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Mr. Squishy posted:I just started a book of Evelyn Waugh's letters, and did you know that he was the most detestable old-school-tie, anti-semitic, classist gently caress out there? Oh you did? I just read the Sword of Honour trilogy and I got the same vibes. It's a war novel, with wonderful prose, but its themes and characterizations are awful. Gross, classist, sexist, racist, traditionalist horseshit. I finished it because I think the novel has its merits, but overall I would say I did not like the book because of its awful message. Today, I started Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse because somehow I have never read any Woolf before.
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Feb 17, 2013 03:54
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Just started THE HERETIC by Joseph Nassise. Only about 100 pages into it. Filled with Templars, necromancers and fallen angels. I feel it is going to be action packed!
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Feb 17, 2013 07:02
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I read Eye To See by him, and it was pretty good. Takes place in the same universe as the Heretic series. The ending to ETS kinda kicked me in the balls, so it gives me hope for that series too.
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Feb 17, 2013 07:36
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I read Eye To See by him, and it was pretty good. Takes place in the same universe as the Heretic series. The ending to ETS kinda kicked me in the balls, so it gives me hope for that series too. I am really enjoying his book so far. I will have to check that one out. I also started the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison. The first book, Dead Witch Walking, was very good.
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Feb 17, 2013 13:03
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150 pags into this one! So far awesome!! Here's the publisher's blur: "Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Ejected from three Jewish day schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity. The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy—a novel that is muscular and verbose, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable." Horrorca fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Feb 22, 2013 |
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Feb 21, 2013 23:27
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I started Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son a couple of days ago. I'd heard good things, but I'm not really impressed: Pak Jun Do isn't really a likeable guy, but maybe that's the point.
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Feb 22, 2013 01:24
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barkingclam posted:I started Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son a couple of days ago. I'd heard good things, but I'm not really impressed: Pak Jun Do isn't really a likeable guy, but maybe that's the point. I really enjoyed the depiction of life in North Korea, but I found the plot to be a bit lacking. If you've got an interest in the DPRK, keep reading, but if not, it's probably not worth struggling through.
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Feb 22, 2013 01:58
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Several weeks ago while I was finishing up The Crippled God, the last book in the Malazan series, I started reading this book House of Holes. I have no idea where I heard about this book. It's some sort of ridiculous erotica that follows several different people around. No idea why this was on my Amazon wishlist (I use it to keep track of books I want to read). The actual serious book that I am reading right now is The Table Comes First by Adam Gopnick. It's essentially a book about the philosophy of food, recipes, why we eat food the way we do, and things of that nature. I heard the author interviewed on a local radio show several months ago, and it sounded interesting, so I put it down on my list. I am liking it so far.
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Feb 22, 2013 03:44
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Mr. Squishy posted:I just started a book of Evelyn Waugh's letters, and did you know that he was the most detestable old-school-tie, anti-semitic, classist gently caress out there? Oh you did? He's still a fantastic author though. I've read all his letters too. Currently reading Eric Ambler's The Schirmer Inheritance. If it's good enough for Graham Greene, it's good enough for me. EDIT - I realise my avatar is going to make me out as a snobbish Evelyn Waugh fanboy, but I just really like the portait, that's all. Octy fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 10:03
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Just picked up Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I will be going into this knowing a few things about the incident, but I'm hoping that the book gives a lot of insight and frame of reference to the events surrounding McCandless' life. I read Into Thin Air before starting this and absolutely loved that book, so I kind of have high expectations for this one.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:26
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Geek U.S.A. posted:Just picked up Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I will be going into this knowing a few things about the incident, but I'm hoping that the book gives a lot of insight and frame of reference to the events surrounding McCandless' life. I did the opposite... read Into The Wild, hated it, had to be persuaded to read Into Thin Air, loved it. I thought McCandless' story was interesting, but I didn't like Krakauer's person interjections about his mountaineering experiences. They made much more sense in a book about, you know, mountaineering.
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Feb 26, 2013 20:32
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Just picked up a used copy of Brave New World, since I've somehow never read it, Emile Zola's The Debacle and two Carl Hiaasen books: Skinny Dip and Star Island. I flew through Sick Puppy a little while ago and loved it, so I've got high hopes for those two.
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Mar 2, 2013 18:12
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I just started Naked Lunch. I read the description of The Great Slashtubitch and that pretty much sold me on the book. I got the Kindle edition, so whenever I'm on the computer and I need to see something really cool and hosed up I'll pop that poo poo open and have myself a grand old time.
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Mar 2, 2013 23:51
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Down With People posted:I just started Naked Lunch. I loving love that book. I read it three times in like six months. There's an old book-of-the-month post about it too, if you want to supplement your reading. Also, I just started Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.... Only 1/3 of the way through but drat if the nihilism of most of the characters is unnerving.
