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Just finished Walking On Glass by Iain Banks. I'm loving his early M-less books, back when he was basically writing SF disguised as "regular" fiction.Node posted:I just finished Dune, by Herbert. I really enjoyed it. My question is, how are the other five Dune Novels that Frank Herbert wrote? Like Dune Messiah. Are they any good?
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Feb 28, 2009 17:22
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A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle. The back of the book claimed it was a "darkly funny comedy" but instead it was an incredibly bleak and depressing story of global warming and extinction, with very few traces of sardonic humour inbetween. Good book though, but nothing to cheer you up when you're feeling down.
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Mar 1, 2009 10:50
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Replay by Ken Grimwood. It's been mentioned in the Book Barn a few times, and I noticed my library had it. The premise is interesting: the main character dies in 1988, and begins living his life over from his first year of college, dying at the exact same time. Next time he comes back a little later in the original timeline, dies at the same time, comes back again later, etc in a sort of logarithmic progression, giving him a chance to re-do his do-overs, albeit starting further and further into his original life each time. It's a good book, and does a decent job of examining different facets/ways of living your life, but it could have been done better. It's competently written, but I feel like the author connects too many dots for the reader as far as the message of the book, and might have fleshed out some of the paths he took a little better. It easily could have been a top five book for me in the hands of another author, but I'd still recommend it despite the flaws.
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Mar 2, 2009 03:02
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I just finished Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski. The style is definitely reminiscent of his other works, but it is written from the perspective of two different characters (when the finish the book one way, you flip it over and start it over again from the other character's eyes) and is comprised entirely of a strange blend of free verse and traditional poetry that I really enjoyed. It is not a book I would recommend for light reading by any means, because it is kind of like a giant puzzle; a lot of the narrative is metaphorical or contradictory, and some of the events play out differently depending on who is telling the story, but if you can get into the "groove" of the poetry it is a really nice book to sit down with and read in small chunks.
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Mar 2, 2009 03:15
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The Sailor Who Fell From Grace From the Sea by Yukio Mishima. It's about the events surrounding a sailor who becomes involved with a wealthy widow and her disturbed, but seemingly normal son. It has a few disturbing scenes including one that will be familiar to fans of Kafka on the Shore. I had previously read (and forgotten) Mishima's Temple of the Golden Pavilion, but I don't think that I will forget this one for a long time.
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Mar 2, 2009 20:17
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AbdominalSnowman posted:I just finished Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski. The style is definitely reminiscent of his other works, but it is written from the perspective of two different characters (when the finish the book one way, you flip it over and start it over again from the other character's eyes) and is comprised entirely of a strange blend of free verse and traditional poetry that I really enjoyed. It is not a book I would recommend for light reading by any means, because it is kind of like a giant puzzle; a lot of the narrative is metaphorical or contradictory, and some of the events play out differently depending on who is telling the story, but if you can get into the "groove" of the poetry it is a really nice book to sit down with and read in small chunks. Did you do it the 8 pages per character route or all of one side then the other, out of curiosity?
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Mar 2, 2009 20:44
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I just finished Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Now I'm reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller while deciding if I should start with the prequels or sequels to the Foundation Trilogy. Will the order I read them in make a difference at all?
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Mar 3, 2009 01:17
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The Mandingo posted:I just finished Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Not really, but the rest of the series is markedly different from the original trilogy. They're actual novels, as opposed to the shorter stories which were mashed together to form three books.
