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I just picked up my old copy of Matt Ruff's Sewer, Gas, and Electric for it's umpteenth reading. Every few years I go back to it, because nothing gets me laughing quite so much as completely dismantling Ayn Rand with a novel about mutant sharks and electric negroes and palestinian environmental terrorists in a yellow submarine.
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Sep 29, 2009 15:58
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Just ordered A Piece of My Heart and The Ultimate Good Luck, Richard Ford's first two books, from the book depository after finishing his book Independence Day. Stocking up for when I'll have time to read them. Ironically it's cheaper for me to order these books online and have them shipped from the UK than it is for me to buy them with my staff discount at the bookshop where I work (literally half the price) 
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Sep 29, 2009 16:31
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Since I am terrible when it comes to used book stores and saying no to the thoughts in my head, I ended up walking away with ten books this last weekend. They are as follows: I'm Just Here For the Food by Alton Brown Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce ( I am sure that I will hate myself for this after I try to read it.) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Catch As Catch Can by Joseph Heller and two collections of stories by Robert E Howard published by Bison Books The Black Stranger and Other American Tales The End of the Trail: Western Stories And because my grandfather thought I would like it he has lent me Rumpole and Reign of Terror by John Mortimer Teh Madd Hatter fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Sep 30, 2009 |
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Sep 30, 2009 07:46
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I just bought Castle in the Forest by Mailer and The Yankee Years by Torre. Don't tell anyone but I got Castle in the Forest on the recommendation of someone in LF.
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Oct 1, 2009 15:39
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Recently I got: Beckett's Murphy and Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable in a set. I already had Molloy, but the whole set was cheaper than either of the other two on their own. Homer's Iliad in the fancy-pants Penguin deluxe edition to replace my crappy old copy. Joyce's Dubliners Kafka's The Trial Pynchon's Mason & Dixon I probably should have also bought the time to read them. edit: I did not buy a book named Molly by Sam Beckett Mr. Fun fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Oct 3, 2009 |
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Oct 1, 2009 16:06
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I recently grabbed Slaughterhouse Five from the library, so I'll be beginning that in the next day or two as a sort of rest period before diving headfirst into Gravity's Rainbow.
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Oct 3, 2009 02:02
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I just started Swiftly, by Adam Roberts, an account of what happened during the French and English war after the islands encountered in Gulliver's Travels were made known to the rest of the world. It's alright, but a bit dry.
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Oct 3, 2009 02:40
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wlokos posted:I recently grabbed Slaughterhouse Five from the library, so I'll be beginning that in the next day or two as a sort of rest period before diving headfirst into Gravity's Rainbow. Hope you like it! This is my favorite book of all time and has spoiled me for all other Vonnegut works. I just began The Little Stranger, a Booker finalist from Sarah Waters. I like ghost stories and it seems like an awesome 1940s one on par with The Others in terms of setting, and so far I'm impressed with how unpretentious the writing is. Hope that holds up, as it's rather dense. Also started Kushiel's Dart recently, which while interesting, definitely wins the award for the highest density of the word "surety" in any written work ever.
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Oct 3, 2009 19:41
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A book I ordered came in recently, Lovecraft Unbound An anthology of stories from several authors inspired by HP Lovecraft. It's been great reading, for someone like me who hasn't read any of Lovecraft's works and only an interest in Lovecraft's mythos of madness, tentacles and such 
MariusLecter fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Oct 5, 2009 |
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Oct 5, 2009 01:54
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I bought Whatever by Michel Houellebecq, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and The Time Machine and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells as part of a set. Now that I have a good paying job I have money for books, but I have little time to actually read them. It just aint right. I went from a decent sized book a week to roughly 30 pages from Monday to right now. I'm halfway through Blood Meridian, when I try to read it at work during lunch I get like 4 pages knocked out and have to leave.
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Oct 5, 2009 03:36
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Just started reading Michael Stephen Fuchs' The Manuscript. The prose isn't award winning but it's still shaping up to be a pretty satisfying Techno-Thriller. The primary themes are Philosophy, Unix Sysadmin'ing, and Sir Richard Burton -- all things that fascinate me. As far as light reading, fiction thrillers go, it's doing a good job of getting the horrible taste of the new Dan Brown book out of my mouth.
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Oct 5, 2009 18:28
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The Child Thief by Brom. Picked it up after hearing what it's about and being really intrigued by the premise. Not that far in, about 70 pages or so, but I'm fairly interested so far.
