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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Feb 18, 2014 10:22:28 GMT -5
Definitely possible usernametoolong. I don't know, for me there wasn't quite enough of either the plot or the motivation. |
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Feb 18, 2014 10:24:47 GMT -5
Two on the go at the minute: Disturbing The Peace, by Richard Yates, which is filled with despair from page 1, and a reread of The Exorcist. This is better-written than I'd remembered, apart from the passages where he really tries to write, which are worse than I remembered - worse, in fact, than I could've imagined. Ha...nice. Over the weekend I read The Dinner, a buzzy little Dutch thriller about two brothers and their wives who go out to dinner to discuss a Bad Thing their sons have done. It was fine. Airplane reading. And then, inspired by the "Books you loved as a child" thread, I re-read A Wrinkle In Time. STILL AWESOME. Now doing Kapuscinski's Travels With Herodotus, before diving back into early French lit with Dangerous Liaisons (finally!). |
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Feb 18, 2014 10:28:28 GMT -5
I'm finishing up The Sil, but need occasional breaks from that so I've been reading The Night Circus as well.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Feb 18, 2014 12:33:49 GMT -5
"Doubt: A History," by Jennifer Michael Hecht. 500-page brick that starts slow but is full of super-fascinating stuff. Doubles as a pretty good history of philosophy. I'm making a mental note to read Lucretius and deciding that I am, at heart, an Epicurean atheist.
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Feb 18, 2014 14:39:17 GMT -5
"Doubt: A History," by Jennifer Michael Hecht. 500-page brick that starts slow but is full of super-fascinating stuff. Doubles as a pretty good history of philosophy. I'm making a mental note to read Lucretius and deciding that I am, at heart, an Epicurean atheist. Oh shit, I've been meaning to read this too. Worth it despite the slow start then? My advice re. Lucretius is to read Greenblatt's The Swerve (although wasn't it you who was saying you're not crazy about Greenblatt?) and then Lucretius, who is fairly repetitive and boring much of the time. I mean, worth reading anyway, especially since I share your affinity for his philosophy, but it's better philosophy than literature. |
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clytie
TI Forumite
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Post by clytie on Feb 19, 2014 12:00:59 GMT -5
I'm continuing the works of Henry James with The Bostonians.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Feb 19, 2014 21:22:52 GMT -5
"Doubt: A History," by Jennifer Michael Hecht. 500-page brick that starts slow but is full of super-fascinating stuff. Doubles as a pretty good history of philosophy. I'm making a mental note to read Lucretius and deciding that I am, at heart, an Epicurean atheist. Oh shit, I've been meaning to read this too. Worth it despite the slow start then? My advice re. Lucretius is to read Greenblatt's The Swerve (although wasn't it you who was saying you're not crazy about Greenblatt?) and then Lucretius, who is fairly repetitive and boring much of the time. I mean, worth reading anyway, especially since I share your affinity for his philosophy, but it's better philosophy than literature. Hey, I'll give the Greenblatt a try if my library has it. Thanks! And 4 pages from the end, Doubt is definitely worth it. |
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Feb 21, 2014 9:31:37 GMT -5
The Martian by Andy Weir. Utterly riveting, surprisingly accessible hard SF. Manned Mars mission leaves one man behind after emergency evac, thinking he's dead. All he has to help him survive are the stuff the mission left behind, bits of old Mars survey gear and his own smarts. Think Gravity meets Apollo 13. I'm half way through and I can barely put it down.
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Feb 21, 2014 9:44:20 GMT -5
Oh, you're diggin' that Lupin? I have another friend who liked it too. I think it got a good review at the Old Country too, right?
I've started Dangerous Liaisons and it's super fun so far. 18th century books are so fucking smutty.
