longest in the English language, at about 1488 pages total. Ostensibly it's about an Indian mother trying to find a husband for her daughter, but it follows about 30-something characters and provides a pretty broad spectrum of characters and stories. And I just found out last night that Seth is currently working on A Suitable Girl, which should be out in 2013. I hope it's as good as this is turning out to be, and as long.
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Sep 7, 2011 15:02
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Bought Connie Willis' "Doomsday Book" on a whim, because I remember enjoying one of her short stories many years ago. Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" is next.
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Sep 7, 2011 16:41
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Folderol posted:In general terms Zinn would probably concede your point, but it's not unrelated to the perspective he's trying to highlight; he's trying to achieve a focused polemic rather than a more general history, as he notes in Chapter 1: I understand the stance Zinn is taking and that's not my issue with the book. I started reading it knowing it was going to be about the victims of history. Having read The Jungle, I went into it expecting that type of story to play out but as a straight history book. My issue is with some of his information being incorrect, and letting his presumptions carry his work. Knowing how intelligent the man, I get the feeling that he's manipulating the information to show want he wants it to prove instead of what it actually does. To me, it detracts from the book so much that it breaks the flow and makes it difficult to read. It's like if I wanted to find out about the conservatives' views on the President so I watched Fox News, but then saw them hack his words up to make it sound like he wanted the government to take over all businesses. The words they're using were actually said but they change the context to infer a different meaning. It's this lack of honesty that irks me and makes people lose credibility in my eyes.
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Sep 9, 2011 00:57
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The History of English: A Linguistic Introduction by Scott Shay. To me this is porn, and if anyone has a similar suggestion I'd gladly welcome it.
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Sep 9, 2011 12:37
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Ka0 posted:The History of English: A Linguistic Introduction by Scott Shay. David Crystal has a bunch of stuff. He edited the textbook I used for my grad class on the English Language, but he also has written stuff with a much broader appeal. (Though if you described the Shay book as porn you might even enjoy the textbook; I did.)
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Sep 9, 2011 14:34
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Ka0 posted:The History of English: A Linguistic Introduction by Scott Shay.
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Sep 9, 2011 16:32
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The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, a Booker nominee and a Western. Well-written but the two brothers just seem to be having a group of random encounters.
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Sep 10, 2011 01:56
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True Grit Considering how much I like both movies I figured it was about time I read the book.
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Sep 10, 2011 04:14
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The Eyre Affair. It's interesting, I'll grant it that.
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Sep 10, 2011 05:39
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I started Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes a few days ago. I'm enjoying it: it's dark, it's funny and I suspect a lot more true than Exley claimed at the beginning of the book. It reminds me of David Foster Wallace a lot, too.
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Sep 10, 2011 22:22
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The Sardonyx Net by Elizabeth Lynn. I remember reading it in high school and enjoying it without really understanding it; I suspect it'll make more sense now. Or I'll hate it and give up, one of the two. A Cezanne in the Hedge which is a bunch of essays about the Bloomsbury Group, which is one of the things I've read a lot about over the years. It starts with a celebration of Vanessa Bell by Margaret Drabble, which is promising; I'm more interested in reading about Nessa right now than I am in reading about Woolf & Strachey.
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Sep 11, 2011 23:06
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