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[Parham]

Bought a couple of books off of Amazon a couple weeks ago:

- Lolita
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- 1984
- Catch 22
- All The King's Men

Out of those five, the only novel I've read once before is Mockingbird.

This past week I've started:

Once I finish reading that, I will probably jump to either Catch-22 or Lolita.

 

[BorkBork]

Upon a recommendation from a gaffer,

Interesting journey into his missing years with strong Indian and Tibetan influences, but the supernatural aspects get absolutely ridiculous towards the end and have no place in a Sherlock Holmes novel at all.


Next up, Iain Bank's Matter and Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Not sure which to read first.

 

[Salazar]

http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/site_content.php?name=Centre_for_New_Writing_Podcasts

Someone asked earlier for some good literary podcasts. These are the panel discussions held as part of Martin Amis' tenure at Manchester University. It doesn't get much better.

 

[EviLore]

Finished Altered Carbon the other day. I started out liking it quite a bit, its pretty well-realized setting and its cyberpunk tech gimmicks had potential, but after around the halfway point I was increasing disillusioned by it. The inconsistencies in the technological worldview became more and more apparent: pen and paper 500 years in the future? No one uses personal communication devices? This is basically 1940 with some gimmicks.

I could've dealt with that; after all, visions of the future inevitably feel outdated sooner or later (even though this was written in 2002...), and a classic noir vibe has its requirements. The book just drags. Plot threads need to come together eventually, and in a detective mystery they need to come together in a way that makes sense, revealing the relevance of each bit of mystery along the way. Altered Carbon contains one of the worst denouements I've seen, 20 pages of dreadfully boring and revealing absolutely nothing of interest about the events leading up to it.

And, you know, I'm not a prude by any stretch, but some of those sex scenes felt like bad erotic fanfiction payoffs -- one in particular. Page after page of cumming and licking the juices and undulating and poking her cervix. Give me a break.

As a fan of both cyberpunk and noir I damn well wanted to like this one, but ended up thinking it failed on both fronts.

 

[gofreak]

I kinda laughed at the sex scenes too :lol

I enjoyed it enough to pick up the second Takeshi Kovacs novel though. Haven't started it yet, still getting through Matter.

 

[DubloSeven]

I'm currently reading

and next, I will read

I haven't read Dubliners, but Ulysses was really, really hard to read. I felt like an idiot until our professor told us it's one of the hardest books to read in the English language. The amount of vocabulary Joyce uses borders on ridiculous.

Finnegan's Wake was almost unreadable. The stream of consciousness thing is interesting and all, but the purpose of grammar and syntax is to make a writer's thoughts understandable to other people. We might think all disjointed-like in our heads, but it makes perfect sense to us because we're thinking it. If we thought like Finnegan's Wake reads, we'd be constantly confusing ourselves.

Anyhow, I don't get the appeal of Joyce. It's like he purposely made his books inaccessible to the average person. To me that doesn't make them better. And I realize that talking about Ulysses in such a way in almost blasphemous.

This is my second attempt at reading Ulysses. I recently read "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and I felt compelled to give Ulysses another try. Everyone should read "Portrait" before they read Ulysses. I feel it's a very apt introduction to Joyce and his stream of consciousness writing. Ulysses is a very difficult read, but I recently read In Search of Lost Time by Proust; so if I can put up with that, I think I can make my way through Ulysses

However, I know I will never, ever read Finnegans Wake. Without trying to sound rude, I think it's ridiculous. I could not tolerate one page, led alone 600 pages of that crap.

 

[Dina]

Finished Altered Carbon the other day. I started out liking it quite a bit, its pretty well-realized setting and its cyberpunk tech gimmicks had potential, but after around the halfway point I was increasing disillusioned by it. The inconsistencies in the technological worldview became more and more apparent: pen and paper 500 years in the future? No one uses personal communication devices? This is basically 1940 with some gimmicks.

