|
Just finished Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett. It's a bizarre tale about the final days of earth. Absolutely amazing. I have not read anything by Pratchett previously and picked this one up because I was once handed American Gods and was told to just read it despite my protests of knowing nothing about the plot. Edit- Now edited to be less of a recommendation now that I'm calmed down from having finished it. Khan!!! fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Mar 26, 2009 |
#
?
Mar 26, 2009 08:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 15:02 |
|
|
I just finished reading The Accidental Sorcerer by Karen E. Mills (aka K. E. Mills) and I think it was a light read. I have read all of her other work and never been overly impressed (got most of them from a friend who really liked them). The story is very light and easy to follow along the the characters remind me of a little of Pratchett in the banter. I don't know if I would recommend it out right, but I had fun reading it. Next up is the Dresden Files I guess... I am in the mood for fun reads after all of the textbooks I have been reading lately.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2009 20:54
|
|
|
Just finished Animal Farm, by George Orwell. I had been wanting to read this one for a while, but never figured it was worth $14 for a book I'd finish in under a week; so I checked it out of my school's library. It was very good. I was laughing throughout, because he pretty much hits the nail on the head in every one of his analogies. The edition I read also had an appendix of Orwell's original Preface, which I also found quite interesting. It talks of his difficulty in getting Animal Farm published, and really illuminates the circumstances under which the book was written. And despite it being written during WWII, it still has a lot of validity today. I don't know if this is regularly published in newer versions, but here's a link to it anyway, for those who are interested.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2009 22:46
|
|
|
Khan!!! posted:Just finished Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett. It's a bizarre tale about the final days of earth. Start reading the Discworld series by Pratchett immediately. Your welcome.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2009 01:46
|
|
|
Flaggy posted:Start reading the Discworld series by Pratchett immediately. Your welcome. I have to make it through Stardust and Anansi Boys, but it's in the queue.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2009 05:05
|
|
|
I just finished Guardians of the Keep by Carol Berg. I really loved the Lighthouse Duet, but the The Bridge of D'Arnath series just isn't quite the same. The series might improve. Which is to say, I've read worse.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2009 03:50
|
|
|
The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll. This guy is so off the wall I'm surprised that I tolerate him, but somehow he manages to keep me turning the page. Really, he's so full of poo poo, but he never crosses the line to actually piss me off---maybe because it's obvious that he loves his characters, and that forgives all the weird and wonderful crapola he drops on their heads.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2009 04:06
|
|
|
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut: Continuing my journey though TBB's Hall of Fame, I found this book to be insightful and funny. I loved the nonlinear story telling almost as if it were a Tralfamadorian story. I've already orderd Cat's Cradle and can't wait to dig into it. V. by Thomas Pynchon. I noticed a surge a few pages back of people reading this recently so I picked it up (I'm a slut for recommendations). Pynchon has a style that if you lose concentration, you quickly get confused and be forced to reread a section. Despite putting my best efforts into the book, I found a couple sections frustrating, but most of the confusion clears up close to the end. Shatterpoint: A Clone Wars Novel by Matthew Stover. Putting hardly a dent in my quest to read every Star Wars novel, I've come to a story with the infamous Jedi Master Mace Windu. I was thinking, "Great, this will be some overly-righteous jedi smut reading." BUT I was surprised to find Stover develope a side of Windu not shown in the other novels/movies. SW novels don't have to be great literature, I don't look for that in those books. I look for creativity and fun. Running around the house like an excitable child with the "vvvmmm vvvmmmm..." of my make-believe lightsaber should tell you how much I enjoyed the book. (Never too old to play Stars Wars).