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Mar 3, 2009 01:24
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BRISTOL PALINS BABY posted:The Great War series by Harry Turtledove. Alternate history providing a look at how World War I might have looked had the south won the Civil War. Turtledove is kind of repetitive but he is quickly becoming my favorite author. I've read about 10 books of his and I'm always looking forward to the next one. I got kind of burned out on Turtledove when he started settling on alternate WWIIs and variants of Guns of the South. If you haven't gotten round to them, get "A Different Flesh" (what if North America had been inhabited by Homo Erectus?) and "Between the Rivers." (set in late neolithic/early bronze age mesopotamia, where gods are real)
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Mar 3, 2009 01:51
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A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. Holy poo poo, what a great book... I wound up reading it in one go last night since I couldn't fall asleep (only about 160 pages). At first I thought it was going to be sort of a more hosed-up, Japanese version of The Stranger, but that's an oversimplification. The quality of the translation is excellent, most of the time I didn't even realize I was reading a novel not originally written in English. The plot centers around Bird, a guy in his twenties whose dreams are interrupted when his wife gives birth to a mentally retarded boy. I don't really want to give any more than that away, but I'd highly recommend this book. I ordered it from Half and was pissed off to find a book in "very good condition" had underlining on every page and lots of notes in the margins. The underlining and stuff was annoying to read around, but the girl that had been reading it before had also been writing in her reactions to the book as it went on. I actually found myself enjoying the chance to get a window into someone else's experience with the same story... right next to Butcher her and gently caress the corpse! there was a big "NO!", and there was stuff like "lying punk!" and "I disagree" scattered throughout. I kind of wish I had the temerity to do that with my own books: it'd be cool to go back years down the line and see how I reacted to books as I read them... but I've just got it in my head that writing in books is evil and wrong. LooseChanj posted:Not really, but the rest of the series is markedly different from the original trilogy. They're actual novels, as opposed to the shorter stories which were mashed together to form three books. I think you're supposed to read "Prelude to Foundation" after the original three, as it takes a bit of the mystique out of Hari Seldon, plus they retcon the Robot and Foundation serieses into the same universe.
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Mar 3, 2009 02:52
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Agincourt, the new Bernard Cornwell book about, well, the battle of Agincourt. Not his best book, but still pretty good. The main character, an outlaw English longbowman, is a less-interesting amalgam of other Cornwell protagonists, and his story feels more than a little tacked-on, as well as familiar. The story that he really wanted to tell, though, about Henry and his army's little jaunt through Northern France, is pure badass Cornwell.
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Mar 3, 2009 04:04
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The Aspern Papers by Henry James. Really more of a long story than a full-fledged novel, I found it to be somewhat entertaining but really the main story (an obsessive fan of a dead American poet trying to gain access to some of his old letters) was almost secondary to James' writing style and descriptions of Venice itself. I wasn't too shocked that the letters end up getting destroyed in the end, but the development of Miss Tina (especially near the end) was fun to be engaged in. I'm going to read The Turn of the Screw next.
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Mar 3, 2009 05:21
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The Curse of the Bronze Lamp by Carter Dickson. I have the proverbially bad habit of judging books by their covers. But, can you blame me? http://i315.photobucket.com/albums/ll472/KingPlum_the_Nth/CarterDicksonCover.png Cover art used to be so cool, to say nothing of what was between the covers. I'd never read anything by John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson) but I have to say, based on this example, his reputation as one of the master craftsmen of the golden age of mystery is well deserved. This was fun, quick reading in the locked room genera; it really invites you to try and beat the hero to the conclusion of the mystery which is awesome. I think this is exactly the sort of thing the mostly derivative "cozy" genera is based on but here, in it's original form, it works really well. The prose won't alter your perception of humanity but it flows nicely, and it's chock full of all the warm trappings that make for great rainy day/bed-time reading: An eccentric detective, idle British aristocracy (think Bertie Wooster or Peter Wimsey), a butler (who may well have done it), Egyptology, cursed relics, Gothic mansions on country estates in the pre-War years, crimes not too dastardly, violence out of frame, romance of the light and airy kind. I'm on to Kate Atkinson's When Will There be Good News next but I'm excited to get back to Carr/Dickson. Probably will pick up with The Hollow Man, which I understand is both his masterpiece and the definitive mystery of it's type. King Plum the Nth fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 4, 2009 |
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Mar 4, 2009 04:27
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The Wolves of Calla, Stephen King. Very meh. Just trying to finish this series that I started years ago when I was still in middle school. Books 1-3 were great, 4 was boring only insomuch as it did nothing to advance the main plotline, and this, the 5th installment, seems to be steering the series into a downward spiral. Starting book 6, The Song of Susannah, now. Really hoping it and the final book 7 don't suck as much as some reviews have said they do.
