|
xcheopis posted:More library books! Anthology of Chinese Literature by Cyril Birch (2 volumes), Hyperbole-and-a-half, and a few from Eva Ibbotson. These ought to get me through the next week! I missed the release of Hyperbole and a Half? I'm broke As poo poo right now and ordering the hell out of it, anyway. Also, picked up a used copy of Storm front to dip my toes in the Dresden Files. The first chapter is looking super promising. Which is good because I need a fair bit of silly escapism right now. Then on to some Vonnegut to brood before tackling my backlog of not comedy.
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 04:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 04:08 |
|
|
Butch Cassidy posted:I missed the release of Hyperbole and a Half? I'm broke As poo poo right now and ordering the hell out of it, anyway. I'm really enjoying it. I don't think it's as hilarious as Let's Pretend This Never Happened but that's a pretty high bar. New comics and old! ("go to the motherfucking bank like an adult!") My one complaint is that the comics had to be reduced for the book size. Boooo!
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 04:58
|
|
|
I just found out a small local publisher (Dragonfall Press) has closed its doors, so I've decided to track down the rest of their books and read them all as a part of my reading challenge this year. I now have Catalina, Once Upon A Time There Were Elephants, Strangeworld, The Airmen and What The Dead Said.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 05:23
|
|
|
I got House of Leaves for Christmas, and a day later my Kindle got run over and destroyed so it's all I have available to read now. It's almost like the book wanted me to open it. I'm only five chapters in, so it hasn't become hugely complex yet (which people warned me about), but it's already scary as hell. Staying up late to read it by candlelight in the big, empty old house we are staying in probably hasnt helped...
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
began Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story by Carlos Baker so far very good, takes you from birth to death. very comprehensive.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 02:25
|
|
|
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut. "Make love when you can. It's good for you" - Vonnegut in his 1966 introduction. It'll be a quick read and Vonnegut is always fun.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 03:09
|
|
|
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. I already read The Haunting of Hill House and loved it, and so this collection has surprised and impressed me with just how different it is so far. She still displays a mastery of suspense and the ability to observe the poignancy of small details and character quirks, but then some of these stories are very, very difficult for me to really understand.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 07:16
|
|
|
I just found The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx in an op shop, and I just began All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 14:28
|
|
|
LordPants posted:I just found The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx in an op shop, and I just began All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy If Gulag Archipelago isn't enough depressing Russian literature for you, check out In the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. I think it's his most interesting work, and the differences in editions are pretty astounding.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 17:45
|
|
|
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. My wife tossed me a copy out of left field as a present. So far Onkonkwo is a big strong grunt of a warrior man stewing over his lazy artsy father with foreshadowing that he is going to wind up somewhere between. A Nigerian fable written from 1959 may not be a quick read, but promises to be a good study of human nature.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2014 16:22
|
|
|
I really enjoyed Things Fall Apart and I hope that you do too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
It is pretty good and I will be ~ 1/3 of the way through it by the time I tuck into bed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2014 06:34
|
|
|
I just picked up Stephen King's Doctor Sleep. King's stuff lately has been pretty good so I'm looking forward to starting it tonight.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2014 08:59
|
|
|
The Sound and the Fury. loving hell, this book is depressing (I just finished Benjy's part).
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2014 03:40
|
|
|
Neuromancer by William Gibson. I love the BBC radio play and am looking forward to reading the novel.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2014 00:31
|
|
|
Just finished Falling Free and am now starting Shards of Honor. I've heard so much about the Vorkosigan Saga, that I figured I give it a shot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2014 01:26
|
|
|
Started up The Darwin Elevator which is really enjoyable so far due to the audiobook's Australian narrator.
Syrinxx fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2014 01:49
|
|
|
Reading Les croisades vues par les arabes (The Crusades through Arab Eyes) by Amin Maalouf. A fascinating and refreshing spin on the crusades.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2014 18:10
|
|
|
Just started Faulkner's The Reivers this morning. Been looking forward to this one, it's supposed to be a lighter read than, say, The Sound and The Fury or Absalom, Absalom! He won a Pulitzer for it, too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2014 20:04
|
|
|
Sewer, Gas and Electric by Matt Ruff OWLS! gave me a copy and has been yelling at me to read it. Looking forward to finally getting to it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 20:53
|
|
|
I had a long-ish airplane ride back on the 19th, and on a friend's recommendation I picked up WOOL by Hugh Howey. Read most of it on the flight, finished the rest a few days later. In return I bought my friend copies of A Canticle for Leibowitz and On The Beach, two of my favorite post-apocalypse novels (I kinda have a thing for the genre). Will likely be picking up the Shift prequel book (with all three collected Shift stories) soon, if I can find it locally and easily.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2014 09:52
|
|
|
I just started reading "Sudden Terror", a book written by a detective that worked on the case of the infamous east area rapist aka the original night stalker. I was facinated by the case after reading the wikipedia article and watching a couple of short documentaries on the case. Larry Crompton writing isn't that good, but the subject it self is interesting enough.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2014 20:32
|
|
|
Just started A Fire Upon the Deep and quite enjoying it. The blend of a fantasy world in a Sci-Fi universe is quite intriguing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2014 04:50
|
|
|
minidracula posted:I had a long-ish airplane ride back on the 19th, and on a friend's recommendation I picked up WOOL by Hugh Howey. Read most of it on the flight, finished the rest a few days later. In return I bought my friend copies of A Canticle for Leibowitz and On The Beach, two of my favorite post-apocalypse novels (I kinda have a thing for the genre). I really liked Wool and found Shift to be highly readable too. And I LOVE On the Beach. So A Canticle for Leibowitz is bumped to my next read thanks to you, after I finish The Idiot and The Gone Away World. (The latter I don't know what the gently caress's going on, while the former is strangely compelling)
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2014 18:53
|
|
|
Just began "A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd. I was in the mood for a mystery and we had this one sitting around. Funny, it was written by a mother/son writing team--I couldn't even imagine what hellish nightmare writing a book with my mom would be...