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2009 01:08
|
|
|
It took me three and a half months, but I finally finished Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. This was the first book of his I had read, and as someone who had only recently gotten back into reading, I knew it would be a real doozy. It turned out to be morningstar-to-the-dick difficult at times, but I kept reading because there were certain parts that were so genuine, despite or perhaps because of their absurdities, that I felt as if I had somehow been touched by some higher being (I'm not going to needlessly masturbate the guy, but Jesus loving Christ does he hit some original notes.) I feel as if I've only scratched the surface of this tome. I definitely didn't understand every section fully, and there were some that went completely over my head. Early on, I decided that this was a book I would actually want to revisit, so I decided not to stress too much about understanding everything and just sort of getting an impression of what was going on. I'm glad I did this, as the obscure references and foreign phrases would have tormented me to no end if I had to stop and look them all up. Today I bought A Gravity Rainbow's Companion by Steven Weisenberger and I hope to revisit the book in a few months. I also want to read Pynchon's other works, which I've heard are a little easier to manage? I can't imagine another book, short of maybe Ulysses, being so... well... uh... I need to recuperate...
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2009 06:52
|
|
|
Popcorn by Ben Elton. This is the only book that I've ever read that has actually made me go from quite liking to loathing the author in a matter of hours. I mean, everyone said that Ben Elton was a smug twat, but he's always managed to be funny enough on TV. I thought the smugness was part of his act. It's not. He is smug to his very core he's a smirking, holier-than-thou, me-too, smarty-pants smug TWAT who, the next time he thinks about putting pen to paper, would do better sticking the pen up his urethra. He's not just a oval office, he's a shameless oval office who WANTS YOU TO KNOW that he's a oval office. He spends the entirety of the "novel" slavering cuntiness all over your face. His glib, and vulgar, and criminally unfunny. The book is supposed to be a dark, politically aware comedy. It's not. It's a crude, humourless slap in the face that was written by a smirking know-it-all luvvie. Elton spanks you repeatedly with his earnest, 10th grade prose that you could almost believe that he had something to say, if only it wasn't buried under a mountain of retching man-child excess. He doesn't. The book is ideologically empty, a poem to the media, written by a media whore. It's also extremely mean spirited, which coupled with it's lack of any redeeming qualities makes it borderline offensive. The real offence comes when you get the the end and realise that THE SMUG oval office ACTUALLY THOUGHT HE WAS MAKING A POINT. God I hate this book. Reading it has actually made me angry. From about page 10, every cell in my body was screaming at me to put it down, but kept trying to find a reason to keep going. Don't make the same mistake as me. Also if someone could find a way to drown Elton in a tub of faeces I'd pay you in gold. This is Ben Elton, the punchable cock faced donkey raper! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2009 07:02
|
|
|
thegloaming posted:It took me three and a half months, but I finally finished Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. This was the first book of his I had read, and as someone who had only recently gotten back into reading, I knew it would be a real doozy. Ha, that's funny, I just finished this last night myself. I had previously read The Crying of Lot 49 and I really can't wait to read more Pynchon. Unfortunately, using the supposedly spoiler free annotations on the Wiki, someone had let slip the "identity" of the S-Gerat and I found it out around pg 500. I cannot imagine the emotional impact of finding that out when it's revealed at the end. In the end, I don't think this book will ever leave me and I'm thrilled about that. I think I'll read Against the Day as my next Pynchon, but it won't be for a while. I want to start on The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov soon, and I just started White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Oh and a new quarter of classes starts tomorrow...
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2009 19:49
|
|
|
ArgaWarga posted:Ha, that's funny, I just finished this last night myself. I had previously read The Crying of Lot 49 and I really can't wait to read more Pynchon. Unfortunately, using the supposedly spoiler free annotations on the Wiki, someone had let slip the "identity" of the S-Gerat and I found it out around pg 500. I cannot imagine the emotional impact of finding that out when it's revealed at the end. In the end, I don't think this book will ever leave me and I'm thrilled about that. Definitely read The Master and Margarita if you can. I feel really stupid. I got so lost in Pynchon's writing that I sort of, well, didn't really understand that S-Gerat was a huge deal until of course, the very end. Yeah, definitely going to reread this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2009 20:15
|
|
|
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester. Started it on Monday, finished it on Friday. It actually felt like forever, though, because I ALWAYS wanted to pick it back up, even though I was busy. I loved the way Bester communicated psychic language. It's also neat to contrast with Crime and Punishment, which I'm seeing on stage next week!
