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Whatcha readin now? (book, books, reading, read) (2 Viewers)

saintfool said:
pantagrapher said:
saintfool said:
pantagrapher said:
OK, Nabokov fans will probably find this news bizarre and uncanny. Russia is going to publish Nabokov's final, unfinished novel ... which he wrote on index cards!
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i'm pretty sure that he did this with all his novels actually.
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I'm a huge fan and I didn't know that. How embarrassing.
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for a number of years, i was one of his most ardent admirers. i still think he's maybe the most talented author of the 20th century. anyway, as a fan, i latched onto the obscure and minutiae. this was one of those little things i picked up along the way. dude couldn't type and pretty much dictated all of his writing to Vera. she was the best thing to ever happen to him, i think.
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There's a similar interesting story I read about Tolstoy. His wife was the only person who could read his handwriting so she had to copy War and Peace from his original manuscript before it could be sent for publishing.
 
Finished "The Sot-Weed Factor." I really enjoyed the first 600 pages—and the John Smith/Henry Burlingame I chronicles were some of the funniest bits of any book I've ever read—but it really became tedious as Barth attempted to wrap it up.

Now I'm starting "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen.

 
Sundays Rule said:
Still working through Quicksilver by Stephenson, great novel that just seems infinitely long.
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And the "worst" part is that you have two more to go after that...But I'm guessing the greatness will outweigh the hassle of of the slog.I swear I could re-read that series until the end of time.
 
The final chapter to Dean Koontz's redoing of Frankenstein as a trilogy. Redid the first two from a couple years ago, just before I read this. Absolutely loved it. The first two were co-written with a different author each, this was by himself. Easily the best of the three. Plenty of Koontz's earlier self with the creepies and not so much of his latest with all the mamby-pamby golden retreiver shmooze. I thought a touch of Michael Crichton in it also.

 
I just started the first 30 pages of In the Budding Grove by Proust, but all the talk of Pynchon in the Books You Never Finished thread is itching me to read Mason & Dixon. I've never read it, but have a nice hardcover copy on my shelf that my wife gave me for Xmas.

 
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

I know some will/have dismissed Frey due to his Oprah controversy but I think his writing style is not only unique but quite good. Maybe Million Little Pieces will end up being his best novel but I think he has a more accepted masterpiece in him. Anyway, I really enjoyed BSM. It interweaves various stories about people living in Los Angeles with a mix of "facts" about the history of the city. Very compelling if you enjoyed the style of Million Little Pieces or My Friend Leonard.

 
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Finished up 1633. I have to admit that I have enjoyed this series (1632 and 1633) about as much as I ever have enjoyed any fiction. It's just the right mix, for me, of history, politics, action, suspense, and on and on. I keep trying to think of an attack point on the action sequences and on the events as they are unfolding and I can't. Once you get past the how and why in the beginning of 1632 and just let it go, I don't think a more perfectly laid out story could emerge from the idea.

I think I'm hooked. Looking into the remaining published works in the series, although finding the chronological order of them is a pain. By far these are the most entertaining books recommended on the list I made up for the summer. Big kudos to all who recommended it.

 
War and Peace - I got this as a Christmas gift and wasn't expecting much, but this is a really good book. Only about 1/3 of the way through, but the massive size has turned into a positive at this point.

Good to Great - Finishing this one up for work. As far as business books go this is one of my favorites. It's a lot better than those CEO books that are so prevalent in the business section.

L'étranger - Reading it to work on my French. I had read the english translation a couple years ago. It's pretty cool to see the original form.

 
Loved World War Z. Had no interest but multiple coworkers praised it until I gave it a chance. Very glad I did. Quick read that captures you with a gritty realism within the world created.
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I loved World War Z, a guilty pleasure, easy read type book for sure. Thanks for the recommendations. I hope they do a movie like the book, not as it is happening, but stories from different parts of the world after the fact.
 
facook said:
facook said:
Just finishing up The Lovers by John Connolly. Freaking LOVE Connolly.If you're into PI/mysteries, especially with a creepy factor, check out his stuff. Great writer.Next up will be a few paperbacks for vacation: Boy's Life and Gone South by McCammon and By the Rivers of Babylon by DeMille.
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Gone South was good, made better by a terrific ending. Boy's Life is a masterpiece.
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I agree 100%, Boy's Life is great! If you like "The Body" (Stand by Me, Stepehen King) you will really like Boy's Life, its even better. I will have to try Gone South as well. Thanks to those who recommended Boy's Life.I recommend author John Hart. He has written 3 books, The King of Lies (anyone know when the movie is coming out?), Down River, and The Last Child. All are fantastic with lots of twists and turns. If you can't find them at your library, Amazon has Down River hardcover on sale for $10 right now. You don't have to read these in any particular order.
 
