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I just finished The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz. It was awesome! A personal account of a conquistador who went with Cortes to Mexico. He isn't a professional author and he occasionally repeats himself, but he's a conquistador traveling through Mexico. He includes details about all of the cities and villages they go to and their political standings between one another, their religion, customs, food, and tactics in combat. My favorite thing about it is the honest descriptions of individuals who try to screw each other over for glory or gold among their own people. I was impressed with the Tlascalans and other groups fighting with the Spanish against the Aztecs and the difficulties of attacking a city of canals. It's like an adventure novel that actually happened.
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# ? Jan 18, 2010 16:36 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:13 |
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Just finished the entire Runelord series by David Farland, it was an interesting twist on the assumed fantasy setting with a forced slavery through rune brands which take an individuals attribute, such as sense of smell or brawn, and implant it to the receiving branded (usually their land lord or king). I really enjoyed them, it was a nice darker fantasy with less emphasis on OH FIREBALLS magic, and more on subtle changing magic.
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# ? Jan 18, 2010 18:47 |
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QVT posted:I just finished The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Greene's Catholicism is one of those great pities of literature, along with the deaths of Carver or Fitzgerald, the eventual mortality of Nabokov, and the continued existence of the works of Jane Austen. What a book this could have been. I still recommend it, highly even, but that is on the strength of the first half and not the bumbling ramblings of the second. Why Graham Greene! Why couldn't you have been the greatest writer the world had ever seen. Have you read The Power and The Glory? His questioning there of the good that comes from Catholicism and faith in general is very powerful. I'm not sure why you immediately declare it to be such a negative, although I haven't yet read End of the Affair.
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# ? Jan 18, 2010 20:20 |
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ShutteredIn posted:Have you read The Power and The Glory? His questioning there of the good that comes from Catholicism and faith in general is very powerful. I'm not sure why you immediately declare it to be such a negative, although I haven't yet read End of the Affair. I have not read it, although I intend to at some point. I should say that I am an atheist, and while I don't care what religious affiliation a particular character subscribes to, I have no interest in reading through arguments for (or against) religion in a piece of literature. I'm no more interested in someone questioning religion than supporting it. It would have been so much less offensive if this stuff had happened in a bad book instead of one I was enjoying so much. Once you do read the novel I think you'd understand better what my problems with the overwhelming religion content are, although you may be less offended by it. Greene writes an almost convincing atheist narrator but in the end can't prevent himself from hating the poor bastard. He reads through strawman arguments that make Socratic dialogues seem even, the most offensive of those being, "you can't hate something you don't believe in." The deus ex machina that comes up w/r/t prayer is also downright offensive. There isn't a single unanswered prayer in the novel. You should still read it! For me, it just falls short of the potential of the first half.
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# ? Jan 18, 2010 20:47 |
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Just finished Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. I'll need to give my conclusions and thoughts some time to settle; however, the novel strikes me as more complex than either Enduring Love or Atonement. The latter half, describing the couple's trip through the french countryside is some of the nicest use of foreshadowing and symbolism I've read in a while.
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# ? Jan 19, 2010 05:56 |
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On the President's Secret Service, by Ronald Kessler. A fast, easy read, and an interesting overview of what it can be like to work for this organization that is stereotypically shrouded in mystery. A bit disheartening, though, to learn how rude some former government officials were to them (or in general).
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# ? Jan 19, 2010 18:41 |
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I just finished book three of the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Really interesting, tied up all the loose ends nicely and what I expected to happen at the end of book two happened here. Narrated by Michael Kramer, who did an absolutely amazing job, aside from Tensoon as a horse, I nearly burned myself from laughing so hard when that came up. Next on my list is Daemon by Danial Suarez. Though I can't recall the narrator off the top of my head, he's unintentially hilarious with an enthusiastic announcers voice, over the top with every word spoken. Some highlights thus far include how he pronounced "Bukakke" and a hilariously high pitched slutty female voice where he proclaimed that "Teen lolitas take huge horse cocks!".