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Mar 4, 2009 20:27
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Been a while since I posted... Thunderer by Felix Gilman (aka fellow goon FJG, if I'm remembering correctly). I'd been interested in reading this for a while after he posted about it being published, and finally got a hold of a copy from the library. Interesting debut fantasy novel set in a seemingly-endless city called Ararat where a traveler from the far side of the world has come to find his people's god and the coming of a mysterious entity known simply as The Bird has thrown the city into turmoil. All in all, it's a solid well-written read in an intriguing setting that invites comparison to the other "city" books (Gormenghast, Viriconium, The Etched City, Perdido Street Station, etc.) I've read. If nothing else, it's not "Generic Epic Fantasy Novel About Evil Rising To Destroy The World". Also read a collection of Raymond Chandler's first 3 Philip Marlowe novels (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The High Window). Really enjoyed it and I'm glad I finally got around to reading one of the writers who pioneered the crime fiction genre. Just starting The Dain Curse by Hammett at the moment. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Mar 4, 2009 |
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Mar 4, 2009 20:54
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Deadstock by Jeffery Thomas. The first novel of his that I've read, overall I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I've enjoyed his short stories. The stories of his that I've read have all been really worthwhile pieces of urban SF/horror, but stretched into a whole novel he seems kinda pulpy. Still a pretty entertaining read, and it's not going to stop me from reading more of his stuff by any means, but it has made me reassess my "he's rapidly becoming one of my favorite contemporary SF authors" stance.
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Mar 5, 2009 18:01
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Fade Away by Harlan Coben. Not too bad of a book, I enjoy his Bolitar characters.
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Mar 5, 2009 18:27
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The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek by Barry Cunliffe. The story of Pytheas is pretty interesting, but subject to dispute. Pytheas, a Greek living in Masalia (modern Marseilles, France) supposedly traveled all through out the British Isles, up to Iceland, and down through Denmark 300 years before Julius Caesar invaded Britain. He wrote a work called On the Sea but it's been lost, and we only have references to it from other ancient authors. Unfortunately, the book goes off on too many tangents that are irrelevant to the journey of Pytheas. There are some interesting asides about the culture of Celts, Gauls, and archeology from Northern and Northwestern Europe, but they get tedious quickly.
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Mar 5, 2009 20:51
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Just finished up with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or Men who hate women, Män som hatar kvinnor) by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I have avoided this book up until now because i'm not a fan of Crime Thrillers. But I caved in because I plan to watch the film they just released and everyone I know recommends it. A journalist is hired to chronicle the history of a wealthy dynasty, in reality he's being hired because the former CEO and head of the family wants him to investigate a cold case from 40 years ago where his great niece disappeared suddenly. It's basically a closed-room scenario book, the entire family was present on an island when the girl disappeared and there had been an accident on the only bridge, preventing anyone from getting in or out. It's a good read, there are some oddities that I got hung up on but the ending is solid. I don't know what else to say, having read all three books I want to read more but I can't (author dead syndrome). Anyone else have any comments on this book? I read on wikipedia (heh) that it was the second best selling novel of the world in 2008 after Khaled Hosseini. Is this correct? Affi fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Mar 6, 2009 |
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Mar 6, 2009 00:05
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Affi posted:Anyone else have any comments on this book? I read on wikipedia (heh) that it was the second best selling novel of the world in 2008 after Khaled Hosseini. Is this correct? That could well be true. It's been on the bestseller lists of Amazon (UK and US, the ones I check regularly) and the New York Times for months now. I tried reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns but gave up about halfway through. It was really depressing. Lots of women drama, wife beating, family members dying and other tragedies. After a while I just couldn't be bothered seeing how much worse things could get for the two main characters. He's a good writer though; his prose is simple but almost poetic at times.