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Mar 6, 2013 23:41
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I started Umberto Eco's Baudolino last week, I'm about a fourth of the way through it. I'm enjoying it. It's far more lighthearted that most other fantasy I've read without it feeling kiddy at all.
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Mar 7, 2013 01:20
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I started The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski and it's already driving me up the wall. It seems to be entirely composed of 5 different interviews of five different people at the same time, with only differently coloured quotation marks denoting who is speaking. Which is a nice idea, but the problem is that all the quotation marks are basically different shades of reddish brown so there is no loving way of knowing what is going on GODDAMN. Maybe that's the point?
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Mar 10, 2013 02:07
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I just started reading Antifragile - Things That Gain from Disorder.  So far it has been intriguing, but it hasn't really laid anything too utterly groundbreaking out there. Anytime he starts talking about science or medicine and how "antifragile" those fields are, I cringe. I haven't gotten to where he discusses those topics in detail, but I am extremely skeptical from what he has mentioned thus far. Anyone else read this and have an opinion? Worth a separate thread?
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Mar 10, 2013 18:37
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I'm about a hundred pages into Blindness by Jose Saramego and I feel like I'm missing a crucial element. Like how I didn't enjoy Blood Meridian until I read some criticism and started thinking of the characters and themes in different terms like how violence/The West is a character, moreso than the actual characters and it kind of all fell into place and it's one of my favorite books now. I haven't found that understanding in Blindness and I'm mostly annoyed. I tried to look for a tiny amount of perspective on the internet and surprise, I got spoiled on some things.
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Mar 11, 2013 21:35
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Just started reading A Higher Call by Adam Makos; you can read the basics of the story in this (very good, for once!) CNN article: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/09/living/higher-call-military-chivalry/index.html?hpt=hp_c4 60 pages in and it's not disappointing so far. Fantastic story and well written. Book #24 for my 2013 Goodreads challenge!
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Mar 11, 2013 21:48
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Hitch posted:I just started reading Antifragile - Things That Gain from Disorder. Both of his books are amazing, did you read The Black Swan? Antifragile ties into that book alot. I don't know about a separate thread but it would be nice to have a place to discuss his books and books of this kind such as Oliver Sacks, but I think even that could have its own thread.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:16
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I just started my first Ernest Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises. I am not sure if this is a good place to start, but given the description (The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation) it should be right up my alley. To be clear I have read The Old Man and the Sea in high school, but that is a novella. I hope this book starts a love affair between me and Hemingway.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:38
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nate fisher posted:I just started my first Ernest Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises. I am not sure if this is a good place to start, but given the description (The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation) it should be right up my alley. To be clear I have read The Old Man and the Sea in high school, but that is a novella. I hope this book starts a love affair between me and Hemingway. I think it's a great place to start. I started with that one and absolutely loved it. I ended up reading a few more Hemingway books in rapid succession, with mixed results. I just haven't found any of his works to be as good as The Sun Also Rises, which really disappoints me. But at least you will have read one of the good ones. If you started with To Have and Have Not, you'd probably never read Hemingway again.
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Mar 12, 2013 20:25
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:I started The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski and it's already driving me up the wall. It seems to be entirely composed of 5 different interviews of five different people at the same time, with only differently coloured quotation marks denoting who is speaking. Which is a nice idea, but the problem is that all the quotation marks are basically different shades of reddish brown so there is no loving way of knowing what is going on GODDAMN. Maybe that's the point? House of Leaves was cool and all, but yeah, goddamn. I gave up reading Fifty Year Sword about half-way through, like 10 or 15 pages in. The shortest book I've never finished. The Everest thread in GBS well enough convinced me to buy Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. And many, many more books about Everest and its numerous disasters. I'm actually surprised I'm so interested in Everest now, but there ya go. Way too excited to read this book!
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Mar 13, 2013 01:33
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Flaggy posted:Both of his books are amazing, did you read The Black Swan? Antifragile ties into that book alot. I don't know about a separate thread but it would be nice to have a place to discuss his books and books of this kind such as Oliver Sacks, but I think even that could have its own thread. Yeah maybe I'll put something together when I get a bit more into it. I will admit though that I am liking it more and more as I read further. While he hasn't fully supported his ideas yet, they are well thought out and follow pretty well.
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Mar 13, 2013 02:27
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barkingclam posted:I started Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son a couple of days ago. I'd heard good things, but I'm not really impressed: Pak Jun Do isn't really a likeable guy, but maybe that's the point. His lack of a morality and disregard of the horrendous effects that his actions have on others is deliberate. It plays an important part in the character's growth and his decisions during the later half of the book. If you can, stick with the book. I think it gets better as the story progresses. One technique I enjoyed was how the author will give you just enough information to grasp parts of the story and eventually you will put them together without it being spelled out. But from what I remember this doesn't happen until later on.