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# ? Jan 19, 2010 21:49 |
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Just finished Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin. Finished in one sitting (partly because it was so good, mostly because it is pretty short). Very good and very depressing. His style is short and existentialist and contemplative and funny and it's going to be copied by a lot of people trying to find a literary voice in the near future, probably.
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# ? Jan 20, 2010 06:57 |
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Recently finished The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped by Paul Strathern. I thought it was a great read and was particularly interesting because it showed how essentially one summer had a major impact on three individuals who played a large part in the Renaissance. It's full of details but is an engaging narrative at the same time.
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# ? Jan 20, 2010 19:23 |
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Finally got around to reading Of Mice and Men. I am just sad that I haven't read it earlier. Thoroughly enjoyed the book, the ending is a tad brutal. Just started on Trainspotting.
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# ? Jan 21, 2010 14:38 |
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Just finished Nova Swing by M. John Harrison, a quasi-sequel to the absolutely excellent novel Light. I didn't like NS quite as much, but it was still a good book, and even more character-oriented than Light was. Really, the Saudade Site was more of a locus to bring the characters together than an integral part of the plot itself, and I like how Harrison left most of the Site's properties to the imagination. His prose is as excellent as ever, and he has a really amazing way of bringing the reader into the setting - Saudade stuck in my brain while I was reading NS almost as much as the Kefahuchi Tract in Light. The ending was interesting in how subdued and open it was, and fit the tone of the novel just right.
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# ? Jan 21, 2010 17:25 |
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Siddhartha by Herman Hesse I'm working on Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami which is phenomenal. Also, I am halfway into Invitation to a Beheading by Nabokov. I am NOT disappointed, and will definitely be reading every piece of his work that's been published.
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# ? Jan 21, 2010 19:15 |
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ShutteredIn posted:Have you read The Power and The Glory? His questioning there of the good that comes from Catholicism and faith in general is very powerful. I'm not sure why you immediately declare it to be such a negative, although I haven't yet read End of the Affair. I only read a short story and Brighton Rock before this. Favourite book from last year. Myself, I finished Rubicon, and Holland really makes history seriously awesome . It's fascinating to me how the Roman Republic was driven by a greed for social prestige moreso than just material gain, yet also had this sense to maintain social equilibrium so that anyone that excelled too well for the Republic had to be put down.
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# ? Jan 22, 2010 05:19 |
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Finished The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway after I gave up on Augie March. Man, Augie March was so bad. I don't have all too much to say about Sun Also Rises, it made me very happy on the first day to not be reading Augie March anymore. I learned that in Spanish bullfights they kill the bull. I didn't know that. Hemingway is really gifted with dialogue and it doesn't feel like the way most other writers write it. I'd recommend the book pretty highly. It's biggest weakness was the lack of a plot. That's three of six of my reading list done with (or thrown violently into the bin, gently caress you Bellow) but I think I'll read something like LA Candy by Lauren Conrad before going into either Crying of Lot 49 or Love in the Time of Cholera. It'll make the real book better.
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# ? Jan 22, 2010 18:38 |
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I just finished Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. It's technically YA, but is extremely well-written and compelling, and despite the ~*~werewolf romance~*~ aspects of the story, it pulls it off far better than, ah, certain other YA paranormal romance series. The author has an exceptional skill for describing wintry scenes. Looking forward to the sequel later this year.
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# ? Jan 23, 2010 04:57 |
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I just finished The Short Summer of Anarchy: Life and Death of Buenaventura Durruti by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Great book (it's all written as chronological reports from different people who knew/met Durruti) and Durruti is a really really great character. The spanish civil war is really fascinating by the way. I am close to finishing A People's history of the United States by Howard Zinn and I find that I had no idea about american history before reading this (i'm not american). I liked the way he approached history in general (through the eyes of the people... or something) but i find that while doing that you make history a bit more boring (not that this is important) since let's say a peasant will worry more about his crops and the weather than forwarding communism. Weather is really boring though so... i guess what i'm trying to say is that i was a bit bored by that book. I am thinking of reading some Kafka next, probably starting with The Trial.