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Mar 6, 2009 10:35
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It just felt like a very Swedish book, but then again having done some research it seems Sweden is known for exporting good crime thrillers. Also I just realized that one third of our populace has bought this book. (3 million sold copies in Sweden is insane)
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Mar 6, 2009 12:06
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Just re-read Larry Niven's Protector for the first time since 7th grade, and it's way better than I remembered it being. Classic '70's Big Ideas SF from when Niven was at his peak. It's full of grand futurism and bad scientific guesses that now seem silly (How many SF books these days feature martians?), but the Big Idea about the Pak Protectors and their unique psychology holds up surprisingly well, and is in any case great fun to read. It makes me nostalgic for my first binge through Niven (who was my first real "favourite author"). Now dammit, where the hell did I leave my copies of Neutron Star and All the Myriad Ways?
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Mar 6, 2009 15:54
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Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov and The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Both of these books are the first I have read from either author (I know, I know...) and all I can say is, color me impressed. Pale Fire was not what I was expecting at all. A 999 line poem and commentary on said poem which has nothing to do with the poem. Instead you get a ridiculous history of the last king of the "distant northern land" of Zembla's reign and his escape from the Extremists of the Zemblan Revolution. I will definitely read it again. It needs to be read more than once as the first reading seems to simply prepare you for the second and subsequent readings where you can more leisurely flip around (as the text begs you to do) and come up with your own conclusions as to who the true author of the commentary is, is the poem a joke, was the poem written by the commentator, etc. The Crying of Lot 49 was great. I went in to it with trepidation due to my pre-existing fear of Pynchon due to too many people claiming he is unreadable. Perhaps his later books are more difficult to get into, but having read The Illuminatus! Trilogy years ago easily prepared me for this romp into San Narciso and the possible conspiracy that exists therein to send the mail through an alternate system. I think that the only trouble I had with this one is that some of his sentences were extremely difficult for me to parse on first reading. Maybe this is because of having just finished a book by Nabokov who writes so fluidly and naturally that Pynchon's style was simply too different for me to grok at first. Regardless, I recommend it if you haven't read it before.
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Mar 6, 2009 16:21
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Affi posted:It just felt like a very Swedish book, but then again having done some research it seems Sweden is known for exporting good crime thrillers. Also I just realized that one third of our populace has bought this book. (3 million sold copies in Sweden is insane) I'm only through the first book since the other two are not in English yet. I didn't understand how the trial and accusation against Mikael Bloomquist fit into the overall premise of the book with Lisbeth/figuring out what happened to the Vanger grand daughter. It was like that was just some little piece in the book, it wasn't bad I just didn't see how it fit.
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Mar 6, 2009 20:19
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dolemite01 posted:I'm only through the first book since the other two are not in English yet. I didn't understand how the trial and accusation against Mikael Bloomquist fit into the overall premise of the book with Lisbeth/figuring out what happened to the Vanger grand daughter. Well his buddy tipped him off about Wennerström, and he started digging and found a lot of dirt. Then he suddenly found a LOT more dirt that was fabricated and he got burnt. Vanger used Wennestroem to lure Mikael into working for him. It's just a way to get Mikael and Lisbeth to meet up really, and it sets up a few things for the next book. Such as Salander being a millionaire.
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Mar 7, 2009 00:52
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Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem which was her ticket to infamy as a self-hating Jew for daring to suggest that Eichmann was less an antichrist than a cold, self-centred bureaucrat (though, yes, she more or less agrees he deserved to die), and that his showtrial was a bungled and cynical attempt to justify Israel's muscle-flexing. Brilliant, though extremely scathing of almost everyone involved, and I can't even imagine how disillusioning it must have been to read at the time. Hell, I'm consciously avoiding getting into the details, cause even in BB it'll threaten to derail the thread all to hell. Jarringly dissimilar is Dino Buzzati's The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, which can pretty much be characterised as My First Epic, presumably useful for instilling Italians with a love of the stuff at the earliest possible age. Strangely pitched as cute-but-violent, it liberally borrows from the classics, like for example Scylla being benched in favour of a giant cat who pounces down onto the bears from the mountaintops (which is adorable, but, again, bears killing themselves rather than being eaten is surely a bit ...heavy for the kids). Regardless, it is awesome, perfect for regressing to your childhood. Also great are Buzzati's own illustrations of epic bear-on-musketeer combat. Had been meaning to read Madame de Sevigne's Selected Letters for a while now, but having finished I can say I'm clearly not up to speed enough on the era of Louis XIV to really appreciate the full historical significance. Even so, I struggle to see where her reputation as a letter-writer par excellence comes from, given how much of it devolves into chitchat and obsessively mothering her absent daughter. Mostly read them after constant references in In Search of Lost Time, but then again Marcel idealises the nobility beyond all reason, so I should have seen it coming.