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2009 07:01
|
|
|
The Road Back by Erich Remarque. It is the sequel to All's Quiet on the Western Front. I have to say it is a solid reading and I thoroughly enjoyed it, which is why I finished it in one sitting. I have taken a liking to Remarque's writing style. Despite the book being depressing in key parts, he is able to develop situations which actually made me laugh out loud. Now, once I get paid I am going to buy Three Comrades to continue my Remarque experience.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2009 04:10
|
|
|
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. It's a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. Even though Vinge wrote A Fire Deep first, I would recommend reading Deepness in the Sky first. It shines light on characters in the chronologically later book. This book conveys amazingly the atmosphere of living in an occupied civilization, where everyone can be monitored absolutely all the time. Characters are all very well developed. This is one of the few books that I can say has genuinely changed the way I look at the world.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2009 17:27
|
|
|
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I decided that I would become a well read person not too long ago, and the best way to start, I reasoned, was to pick a piece of great literature that I would absolutely not want to read. And so I picked up Jane Eyre, expecting nothing. And I can't say I was exactly amazed, but it's been a while since I've read something that had such a power to warm my heart. Now I'm going to take a break from reading the heavy stuff and relax for a week or two with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2009 02:59
|
|
|
Q & A: A Novel by Vikas Swarup. I read it because I loved Slumdog Millionaire. The book was extremely different in that it wasn't focused on a major love interest, it was way more depressing, filled with gay sex/rape and there was really only one main character and no others. It was a good read and it ended the way I hoped: emphasizing that good things happen to good people. I would recommend the book but don't expect it to be like the movie that was based on it. Up next for me: Finally finishing Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2009 06:34
|
|
|
I just read King Lear while simultaneously watching the Ian McKellen version that was just recently aired on PBS. The last scene was probably the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen/read in literature.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2009 08:02
|
|
|
Just finshed Dune which was better than I thought it would be. Now reading The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2009 20:22
|
|
|
Dr. Futurity by Philip K. Dick. After reading (and loving) VALIS with the SA book club last year, I picked up a couple Philip K. Dick books at B&N. Dr. Futurity is the first one I've finished, and I didn't find it nearly as interesting as VALIS. The underlying science fiction is solid, and there are a few thoughtful discussions about the implications of time travel and certain modes of society that I found insightful - but the main narrative of the story is pretty bad. Every character is completely lacking in depth, and some of the choices made by the main character (Hurr durr, I've been away from my wife for 2 days, time to cheat on her!) were just really bizarre. Some of the racial things brought up are very awkward too. I don't know if Dick was trying to be completely unracist and my reaction to it is a reflection upon myself, or if what his characters all agree is right is really just loving crazy. But regardless I found it very tough to reconcile these ideas with the empathy for the protagonist the book seems to want you to feel. I know Dick is a very well-respected author so I figure he must have other books much better than this one, so I'm not discouraged from reading more of his work - but this was a very odd read. Overqualified by Joey Comeau. This is a collection of cover letters for job applications sent to various major corporations - except they aren't your normal cover letters, they are deeply personal rantings from someone who has stopped pretending to play along with the system. The letters range from random ideas, to critiques of the company's moral backbone, to abstract retellings of a traumatic event from the author's life. Some letters are just kind of random and don't make you feel much. Others are hilarious satire about the respective company. And still others manage to be poignant and point out some things that we as a society might be glossing over. An uneven read, to be sure, but there are definitely a few gems; this is a very short read, so definitely worth the time in my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2009 23:03
