Whatcha readin now? (book, books, reading, read) (3 Viewers)

[KarmaPolice]

Got about 150pgs into The Raw Shark Texts and found it to be unreadable.

Started reading Lehane's Prayers for Rain instead. Gibson's Pattern Recognition is up next.

 

[Todd Andrews]

Got about 150pgs into The Raw Shark Texts and found it to be unreadable.

Started reading Lehane's Prayers for Rain instead. Gibson's Pattern Recognition is up next.

Raw Shark Texts was definitely experimental. Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

One of my all-time favorites.Just finished F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Great writing...sub-par storytelling. It just wasn't all that interesting. I didn't care about the characters even though he spent most of the time developing them.

Also recently read Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone and finally got around to reading The Watchmen. Both are good...but neither lived up to the "Best 100 of all-time" expectations I had. I'd recommend both of them though. Dog Soldiers, in particular, is really engrossing after you get into it.

 

[Todd Andrews]

Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

One of my all-time favorites.Just finished F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Great writing...sub-par storytelling. It just wasn't all that interesting. I didn't care about the characters even though he spent most of the time developing them.

Also recently read Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone and finally got around to reading The Watchmen. Both are good...but neither lived up to the "Best 100 of all-time" expectations I had. I'd recommend both of them though. Dog Soldiers, in particular, is really engrossing after you get into it.

Stone is a very good writer.

 

[krista4]

Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

One of my all-time favorites.

:whoosh: One of mine, too.Just finished Bob the Gambler by Frederick Barthelme as I wanted something light and my boyfriend loves the book. Barthelme is definitely a fine writer--he's an acute observer of people and can say very much with few words. I just didn't find the book all that interesting or compelling. But I guess I'd recommend it as very well written.

I'm about to embark on an extended Murakami adventure as I've just bought every book of his that I hadn't yet read. After that, I intend to read Infinite Jest again.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

One of my all-time favorites.Just finished F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Great writing...sub-par storytelling. It just wasn't all that interesting. I didn't care about the characters even though he spent most of the time developing them.

Also recently read Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone and finally got around to reading The Watchmen. Both are good...but neither lived up to the "Best 100 of all-time" expectations I had. I'd recommend both of them though. Dog Soldiers, in particular, is really engrossing after you get into it.

Stone is a very good writer.

Agreed. I don't know why I felt 'disappointed' after I finished Dog Soldiers. I was into it, I enjoyed it...I think I just didn't connect with some of the cultural stuff that was surely much more powerful 30 years ago. I suppose that, without that aspect, the book really just becomes a drug deal/chase book...and I'm sure I was supposed to get much more out of it than that.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Got about 150pgs into The Raw Shark Texts and found it to be unreadable.

Started reading Lehane's Prayers for Rain instead. Gibson's Pattern Recognition is up next.

Raw Shark Texts was definitely experimental. Try House of Leaves if you want crazy. But maybe that isnt your thing.

I've paged through it a couple of times and probably couldn't make it through that book either I'm guessing. I'm the opposite with books as I am for movies. I like weird/heady/experimental movies, but like my books more straight forward. Probably to do with the time frame - I really don't want to work that hard at something that's already going to take me a week+ to get through in the first place. I want it to be more on the relaxing side and less on the side of feeling like its a chore or work.

 

[shuke]

Finally finished The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse.

How was it? I've been looking for a used copy for ages.

 

[the rover]

On a Vonnegut kick for some random reason. Never read him in high school or college so I had no idea. Finished Slaughterhouse Five, moved on to Cat's Cradle, love both. Which others should I read?

You really can't go wrong with any of Vonnegut's work, I don't think. My favorite is probably Slapstick.

I think you and I may be the only people that have this in common. Edit to add something to the thread:

Read Spook Country by William Gibson and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson this weekend. Can't believe I'd never gotten around to reading Snow Crash before.

Spook Country is sort of a sequel to Pattern Recognition, but better.

 

[mon]

Finally finished The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse.

How was it? I've been looking for a used copy for ages.

The first 300 pages were a little boring, even for a huge fan of Hesse like me. I liked the last 200 pages much better. Whoever changed the title to The Glass Bead Game shouldn't have -- it's more about the life of Magister Ludi. He spends much of the book describing the Glass Bead Game, but then leaves you kind of disappointed because you never see it played out. The end (the last 150 pages +-) is weird but enjoyable, and has nothing to do with the main story.So, if you're a fan of Hesse's, you have to read it. As usual, his descriptive abilities are amazing, and it did win the Pulitzer after all. But if you're new to Hesse, I'd start elsewhere.