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Mar 9, 2009 08:50
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I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Short but incredibly sweet. My expectations were kinda high and I still was pleasantly surprised by how easy Matheson made it for the reader to "get into" Neville's head. Any other books by him you guys can recommend?
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Mar 9, 2009 19:33
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VideoTapir posted:I got kind of burned out on Turtledove when he started settling on alternate WWIIs and variants of Guns of the South. If you're at all interested in the "What If's" of history then check out an awesome collection of essays but the worlds most prominent military historians; the book is actually called "What If?" published by Penguin Press (I think). It covers alternate Histories' from Alexander being slain in battle early on during his campaigns to Mongols succeeding in conquering Europe and a failed invasion for the Allies on D-Day. Anyways I just finished reading Angler by Barton Gelman which was alright, albeit a bit slow towards the end which was understandable. Also about half way through Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener which is essentially the first public history of the CIA's action's covert and otherwise since it's inception; very enthralling so far. It's also really hilarious/sad to learn just how inept the world's most powerful nation was at handling intelligence and actually still is. Someguy fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Mar 9, 2009 |
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Mar 9, 2009 20:18
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Shadowborn posted:I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Short but incredibly sweet. My expectations were kinda high and I still was pleasantly surprised by how easy Matheson made it for the reader to "get into" Neville's head. Any other books by him you guys can recommend? Anything. My favorite, and first "adult" novel I read at the age of nine was The Shrinking Man. After that, Stir of Echoes. There's a bunch more, and you really can't go wrong with the guy. He wrote a lot of Twilight Zone episodes too, and even one Star Trek TOS!! (The Enemy Within). LooseChanj fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 9, 2009 |
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Mar 9, 2009 20:31
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The Black Mountain by Rex Stout. A Goodwill score and my first Nero Wolfe story apart from TV and radio shows, but wouldn't you know it, I landed on the least typical book in the entire 40something-year series. Wolfe's oldest friend, who is also a covert money man for a Montenegro independence group in Tito-era Yugoslavia, is murdered, which compels Wolfe to not only leave the office, but covertly head back to his native soil to bring the murderer to the States for justice. It's a good read with nice character interplay, but definitely wouldn't have been the first Wolfe book I read if I had been tipped off ahead of time. A one-off change-of-pace story only works the way it should if a reader is already familiar with the series dynamic.
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Mar 9, 2009 20:49
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Lolita by Nabokov. Wow. Read it if you haven't.
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Mar 9, 2009 22:25
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No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. I saw the movie before reading the book, so I was unable to get Tommy Lee Jones' voice out of my head. They actually did a great adaptation. I really enjoyed the book and heartily recommend it if you haven't picked it up yet. The characters (especially Ed Tom Bell) were more fleshed out and his (Bell's) ruminations alone make the book worth reading. I'm really starting to love McCarthy. After V. I think I'll pick up Blood Meridian.
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Mar 10, 2009 17:31
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2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. I then watched the movie again right afterward. It makes WAY more sense now, mostly the ending. In the movie it's just like Dave's having a bad trip, but in the book it follows a totally reasonable set of events that would have been difficult to film, such as a white dwarf orbiting a red giant, with a huge gout of flaming plasma connecting them. So in the movie they just replace it with pretty colors swirling around and poo poo. If you liked the movie, you should read the book. It's a good book, but I wouldn't call it a great book.
