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I just finished Dune. Wow. That was the most fun I've had reading a book in a long time.
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Dec 24, 2006 08:16
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American Gods, Yesterday. Boring, long and I felt no empathy or sympathy for any of the main characters whatsoever. The end is a major anticlimax. I think ill just read Sandman again. Edit: Just started The Rum Diary. Thompson is such a breath of fresh air.
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Dec 24, 2006 11:09
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An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power John Steele Gordon Great book. A blend of history, politics, and economics that is actually somewhat entertaining. Requires no formal economics education, and offers sometimes hilarious insight into the source of American power and character of those who shaped it. Memorable highlights: -The absurd amount of governmental corruption in the 19th century (Credit-Mobilier) -How J.P. Morgan saved the economy from the brink of disaster not once but twice -How Ben Franklin's and James Madison's hatred of banks left a legacy that screwed us for centuries -Andrew Jackson was a total jerk -Why price controls never work and so forth
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Dec 24, 2006 13:06
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The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. I usually don't like war books, especially the ones beyond WWII, but O'Brien's prose is just wonderful. And the fact that it was a loosely-connected series of vignettes kept the book really fresh, so I finished it fairly quickly.
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Dec 24, 2006 20:50
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Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Riveste. Fun short book about an ex-soldier in seventeenth century Spain (1623 if Wikipedia is to be believed) and some buckled swashes. I skipped over the poetry  , but there's a throwaway The Three Musketeers reference. The Spirit Gate, by Kate Elliot. Generic fantasy decently done.
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Dec 25, 2006 02:49
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Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Incredible book to read that has me very excited to read both more Rushdie and more Indian Literature in 2007. 5/5.
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Dec 26, 2006 19:43
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lan sam posted:I just finished Dune. Wow. That was the most fun I've had reading a book in a long time. I just finished reading Dune aswell. It was way better than I expected.  Are the sequels equally good?
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Dec 26, 2006 19:58
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Delicate Creatures by J Michael Straczynski. Not a bad little fairy tale about the power of ideas over man and yet how dangerous they could be. It'll be something to pass on to youngins, along with Gaiman's Coraline.
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Dec 26, 2006 20:45
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Polished off three books. IBM & the holocaust -all about how IBM punchcard technology was used by the Nazi's. Very disturbing, even after 60 years. Lies, Inc. by philip k dick - Blazed through this book in 4 hours. Hard to say if the book was about human rights, or a distillation of drug trips? I can't decide...Philip K Dick books are best re-experienced a few times. Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution, by Richard Ben-Veniste and George Frampton. The story of how the Watergate taskforce/Special Prosecutor went about the investigation. Nifty details about the tape subpeonas, and trials.
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Dec 27, 2006 05:12
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Loophole posted:I just finished reading Dune aswell. It was way better than I expected. Having read Dune Messiah, I have to say that that one certainly isn't. It's a whole lot of five people talking around a table. I hear Children of Dune is better, but after that I'm taking a break. I finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, and really really liked it. It seemed to make a good deal more sense than most of Murakami's endings and yet was very open-ended. I was definitely a fan.
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Dec 27, 2006 08:50
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It was loving fantastic. McCarthy does a fantastic job of storytelling. He makes two people walking (very slowly, at that) an extremely engaging read. Strongly recommend it.
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Dec 27, 2006 09:55
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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Shame I didn't read this earlier. Good book.
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Dec 27, 2006 11:44
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Modern Life Is War posted:Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. Introduces sex, gambling, and tobacco addicted MI6 spy James Bond as he goes after KGB spies across Europe. Just finished this a few books back, and now I'm on Live & Let Die. With this latest movie I figured I needed to start on Bond and Casino being the first book hey, why not? But as I'm almost done with LALD, I'm getting the feeling that Bond is really just a racist sexist snob, or Fleming is. And not being able to get it on because of a broken...not because of  , but because of a broken pinky just makes him seem like a retarded Neanderthal. It's still good reading though.kurupi posted:Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. Next on deck! And because this is what did you just finish, last book I finished was Ringworld, by Niven. You could practically diagnose the Asperger's a mile away.
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Dec 27, 2006 13:22
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The Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators by Stephen G. Michaud and Roy Hazelwood ... it was laying around my parents house. It was... interesting to see the differences that Hazelwood brought about in the investigation of sexual crimes.
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Dec 27, 2006 19:31
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I just finished Thomas Harris' most recent Hannibal Lecter novel, Hannibal Rising, which covers the time period from Hannibal's early childhood to right before his notoriety in the United States. By far the weakest of the series (I have read Red Dragon, Silence, and Hannibal), and I didn't find it to be a very inspiring read.