 

[mon]

On a Vonnegut kick for some random reason. Never read him in high school or college so I had no idea. Finished Slaughterhouse Five, moved on to Cat's Cradle, love both. Which others should I read?

You really can't go wrong with any of Vonnegut's work, I don't think. My favorite is probably Slapstick.

I think you and I may be the only people that have this in common.

Yes, it was one of his least popular books. Even he thought it was one of his lesser works. Something about it grabbed me, though.

 

[pantagrapher]

Finally finished The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse.

How was it? I've been looking for a used copy for ages.

The first 300 pages were a little boring, even for a huge fan of Hesse like me. I liked the last 200 pages much better. Whoever changed the title to The Glass Bead Game shouldn't have -- it's more about the life of Magister Ludi. He spends much of the book describing the Glass Bead Game, but then leaves you kind of disappointed because you never see it played out. The end (the last 150 pages +-) is weird but enjoyable, and has nothing to do with the main story.So, if you're a fan of Hesse's, you have to read it. As usual, his descriptive abilities are amazing, and it did win the Pulitzer after all. But if you're new to Hesse, I'd start elsewhere.

That book drove me absolutely nuts. Horribly boring, but I'd invested so much into it that I had to see where it went. I wish I hadn't bothered.

 

[pantagrapher]

Finished "White Noise"; Started "The End of the Road" by John Barth.

If you are a Barth fan you may recognize my name here.

This is actually my first Barth book. I probably should have started with something else. I had high hopes, and while it started off with a lot of promise, "The End of the Road" has degenerated into a torturous load of blather. Luckily, it's a small load. I think I'll still give The Sot-Weed Factor a shot, but Barth and I are definitely off on the wrong foot.

 

[Greco]

Shakespeare, The World as Stage by Bill Bryson. History provides very little knowledge of Shakespeare and his life. The dude is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Finished "White Noise"; Started "The End of the Road" by John Barth.

If you are a Barth fan you may recognize my name here.

This is actually my first Barth book. I probably should have started with something else. I had high hopes, and while it started off with a lot of promise, "The End of the Road" has degenerated into a torturous load of blather. Luckily, it's a small load. I think I'll still give The Sot-Weed Factor a shot, but Barth and I are definitely off on the wrong foot.

Sot Weed is fantastic. The satire of old time romantic novels is just so well done. Highly recommended...

 

[pantagrapher]

Started reading Bend Sinister and love it so far. I think I could be perfectly happy reading and rereading Nabokov from here on out.

 

[E-Z Glider]

The Deserter's Tale - Joshua Key

This book is impossible to put down. Its a very quick, easy read that will absoluetly leave you sick in the stomach.

In 2002, Key, a good ol' Oklahoma boy with a wife and two children (but no money), enlisted in the U.S. Army so he could learn a trade and provide for his family. He was assured that he would be sent to a "non-deployable" military base: he would never see combat. Instead, he was sent to Iraq to hunt for terrorists, a mission that involved beating civilians, kidnapping innocents, and destroying homes and families (all of which he relates in precise, damning detail). Stateside, on a two-week furlough, Key decided he couldn't go back to Iraq, couldn't participate in what he decided were mindless atrocities being committed in the name of world peace. Thus, he did what so many Vietnam protestors did: he took his family to Canada, where he now lives, a wanted man in his own country. This memoir, which can fairly and accurately be called a searing indictment of America's "war on terror," is vividly written ("Hayes slammed her in the face with the stock of his M-16"), but as difficult as it sometimes can be to read, we respect Key's courage to tell the story without sugarcoating. The book is timely, important, and haunting.

 

[Buddy Ball 2K3]

Just started Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. Past couple of King books I've read have been very disappointing (Tommyknockers, From a Buick Eight), hopefully this is better.

Don't count on it. I think Dreamcatcher may be my least favorite by King.

Only 60 pages in and I already think it's better than the other two I mentioned. I'm not looking for a literay masterpiece, just want to be entertained.

Glad I am not the only one that liked Dreamcatcher. I thought it was an entertaining book and much better then his last two releases.If you like political thrillers check out Steve Alten's Shell Game.

 

[SpecOpLoad]

"Without Warning" by John Birmingham!

Great premise eventhough the US gets schwacked from the get-go!

 

[shuke]

Just started Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. Past couple of King books I've read have been very disappointing (Tommyknockers, From a Buick Eight), hopefully this is better.

Don't count on it. I think Dreamcatcher may be my least favorite by King.

Only 60 pages in and I already think it's better than the other two I mentioned. I'm not looking for a literay masterpiece, just want to be entertained.

Glad I am not the only one that liked Dreamcatcher. I thought it was an entertaining book and much better then his last two releases.