|
|
|
Just finished The Scar by China Miéville. Pretty good dark, grungy, steampunkish fantasy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2009 01:50
|
|
|
hexadecimal posted:The book I mentioned is "A History of Rome" by Tenney Frank. It is very old, however - 1938. It had some very interesting stuff, I never read in other history text books on Rome. no it's 1923 you loving toolbox. rear end in a top hat. there's depths writeen on ancient cult and religious practices btw u turd. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2009 03:42
|
|
|
I just finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I thought it was better than the series, I'm probably going to start on the second one today.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2009 14:17
|
|
|
I just finished Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. The first half of it, I thoroughly enjoyed; the second half was okay. People will probably scream at me for saying this, but I didn't see how the second half related that much to the first. I realize it was probably just meant to show how he became like that, but it was more confusing to me than anything--the whole story just seems so improbable that it was distracting. Though, I know this is supposed to be from the perspective of this guy as he writes it on paper, so it's likely to be distorted from what "actually happened," or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2009 19:16
|
|
|
Look to Windward by Iain Banks. Whereas most of his stuff is suddenly depressing at the end and humorous for the rest, this one was an exercise in morbidity throughout. Still, good read, interesting story.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2009 23:30
|
|
|
I just finished "Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku. It was entertaining and informative... if you're into physics. Reading next: "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2009 00:06
|
|
|
I'm one of those people who always has five or six books going so that I always have something to match my mood. In the past two weeks I've finished: Darkly Dreaming Dexter/Dearly Devoted Dexter/Dexter in the Dark: I devoured these, finishing each book in about a day. They're completely different from the series, much darker. Dexter isn't quite the scruffy, lovable scamp that Michael C. Hall makes him out to be. I like that. Demian: by Herman Hesse. I read this book back in boarding school in the midst of one of those teenage existential crises and I decided that I would give it another go as an adult. I realised just how much I loathe the ending of it, but still, but it fascinates me how one can breeze through 250ish pages of a tortured fellow pining after a barely-acquainted boyhood chum without batting an eye. Also, ANGST. Let the Right One In: What the gently caress? The Will to Power: Basically Nietzsche's money-grubbing sister published all his notebooks after his death. I read WTP in a college seminar about Nietzsche and the book makes a whole lot more sense if you've read his other works first before delving into his mumbled-jumbled scrawled notes and correspondences. Because these were just half-cooked ideas in his head, most of the concepts aren't fully developed, and he seems to go back on a lot of statements that he'd previously made in other books. However, I feel all that would have been clarified if he hadn't.... you know... died. Waiting for Godot: I'm a philosophy nerd, so I've been re-reading all the old stand-bys. Guess what? Godot still never shows up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2009 12:30
|
|
|
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. There were a few spooky and surreal moments inside Francie's head, but the clichés stood out: emotionally fragile ma, drunken and abusive da. Who could be surprised that Francie would end up both crazy and a drunk---and homicidal in the mix? But the sense of alienation progressing to self-destruction came through eerily well. Not a bad book overall.