shuke said:
Next up: Friday Night Lights
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Thought this was just ok. Solid insight to small town America, etc. But I just expected more "drama" about these kids' lives and less on highs and lows of the local businessmen, etc. 6/10.Next up: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
 
Finished up with Giles Goat-Boy. Excellent book.

Found a review from 1966 worth reading:

The Surfacing of Mr. Barth [Laughter]

By ELIOT FREMONT-SMITH

GILES GOAT-BOY

Or, The Revised New Syllabus.

By John Barth.

Doubts, doubts, doubts! What is one to do about John Barth? Is he, as so many people interested in original, funny, creative and brilliant writing agree he is -- the most original, funny, creative and brilliant writer working in the English language today? Or merely, as these same people hasten to add, the most impertinent and long-winded? Is "Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus" (a decipherment of this peculiar title follows anon) the great American novel, come at last into being, or just a long, though expert, shaggy-goat story? And if so -- or, indeed, if not so, or both -- whose beard is being pulled? Mr. Barth is clearly a genius -- the word everybody strums when talking literarily about him -- but what does that mean? Intoxicated by "Giles Goat-Boy," I would suggest that it applies to someone who, by force of will and wild connections in the mind, intoxicates.

More precisely, the word is useful to describe someone whose work is so on-the-ball, so stimulating and so attention-getting through artifice so obvious that it comes full circle and rivets us with its honesty (eccentric is another word for this), that one is compelled -- if by sheer nervousness alone -- to discount all sorts of faults, shortcomings, non-originalities, clever but not really very funny, yet nonetheless delightful, and certainly long-winded, embellishments and asides, not to mention the possibilities of suffocation by words, themes, aspects, ironies, similes, metaphors, riddle-me-this's and the detailed history of everything.

Whew! Clearly, Barthism is catching. Nonetheless, and through it all, two immediate conclusions suggest themselves: (1) to recognize the genius, one must indulge the pedant; (2) John Barth is a pedant.

Mr. Barth, who teaches English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, is the author of three previous novels, "The Floating Opera" (1956), "The End of the Road" (1958) and "The Sot-Weed Factor" (1960), an epic-parody on the history of Maryland that ran 806 pages and established Mr. Barth's credentials for underground appreciation and incubation. With "Giles Goat-Boy," which runs nearly as long, including the roman-numerated front-matter, Mr. Barth surfaces to public respectability: the book is going to be reviewed all over the place, talked about at length and possibly even read.

All of this Mr. Barth himself waggishly explores in the aforementioned front-matter, in the opinions of four "editors" about whether or not the book should be published, from the points-of-view of profit, prestige, moral effects and office politics, and in an explanatory "covering letter" that delves into the ambiguities of title, authorship and inspiration.

The "covering letter" is signed "J.B." The initials may refer to Mr. Barth or may refer, not inappropriately, to Job, of Biblical and Archibald MacLeish fame. It tell show the "manuscript" came into J.B.'s hands, and was authored by (either or in combination) Stoker Giles (or is it Giles Stoker?), his father George Giles and/or a giant computer named WESCAC. The manuscript's formal title is then revealed as "R.N.S.: The Revised New Syllabus of George, Giles, Our Grand Tutor; Being the Autobiographical and Horatory Tapes Read Out at New Tammany College to His Son Giles(,) Stoker by the West Campus Automatic Computer, And by Him Prepared for the Furtherment of the Gilesian Curriculum."

There follows the novel proper, which tells how George Giles was born (possibly a computer accident) into a goat herd, made his way into New Tammany College (the world of men), became Grand Tutor and prophet of the West Campus (the Western world as opposed to the Eastern) and, like Don Quixote, Candide, Leopold Bloom, etc., sought the meaning of good and evil, innocence and existence, action and identity, passion and thought.