About 250 pages in, and I love. This is the type of King I like. I guess my problem is that I've read all of his best stuff already, so what I'm leary about what's left.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Now reading Warped Passages by Lisa Randall.

 

[Kendall]

I can never find this when I'm looking for it.

 

[Gigantomachia]

I was reading Kant's First Critique today.

All experience is synthetic knowledge, #####es.

 

[ianfitzy]

Anyone know of a good book of a combination of American History and Politics? I was thinking about The Creation of the American Republic by Gordon Wood but I want some recommendations.

 

[Jiggyonthehut]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

 

[Tough As Nails]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

Don't give up on him if you don't like that book. It didn't have near the impact on me that Leaves did. LOVE House of Leaves...hated Revolutions...LOVE Danielewski's sister (Annie Danielewski better known as Poe).

 

[shuke]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

Don't give up on him if you don't like that book. It didn't have near the impact on me that Leaves did. LOVE House of Leaves...like Revolutions...LOVE Danielewski's sister (Annie Danielewski better known as Poe).

Fixed.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

Don't give up on him if you don't like that book. It didn't have near the impact on me that Leaves did. LOVE House of Leaves...like Revolutions...LOVE Danielewski's sister (Annie Danielewski better known as Poe).

Fixed.

Have you ever read up on the different versions of the book and the different colors used for House (blue, gray, etc) or for Minotaur (red in some versions) and the crossed out text colored in some and not in others? Apparently Danielewski got enamored with that stuff because he comes out swinging with like 4 or 5 colors in Only Revolutions.

 

[shuke]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

Don't give up on him if you don't like that book. It didn't have near the impact on me that Leaves did. LOVE House of Leaves...like Revolutions...LOVE Danielewski's sister (Annie Danielewski better known as Poe).

Fixed.

Have you ever read up on the different versions of the book and the different colors used for House (blue, gray, etc) or for Minotaur (red in some versions) and the crossed out text colored in some and not in others? Apparently Danielewski got enamored with that stuff because he comes out swinging with like 4 or 5 colors in Only Revolutions.

I didn't even know there were different versions of the book.

 

[KCC]

How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative It's a great read.

Here's the summary:

Republican campaign advisor Raymond achieved some notoriety when he plead guilty in federal court to jamming Connecticut phone lines in a 2002 Democratic get-out-the-vote effort-small potatoes compared to what he had gotten away with for more than a decade, vividly and hilariously chronicled in this outrageous career retrospective. For 13 years, Raymond worked his way up the ranks of GOP operatives by smearing opponents and worse in campaigns across the country, including the aborted presidential bid of Steve Forbes. Besides documenting such ingenious strategies as arranging for phone calls during the Super Bowl touting his candidate's opponent, Raymond witnesses the Republican party's rise to power in the 1990s, and the effects of that power, in both professional and personal terms. ("Bill Martini's screaming fits were reaching exciting new heights all the time.") Though Raymond appreciates the depravity of his former enterprise ("if you could find two of us Republican operatives who could still tell the difference between politics and crime, you could probably have rubbed us together for fire as well"), his confession often sounds a lot like boasting; naturally, Raymond is charming enough to get away with it, taking a deliciously cynical view of everyone involved (voters especially). For those who care about the electoral system, this look inside the sausage factory of contemporary campaigning is compelling, arguably essential, reading.

 

[adonis]

Hot, Flat and Crowded - Thomas Friedman

About 1/3 through, and it's good. I think he's right about the future of America needing to be an energy producing, green-leading country in order to continue to grow. Good stuff.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions by mistake instead of House of Leaves. Format looks real cool. Any reviews?

Don't give up on him if you don't like that book. It didn't have near the impact on me that Leaves did. LOVE House of Leaves...like Revolutions...LOVE Danielewski's sister (Annie Danielewski better known as Poe).

Fixed.

Have you ever read up on the different versions of the book and the different colors used for House (blue, gray, etc) or for Minotaur (red in some versions) and the crossed out text colored in some and not in others? Apparently Danielewski got enamored with that stuff because he comes out swinging with like 4 or 5 colors in Only Revolutions.

I didn't even know there were different versions of the book.

A few supplemental things out there to look through too. The book has a pretty big "cult" following if you want to call it that.

 

[Daywalker]

Just finished The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Very quick read and enjoyable but I wasn't exactly blown away. Thought it was a bit hyped. Does seem like a book that the critics would eat up. The frequent use of Spanish did not bother me.

 

[Weapon of Mass Instruction]

The Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, etc) by Cormac McCarthy. Yeah...I'll be reading that for a while.