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Dec 27, 2006 19:48
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Dune by Herbert, and it was excellent. i intend to pick up the next one when i get back to school. next on my list is recently recieved christmas present Act of Treason by Vince Flynn, and then Demeille's new book and then maybe the gunslinger, but i want to read more sci fi.
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Dec 28, 2006 01:16
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I just finished Iron Council by China Mieville. God drat that man and his books. So good, but they make me ANGRY. The anger fills me. It makes me want to find that man and shake him until he understands that happy endings aren't necessarily a bad thing. But I won't. Because he is big and scary looking. Don't get me wrong, that book, and the rest of the New Crobuzon trilogy, are incredibly awesome. But the ending, man! All the endings! My next book is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. It's good so far, but reading it is kinda like wading through treacle. The man does like his words.
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Dec 28, 2006 02:45
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I just finished Fragile Things, the latest Neil Gaiman short story collection - it has some great moments (A Study in Emerald, Monarch of the Glen) and some mediocre ones (Feeders and Eaters) but the majority is a lot of fun to read. My next book is ... I can't decide whether to start Shalimar the Clown, The Audacity of Hope, Flashman and the Dragon, or Sharpe's Fury.
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Dec 28, 2006 08:43
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I just finished 1001 Nights of Snowfall. It's a book that takes place in the Fables universe, and it's basically a retelling of Sheherezade and 1001 stories about Ali Baba or whatever. Except the stories are about Fables characters. The art was pretty amazing in some parts.
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Dec 28, 2006 09:49
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I just finished The Man in the High Castle after several years of hearing it was fantastic but never picking it up. It was worth it. Really excellent story. Also, I'm done with The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, which is a gritty and (I assume) realistic novel written about the First World War from the perspective of a private who fought in it. It deals with the nine parts boredom/one part sheer terror aspect of war remarkably well and talks a lot about the plight of the common soldiers, the enlisted/officer relationship, and the psychological effects of being away from home and engaged in deadly battles day after day for years on end. It was really good  I got a pile of books for Christmas including Howard's End and a history of the Ottoman Empire, so I'll be a-diggin' into those momentarily.
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Dec 28, 2006 18:57
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I dipped into some World War I stories myself over Christmas with Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. It's narrated by two people starting with Niska, a Cree woman who lives all alone until she takes her nephew from the local residential school to live with her. The central story is of her nephew, Xavier, (the other narrator) and his best friend who talks him into joining the army. It follows the two of them to France, through most of the major battles there, and how it affects each of them. The second story line is of Niska and her life which is just as interesting, at least to me. I think what made this one stand out to me so much was reading from Xavier's viewpoint. He goes into the army with just a smattering of English and no experience living even in a small town. How he viewed the army structure, discipline, what the troops were asked to do, and how they accomplished it was what kept me reading. In fact, I read too fast. Now I have no books left!
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Dec 28, 2006 23:24
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I am a huge WWII history nerd, and I've polished off a large pile of books in the last few weeks: It never snows in September A thorough analysis of the German defense of Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. It it well written and incredibly detailed. It occaisonally gets bogged down in the minutae of each engagement, but it paints a very good picture of how and why the inexperienced German defenders held of tenacious attacks by experienced allied paratroopers. A Writer at war This is the account of Vassily Grossman, a frontline correspondent for the Red Star newspaper during World War II. It's fairly light on actual writing from Grossman, but it contains lots of commentary and analysis by Anthony Beevor, one of the authorities of combat in the eastern front. Grossman paints short, poignant snapshots of the Red Army soldiers. It also has one of the most graphic and depressing descriptions of the death camp at Treblinka I have ever read. The Simple Sounds of Freedom This is the account of Joe Beyrle, the only soldier to have fought on both the eastern and western fronts of WWII. Captured on D-Day, Beyrle escaped from prison and fought with a Soveit tank army before being repatriated to the West. Beyrle died recently, and the book had a lot of gaps in it. Obviously, his memory was starting to fail, and a lot of the details were gone. An interesting story, a lot of the gaps are filled in with general information regarding the combat operations of the 101st screaming eagles during the war. Blood Red Snow A griping account of the brutal fighting on Eastern front, from the perspective of the German landser. The author won the Iron Cross and the Gold Wound badge after being injured in combat SIX times. A moving and important piece of any WWII library. Miracles on the Water Probably one of the most harrowing stories of survival in WWII, the SS City of Benares was a mercy ship torpedoed by a Nazi Uboat in the north Atlantic in Sept. 1940. The boat carried several hundred children who were being evacuated to canada. The account of the ensuing choas was overwhelming. On boat of survivors spent more than 7 days on the open sea before being rescured. Absolutely a powerful story. Black Edleweiss This account focuses on an overlooked aspect of the war, combat on the Karelina Isthus between Germany/Norway and Russia. The narrative is not as powerful as other books, but it's still and interesting read. The author, a volunteer for the 10th SS Mountain Division, spends a lot of time trying to reconcile his patriotism with the "criminal nature" of the SS. A lot of awkward pseudo-philsophical discussions intrude upon the story.