The message of the syllabus is ambiguous -- except perhaps that absolutes are noncognizable, that thinking is a passion and most passionately expressed in humor, and that, except for these, the world is going to hell. Fortunately, it won't get there because -- Mr. Barth proves once more -- old jokes never die, they just lie in wait for resurrection. The jokes here -- sexual, scatological, gastronomical, existential, political, linguistic, literary conventions and parodies -- can be traced to Rabelais, "Tristram Shandy," Lewis Carroll, Joyce, Nabokov, the Beatles and Bennett Cerf, among others, which should given an idea of the truly astonishing flavor of this lemon meringue pie of a book.

An idea, but not a complete or even very accurate idea, for "Giles Goat-Boy" is far more engrossing and curiously more moving than I'm afraid this indicates.

What is one to do about John Barth? Well, first of all, partake, eat quaff, enjoy. Whatever the doubts and recriminations, they will keep till morning; I'm not sure they matter in the slightest.
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Recently finished Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke based on recs in this thread. Liked it. Iain Pearsish.

Just finished Bad Chili by Joe Lansdale. Lansdale is fantastic, but I thought this one was lacking a little something.

Just got The Strain by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro. Vampire/apocalyptic type novel. Really excited for this one.

 
Some recent reads:

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson - Average fantasy. I'd heard some really good things about it though, so I was quite disappointed with it.

The Third Option by Vince Flynn - Above average military/spy thriller. Nice throwaway read, but nothing that will stick with you.

1984 by George Orwell - It had been about 10 years since I last read this, so I figured it was about time to read through again. To me, this book is a combination of incredible paranoia as well as incredible insight. I'll probably need to pick it up again in another ten years or so.

Cemetery Dance by Preston and Child - This series has really started to decline. Since Brimstone it's been pretty boring. One thing I would note for fans of the series, you should avoid reviews, blurbs, or even the book jacket for this book before reading it since there is more spoilers than many will like.

Columbine by Dave Cullen - Fascinating book. As someone whose attention to this incident ended once it slipped off of the front pages, it was eye-opening to read just how much of the original stories and assumptions were so wrong. Highly recommended. Cullen was on the story from the very beginning and has probably interviewed more people involved than any living person. The only criticism I have found of this book is that some think he downplays the 'bullied by jocks' as a cause too much.

Currently reading:

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville - I'm 50 pages in and liking what I've seen so far.

 
Kendall said:
shuke said:
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret AtwoodOryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
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I really liked Oryx and Crake and A Prayer for Owen Meany. The Handmaid's Tale was a good read. Those are the only three from your list that I have read.
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Margaret Atwood has a new book just out that I'll defiitely be buying - The Year of the Flood.
 
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igbomb said:
Cemetery Dance by Preston and Child - This series has really started to decline. Since Brimstone it's been pretty boring. One thing I would note for fans of the series, you should avoid reviews, blurbs, or even the book jacket for this book before reading it since there is more spoilers than many will like.
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Is the the short story anthology series?
Columbine by Dave Cullen - Fascinating book. As someone whose attention to this incident ended once it slipped off of the front pages, it was eye-opening to read just how much of the original stories and assumptions were so wrong. Highly recommended. Cullen was on the story from the very beginning and has probably interviewed more people involved than any living person. The only criticism I have found of this book is that some think he downplays the 'bullied by jocks' as a cause too much.
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:o
 
shuke said:
igbomb said:
Cemetery Dance by Preston and Child - This series has really started to decline. Since Brimstone it's been pretty boring. One thing I would note for fans of the series, you should avoid reviews, blurbs, or even the book jacket for this book before reading it since there is more spoilers than many will like.
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Is the the short story anthology series?
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It's what is commonly called the Pendergast series. Started with Relic and is up to nine books now. 1-3 and 4-6 are some of the best in the thriller genre, but it has been declining rapidly.
 
igbomb said:
shuke said:
igbomb said:
Cemetery Dance by Preston and Child - This series has really started to decline. Since Brimstone it's been pretty boring. One thing I would note for fans of the series, you should avoid reviews, blurbs, or even the book jacket for this book before reading it since there is more spoilers than many will like.
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Is the the short story anthology series?
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It's what is commonly called the Pendergast series. Started with Relic and is up to nine books now. 1-3 and 4-6 are some of the best in the thriller genre, but it has been declining rapidly.
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I think they're falling into the James Patterson trap of spitting out books too often. Once Patterson got past Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls his books turned into tripe...he was just putting out books to make a buck. We see where that's at now. I'm afraid Preston/Child are in the same rut. They still put out decent books, but they are coming out VERY quickly and are not nearly up to the level of 1-6.
 