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Oct 6, 2009 02:41
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Just finished The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell and liked it so much I went out and picked up Vagabond and Heretic. Gonna do the King Arthur series after I'm done with this.
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Oct 6, 2009 03:46
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Amazon was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale so I picked up Slaughterhouse 5, Lolita and Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas.
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Oct 6, 2009 04:20
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Bohemienne posted:Also started Kushiel's Dart recently, which while interesting, definitely wins the award for the highest density of the word "surety" in any written work ever. Haha ... the little repetitions get pretty irritating, even though the books are fun reads aside from that. If you read more of these, you'll start to look for the words "somewhat," "mayhaps" and endless repetition of certain phrases like "We always understood each other, he and I" and variations on that theme. If Phedre ever expresses an opinion on someone that takes only a sentence or two to say, look to see it repeated every time she encounters the character. Also -- "But we are D'Angeline ..." (followed by some explanation of how they are better than everyone else). Lowly fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Oct 6, 2009 |
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Oct 6, 2009 23:36
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Grabbed another load of books from the library yesterday and I'm about 150 pages into Dan Simmons' Drood. Pretty good so far - hopefully it's better paced than The Terror.
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Oct 7, 2009 03:23
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Just started two contemporary books on spirituality from a distinctly Western (and specifically monastic) point of view: Wisdom Distilled from the Daily by Joan Chittister and Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life by Mary M. Funk. The former examines the Rule of St Benedict as applied in a contemporary context, and explores the community based spirituality of the Benedictines. The latter is a reprise of many practical techniques used in the Western spiritual tradition from earliest times to the present, and it's good enough to have been recommended by Sharon Salzbeg. I'm also starting, on quite a different note, Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. It's another in the Marlowe series of novels, and I'm quite looking forward to it.
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Oct 7, 2009 13:08
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I just bought and read half way through The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have already thrown the book against the wall twice and the scene in the basement with the naked people was just  and  and  all at the same time. I don't know if there is an emoticon which captures that.
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Oct 8, 2009 16:12
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I just started One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Book is scary as hell. All the stuff at the beginning about how easily the EMP scenario in the book could happen is terrifying.
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Oct 8, 2009 17:28
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euphronius posted:I just bought and read half way through The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I, personally, am yet to feel anything that cannot be perfectly summarized using an SA emote.
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Oct 8, 2009 19:41
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I just finished all the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Starting Proust, Swann's Way. So I can be pretentious. And I've been working my way through Strunk and White's Elements of Style. A lot of great writing advice in under 100 pages.
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Oct 8, 2009 19:51
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Picked up The Child Thief by Brom for something to read while bored on 3rd shift and it's surprisingly good so far. I hated Peter Pan even as a small child, but this retelling is creepy enough to keep me interested.
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Oct 9, 2009 13:38
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I am very slowly reading The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, sequel to Hugo winning Hyperion. I really enjoyed book #1, but did not like how it ended with absolutely no resolution and in a cliff hanger .
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Oct 10, 2009 05:37
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V-Men posted:How is that? I enjoyed Neuromancer, but more for the fact that it's such a major work in the genre, rather than anything inside the work itself. Neuromancer is definitely the most interesting of the three books as it introduces the whole sprawl world with all its cyber-punk jargon. I found that it was the hardest of the three to read, this could be because it took me some time to get adjusted to Gibson's way of writing and describing cyber-space, or because Neuromancer was the most ambitious of the three(introducing AI's, virtual reality, heavily modified humans, cloning, cryogenic stasis, corporations taking over government, and just about anything with electronics) all these ideas appearing in 1984 and still, being modern today is quite a feat.
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Oct 10, 2009 10:52
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euphronius posted:I just bought and read half way through The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Don't forget the guy with his legs missing because they'd been eaten.
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Oct 10, 2009 11:22
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Don't forget the guy with his legs missing because they'd been eaten. The wounds were cauterized to keep him alive and his meat fresh!! Mcarthy actually thought that out!! We should have a :theroad: emoticon with a smiley with cauterized stumps. euphronius fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Oct 10, 2009 |
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Oct 10, 2009 23:04
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Just bought Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro. His first novel, And The rear end Saw The Angel is one of my favourite books ever. So far I'm not disappointed by the first few chapters.