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Dec 28, 2006 23:45
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I finished Krakauer's Into Thin Air, about his 1996 trek to Everest. I feel kind of sheepish because everyone but me had read it and I kept putting it off for some reason but I absolutely loved it and read it in a day because I couldn't put it down. He's capable of stronger writing but perhaps the subject matter is what compelled me the most--- I picked it up because my sister and I were having a long discussion about the David Sharpe incident on Everest that was touched on by the Discovery Channel special about Everest. If anything reading Into Thin Air made me even more angry about what happened with Sharpe but that's a whole 'nother story. I would honestly put this in my top 15 books just because it was fascinating to read. I'm about to start Devil in the White City. I was on a Tudor kick and read some books about Henry VIII, his wives, and Elizabeth I recently and figured I'd move on to some other stuff. Devil in the White City is about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and, specifically, H. H. Holmes the serial killer. Should be fun, I hope. 
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Dec 28, 2006 23:58
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Quicksilver Book One by neal stephenson. Took me forever to read it but I finally finished it, and really enjoyed it. I love historical economics (and econ in general) so I had a lot of fun reading about the early markets in Amsterdam, London, and Paris, and how they differed, along with all the political intrigue that shaped them. I bought the game 1701 A.D. just so I could participate in colonial era economics. Now I am extremely excited to start Green Mars by Kim Robinson.
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Dec 29, 2006 00:13
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I just finished The Camel Club and The Collectors by David Baldacci. They were quick page turning books. Good fiction books that had me loving all the characters and the plot. I really need to find another author/book to read now.
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Dec 29, 2006 00:47
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Just finished The Birth of the Mind by Gary Marcus so heres the review I left on LibraryThing. This piece was succinct but effective, I thought, in the point it was trying to make. Generally one encounters strong conceptions about the mind's complexity and the ability of a brain to contain the scope of its phenomena. Even though the causal links between mind and brain are evidenced in every day life in the form of anti-depressents and other medication, many holdouts remain. Some critics decry that materialistic explanations of the brain can never truly understand the mind. In this book, Gary Marcus swiftly dispells these doubts and clarifies the simplicity of the problem with the creative powers of biology. He begins by discussing the nature/nurture argument before going on to explain concepts like learning and other mental processes within this framework. Proceding onto topics in genetics, developmental and molecular biology, Marcus discusses the growth of the brain and how it structures itself into modules that allow our minds to exist. A praise quote on the back of the book mentioned the simplicity of the book, and I agree that this is one of the works most redeeming aspects. Not in that the material or coverage is overtly simplistic, but rather that it simplifies what to many appears to be a system that is actually too complex to ever fully be known. Marcus provides a little light at the end of the tunnel that maybe figuring out the brain isn't so impossible after all.
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Dec 29, 2006 04:46
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Just finished Temperament which told how, over a 500 year struggle between some of the greatest minds in physics, philosophy, music, and mathematics, the piano achieved the system of tuning that we are familiar with today (twelve tone equal temperament). It's weird that something that's so familiar and so rational is the result of hundreds of years of debate.
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Dec 29, 2006 04:55
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Just minutes ago I finished Pale Fire. I loved the language, the story of Zembla, but  . I don't think I've read a prettier book, and the plots are really interesting, but holy hell the whole status of the textual apparatus and poem is so confusing. I love this...thing. I could go on about the questions I have about the book but I'm sort of in shock, trying to comprehend what I just read. Want a mindfuck? Read this. It's a wonderfully readable book but there's so much there I have to reread it later.
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Dec 29, 2006 06:40
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I just finished Toast tonight and I have to say I was disappointed. Charles Stross uses a lot of words but dosen't really say much. Maybe his full novels are better.
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Dec 29, 2006 07:53
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i just finished White Oleander this morning. a few days ago i finished The Hours. i.ve not seen either movie, but i really want to. i hope they.re as good as the books, but i know how rare that is.  next up is Middlesex, a christmas present. and after that, i.m going to plow through the lemony snickett books, which were post-chirstmas presents to myself. hopefully i can get a bunch of books off my to-read list before next semester starts.
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Dec 29, 2006 08:00
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I just finished Gravity's Rainbow, at last. It took me 4 months, but I was taking extra care to read it only little chunks at a time or else I'd loose focus. I like it a lot, I guess my interests in the time period, in rocketry, in science in general and in complicated plots all kind of helped. Sometime soon I'll start all over again, because by the time I got to part 4 I had already forgotten events and characters of part 1. Next on the list is The Rise and Decline of the State by Martin Van Creveld. I had already read it once but it's so good I have to read it again.