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Entertaining book. I read a review that compared it to The Big Lebowski and The Long Goodbye, and that's accurate. Hardboiled detective story set in 1970 with a stoner detective set in a southern California beach community. Extremely convoluted plot with lots of characters. Really the only well developed character is the protagonist Doc Sportello. Laughed out loud quite a few times.

 
Hawk Fan said:
Inherent Vice by Thomas PynchonEntertaining book. I read a review that compared it to The Big Lebowski and The Long Goodbye, and that's accurate. Hardboiled detective story set in 1970 with a stoner detective set in a southern California beach community. Extremely convoluted plot with lots of characters. Really the only well developed character is the protagonist Doc Sportello. Laughed out loud quite a few times.
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:goodposting: Sounds awesome.
 
D_House said:
Hawk Fan said:
Inherent Vice by Thomas PynchonEntertaining book. I read a review that compared it to The Big Lebowski and The Long Goodbye, and that's accurate. Hardboiled detective story set in 1970 with a stoner detective set in a southern California beach community. Extremely convoluted plot with lots of characters. Really the only well developed character is the protagonist Doc Sportello. Laughed out loud quite a few times.
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:mellow: Sounds awesome.
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Fun book although the plot is definately convuluted. I liked a couple of the minor characters, his sidekick Denis, Bigfoot Bjornson the cop.
 
Finished Mansfield Park. I won't say it was brutal, but there were long stretches that had my eyes rolling back in my head.

Started books by two Chicago writers I've been meaning to read for a while: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods by Stuart Dybek.

 
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Polished off two John Irving books recently: The Hotel New Hampshire and Cider House Rules. Irving writes good characters, but he could definitely use an editor, these books are long.

 
I finished up The Blind Side a month or so ago, I thought it was a very entertaining book that did a good job of talking about the changing history of the game and the Michael Oher story was fascinating as well.

I've recently been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett books: The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Thud!, Guards! Guards!, Night Watch, currently I'm on Going Postal.

They are all books about his made up place called Discworld. He is an excellent satirist and very clever with his words. I highly recommend them.

 
acapella said:
Adebisi said:
Anyone read "Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath?"
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Not yet. Ask me again in a week or two. :thumbup:
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Took me awhile to get this from the library. Excellent book. I especially like the way the authors presented the Japanese POV for many of the events described.One word of warning: Do not read this book during or immediately after a meal. Next up is Tony Dungy's Bio, followed by something from James Clavell.
 
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Foosball God said:
I finished up The Blind Side a month or so ago, I thought it was a very entertaining book that did a good job of talking about the changing history of the game and the Michael Oher story was fascinating as well.

I've recently been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett books: The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Thud!, Guards! Guards!, Night Watch, currently I'm on Going Postal.

They are all books about his made up place called Discworld. He is an excellent satirist and very clever with his words. I highly recommend them.
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:thumbup:
 
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

This book sucked. And I'm not saying that it sucked because it didn't live up to the hype, it just sucked. Wooden characters. Non-threatening bad guy. Twist at the end of every chapter. Convenient dialogue interspersed every few pages to explain the story. Carbon copy of his last two books. I'm not even sure why I finished it, but it's definitely the last thing of his I ever read. Even Amazon reviewers, who are always friendly to what is trendy, are skewering his new book. More one- and two-star reviews that any others.

:lmao:

Next up: Just read the prologue for Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, a biography of Pat Tillman. So far so good.

 
pantagrapher said:
Finished Mansfield Park. I won't say it was brutal, but there were long stretches that had my eyes rolling back in my head.

Started books by two Chicago writers I've been meaning to read for a while: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods by Stuart Dybek.
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Not even 100 pages in and I'm ready to quit on Augie March.
 
Currently on The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer. Modern spy novel. I'd give it 2.5/5. It's ok.

Waiting on The Increment by David Ignatius and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown from the tax-payers' book loan building. Considering igbomb's review of Symbol I may not finish it.

Rohan Mistry's A Fine Balance is on deck at some point. It's an Oprah Book unfortunately...but I had it earmarked before she got her grubby mitts on it.