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# ? Jan 23, 2010 06:05 |
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I just finished reading The hunger Games and Catching fire both written by Suzanne Collins. ***********Back Cover Of The hunger Games*************** Once I'm on my feet, I realize escape might not be so simple. Panic begins to set in. I can't stay here. Flight is essential. But I can't let my fear show. Winning means fame and fortune. losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. ********************************************************* I found both of these books extremely enjoyable...so much so I finished them both in about 24 hours. The story follows teenagers that are sent to the Hunger Games to, as the back cover describes, compete for fame, fortune, and to stay alive. Before that I started going through The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny. The size of this book could be construed as well daunting but that is because it is a culmination of all the books of Amber. I really enjoyed the first half of the book but about 3/4 of the way through it got too weird even for me.
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# ? Jan 23, 2010 19:57 |
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The General posted:Next on my list is Daemon by Danial Suarez. Though I can't recall the narrator off the top of my head, he's unintentially hilarious with an enthusiastic announcers voice, over the top with every word spoken. Some highlights thus far include how he pronounced "Bukakke" and a hilariously high pitched slutty female voice where he proclaimed that "Teen lolitas take huge horse cocks!". I finished this the other night, it's narrated by Jeff Gurner. This book starts out with a pretty plausable scenario of game developer Mathew Sobol dying, and releasing a daemon to kill some previous employees. As the book goes on, Sobell's plan gets more and more convulated and, well insane in both scope and execution. I'm not exactly sure where it crossed the line. With the Project Mayham-esque organization, dozens and dozens of computer controlled cars smashing into poo poo, the cornball conversations and the previously mentioned narrator this book is surely something else. I'm not even sure where to begin describing how awesome (or horrible?) this book is. It's effectively a B movie on paper and I'm shamefully loving every minute of it. There's another book Freedom which was just released that continues and finishes the story. Book one does not close anything at all, but I don't mind. I'm sticking around for part two. The narration was distracting at first, when I thought this to be a more serious book. As the insanity and implausability grew the narration fit more and more. By the end of the book I didn't even notice how over the top Jeff was due to the insanity of the words. He really was a good choice after all. Though he's the most sounding guy in the world while he reads. He's also very happy to be there I think. Edit: An additional plus is that a lot of the technical stuff in the book is right on target. Danial Suarez knows his tech pretty well.
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# ? Jan 24, 2010 08:55 |
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I finished HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian. This is the third novel in the series and I'm impressed with its ability to stay engaging despite being well into a book series. Many authors start running out of things to right about and end up with boring filler everywhere. I am entirely immersed in early 19th century English dialects and sailing terminology. Much of this was incomprehensible when I started Master and Commander.
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# ? Jan 24, 2010 15:58 |
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I finished listening to the unabridged audiobook recording of The Last Colony by John Scalzi, narrated by William Dufris. The book was the third in the Old Man's War military science fiction series. It was fast-paced but left a lot of loose ends. I am sure there will be a conventional sequel. There has already been another book that is a re-telling from a different character's perspective called Zoe's Tale. This weekend I also finished reading The Android's Dream also by John Scalzi. It had a much less serious tone. Overall it was pretty funny, and in particular there was a fictional religion that served as a jab at Scientology. The whole book was kind of a send-up of science fiction cliches. I am now almost halfway through the unabridged audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith and I am almost finished reading The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson. PBCrunch fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Feb 1, 2010 |
# ? Jan 25, 2010 17:03 |
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urbancontra posted:Just finished a 10 hour marathon with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I couldn't tell if there were troubles with the translation from Swedish (and the diction in the English is by no means flowery) or if there are weird cultural feelings about women in Sweden, or both, but some of the descriptions of the titular character in the beginning of the book are off-putting; she's a pretty normal 21st century girl, but Larsson tries really hard to make her into an enigma. urbancontra posted:The Girl Who Played With Fire, book 2 in the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. This one is a lot slower to start, but the last quarter of the book made it completely worth it. I ended up liking it more than the first one; I felt more invested in Lisbeth as a person and a heroine, and there were much higher stakes involved with solving the mystery. Finished the last book The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. It has the same problems as the other two, which made finishing the series more tedious, but the plot is more engaging. There is more political intrigue and the implications of solving the mystery are much grander. All in all it was a decent light read, but I'd only recommend it if you really enjoyed the first book. Next I'm finally going to finish Dune, and read the series through God Emperor of Dune because I've heard from a few people that the rest aren't worth it. Thoughts?
