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Finally got around to cracking open Cobra II. It's been on my shelf for a bit but I couldn't go through it because of grad school. They had a good summary of Iraqi perspectives by Chapter 3 which is fascinating.
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Jun 26, 2009 18:06
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I picked up two books this weekend. I just finished reading Factotum by Charles Bukowski. It was an easy, quick read. The book reminded me of a grown up Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. Although it's been years since I've read CITR, the writing style and general attitude of the main character seemed very similar. The book I started reading tonight is Fraud by David Rakoff. I'm only a quarter through it but so far it seems very similar to a David Sedaris book, just not as witty imo. Still a good book though. The personalities of each books protagonist are almost polar opposite. The guy from Factotum has an attitude towards life that I would love to gain (minus the alcoholism).
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Jun 29, 2009 06:35
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I have now begun the second overdue library book I've got out: Under the Net by Iris Murdoch. I've only read one essay by her, but I enjoyed it immensely and I wanted to check out her fiction works; this seems like as good a place to start as any.
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Jun 29, 2009 06:39
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Just started The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet, loving it so far. Just how the hell do you pronounce Alain anyway? Ah-LAYNE?
metachronos fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jun 29, 2009 |
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Jun 29, 2009 08:21
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Ah-lahn robe gree-ay is about the size of it, I think, though it seems to be ripe for indecipherable gallic slurring of the last syllables.
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Jun 29, 2009 08:35
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inktvis posted:Ah-lahn robe gree-ay is about the size of it, I think, though it seems to be ripe for indecipherable gallic slurring of the last syllables. Actually the other guy was right with ah-layn, it's just the French version of Allan though so you could just say that.
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Jun 29, 2009 13:16
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I started naked by david sedaris because I want to find out what all the fuss is over him. I'm only around 40 pages in, but it's okay so far..
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Jun 29, 2009 20:20
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Just started McCarthy's Child of God today and I'm kind of creeped out by it. Especially all the scenes with necrophilia
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Jun 30, 2009 04:09
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I just started The Master and Margarita for like the fourth time. For some reason, every time I sit down to read this book my interest peters out, even though I thought the opening scene with Beriloz was awesome. I feel good about this go-round, though. I'm multilingual, but I know dick about the Soviet Union or the Russian language or even Cyrillic, and I've certainly never been to Russia. I'm hoping I'll still pick up on a lot of the subtexts.
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Jun 30, 2009 04:33
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CloseFriend posted:I just started The Master and Margarita for like the fourth time. For some reason, every time I sit down to read this book my interest peters out, even though I thought the opening scene with Beriloz was awesome. I feel good about this go-round, though. I'm multilingual, but I know dick about the Soviet Union or the Russian language or even Cyrillic, and I've certainly never been to Russia. I'm hoping I'll still pick up on a lot of the subtexts.
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Jun 30, 2009 05:26
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Getting stuck into The Cold Six Thousand, so far so good. I was kind of let down by Ellroy's LA Quartet after reading American Tabloid which I think is the most entertaining book I've ever read, so I'm hoping this dazzles me once again.
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Jun 30, 2009 09:01
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God Bless You, Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. I've read 6 of his other books and have enjoyed them all. I'll probably end up reading all his works.
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Jun 30, 2009 19:11
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Just picked up The Angel's Game, Carlos Ruiz-Zafon's follow-up to The Shadow of the Wind, which was one hell of a fun book, imo. I've heard it described as a prequel, but I suspect it's more of a prequel in spirit than in fact. Regardless, it's a gothic tale of books and authors set in 1930s Barcelona; count me in. Edit: whoever came up with these dust covers that only partially cover the book needs to be shot, though. It's like a guarantee that the loving thing is going to get torn. Ballsworthy fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jun 30, 2009 |
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Jun 30, 2009 20:28
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I just started A Confederacy of Dunces. Someone was giving it away and I had heard about it before so I figured why not. I'm about 90 pages in and nothing really interesting has happened at all. I'm pretty disappointed with it so far considering how much praise it seems to have gotten for being funny. edit: I think it's not a bad book by any means, but I think the humor it was known for has caught up to it. It feels fresh which is great for any book written 40 years ago, but I think so many people have kind of based their sarcastic, odd, anti-hero on Ignatius that it's not really innovative or rare to see the exploits of the archetype. Whistling Asshole fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jul 2, 2009 |
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Jul 1, 2009 04:52
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Blue Moon posted:God Bless You, Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. I've read 6 of his other books and have enjoyed them all. I'll probably end up reading all his works. That and Jailbird are my favorites from Vonnegut. I'm working on Slapstick in between classes and A Peace to End All Peace at home. It's about the fall of the Ottoman empire and how the European powers had been planing the carving for a long while, also holy poo poo I never realized how anti-semetic higher ups in the British government were at the time.