I could've dealt with that; after all, visions of the future inevitably feel outdated sooner or later (even though this was written in 2002...), and a classic noir vibe has its requirements. The book just drags. Plot threads need to come together eventually, and in a detective mystery they need to come together in a way that makes sense, revealing the relevance of each bit of mystery along the way. Altered Carbon contains one of the worst denouements I've seen, 20 pages of dreadfully boring and revealing absolutely nothing of interest about the events leading up to it.

And, you know, I'm not a prude by any stretch, but some of those sex scenes felt like bad erotic fanfiction payoffs -- one in particular. Page after page of cumming and licking the juices and undulating and poking her cervix. Give me a break.

As a fan of both cyberpunk and noir I damn well wanted to like this one, but ended up thinking it failed on both fronts.

If you feel this way, don't read Broken Angels and Woken Furies. Alterec Carbon is considered the best of the bunch, the noir-style was especially praised. I actually liked Woken Furies a lot, it's pretty close to Altered Carbon, but it is more 'normal' sci-fi fare. Black Man was also good, but quite similar to the Kovacs trilogy. The Steel Remains is actually his best book, but it's a fantasy (the star of the book being gay, how often do you see that in fantasy?).

The sex and gore and style of writing is just like him, though. It's the same in every book he writes. That is what appealed to me in Altered Cardon, and I haven't been disappointed in Morgan's writing ever since.

I will say that you're pretty much right about the second half of the book. The lead-up to the ending was very boring, the second half of the book was actually lacking, and the end itself is very, very confusing and a bit farfetched. But the style, the panache and very pop-culture style of writing is why I remember this book and can still recommend it.

 

[Rickard]

I'm half way through Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk and I'm about to start reading Rant. I've also read Choke and Survivor.

If anybody here has read his other books I'd appreciate being told which ones to prioritize, or Of you don't like his work what I should read instead.

 

[Dina]

After reading the entire Night's Dawn trilogy, I just went ahead and started the 5 piece (4 released) Commonwealth saga.

And boy is it awesome. I'm halfway in but loving it to bits. Hamilton really is one of the sci-fi greats.

 

[mujun]

I'm currently reading "the Sundering" by Walter Jon Williams.

I fucking love it. Short post so I won't really elaborate on why at this point but it is definitely looking like it will be one of my favorite sci fi series ever at this point.

Other favs are the "Commonwealth" series by Peter Hamilton, the "Golden Age" series by John C. Wright, the "Coyote" series by Allen Steele and the "Riverworld" series by Philip Hose Farmer.

 

[Night_Trekker]

I finally finished Suttree. It's tied with Blood Meridian as the best thing McCarthy has written, IMO. I also started and finished The Gardner's Son, a screenplay McCarthy wrote to be turned into a PBS production years ago. Not shabby, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more as a film. Small parts of it were apparently incorporated into Suttree, which was a little odd.

Next I'll pick up The Border Trilogy and the two plays he's written. Then I guess I'll move on to another author. I've got East of Eden sitting here and I haven't really started it yet.

I haven't read Dubliners, but Ulysses was really, really hard to read. I felt like an idiot until our professor told us it's one of the hardest books to read in the English language. The amount of vocabulary Joyce uses borders on ridiculous.

Finnegan's Wake was almost unreadable. The stream of consciousness thing is interesting and all, but the purpose of grammar and syntax is to make a writer's thoughts understandable to other people. We might think all disjointed-like in our heads, but it makes perfect sense to us because we're thinking it. If we thought like Finnegan's Wake reads, we'd be constantly confusing ourselves.

Anyhow, I don't get the appeal of Joyce. It's like he purposely made his books inaccessible to the average person. To me that doesn't make them better. And I realize that talking about Ulysses in such a way in almost blasphemous.

You attempted Finnegan's Wake before Ulysses? :lol :lol

Personally, I love the style in which Ulysses is written, but considering that you didn't, I would encourage you to try Dubliners at some point. It's a much easier read and a damn good book.

But really, say what you will about Finnegans; there's no denying the profound genius of his earlier works. And it's no wonder the idea that reading Joyce cannot possibly be enjoyable is so prevalent among a generation reading him only for academic purposes while gobbling up dreck like Cormac McCarthy and World War Z and whatnot in their free time.