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Mar 11, 2009 07:00
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For me, Kafka on the Shore. Before I'd even finished reading, I walked around the entire city trying to find a copy, just because I wanted to own it. Turns out that everywhere stocks Murakami's books, and the only item not in stock at five different retailers is... Kafka on the Shore.Oldstench posted:No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. I saw the movie before reading the book, so I was unable to get Tommy Lee Jones' voice out of my head. They actually did a great adaptation. Someone told me to go watch that the other day. Would you (or anyone else) recommend reading the book first, or would it be better to go for the film? I know the typical response is to read the book first, but that's usually because the movie adaptations are poo poo and not really worth watching at all. It seems that in some cases it's easier to engage with a book when you've already absorbed a distilled 180-minute version of it.
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Mar 11, 2009 14:55
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Dance Dance Dance by Murakami. It has a few of the same characters as A Wild Sheep Chase, but the book is more similar to The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. It's strange, like all of his books, but Murakami is one of the few writers that can make the most mundane scenes interesting.
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Mar 11, 2009 15:15
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naptalan posted:Someone told me to go watch that the other day. Would you (or anyone else) recommend reading the book first, or would it be better to go for the film? I know the typical response is to read the book first, but that's usually because the movie adaptations are poo poo and not really worth watching at all. It seems that in some cases it's easier to engage with a book when you've already absorbed a distilled 180-minute version of it. It's funny, I watched the movie last night after posting my update and have a different take on the adaptation now. I much prefer the pacing and the scene order in the book to the movie. The adapted (and new) dialog doesn't seem to fit as well. You can tell what McCarthy wrote and what the screenwriters wrote (attempting to sound McCarthy-like). That being said, the movie is still very good. The book is better. Read it first.
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Mar 11, 2009 18:33
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Just finished Lolita by Nabokov. I didn't find it as good as all the goon hype led me to believe it was. It was funny at times, and I enjoyed his prose, but often times, I found it to be largely inconsistent. For instance, early on reading the book, I thought for sure he would never actually achieve his desire to become sexually active with Lolita. I thought it would ruin the humor of the book if he just got what he wanted. Also, during the last "confrontation" between Humbert and Cue, I felt the whole scene was set up as a parody. Two old men fighting ridiculously, and will end by going nowhere. Humbert is really too much of a pathetic coward for it to feel consistent for him to achieve his sexual desires, or actually use the gun he carried in his pocket for days. Anyway, just my opinion.
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Mar 11, 2009 22:36
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dergeist posted:The Wolves of Calla, Stephen King. Very meh. Just trying to finish this series that I started years ago when I was still in middle school. Books 1-3 were great, 4 was boring only insomuch as it did nothing to advance the main plotline, and this, the 5th installment, seems to be steering the series into a downward spiral. Starting book 6, The Song of Susannah, now. Really hoping it and the final book 7 don't suck as much as some reviews have said they do. Yeah, they definitely do. You should just stop reading now and invent your own books 6 and 7. Just finished Voice of the Fire. Found it difficult to read, but rewarding ultimately, though perhaps not worth the struggle. At times it felt like I'd understand Hob's Hog (the first chapter) better if I had no vocabulary or was autistic.
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Mar 12, 2009 01:21
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Anunnaki posted:Also, during the last "confrontation" between Humbert and Cue, I felt the whole scene was set up as a parody. It is. I highly recommend Appel's annotated version of the book if you didn't get much out of it - there are a lot of allusions and hidden stuff in Lolita that can be difficult to pick out if you don't have someone guiding you. Like most of Nabokov's other books, the surface narrative is just a mask for deeper ideas, and Lolita is so densely packed with stuff it's hard to fully appreciate how great it is if read casually (much more so than anything else he wrote). vvv E: It's definitely tacky. vvv talktapes fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Mar 12, 2009 |
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Mar 12, 2009 04:32
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Roybot posted:It is. I highly recommend Appel's annotated version of the book if you didn't get much out of it - there are a lot of allusions and hidden stuff in Lolita that can be difficult to pick out if you don't have someone guiding you. Like most of Nabokov's other books, the surface narrative is just a mask for deeper ideas, and Lolita is so densely packed with stuff it's hard to fully appreciate how great it is if read casually (much more so than anything else he wrote). The funny part is I saw that version in the bookstore, but decided against getting that version, since I didn't like the cover. 
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Mar 12, 2009 06:57
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