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# ? Jan 25, 2010 17:40 |
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urbancontra posted:Next I'm finally going to finish Dune, and read the series through God Emperor of Dune because I've heard from a few people that the rest aren't worth it. Thoughts? It depends on who you ask. I personally enjoyed Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune, but they represent a change of direction for the series. Dune through God Emperor are all about the Atreides family is some capacity, while the last two books (without ruining too much of the plot) expand outwards quite a bit. I think they're worth it, although they are...different. The 'new' Dune books by Herbert's son, though, stink.
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# ? Jan 25, 2010 21:06 |
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Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould. A book about the discovery of the Burgess Shale organisms and about the people who researched them. I found it terrific since I love arthropods, anatomy, taxonomy, evolution and biology in general. If you don't love these things, especially the first three, you will probably don't like it. The book renewed my (everyone's?) childhood dream of becoming a paleontologist, but since it's too late for that it at least gave me a big motivational boost for my own research. Books I did not finish: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Started it out of historical curiosity and it was kind of neat to read about evolution from the primary source, but ultimately I realized that I wouldn't learn anything new and since the writing wasn't that impressive I stopped. The part where Darwin describes quasi Mendelian inheritance in pigeons without realizing it was a true face-palm moment. Goon favourite Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Terrifyingly boring and full of very dubious dream analysis.
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# ? Jan 25, 2010 21:49 |
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould. A book about the discovery of the Burgess Shale organisms and about the people who researched them. I found it terrific since I love arthropods, anatomy, taxonomy, evolution and biology in general. If you don't love these things, especially the first three, you will probably don't like it. The book renewed my (everyone's?) childhood dream of becoming a paleontologist, but since it's too late for that it at least gave me a big motivational boost for my own research. I am really looking forward to this one! Gould is my favorite popular science writer and makes so field so alive, even throwing some light on my own field, medicine. I never understood why mom chose to become a micropaleontologist specializing in foraminifera instead of visible fossils.
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# ? Jan 26, 2010 15:38 |
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I stayed up late last night finishing The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson. I have read Spin and Axis. RCW seems to have an affinity for writing stories where it seems like the world is going to end but at the last minute something is revealed and the world is saved. I liked this book. Most of it was somewhat slow, but the last fifty pages blitzed by and it ended with total time travel mindfuck. I would recommend this to anyone that likes time travel stories. I am now about fifty pages into Accelerando by Charles Stross. I have never read anything by Stross and I am struggling with it. He jumps around from fictional technology to fictional technology at a breathless pace.
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# ? Jan 26, 2010 17:44 |
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rasser posted:I am really looking forward to this one! Gould is my favorite popular science writer and makes so field so alive, even throwing some light on my own field, medicine. I never understood why mom chose to become a micropaleontologist specializing in foraminifera instead of visible fossils. Say, she doesn't happen to be a single mother?
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# ? Jan 26, 2010 19:18 |
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I just finished Pale Blue Dot, by Carl Sagan. I recently watched Sagan's Cosmos series, and I absolutely loved it, so I picked up its supposed sequel Pale Blue Dot, and it's definitely one of the best books I've ever read. I definitely recommend it if you're at all interested in the solar system, or want some cool speculations and history on human space travel from a brilliant astronomer. Onto The Demon-Haunted World.