You either have really, really shitty taste in literature or you haven't read much that he's written. There's no other possibility.

 

[ClosingADoor]

At the moment I'm working my way through these:

Great book, better then the movie, although I really enjoyed that one also.

Read all the Halo books there are. Not the best books, but not bad either

Can definitely recommend this series to any science-fiction fans. Great read!

 

[FiRez]

Just finished "The Great Gatsby", I found remarkable how descriptive and entertaining was the narrative even if the story by itself is a little bit predictable I enjoyed reading it.

8/10

 

[Yasser]

just finished:

going to start based on a gaffers recommendation:

and then move onto:

i love the summer

 

[bonesmccoy]

I'm currently reading this:

It's quite good, however I do caution that its style is rather different from your standard fiction fare.

And I've been trying to get through these two:

+ Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah. But I keep thinking "It's Summer, why am I reading this kind of stuff now?"

After I finish Yiddish Policemen's Union, I hope to plow through Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, and then get into John C Wright's The Golden Age. I have heared both books are excellent science-fiction/fantasy, and even some of the best American fiction available right now.

 

[Monroeski]

Finished -

Pretty good book overall. Nothing I didn't know already, but provided good background information.

Just started -

Most likely next in queue -

Read the first 5 books in the last month and a half, and I loved them. 6 and 7 arrived from Amazon today.

Have a huge bookshelf of stuff I've bought but am waiting to read, but I will probably be going with The Road (to get ready for the upcoming movie) or The Post-American World after Dresden (while I'm sure 8 and 9 will be in the mail :lol).

PrideAndPrejudiceAndZombies.jpg

I actually read through the original Pride and Prejudice a few weeks ago to prepare for this ::ahem:: "re-imagining," but haven't gotten around to actually reading it yet.

Why I suffered through that without the payoff is beyond me. :lol I guess I just heard from some people that it's not written very well, lots of juvenile humor, doesn't stick with the personalities in the original, etc.

 

[Doytch]

Read through all of Sirens of Titan while on the plane. I really enjoyed it, though I felt the ending on Titan was somewhat disjoint with the tone of the rest of the book. I think the press quotes on the cover might have unconsciously influenced me after reading it and looking back on it. Without the quotes, I'd have taken the meaning of life given in the book as just a feel-good part of the book, but now I feel like it's supposed to be the main driving point behind the entire novel. But that's not how I really feel.

I believe that Vonnegut was writing against the modern-day belief that we must all be considered equal. The new religion in the book takes this to the illogical extreme, handicapping themselves wherever they're slightly advantaged. Instead of directly saying that they want to eliminate prejudice which is what the equality idea of today drives at, they want to eliminate the "luck" that people experience. And of course, Malachi's dad is the greatest example of a lucky person who deserves nothing because he didn't do any actual work himself. Malachi similarly inherited all that money (and luck).

Normally I go and look at the Wikipedia article and do some research on the intended themes of a book/movie/song before writing about it, but I decided not to do that here. I'm interested in what others (afternoon delight) thought of it.

--

Book snobs can cry moar, I'm reading The Road now. Also ordered Handmaid's Tale since I never got around to it but always meant to.

 

[Monroeski]

Harumph. No appreciation of the classics, I tell you.

It wasn't really TOO bad, overall, but for two things -

1. Way too much exposition. Felt like most of what was written could be said in half as many words while still providing more than enough detail; many paragraphs felt a bit redundant and excessive.
2.

Spoiler

Darcy went from OMG WORST GUY EVER to being freaking Superman after he wrote that letter after being shut down on his proposal. It was a total character 180 that was quite jarring imo. He went back to being a little unlikable at the end when he was around the whole low class Bennet family at the end, but it felt more like window dressing at that point and was a little unbelievable.

Still not as bad as most people think.

 

[BorkBork]

2.