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Post-Lupin
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Immanentizing the Eschaton
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Post by Post-Lupin on Feb 21, 2014 14:50:33 GMT -5
Oh, you're diggin' that Lupin? I have another friend who liked it too. I think it got a good review at the Old Country too, right? I've started Dangerous Liaisons and it's super fun so far. 18th century books are so fucking smutty. Finished it. Wept, not only for how good it is, but the last couple of paragraphs were hugely moving in terms of humanity in general. Another nice touch: they never mention the heroes ethnicity at all. |
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Feb 22, 2014 1:14:51 GMT -5
I'm reading a book to review for work and I have "Legend" by Marie Lu on my Nook. It's supposed to be the next big trilogy in YA fiction and I've heard good things. Then I'll read "Detroit: An American Autopsy" by Charlie LeDuff. Have you started American Autopsy yet? I was thinking of doing that next too (or fairly soon to next). |
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Post by nottheradio on Feb 22, 2014 20:51:50 GMT -5
The Martian by Andy Weir. Utterly riveting, surprisingly accessible hard SF. Manned Mars mission leaves one man behind after emergency evac, thinking he's dead. All he has to help him survive are the stuff the mission left behind, bits of old Mars survey gear and his own smarts. Think Gravity meets Apollo 13. I'm half way through and I can barely put it down. I can't believe this is the first I've seen or heard about this book. On to the library queue it goes (only five holds and it came out this month, I don't feel so badly about it sneaking under my radar). I finished Yiddish Policemen's Union, and was taken aback by how much I loved it. I liked Kavalier & Clay well enough, but something about YPU burrowed into my brain and nested there. Everything about it was so well-realized, and Chabon did noir his own way, without becoming too wrapped up in the artifice of the genre. The copy I have has a short essay at the end with Chabon returning to the real Sitka for the last time, and reading it directly after finishing the book messed with my head a bit, I was that immersed. Started PopCo, by Scarlett Thomas, a couple days ago, and I'm roughly halfway in. It's been about what I expected; light-weight and a product of its time, but fun and clever (if self-consciously so), too. The first half has been slow-going with a lack of clear focus, but I do want to see how it all coheres. |
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Post-Lupin
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Immanentizing the Eschaton
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Post by Post-Lupin on Feb 23, 2014 4:56:18 GMT -5
The Martian by Andy Weir. Utterly riveting, surprisingly accessible hard SF. Manned Mars mission leaves one man behind after emergency evac, thinking he's dead. All he has to help him survive are the stuff the mission left behind, bits of old Mars survey gear and his own smarts. Think Gravity meets Apollo 13. I'm half way through and I can barely put it down. Started PopCo, by Scarlett Thomas, a couple days ago, and I'm roughly halfway in. It's been about what I expected; light-weight and a product of its time, but fun and clever (if self-consciously so), too. The first half has been slow-going with a lack of clear focus, but I do want to see how it all coheres. I love her The End Of My. Y. |
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Post by drunkneildiamond on Feb 23, 2014 16:29:19 GMT -5
It looks like this year will be the year of Discworld for me. I read The Color of Magic a little while back and enjoyed it, but moved on to other things. I read The Light Fantastic and was totally pulled in and I've since read Mort, and am currently reading Sourcery.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 1:01:35 GMT -5
I'm reading a book to review for work and I have "Legend" by Marie Lu on my Nook. It's supposed to be the next big trilogy in YA fiction and I've heard good things. Then I'll read "Detroit: An American Autopsy" by Charlie LeDuff. Have you started American Autopsy yet? I was thinking of doing that next too (or fairly soon to next). I have not. I should be done with "Legend" soon and I also started "The Days of Anna Madrigal" by Armistead Maupin, but "Detroit: An American Autopsy" is next. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 24, 2014 1:43:07 GMT -5
This morning on the way into work I finished reading "The Last Ringbearer," which someone on Shoutbox mentioned a couple weeks back while mocking the opening ceremony in Sochi. It's the weird Russian retelling/sequel to Lord of Rings that you didn't know you wanted. I read some random English translation that really could have used an editor, but the book had some interesting stuff going on in it, so it wasn't a totally wash. Now that the Olympics are done, I can get back to reading crap I was supposed to read in high school English class but didn't. I've got The Canterbury Tales and A Tale of Two Cities on my iPad, so I'll probably start one of those on my way home tonight.