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2014 04:18
|
|
|
tonytheshoes posted:Just began "A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd. I was in the mood for a mystery and we had this one sitting around. Funny, it was written by a mother/son writing team--I couldn't even imagine what hellish nightmare writing a book with my mom would be... We had them at my store a while back and they're super-cool people and seem to get along really well. Haven't read any of their books, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2014 04:34
|
|
|
That's awesome. I love my mom to death, but the sheer amount of nitpicking would send me over the edge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2014 14:39
|
|
|
I just started Richard Ellmann's biography of James Joyce. I've been meaning to read it for a while and Joyce would've turned 132 this weekend, so I figured it was as good a time as any. It's good so far, a ton of information but it reads pretty easily, not at all as scholarly as I thought it would (I kind of half expected it'd be like reading a thesis). It's making me want to go dig out my copy of Ulysses, but that's in storage until the summer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
The Metamorphosis by Kafka. Haven't read anything from him before, this is reminding me of the movie Naked Lunch so far.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2014 08:23
|
|
|
Hit up the public library for the first time in a while, grabbed Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (by Chuck Klosterman) and Adam Copeland on Edge. Probably buying Catching Fire next time I open the Kindle app on my phone.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 19:13
|
|
|
Simon Morden of the Petrovitch series has just come out with a new book, Arcanum. It's pretty good so far!
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
Having been impressed with how good Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were, both of which I read this past January, I'm trying more female-authored, Man Booker-winning, historical fiction in The Luminaries. I was enthralled by Wolf Hall- I didn't want it to end. And luckily it was a good 600 pages, and it's sequel was more of the same, in the good way. So far, The Luminaries is getting me just as hooked. Is there anything better than the feeling of enjoyment the act of reading a new, good book brings?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 16:31
|
|
|
Stavrogin posted:Is there anything better than the feeling of enjoyment the act of reading a new, good book brings? No. It is the best feeling. (And I had it reading Mantel, too.) For me it's a feeling of relief, like "oh gently caress thank god I have something to read for the next X amount of time." And it's contrasted to that horrible time in between, when you're looking and looking, trying new authors that are just sorta, eh, alright I guess, but nothin' like the last one, until you finally find one who can really hook you. Bonus points when you discover this author you've just fallen in love with -- but had never heard of before -- has an already-existing large body of work. Edit: for relevant content, I just ordered Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders and What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool. I have a bunch of books on Victorian England, but they're all broad strokes about political shifts and major events. I just want to know random weird details about daily life. How much did X cost? What was the schedule like for such-and-such kind of profession? Etc. Both non-fiction, so I suspect I won't have that feeling of fresh discovery, unless either Pool or Flanders end up being the next Peter Ackroyd or Bill Bryson. DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 17:18
|
|
|
I just picked up The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett today. I'm not sure if it is the best place to start with Discworld but it has been a fun read.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2014 03:43
|
|
|
Double post. Still reading the same book.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2014 02:09
|
|
|
I'm starting on Metro 2033. I bought it at the same time I bought City of Thieves by David Benidff. I also bought War on Our Doorstep: The Unknown Campaign on North America's West Cost by Brendan Coyle, because I'm boring and love reading history books.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2014 10:23
|
|
|
He Drank, and Saw the Spider by Alex Bledsoe. I've been meaning to read it since I bought it, but since I just finished a re-read of the previous 4 books, figured I'd go ahead and start this one. I like this series. It's sort of a detective series meets old fantasy swordplay. There aren't elves or anything, it's just set in mythological olden could be middle age england but it's totally not cause of reasons that ~HANDWAVE~. The... gently caress I can't really call him a hero, the protagonist is a semi broken down sword jockey, who gets hired by people to do stuff or find out stuff, and mysteries happen around him. It probably helps that both me and the author think of Jeffrey Dean Morgan when we have the mental picture of who would play him in a movie. The series is pretty well written and has its twists and turns, but for the most part it's really enjoyable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2014 14:07
|
|
|
I just started I'm Dying Up Here, William Knoedelseder's look at the LA standup comedy scene in the late 70s. It's an interesting read so far, but each chapter feels like a separate newspaper column, only sort of related to the next.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2014 16:43
|
|
|
I just started Insurgent by Veronica Roth. It's the second book of the Divergent series. I'm about halfway through and i'm beginning to realize its much worse than the first one, which I loved. It lacks depth.. Seems to me like she just wanted to push out another book for more money.The plot is erratic and feels dreamlike, beause every chapter I find myself somewhere new with no idea of how I got there.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 04:08 |
|
|
Having devoured three recent Man Booker winners (Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Luminaries), I'm jumping back in MB history to read both of J.G. Farrell's winners, The Siege of Krishnapur and Troubles, which works perfectly as I collect Knopf's "Everyman's Library" clothbound series, and they recently published these two together. Three birds with one stone!
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 13:25
|
|