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Jul 1, 2009 05:52
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I just started reading 'The Apocalyse Reader' as edited by Justin Taylor. It's a big bunch of short stories with an End of the World theme. Figured I needed another fix after finishing Brian Slattery's 'Liberation' a few days back.
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Jul 1, 2009 09:18
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Just received Death on the Installment Plan by Celine, How to Read a Book, and The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins from Amazon. It seems interesting that I could be reading more efficiently so I'll probably start How to Read a Book today. Despite it's age it has some great reviews on Amazon, and I've noticed how I've become a better reader over the years, I'm curious what else I could improve upon in terms of retaining the information and understanding a book better as a whole.
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Jul 1, 2009 16:38
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Just bought The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton on my Kindle. Heard good things about it and it was only $7.99. Of course, it is also something like 4000 pages long so I have no idea when I'll actually dive in and try to read it. Currently reading The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition. I started it awhile ago but put it down to read something else.
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Jul 2, 2009 01:18
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Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. About half done and I am enjoying it immensely.
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Jul 2, 2009 01:25
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The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I'm not really into serial killers, or books about world fairs, but this is suprisingly interesting to read. And its well written for a nonfiction book too. I just wish the Holmes chapters were longer... every drat time something devious is about to happen the chapter ends and HEY LETS TALK ABOUT THE FAIR NOW!
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Jul 2, 2009 13:33
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Just started A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I'm going to be reading Ulysses soon and a few people have suggested I begin with this one.
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Jul 2, 2009 20:14
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Merou posted:The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I'm not really into serial killers, or books about world fairs, but this is suprisingly interesting to read. And its well written for a nonfiction book too. I just wish the Holmes chapters were longer... every drat time something devious is about to happen the chapter ends and HEY LETS TALK ABOUT THE FAIR NOW! It is funny by the end of the book I enjoyed reading about the fair more than Holmes.
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Jul 2, 2009 20:39
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Snowmanatee posted:Just started A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I'm going to be reading Ulysses soon and a few people have suggested I begin with this one. Eh, it'll give you some back story on one of the main characters, but Ulysses is easy enough to jump into (I've only read a few pages of PoAYM).
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Jul 3, 2009 00:32
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The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Really tough to put down and enjoying it more than anything I've read in months.
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Jul 3, 2009 03:55
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Just started A Game of Thrones as requested by many goons. So far I'm about 150 pages in and am completely hooked. I love the backstabbing and the violence that goes on between the families (already).
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Jul 3, 2009 04:24
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Merou posted:The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I'm not really into serial killers, or books about world fairs, but this is suprisingly interesting to read. And its well written for a nonfiction book too. I just wish the Holmes chapters were longer... every drat time something devious is about to happen the chapter ends and HEY LETS TALK ABOUT THE FAIR NOW! There are quite a few books out there about Holmes you just have to be careful because the dude lied about everything so its easy to take the sensationalist route when writing about him.
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Jul 3, 2009 07:06
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I've bought the first volume Michael Moorcock's Elric saga, The Stealer of Souls. I've read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, and thought it'd be a good idea to get back to basics and read some older stuff.
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Jul 4, 2009 03:56
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I am currently reading The Great Book of Amber and so far so good. It's been highly recommended to me by my fellow fantasy/sci-fi fans.
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Jul 4, 2009 08:24
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I just bought and got a little bit into Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski. I had liked House of Leaves, so I thought I would give this a shot. So far, it seems like it's set up to be more of a long poem than a traditional book, whereas House of Leaves had basically been a traditional book with a different concept added (a secondary, fictional fellow reader).
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Jul 4, 2009 08:53
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nollek posted:Just started A Game of Thrones as requested by many goons. So far I'm about 150 pages in and am completely hooked. I love the backstabbing and the violence that goes on between the families (already). You will get much much more hooked. I picked it up because of goons as well and ended up reading all four in about 2 weeks. Couldn't put it down.
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Jul 4, 2009 19:00
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I've just started Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything and I'm enjoying every word of it. Its science for morons like me and brilliantly entertaining at the same time. I never made it through Clive Barker's Imagica, I've had it for about four years now, and I'm about three hundred pages in. Every so often I pick it up and do thirty or forty pages, but I never get hooked enough to keep going, though I concede it appears to be a very good work of fantasy.