Spoiler

Darcy went from OMG WORST GUY EVER to being freaking Superman after he wrote that letter after being shut down on his proposal. It was a total character 180 that was quite jarring imo. He went back to being a little unlikable at the end when he was around the whole low class Bennet family at the end, but it felt more like window dressing at that point and was a little unbelievable.

But

Spoiler

he was never the worst guy ever. He was just a bit of a snob. Elizabeth initially THOUGHT he was a bastard, but in reality he was never a bad guy like Wickham was.

 

[Mifune]

Anyway, I started Infinite Jest on the set day and ended up finishing it a couple days ago. Read like five hundred pages during a long car ride, which I kind of regret now because I simply miss reading it. Just amazing, in pretty much every respect, and I look forward to discussing it with the other people reading here.

Wow. That is impressive, sir.

I'm up to page 310 or so. And just finished the latest bit of brilliance: Footnote 110. I really love these phone conversations between Hal and Orin.

 

[baultista]

I just finished this. It was moderately funny.




Next on my list:

OR

 

[gcubed]

Bought a couple of books off of Amazon a couple weeks ago:

- Lolita
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- 1984
- Catch 22
- All The King's Men

Out of those five, the only novel I've read once before is Mockingbird.

This past week I've started:

Once I finish reading that, I will probably jump to either Catch-22 or Lolita.

1984... i finished that in like a day and a half, i couldnt put it down, it was a great book. I havent read Lolita yet, but Catch-22 was fantastic as well, i wasnt a huge fan of the sequel though (Closing Time)

 

[Desiato]

Earlier this month I finished reading this:

I loved it immensely.

Now I started reading this:

I'm not liking it as much as I did with HBWatEotW, but there's enough cool stuff going on in it to keep me interested. And i've only read about a third thus far, so a lot can still happen. I'll probably start another Murakami book not too long after I'm done with this one.

 

[jon bones]

wat

If Cormac is dreck, what contemporary authors are actually any good?

Read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and then wonder how The Road won a Pulitzer as well.

 

[Mifune]

Read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and then wonder how The Road won a Pulitzer as well.

They're two very different books. Both great.

 

[thomaser]

Finished "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence yesterday. Didn't really expect much, but it turned out to be a nice treat. Very, very well written.

My edition also has a kind of afterword by D. H. Lawrence. In one paragraph, he characterizes Jane Austen as a "mean, old maid", snobbish and prudish. So...

I've now started Jane Austen's complete novels, seven of them in one big edition.

In between those seven novels, I'll try to fit in two trilogies, reading alternately, starting and ending with an Austen-novel:

Cormac McCarthy's "The Border Trilogy" and

Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's "The Illuminatus! Trilogy".

This reading program should keep me busy for a few months.

 

[VistraNorrez]

Even Harold Bloom likes Cormac McCarthy. He can't praise Blood Meridian enough.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Bleh! I think I read too fast. I just got Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk in the mail yesterday and read it in one sitting last night. I was going to take it on vacation!

It seems to me most modern novels are designed to read fast to compete with TV and videogames. It's not like I really want something laborious and hard to read, but I want someway to slow myself down and enjoy the books more. Savor them instead of gobble them down. IDK. I think they way he did the page and chapter numbers backwards (counting down) didn't help. :lol

So any tips or suggestions? Should I try harder books? Longer books? I really enjoyed Survivor, it was a great ride but I feel like I got off to soon. Much like the protagonist and his 1st time...

I guess I could just get another novel to take on vacation but I feel like the same thing will happen and I end up finishing it the 1st night. Maybe this isn't really a big deal and I just need more books to read.

 

[Undeux]

Even Harold Bloom likes Cormac McCarthy. He can't praise Blood Meridian enough.

Bleh. That's almost a point against McCarthy.

So any tips or suggestions? Should I try harder books? Longer books?

It's definitely not a bad thing that you read quickly, especially if it's because you like what you're reading. It might help to get bigger books, since you'll still be just as engaged but have a little more material to cover. I think that classics generally take longer to read, but there are some (The Count of Monte Cristo, for instance) that can be just as engaging and roll by pretty quickly.