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Dec 29, 2006 10:57
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I just finished reading The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner and I loved it. Definitely one of the most interesting autobiographies I've read. Gardner's writing style is very simple and honest, which seems to make his rags-to-riches story even more incredible. I saw the movie last night and it was great, but of course, it's not as good as the book for the lack of details. Next up, I have to finish The Kite Runner. I was halfway through it when I started reading The Pursuit of Happyness.
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Dec 29, 2006 20:34
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I just finished up The Sun Also Rises, and really enjoyed it. I had to read it for class over the summer, but had to cover way too much way too quickly. Four week lit classes with full semester reading lists are fun! This time I actually got to absorb it a little bit more, rather than just reading it to keep up with the class. I'm starting to get on a bit of a Hemingway kick now, and need to get ahold of some of his other stuff after I finish Candide.
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Dec 29, 2006 21:09
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Since I've had so much time for reading over the Christmas break I decided to re-read some Ancient Eastern texts that I'd read first about a year ago. I started with the Analects of Confucius, then went through the Tao Te Ching a second time, and a couple days ago I finished reviewing the Chuang Tzu. In preparation for my Ancient Chinese Buddhism course I'm going to read What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula, then the Dhammapada, then back to Ancient Chinese philosophy with the I Ching (Book of Changes). After that I'd like to get into more of Jack Kerouac's work with either The Dharma Bums or Mexico City Blues. Then I'll probably review Ancient Western philosophy, going back through all the Socratic dialouges and Aristotelian works that I own. There aren't enough hours in the day 
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Dec 29, 2006 21:59
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MeatwadIsGod posted:There aren't enough hours in the day Too true. I've just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray and loved it. I don't know why it took me so long to read it! I finally snapped and read it because I see so many references to it, and I wasn't disappointed. I knew the basic premise before I started reading, but it didn't spoil it. Are any of Wilde's short story collections worth picking up? In the middle of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco which I was lucky enought to get for Christmas - it's a beautiful illustrated version, and all the novels/comics referred to during the story have their cover art included. It deals with Yambo, who loses his short term memory (we don't yet know why) who tries to regain it by revisting all the things that were familiar in his life, including his childhood home - much of it is through books he read in his youth. Alot of it is about the undercurrents, the things that are unsaid by people that he is left to wonder about, to imagine/reconstruct how things may have been - whether he's regaining real memories, or substituting truth with his imagined version of events. Next up is House of Leaves, which the same awesome person bought me. Wish me luck!
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Dec 29, 2006 23:36
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The entire Dune series. All twelve. Again. I have no life.
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Dec 29, 2006 23:55
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n3vrs0br posted:The entire Dune series. All twelve. Again. That's impressive. I read and LOVED Dune, but heard that the rest of them don't compare, and I should preserve my golden memories of the first one without sullying them with remembered tears shed over the later ones. Are the rest good?
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Dec 29, 2006 23:59
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meche posted:In the middle of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco which I was lucky enought to get for Christmas - it's a beautiful illustrated version, and all the novels/comics referred to during the story have their cover art included. It deals with Yambo, who loses his short term memory (we don't yet know why) who tries to regain it by revisting all the things that were familiar in his life, including his childhood home - much of it is through books he read in his youth. Alot of it is about the undercurrents, the things that are unsaid by people that he is left to wonder about, to imagine/reconstruct how things may have been - whether he's regaining real memories, or substituting truth with his imagined version of events. I finished that book recently too and was kind of dissapointed with it, and I really liked Name of the Rose and Focault's Pendulum. What was the deal with the character of his assistant? In the beginning of the book it seems like his relationship with her was going to be important, but she just drops out and dissapears after the beginning as does his family. But in general the book read more like a fictional memoir than a novel. Eco isn't enough of a stylist (at least not in tranlation--maybe it's better in Italian) for me just to want to read his sentences for the sheer pleasure of their construction, so the fact that the majority of the book goes nowhere hurts it IMO. Oh, and what the hell did that ending mean? AntiZeus fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Dec 30, 2006 |
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Dec 30, 2006 00:37
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I finished The Great Gatsby just now. Even though I constantly had to reread sections because I'd lose track of what exactly I had been reading, I really liked it. The descriptions were vivid and did a good job of painting the scene throughout the book.
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Dec 30, 2006 20:40
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| # ? May 3, 2024 13:03 |
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I finished Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus last night. It's a collection of 6 of his short stories: I loved The Silent Men, The Guest and The Artist at Work. The Growing Stone and The Adulterous Woman were enjoyable. I wasn't quite sure what to make of The Renegade, but I suppose that's half the point, the narrator being a complete madman. I think now I just need to read The Rebel and I've read most of Camus' stuff. That's going to be a heavy read, I fear.
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Dec 30, 2006 20:49
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