 
Jefferson the Caregiver said:
D_House said:
Hawk Fan said:
Inherent Vice by Thomas PynchonEntertaining book. I read a review that compared it to The Big Lebowski and The Long Goodbye, and that's accurate. Hardboiled detective story set in 1970 with a stoner detective set in a southern California beach community. Extremely convoluted plot with lots of characters. Really the only well developed character is the protagonist Doc Sportello. Laughed out loud quite a few times.
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:thumbup: Sounds awesome.
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Fun book although the plot is definately convuluted. I liked a couple of the minor characters, his sidekick Denis, Bigfoot Bjornson the cop.
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Any Pig Bodine sightings?
 
Finally read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I don't know if it's because I'm a parent, but this book haunts me in a way, even 2 months after finishing it. If you allow yourself to get engrossed in it, the fear and tension are almost palpable. I loved this book and am recommending it to everyone.

 
Just finished Better by John O'Brien, the guy who wrote Leaving Las Vegas. He blew his head off 2 weeks after learning Leaving Las Vegas would be made into a film. Better is about an alcoholic living in a mysterious house in the Los Angeles hills, owned by a mysterious man who lets anyone crash and live there. Sounds hollow, but O'Brien makes the most of it.

The novel is good but not great. Not amazing. Just good. O'Brien is very talented; if he could have pulled himself together he would have written something great. It's a bit sloppy. He doesn't understand how to structure a novel. He narrates with different characters at times, but he sucks at establishing their voices - they all sound like watered down versions of his main narrator, who is eloquent, enticing, and extraordinarily perceptive (and comes across as a thinly veiled version of O'Brien himself). The novel would have been better had he stuck to his protagonist instead of trying on other voices.

Still, for Los Angeles Noir, it's prime work. I recommend it for a weekend read (it's only 200 pages long).

 
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pantagrapher said:
pantagrapher said:
Finished Mansfield Park. I won't say it was brutal, but there were long stretches that had my eyes rolling back in my head.

Started books by two Chicago writers I've been meaning to read for a while: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods by Stuart Dybek.
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Not even 100 pages in and I'm ready to quit on Augie March.
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This book was tough for me, as well. The only other truly picarasqe novel that I had ever read before Auggie March was Tropic of Cancer, and the Bellow book certainly didn't contain enough athletic, sex to keep me interested from page to page. I think my problem with the book was that Augie March doesn't really do any thing. He just has things happen to him. Because he never does much, he can never really fail or succeed. Any outcome that occurs is based largely on luck. After a couple of readings, however, I came to believe that Bellow was aware of this: that alienation, good or bad fortune, and general submission to the capriciosness of fate is the important part of the immigrant's experience.

I learned to really like the book, but it took a while. I also read Herzog and Humboldt's Gift first, so I had a better idea of the kind of prose I was in for.

My advice to you--and what Saul Bellow would recommend--is to approach the book the way Augie March approaches the world: With care, detatchment, and without judgement.

For a less picarasque, but equally epic Chicago immigrant story, try The Financier by Theodore Drieser. Or Sister Carrie. Or An American Tragedy. All are immensely satisfying--like a mean-spirited Horatio Alger with tragic endings.

 
igbomb said:
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

This book sucked. And I'm not saying that it sucked because it didn't live up to the hype, it just sucked. Wooden characters. Non-threatening bad guy. Twist at the end of every chapter. Convenient dialogue interspersed every few pages to explain the story. Carbon copy of his last two books. I'm not even sure why I finished it, but it's definitely the last thing of his I ever read. Even Amazon reviewers, who are always friendly to what is trendy, are skewering his new book. More one- and two-star reviews that any others.

:goodposting:

Next up: Just read the prologue for Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, a biography of Pat Tillman. So far so good.
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:potkettle: Got a BN gift card for my birthday and got these 2 books and another titled This is Your Brain on Music. I'm about 140 pgs into The Lost Symbol and wondering if it's going to pick up the pace at all. Like you said, it's the same as the others but I would argue that it doesn't grab your attention as quickly as the others. Hopefully the Krakauer book won't disappoint.

 
igbomb said:
Next up: Just read the prologue for Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, a biography of Pat Tillman. So far so good.
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About 75 pages into this. Really like it so far, although I like his stuff and I know some people don't based on the Everest stuff.
 
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