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# ? Jan 27, 2010 07:47 |
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I just finished A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book and I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. She's one of my favorite writers and I've read nearly work of fiction that she's written (except for the "Frederica Quartet"), so I had high hopes for this. But...it was just too messy and cluttered. She interweaves paragraphs of exposition regarding what else is going on in history in throughout the chapters, but rather than being enlightening, it was distracting. And I feel like an idiot for saying this, but I thought there were too many characters -- I couldn't always keep track of who was related to whom and what their story was. The characters I thought were important just kind of fade away without ado toward the end, and the rest I never found to be fleshed out enough to be interesting. It's not without merit -- Byatt is still keenly insightful when it comes to understanding and describing human nature, and all the various forays into fairy tales (the tales themselves, and the interpretations of them) are pretty neat. (Somewhere in my basement is my nearly-complete collection of the Andrew Lang colored fairy books, which I loved as a kid and still love as an adult.) Also, calling Charles/Karl "Charles/Karl" was annoying enough in the narration, but when someone calls him that in dialogue? Oh, Antonia. Next is probably Torgny Lindgren's The Way of a Serpent, if I can find it.
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# ? Jan 27, 2010 18:01 |
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Finished Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan earlier. Had thought it might be a book I read about 10 years ago but turns out it wasn't. I quite enjoyed the first half but the embarrassing sex scenes and the ability of the Kovac to walk from violent fight to violent fight with no regards to injury really ruined the second half for me. The "sleeving" concept seemed interest at start but was being overused towards the end of the book. I've heard the rest of his books drop the detective angle to some degree, so will probably read Broken Angels but I doubt I'll pick up anything else if it's similar to the second half of Altered Carbon.
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# ? Jan 28, 2010 03:01 |
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I finished LA Candy by Lauren Conrad. This wasn't the worst book I ever read. It was worse than that. I never hated America. When I saw four men beat Rodney King just because of the color of his skin, I didn't hate America. When those four men walked free because of the color of their own skins, I didn't hate America. When twenty monsters, twenty terrorist, twenty murderers, who hated America so much that they were willing to give their lives to scare or hurt us in any way, flew the planes into the towers, I didn't hate America. I didn't understand how anyone could hate America. Then I read LA Candy by Lauren Conrad. And now I hate America. At least I did manage to read it, unlike Augie March. Crying of Lot 49 is next. Save me, Thomas Pynchon.
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# ? Jan 28, 2010 06:43 |
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Anunnaki posted:Onto The Demon-Haunted World. I just finished that. I wasn't that blown away really. I agreed with it all but maybe that's the problem, I didn't feel like it gave me anything I didn't already know. I guess he's better writing on his subject?
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# ? Jan 28, 2010 15:21 |
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Rabbit Hill posted:I just finished A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book and I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. She's one of my favorite writers and I've read nearly work of fiction that she's written (except for the "Frederica Quartet"), so I had high hopes for this. But...it was just too messy and cluttered. She interweaves paragraphs of exposition regarding what else is going on in history in throughout the chapters, but rather than being enlightening, it was distracting. And I feel like an idiot for saying this, but I thought there were too many characters -- I couldn't always keep track of who was related to whom and what their story was. The characters I thought were important just kind of fade away without ado toward the end, and the rest I never found to be fleshed out enough to be interesting. I really tried with this book. Anarchists? Interesting! Pages of descriptions about how the anarchists dressed? Not so much. Finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, which was one hell of a good read. A mystery about a book and its disappeared author, lots of betrayals, plot twists, and a hissably evil villain. I've heard The Angel's Game isn't as good, but I'm willing to give it a try.