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Oct 11, 2009 02:37
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PonchtheJedi posted:I just started One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Book is scary as hell. All the stuff at the beginning about how easily the EMP scenario in the book could happen is terrifying. Yeah, by the end of that you'll want to stock up on food storage, weapons/ammo, radio gear (properly stored in faraday cages), and all sorts of medical supplies. Scary as hell.
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Oct 11, 2009 04:26
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The Algebraist by Iain M Banks. I've been meaning to read him for a long time now, and I actually picked this book up on a whim months ago and then promptly forgot about it completely. Started it this morning, I was sold by the time I read "Uncle Slovius had some years ago assumed the form of a walrus."
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Oct 13, 2009 16:25
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Les Misérables. I read Notre Dame about a year ago and have been meaning to go back for some Hugo. Loving it so far.
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Oct 13, 2009 19:24
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American Psychonauts posted:Les Misérables. I read Notre Dame about a year ago and have been meaning to go back for some Hugo. Loving it so far. Did you get the abridged version or no? I recommend the full version.
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Oct 13, 2009 20:41
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euphronius posted:Did you get the abridged version or no? I recommend the full version. It's two volumes so I hope not. I definitely want to read the unabridged so I gotta check that.
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Oct 13, 2009 21:09
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I just started the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, and have just finished Shadow of the Torturer (the first book in said series). It seems pretty drat entertaining so far.
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Oct 13, 2009 21:27
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Just finished The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose. He's a Brown journalism student who enrolls for a semester at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, an evangelical school. There's nothing surprising or illuminating about this book- "people I don't understand have feelings too!" -but he tries not to be too biased and does conduct what turns out to be the last print interview of Falwell's life. If you like SA threads where people talk about their experiences in other cultures, you'll probably enjoy this. Like I said it's nothing amazing, but it is a quick read and gives a bit of insight into the evangelical mindset. Edit: Oops guess I shoulda posted this in What Did You Just Finish?
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Oct 13, 2009 21:33
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Skyl3lazer posted:I just started the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, and have just finished Shadow of the Torturer (the first book in said series). It seems pretty drat entertaining so far. You'll want to stick with it through the end of the fourth book. As a whole, it's one of the most surprising and original science fiction series you're likely to encounter.
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Oct 14, 2009 03:10
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I'm about halfway through Perdido Street Station at the moment. I'd been reading mostly "heavier" literature for a while and I wanted to change gears to something a little lighter, and I'd heard good things about this novel. So far I'm giving it a resounding "Meh." There are certain elements of the novel that are executed very well, but by the same token there are chunks that feel overwrought and just a tad too self-consciously sci-fi for my tastes (I'm not a big sc-fi/fantasy fan, generally speaking). The pacing is a little off in spots too. Still, it's mostly delivering as far as being a "fun" read through I doubt I'll be seeking out any of Mieville's stuff in the future.
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Oct 14, 2009 16:13
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Picked up Gravity's Rainbow. Will try and read it soon, because it's been over a month since I finished Infinite Jest and I really like having my mind broken. Also, I got Atwood's "The Year of the Flood" from the library and am about 1/4 through right now. It's well-written and I find it interesting to hear more about the world she set up in "Oryx and Crake." This time it follows two women instead of two boys... which I appreciated because I felt like in O&C Atwood wasn't quite able to get the voices of teenage boys down. Her women always are more convincing.
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Oct 15, 2009 04:14
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Just started John Leland's Hip: The History a couple days ago. It's interesting stuff. Not so much a history of what's cool, but of the steady progression of American pop culture.
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Oct 15, 2009 04:58
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Encryptic posted:Grabbed another load of books from the library yesterday and I'm about 150 pages into Dan Simmons' Drood. Pretty good so far - hopefully it's better paced than The Terror. Ironic you mention; I just started Terror and am loving it. Of course, being an Arctic history nerd with a love of John Franklin lore certainly does not hurt...
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Oct 16, 2009 01:21
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Trotsky1940 posted:Ironic you mention; I just started Terror and am loving it. Of course, being an Arctic history nerd with a love of John Franklin lore certainly does not hurt... It is a great book, but Simmons himself admits (in the foreword to Lovedeath) that he struggles with the endings of his larger works. Personally I loved every single sentence of The Terror, and even liked the ending of Hyperion, but I'm a big fan of non-traditional endings.
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Oct 16, 2009 02:15
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