Wrojin fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Apr 5, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2009 21:38
|
|
|
Under Enemy Colors by S. Thomas Russell - I've been a fan of Russell's fantasy stuff for years (published as Sean Russell) and I was pleasantly surprised to find he'd written a new book (albeit it came out a couple years ago) - this one a historical novel set in the late 1700s, just after the French Revolution and following a young lieutenant in the British navy forced to serve under a despised captain during a tour of duty off the French coast. Very well-researched and solid writing from Russell as usual. All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - Glad I finally read it. Remarque captures the horrors of war so well. Definitely a book I'll be thinking about for a while. Light In August by William Faulkner - First time reading Faulkner and I was very impressed. Enjoyed it from start to finish and I can see why Cormac McCarthy's early work's been compared to Faulkner - they both have that incredible way with language. Looking forward to reading more Faulkner in the future.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2009 23:06
|
|
|
Dorothy & The Wizard in Oz, L. Frank Baum I really want to look into Baum's life, because as soon as the second or third Oz book he was talking about how all anyone seemed to want was more of the same and here we are in book 4 and he's rehashing Dorothy and the Wizard. How he managed to crank out 41 of these has to be an interesting story. Maybe this was just a brief return to the characters. Not a bad story by any means though, entertaining enough. The Beautiful & Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald The semi-autobiographical story of a dashing 20's spoiled hipster and his vapid wife, I really do have to wonder just how autobiographical it is. The ending, although telegraphed from a mile away was still utterly hilarious. The Man in the High Castle, Phillip K. Dick PKD is always weird, and this was no exception. I have no idea why I thought this being "science fiction" meant something Blad Runnerish and futuristic, but I guess I was sort of anti-spoiled. I love when that happens. Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey Holy hell I took my sweet time reading this, almost a month I think. I hesitate to call this the "story" of an Oregon logging family bucking a strike because it's so much more a character piece. And not just one character, there's several although the main antagonists are two brothers and a wife. It's fairly psychotic reading too, there's little or no indication in the text that the viewpoint has changed from one character or another and even from first person to third person. Very challenging to read I have to say.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2009 19:49
|
|
|
Read a volume of Chekov's Plays ahead of going to a performance of The Cherry Orchard (the fancypants Bridge Project staging, which was excellent; Simon Russell Beale could almost take Lopakhin on the road as a one man show). That said, they gain a lot in performance. I think there's a certain tendency for a reader to impose archetypes on the text (dreamer, bumbler, rising middle-class boor) which really short-change how developed the characters are (and can be shown to be by good actors). Also the first volume of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (aka The Spell of Plato) in which Popper unleashes the full force of his scorn on Plato as a proponent of totalitarianism. Really excellent and indepth critique of his later work, primarily the Republic, going on to delve into the psychology of why Plato went in the direction he did and how he betrayed and essentially perverted the teachings of Socrates. It's a little amusing to see how far Popper will go in his need to be right though, especially the addenda in which he notes the indignant reactions of Plato scholars to the book, apologises for hurting their feelings and then immediately goes on to demolish their objections once again. Definitely a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in Plato. Nice surprise when I found the crummy local bookstore had a bunch of books by Janet Malcolm, so ended up with Reading Chekov; wasn't really planning to dwell on a theme, but any excuse to read more Malcolm works for me. It relates a trip to Russia she took to tour Moscow, St Petersburg and Yalta and weaves anecdotes into a general analysis of Chekov's work (mostly short stories). Disappointly not as great as her usual, being a bit hampered by a clumsy way of pairing up anecdote-analysis. No profound insights to be gained either, but still fairly entertaining. I think it's probably that this is a Malcolm book that's actually about the subject, instead of using the subject as a frame for a wider study (like using Sylvia Plath in The Silent Woman as a springboard for a study on biography and literary legacies).