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Feb 27, 2014 13:02:41 GMT -5
I'm psyched to read Nightmare Abbey; I'd never even heard of it. It's fun; I haven't read it in a while, but Peacock has an enjoyably sardonic take on so many literary trends of his day (he falls halfway between Austen and Thomas De Quincey and basically rips the shit out of both). Trying to keep the pile steady, and focus a little more on the writing (which proceeds a little fitfully and without direction). Trying to make up my mind between Outlander, Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, and Mir Amman's The Tale of Four Dervishes (a Bengali picaresque from 1803). That said, I finally read Confederates in the Attic! Much better than I thought it would be, as Horwitz fully incorporates (as well as he can, I guess) the African-American experience and doesn't treat his subjects as turgid novelties (R.L. Hodge is much more rounded than I expected). Also Imre Kertesz's Dossier K. I've never read any of his novels, but it's a compelling self-interview with a lot of interesting insights on the writer's life and Kertesz's own experiences during the Holocaust (he was in Auschwitz and Buchenwald) and Communist rule in Hungary. One abortive discussion on the twentieth-century experience with a future "film director" made me wonder if the latter was Istvan Szabo. And Herodotus is awesome. I still remember my annoyance in my grad school historiography class when my fellow students dutifully followed our (awesome) instructor's lead and tore him a new one in relation to Thucydides. I see where it comes from, but it's such a cliche! I would read Scott Lynch's book before Outlander, although I did like Outlander. It's the sequels that get to be a drag. I remember reading Herodotus in college and thinking he was extremely readable. |
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Feb 27, 2014 13:50:20 GMT -5
I finished Dangerous Liaisons. Here are the best books written in the 18th century: The Monk, Candide, and Dangerous Liaisons, full stop.
Now I'm on to Snow Child with my GR book club. It's super corny so far. I don't know why everyone likes it so much.
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Post by nowimnothing on Feb 27, 2014 14:47:59 GMT -5
Just picked up Gun Machine, Warren Ellis's second foray into novels. I really enjoyed Crooked Little Vein so hopefully this one holds up as well.
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Post by artemisfox on Feb 28, 2014 23:17:44 GMT -5
I'm currently reading "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers," an original novelization based on the Red Dwarf television show. I highly recommend it, it's really fun and it reads like the show, which is awesome! My only complaint is that it moves fairly quick, but it's still a lot of fun if you're into weird sci-fi books and odd UK shows  . |
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Post by dantari on Feb 28, 2014 23:43:25 GMT -5
Rereading some Harry Turtledove. Then I guess I be starting "Bleeding Edge".
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 1, 2014 3:33:11 GMT -5
I finished Dangerous Liaisons. Here are the best books written in the 18th century: The Monk, Candide, and Dangerous Liaisons, full stop. Now I'm on to Snow Child with my GR book club. It's super corny so far. I don't know why everyone likes it so much. I read Dangerous Liaisons within the last couple years I think. I loved it! What did you think of it? I was surprised at how much of a punch it still had even after I had seen the movie. The stuff leading up the climax of the book is just so good. I quite love the epistolary form of the novel. It is so much more dramatic that Valmont and Merteuil don't actually see each other as it builds to that horrible ending. I loved how he was able to get across the deeper, more subtle meanings within the letters.* There was one exchange between Merteuil and Valmont near the end which made me gasp in how great it was. How she was saying one thing, and he was completely misunderstanding her. And the reader can see it even though Valmont can't. Like, I actually gasped when I realized how badly he had misunderstood. (And, again, I've seen the movie!) I basically thought the book kicked ass. *And it made me wonder if this book is hard to translate? Kudos to the translator for quite clearly getting across some of the double meanings. |
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Mar 1, 2014 7:10:35 GMT -5
Rereading some Harry Turtledove. Then I guess I be starting "Bleeding Edge". You've inspired me to start Bleeding Edge when I get back home after the weekend. The Book Club will thank you! |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Mar 1, 2014 11:15:43 GMT -5
"Doubt: A History," by Jennifer Michael Hecht. 500-page brick that starts slow but is full of super-fascinating stuff. Doubles as a pretty good history of philosophy. I'm making a mental note to read Lucretius and deciding that I am, at heart, an Epicurean atheist. I love Doubt—I read it one summer in high school and it played a pretty significant role in shaping how I view the world. My advice re. Lucretius is to read Greenblatt's The Swerve (although wasn't it you who was saying you're not crazy about Greenblatt?) and then Lucretius, who is fairly repetitive and boring much of the time. I mean, worth reading anyway, especially since I share your affinity for his philosophy, but it's better philosophy than literature. I read The Swerve earlier this year and enjoyed it—I recall K. Thrace saying she thought it was too shallow last year in a Pop Culture Weekend but it was just about the right depth for me. I did read a translation of Lucretius (the Penguin one) and wasn’t all that impressed, but the translation didn’t seem that great, either (it was kind of colloquial, and it was equal parts jarring and hilarious to see Lucretius refer to African women as “brown sugar”). I think I’ll give John Dryden’s translation a try at some point—it’s probably as much Dryden’s as Lucretius’s, but that honestly sounds a bit more interesting to me. |
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Mar 1, 2014 16:26:05 GMT -5
Oooh Dryden/Lucretius does sound interesting.