LOVE how the guys turns a phrase...but it is hard, at first, to build and identity with his main characters.

 

[roadkill1292]

Because it occurred to me that I didn't know anything about the first "big" battle of the Civil War, I just completed Shiloh: The Battle that Changed the Civil War, by U of Memphis professor Larry J. Daniel. The title is a little melodramatic and the content is a fairly dry account of troop movements during the two day fight (which is stuff I kind of like) but Daniel still does a pretty good job of bringing to light how personality clashes and political appointments of top level generals in the early days of the war contributed to a mass of inefficiencies on the battlefield.

 

[shuke]

Left my copy of Dreamcatcher at home for a current trip, so picked up The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Not a big non-fiction fan but this looks good.

 

[Shrek]

Left my copy of Dreamcatcher at home for a current trip, so picked up The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Not a big non-fiction fan but this looks good.

I replied on this one several years ago, maybe even in this thread. I really enjoyed DITWC a lot. There is some very interesting history in it. I'll be interested to see your take on it.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Just bought Canaan's Tongue by John Wray

http://www.amazon.com/Canaans-Tongue-John-Wray/dp/1400040868

Starred Review. This much-anticipated second fiction from Wray (The Right Hand of Sleep, 2001) is more an evil take on Tristram Shandy or Mason & Dixon than on Right Hand precursors Graham Greene or Joseph Roth. Genuine and imagined quotes from Mark Twain, narrative passages by assorted quixotic characters (including the occasional declaration from God), diary entries, letters, criminal inquisitions, etc., are brilliantly used by Wray to describe, and partially veil, the real-life atrocities of the infamous mid–19th-century preacher, horse thief and murderous schemer John Murrell, called the "Redeemer" by Twain in Life on the Mississippi. Set in 1863 and narrated chiefly by Virgil Ball, the right-hand man and eventual assassin of Thaddeus Morelle (Wray's fictional "Redeemer"), the novel details the final days of a curious handful of holdout cutthroats from Morelle's once much-larger band at Geburah Plantation, La., on the banks of the "Big Muddy." As the novel opens, one of the group has been found murdered, and the resulting inquiry unfolds by fits and starts amid an untidy sequence of flashbacks. The dark side of American history has always been best treated by the novel, and Wray does justice to some incredibly rich and challenging material, forging a style that is as loose and wild as its subjects. Steeped in effective 19th-century archaism, yet steely in sustaining the story, the prose is as poetic as it is violent.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conflicted on this one and not sure if I'll like it. Love Twain's stuff on this time. Hate the slave stuff. We'll see.J

 

[ChampBailey24]

First book in 2 years... The Game -Neil Strauss

 

[piratemike]

First book in 2 years... The Game -Neil Strauss

Well at least you picked some real literature.

 

[the rover]

I was killing time at a used book store by my office while waiting for a lunch order, and found a copy of The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale. I remembered Shuke (?) mentioning this one, so I bought it for $2.50. I'm planning on reading it on a plane next Monday.

 

[Sundays Rule]

California girl by T Jefferson Parker

 

[Socrates11]

Left my copy of Dreamcatcher at home for a current trip, so picked up The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Not a big non-fiction fan but this looks good.

Outstanding book with a lot of history and trivia woven through it. I couldn't put it down.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Right now I'm about 100pgs into Greg Bear's The Forge of God. So far I've liked all of his stuff that I've read.

On deck is The End of Food.

 

[oso diablo]

Just bought Canaan's Tongue by John Wray

had this on my to-get list for a while now. let us know if you like it.

 

[shuke]

I was killing time at a used book store by my office while waiting for a lunch order, and found a copy of The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale. I remembered Shuke (?) mentioning this one, so I bought it for $2.50. I'm planning on reading it on a plane next Monday.

Not groundbreaking literature by any means, but one of my all-time favorites.

 

[beer 30]

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. I really enjoyed his "In the Company of Soldiers" so I thought I'd give this one a shot. Man it's a monster, 768 pages.

 

[Leo Scanlon]

Recently finished With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. The author, E.B. Sledge, was a Marine during these two World War II battles. This is one of the best books of any kind that I've ever read. His insights are absolutely fascinating.

 

[E Street Brat]

I read "The Christmas Sweater" over the weekend

It was pretty good in a kinda tear-jerker way. One part seemed to drag a little too long.

 

[pantagrapher]

Finished Bend Sinister. Really liked it and look forward to reading it again. Started Contempt by Alberto Moravia. I'm a big fan of the film, so I figured I'd read the book. Pretty good so far, although the translation is already a bit clunky in spots.