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2009 21:06
|
|
|
I read way too many books at one time, but I've just recently finished Franny and Zooey by Salinger, which I liked a lot, and This Side of Paradise by Fitzgerald, which I also enjoyed, though not as much as Gatsby (obviously) or Tender Is The Night. I also just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which I thought was very good, though I'm still not sure how I feel about Gaiman's insistence on graphic sex scenes. I'm almost done with Anansi Boys, also by Gaiman, and Last Exit To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. I'm looking to pick up 3 or 4 new books this weekend, I'd like to get a couple classics such as Hemingway or Wilde, neither of whom I've read, as well as a couple more modern entertaining fiction reads, if anyone has suggestions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2009 00:58
|
|
|
LooseChanj posted:Dorothy & The Wizard in Oz, L. Frank Baum The first book was written as an allegory about the gold standard. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2009 03:12
|
|
|
Just finished a small batch: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: I loved this one. I thought that the various narrators/multi-page footnotes/weird text structures/etc were all used really well, and not just for the sake of being weird. The story itself is pretty captivating, if not a bit simple, and overall it's a really cool plot. I like that he doesn't try to give any explanation for the house or anything - what could he say that would make it seem real? I'm gonna grab Only Revolutions in the near future, for sure. America: The Book as presented by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: This was my bedside book for the last two or three weeks, really funny and generally just an entertaining read. I don't have too much to say about it, but anybody looking for a bunch of laughs and an easy read should grab this, pronto. It's definitely better than Colbert's book, which I got a while back (not that Colbert's was bad). Note Grouping by James Morgan Thurmond: This one's a technical book regarding music and how to play musically well. It's very very useful for anybody who plays music much, and I'd highly recommend it - it's definitely changed the way I look at a piece of music before I play it and given me a better understand of what seperates the pros from the amateurs in some regards. Up next: Dracula, either Lord of The Rings or The Amber Spyglass, Blindness, and a dilbert book for the bedside.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2009 21:22
|
|
|
wlokos posted:America: The Book as presented by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: This was my bedside book for the last two or three weeks, really funny and generally just an entertaining read. I don't have too much to say about it, but anybody looking for a bunch of laughs and an easy read should grab this, pronto. It's definitely better than Colbert's book, which I got a while back (not that Colbert's was bad). Don't get the Teacher's Edition, btw, the red-ink corrections in the margins actually detract from the comedy by needlessly emphasizing the jokes. Yes, we know that Thomas Jefferson never said any such thing, this is why it was funny until you underlined it and pointed out that it wasn't actually true.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2009 21:28
|
|
|
I just got done reading Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which I found to be quite enjoyable. It kept me interested through most of the book, though it seemed to fizzle just a tad in the end. However A+++ would read again.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2009 01:44
|
|
|
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima. A bit detached and cerebral, but not without merit if you're in the mood for it. I'm continuing with the rest of the tetralogy: Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel. Mishima committed seppuku on the day he finished that last book of this series. Nothing like ritually disembowelling yourself to mark a job well done...
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2009 14:09
|
|
|
Went on another crime fiction binge the last several days. Cross by Ken Bruen - Continuing his series about an ex-cop turned detective in Galway, Ireland. Another great read - can't get enough of Bruen's stuff. King Suckerman by George Pelecanos - Two friends in 1970s Washington DC run afoul of a pair of psycho killers during a drug deal. The third or so book I've read by Pelecanos - he's starting to grow on me. Flood and Strega by Andrew Vachss - The first two books in his Burke series. Picked these up on recommendations in the noir/hardboiled crime fiction thread. Liked them both, though they do get a bit ridiculous at times. Still, the books are pretty well-written, Burke is an interesting character and I can't complain about street justice being served on low-life scumbags.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2009 19:04
|
|
|
Soma Soma Soma posted:Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential... I loved this book. I always thought his narration was very well done, which is one reason I love watching his show on Travel. I've been meaning to pick up another one of his books. Galapagos by Vonnegut Again, I find myself reading another Vonnegut. This one was rather uninspiring till about the last 10 pages. I liked his poking fun at evolution and the setting and story, but it didn't capture me like The Sirens of Titan or Player Piano. The ending really threw me for a spin though, which was what saved the book for me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2009 20:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 15:02 |
|
|
Caught Stealing and Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston. I was familiar with Huston through his Marvel Comics work, and I'd read the first two volumes of his 'vampire noir' series, the Joe Pitt casebooks. I knew he was a real modern hardboiled master, but even his other books couldn't prepare me for how loving good Caught Stealing was. This is not only the best book I've read by him, but one of the best works of crime fiction I've read...well, ever. It's incredibly tautly paced, has fantastic dialogue and narration, and portrays the requisite noir violence as really stomach-churning (if a book can make me feel queasy in the first five pages, I know it's doing something right). Six Bad Things, the sequel, is not quite as good, but it had a lot to live up to, and it definitely takes the lead character of Hank Thompson into some interesting, dark new places. I'll definitely be reading the third and final book, A Dangerous Man, first chance I get.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2009 21:16
|
|