Currently reading two books simultaneously:
- The Southern Woman, a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Spencer, a masterful southern writer who's now 92. She won the O. Henry Award for short fiction five times, and she should have won the Pulitzer Prize in a year when the jury chose her novel - but the Pulitzer execs ignored the recommendation and didn't give anyone a prize. So far, the stories in the collection range from merely good to outstanding.
- Red, White, and Drunk All Over, a hilariously candid series of essays by Natalie MacLean on the world of wine. She gets embarrassingly drunk with the maker of the world's most prestigious wine (Romanee-Conti), and interviews an "only slightly sociopathic" vintner (his own words!) in California who laments that he has never made a good wine because no American can. Fun. Makes me thirsty.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 1, 2014 17:27:06 GMT -5
I'm in the midst of "A Tale of Two Cities," as part of my "Finish the Books I Was Supposed to Read In High School," project. Unlike a lot of the other books I've read thus far, where I clearly saw a movie version, or had read a children's abridged version at some earlier point and had an understanding of the plot which at age 15 I figured was good enough, this book I have absolutely no knowledge of (besides "It was the best of times it was the worst of times.") I'm just about halfway done and I still don't know what is going on. Every character has some secret shit going on and it seems like a lot of the characters are running long cons on each other, but I really have no idea.
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Post by The Larch on Mar 1, 2014 21:05:03 GMT -5
I am reading Murakami's Wind-up Bird Chronicles
I'm not finding it quite as engaging as 1Q84, perhaps because I still have no idea what it's about.
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Mar 3, 2014 11:39:18 GMT -5
I finished Dangerous Liaisons. Here are the best books written in the 18th century: The Monk, Candide, and Dangerous Liaisons, full stop. Now I'm on to Snow Child with my GR book club. It's super corny so far. I don't know why everyone likes it so much. I read Dangerous Liaisons within the last couple years I think. I loved it! What did you think of it? I was surprised at how much of a punch it still had even after I had seen the movie. The stuff leading up the climax of the book is just so good. I quite love the epistolary form of the novel. It is so much more dramatic that Valmont and Merteuil don't actually see each other as it builds to that horrible ending. I loved how he was able to get across the deeper, more subtle meanings within the letters.* There was one exchange between Merteuil and Valmont near the end which made me gasp in how great it was. How she was saying one thing, and he was completely misunderstanding her. And the reader can see it even though Valmont can't. Like, I actually gasped when I realized how badly he had misunderstood. (And, again, I've seen the movie!) I basically thought the book kicked ass. *And it made me wonder if this book is hard to translate? Kudos to the translator for quite clearly getting across some of the double meanings. I thought it was just fantastic. A big standout for me. Yeah, I loved the epistolary format as well. The fact that the letters are themselves major plot points - their existence, who has them, who reads them, who forwards them to whom - makes this basically metafiction, and very clever. And like you, I had a lot of fun with what the letters said about their writers - what they were trying to say and reveal about themselves, and what they actually said and revealed. Particularly with Valmont and Merteuil. And of course aside from all that trickery and depth, it's also just a smashing read, full of scandal and buttfucking. A total success on every level. |
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Post by Dr. Dastardly on Mar 3, 2014 11:40:36 GMT -5
I'm on to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn now, starting this year's New York Literary Biography Project, and I'm loving this too. You know how Balzac is extremely specific about life in his time? Like, he describes exactly how much everything costs and everything, so that he's famously one of our best sources for information about France in the early 1800s. Betty Smith does the same Balzacian thing with Tree Grows; she describes exactly how much everything costs, and how a poor person can save a penny here or there, in such perfect detail that it's like an instruction manual on how to be poor in the early 20th century. She's extremely specific. I love it.
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Mar 5, 2014 11:35:21 GMT -5
I just finished Empty Mansions - the story of Huguette Clark, a multi-millionaire with 5 homes who spent the last 20 years of her life living in a hospital room (and not even a super-nice one!). It was really interesting, but all I kept thinking basically the whole way through was "what a waste!" Although she did not seem to be unhappy about her life, which I guess is what's important.
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