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# ? Jan 28, 2010 19:27 |
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Chamberk posted:I really tried with this book. Anarchists? Interesting! Pages of descriptions about how the anarchists dressed? Not so much. I liked Angel's Game better, actually, or at least thought it was different enough to make a direct comparison unfair. It doesn't have the same rip-roaring page-turning plot and purely lovable characters but it's a lot more, well, adult; deeper and darker.
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# ? Jan 28, 2010 19:34 |
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Just finished up the Joe Pitt series, and I gotta say, it was better than I expected it to be. I am normally not a fan of vampires, but it was handled fairly well by the author, and the overall mood of the books never really changed much from "awesome" to "wow.. awesome". If you are a noir fan, give em a shot, I think you will like em!
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# ? Jan 29, 2010 08:23 |
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I finished Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace last week. I really enjoyed it, even the essays on American Usage (which I don't care about) and Dostoevsky (who I haven't read, but mean to). My favorite essays were Host and Up, Simba. This was mostly because I really enjoyed DFW's thoughts on politics and how people in America are about it. Overall though, this book was a great read and I look forward to reading more anything by him. After that I read A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. This book was extremely moving as I love his fiction, but haven't yet read any of his non-fiction. Most of the essays are a combination of Vonnegut's growing disgust for I think culture and technology, as well as his overall compassion towards people. Also, as with anything he writes, it is full of little bits of humor here and there as well as some very funny lines that seem to come out of nowhere. Example: KV posted:The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.
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# ? Jan 29, 2010 09:15 |
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The Mexican Tree Duck and The Final Country by James Crumley - As usual, Crumley's definitely the kind of writer who you read for the writing and characters and not so much for the plot. I liked both of them, although The Final Country in particular gets really convoluted by the end and I'm not sure I totally followed it. Nonetheless, the fantastically well-turned passages sprinkled throughout the narrative make it all worth it. Crumley definitely was one of the best crime writers out there.
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# ? Jan 29, 2010 17:05 |
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Amerika by Kafka and went through Robert Van Gulik's series again, crime fiction in ancient China. Kafka is just brilliant, and Gulik's books are very enjoyable. it's probably the third time I go through the whole series.
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# ? Jan 30, 2010 01:55 |
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Encryptic posted:The Mexican Tree Duck and The Final Country by James Crumley - As usual, Crumley's definitely the kind of writer who you read for the writing and characters and not so much for the plot. I liked both of them, although The Final Country in particular gets really convoluted by the end and I'm not sure I totally followed it. Nonetheless, the fantastically well-turned passages sprinkled throughout the narrative make it all worth it. Crumley definitely was one of the best crime writers out there. Have you read Bordersnakes yet? Milo + Sughrue = mega-badasss, but the plot starts out shaky and goes completely loving haywire in the end. I think his earlier stuff is a lot better about that, but the marked difference is not too surprising given the ten year gap between Dancing Bear and Tree Duck. I'm really interested in reading the book of short stories he wrote during that gap but it's hard to get ahold of. If you're looking for something Crumleyesque you should check out the one novel his buddy and fellow Montana poet Richard Hugo wrote, Death and the Good Life.
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# ? Jan 30, 2010 02:41 |
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Finally finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I got it last year and just shelved it for some reason, then I picked it up and read it here and there, but I never stayed with it. It's not that I didn't like it, but I don't think I was in the mind frame to really appreciate how amazing it is. I restarted and finished it pretty quick. It was really hard to put down. I also finished Dave Cullen's Columbine and re-read Clive Barker's Thief of Always.
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# ? Jan 30, 2010 19:03 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:13 |
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I just recently finished The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes vol. I (B&N classic ed). The stories were fun and the writing is very good. Admission: I read this volume because I enjoy the tv show 'House.' I will say that people complain about the show being repetitive, well, the stories were a bit repetitive as well, after a while. They were good, and the characters were interesting, but there you go. The only thing I didn't like is that some of the stories took a pretty Big leap between the information ascertained and Holmes coming up with the answer. Even with the explanations given. But I would recommend it.
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# ? Jan 30, 2010 20:31 |