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Mar 15, 2013 00:38
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masada00 posted:His lack of a morality and disregard of the horrendous effects that his actions have on others is deliberate. It plays an important part in the character's growth and his decisions during the later half of the book. If you can, stick with the book. I think it gets better as the story progresses. One technique I enjoyed was how the author will give you just enough information to grasp parts of the story and eventually you will put them together without it being spelled out. But from what I remember this doesn't happen until later on. Yeah, I posted it in the other thread, but I stuck with it and liked it a lot more as it went on, starting around the point where he goes on the fishing vessel. Looking back, I can see why the first half was set up the way it was but the second half is a much better read. Although I stand by it basically being Casablanca as written by Kafka.
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Mar 15, 2013 00:45
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I just started reading the Metrozone trilogy, a goon posted that all three books were on Kindle for less than $10. I'm really enjoying it. "I have two options. Get a new heart or die soon." She blinked slowly. "You mean cake or death?"
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Mar 23, 2013 01:50
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I started Mason & Dixon the other day. It's already pretty good: there's a talking dog, a ship captain who's at least a little crazy and some cool sections about stargazing.
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Mar 24, 2013 03:08
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Picked up The Yard by Alex Grecian. The funny thing is I like mysteries and I like Victorian London stories and this book has both so I really enjoy this book. I guess that wasn't actually funny at all. Good book though.
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Mar 24, 2013 18:58
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Started reading a book called Nurture Shock which challenges current thinking about child-rearing and development. Pretty easy read and pretty interesting so far. It's done by the group that presented the study on telling kids their smart backfiring and hindering their development. I also am looking to start a book called The Theoretical Minimum. It's a bit different, but it essentially teaches you the minimum you need to know to understand physics. The catch is that it includes the mathematics that go along with it. I'm waiting for a digital copy from Google, but may bite the bullet and buy it from the Apple Store. On second thought...screw the Apple Store.
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Mar 24, 2013 19:01
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Started reading The Snow by Adam Roberts. It didn't really seem like my type of book, from the synopsis, but so far (about half way through) it's pretty good.
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Mar 24, 2013 19:16
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Finally started Guns, Germs, and Steel and holy poo poo I'm already enthralled.
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Mar 24, 2013 20:52
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Dirty_Moses posted:Finally started Guns, Germs, and Steel and holy poo poo I'm already enthralled. That's a great read. Anything by Jared Diamond is great. If you enjoy that one all the way through, check out The Moral Animal. Another great one along those lines.
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Mar 24, 2013 21:43
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Reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan, which is loving awesome, and picked up 3/5 of the way through Blood Meridian immediately slotting back into their shenanigans as though I'd never left a year or 2 ago. Not sure why I stopped reading that book but it's probably the same reason as now, I have so many other things to read and that one was dragging. I'll finish Blood Meridian before starting another fiction book though. Top 5 To Read list of books I've bought even though I'm reading other books and have a few other books I should read first is Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon, Oliver Sacks Hallucinations, Irvine Welsh Skagboys, David Mitchell Number 9 Dream, Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot. The trouble with Carl Sagan is I read his books with his slow, weird, ponderous voice which makes me quite sleepy and I rarely read more than 15 pages in a sitting without wanting to nod off. The trouble with Cormac McCarthy is I read his books visualizing every sentence and grow tired after about 5 pages, wanting to nod off. The trouble is I don't start reading until well after midnight when I should start well before.
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Mar 31, 2013 18:28
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Just bought Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. I love his take on Much Ado About Nothing and how wildly misunderstood the play is. I still don't like the play though.
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Mar 31, 2013 18:42
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art of spoonbending posted:The trouble with Carl Sagan is I read his books with his slow, weird, ponderous voice which makes me quite sleepy and I rarely read more than 15 pages in a sitting without wanting to nod off. I had the same problem! I would always read it with his voice in my mind. The slow, methodical description with the typical hand usage he employed to get across the magnificence of what he is explaining. Had to really force myself out of that line of thinking through just concentrating on the content. Helped reading a few other books along the same lines to take my mind off of it. Man do I miss that man. And obviously Hitch as well. Two pure intellectual geniuses.
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Mar 31, 2013 20:25
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I was gifted Maia by Richard Adams recently and just started working my way through it. It's wordy as hell and some of the slang takes a second reading to sink in, but I'm really enjoying it so far.
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Apr 1, 2013 06:58
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Just started reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, very exciting book so far.
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Apr 1, 2013 12:17
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Stephen King's The Stand. I'm slightly behind the times, I suppose.
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Apr 3, 2013 05:44
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Finally getting around to Pawn of Prophecy by Eddings and it's an enjoyable read so far; I'll probably read the others as well.
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Apr 3, 2013 19:06
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