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Jul 4, 2009 23:07
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I just began The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl a couple of days ago. I began reading it last summer and got a quarter way through it but stopped because I got caught up in other books. I just surpassed where I left off the last time and am finding it much more enjoyable this time through for some reason. It's really amazing how vivid the mental images I have of each passage and can remember the next passage coming up even though I wasn't too into it the first time. I really can't put it down now when I was kind of forcing myself to read it last year. Weird..
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Jul 5, 2009 06:45
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Just picked up Niven's Ringworld, Greg Baer's Eon, and A Short History of the Universe by Stephen Hawking. Started Ringworld last night but haven't gotten far enough to have an impression yet.
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Jul 5, 2009 09:36
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I started Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan about a week ago. Very good book.
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Jul 5, 2009 15:31
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It's great and the illustrations are spot on. It may be pretty short, but it is a children's book after all.
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Jul 5, 2009 16:39
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After coming across this Wikipedia posted:In Alan Moore's comic The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Bertie [Wooster] appears in the segment "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss?" in which he blithely recounts the arrival of a Mi-go to Brinkley Court and Aunt Dahlia's possession by Cthulhu. The Lovecraftian menaces are driven off by Jeeves with the assistance of Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Carnacki, and Orlando. Throughout the events, Bertie remains unaware of the true nature of the goings-on. I downloaded Carnacki, the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson from Project Gutenberg I'd never heard of the character before and I was curious to see what he was about. I'm only through the first story but it's really splendid gas lamp ghost fiction. Very like Holmes or Raffles but with a supernatural air it's lots of fun. Aside from wanting very badly to read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier now, I think I could do worse than to use that series as a checklist for good vintage reads I haven't heard of before.
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Jul 5, 2009 17:38
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Having just finished Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, I ran out and bought Lunar Park. I'm nearly a quarter of the way in and it's been very interesting so far. It's a kind of post-modern Steven King homage, with the alcoholic, abusive author protagonist being a semi-fictionalised parody version of Bret Easton Ellis himself, trying to come to terms with his miserable new life as reluctant father in the suburbs. The basic story is that Ellis's suburban McMansion seems to be haunted by the ghost of his abusive father, while American Psycho inspired murders are occurring in his neighbourhood. I think you'd at least have to be familiar with Ellis and his major novels, like Psycho and Less Than Zero, to pick up on the little references and cameos by characters both real and fictional. At its heart I think Lunar Park's about how an author is haunted by his creations (there's definitely a sinister metaphor going on with his estranged son), and that writing often creates more demons than it excises.
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Jul 6, 2009 01:14
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Having started The Dark Tower series by Stephen King last week, I'm smack in the middle of it. I'm about to start the fourth one, Wizard and Glass. Bit nervous since I've read that the series begins to lose its flavor around this one, but I'm pretty determined to finish the series out now that I've gotten this far.
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Jul 6, 2009 05:21
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Last night I started The Boat, a collection of stories by Nam Le. It got quite a lot of press here in Australia when it won some awards a few months ago. He is claimed as an Australian author although he was born in Vietnam and now lives in the US. The critics drooled all over it when it came out and although I'm struggling to match their level of enthusiasm (so far) it's pretty drat good considering it's the guy's first book. The fact that he covers so many different settings (Iowa, Tehran, Colombia, Australia, New York, Hiroshima and the high seas) definitely adds to its appeal. I also started Infinite Jest about three weeks ago, I'm currently in the middle of the introduction to Eschaton. A lot has been said about this book already so I'll just say that the description of it as a more accessible Gravity's Rainbow (with tennis) is pretty accurate. It is far and away the best thing I've read so far this year and I intend to recommend it to everyone I know. Bought The Plot Against America and One Man's Bible from Thriftbooks a few days ago, it's way cheaper for me to buy these and pay $10 shipping than to fork out $30-45AUD for them here. I bought the first because I've never read any Roth and have heard good things about it, and the second because I read Soul Mountain (also by Gao Xingjian) last year and loved it.
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Jul 6, 2009 07:41
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BSAKat posted:I started Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan about a week ago. Very good book. I just picked up a copy of In Defense of Food by him yesterday. A lot of what I've read so far he also covered in that Google talks video, but it's still a good read. The guy's pretty intelligent, and a great writer.
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Jul 6, 2009 11:44
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