(Don't take that as a recommendation of Monte Cristo - I've known people who were totally bored by it, though I know it has a following in this thread)

 

[Tirade]

I just read City of Thieves by David Benioff.

HOLY SHIT

It was awesome.

 

[besada]

It seems to me most modern novels are designed to read fast to compete with TV and videogames. It's not like I really want something laborious and hard to read, but I want someway to slow myself down and enjoy the books more.

Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon should slow you down.

Or you might try some John Irving. I think of him as Vonnegut processed through a Dickens filter.

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

 

[Karakand]

Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's "The Illuminatus! Trilogy".

omfg enjoy

 

[Flo_Evans]

Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon should slow you down.

Holy shit. I just read the 1st page on Amazon and yes, quite a bit slower pacing than Chuck Palahniuk. To use one of my favorite lines from The Royal Tenenbaums "it was written in an obtuse vernacular..."

Side note: a little creepy, my last name is dixon (although spelled differently) and my wife's maiden name is mason + 1 letter. Weird. Never thought of it in relation to the mason-dixon line. We should of hypenated our last names for the lolz. :lol

I think I will get it, based on the near coincidence alone, although it seems like Gravity's Rainbow might be more up my alley.

Thanks!

 

[Vinci]

So after reading about David Foster Wallace so much in this thread, I went out to the local library and grabbed the only book they had of his - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - and sat down to give it a quick read.

After the first three stories in the volume, I put it back on the shelf, went to a bookstore and bought it and Infinite Jest. Going to finish Brief Interviews before moving to Infinite Jest.

Really fucking impressive.

EDIT: This reminds me. My wife is originally from China but her English is rather good. However, she finds it hard to get into books that are too difficult and she's frustrated that she can't seem to get into a groove with reading.

Can you guys think of any really good books - something thoughtful, emotionally complex or interesting - that are relatively quick and easy to read? I'd really like to help her find some.

 

[thomaser]

omfg enjoy

Thanks, hope so! I love kooky, complex conspiracy theories

 

[mujun]

Can definitely recommend this series to any science-fiction fans. Great read!

You serious? Have you read Hamilton or stuff like that?

I read the first book in this series and stopped about two thirds of the way through. The guy's writing is terrible.

 

[ClosingADoor]

You serious? Have you read Hamilton or stuff like that?

I read the first book in this series and stopped about two thirds of the way through. The guy's writing is terrible.

I really like the universe and story, and can live with the could-be-better writing. It isn't the best, but still a very good series.

 

[Salazar]

EDIT: This reminds me. My wife is originally from China but her English is rather good. However, she finds it hard to get into books that are too difficult and she's frustrated that she can't seem to get into a groove with reading.

Can you guys think of any really good books - something thoughtful, emotionally complex or interesting - that are relatively quick and easy to read? I'd really like to help her find some.

'Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age' by Kenzaburo Oe. As emotionally complex and interesting as short novels can be.

'The Rachel Papers' by Martin Amis. Caustic satire on adolescence. Very funny, quite short.

Both writers are fearsomely clever, but neither of these books is a difficult read.

 

[mujun]

I really like the universe and story, and can live with the could-be-better writing. It isn't the best, but still a very good series.

Fair enough, I recently barely made it through the second Mass Effect novel purely because I like Mass Effect. Threw the book in the trash after I'd finished it of course

 

[sparky2112]

So after reading about David Foster Wallace so much in this thread, I went out to the local library and grabbed the only book they had of his - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - and sat down to give it a quick read.

After the first three stories in the volume, I put it back on the shelf, went to a bookstore and bought it and Infinite Jest. Going to finish Brief Interviews before moving to Infinite Jest.

Really fucking impressive.

Hats off to you. A lot of DFW fans, including myself, don't really dig Hideous Men. If you think it's good, IJ is going to FRY YOUR MIND.

 

[Karakand]

Thanks, hope so! I love kooky, complex conspiracy theories

The ending is kind of a cop out but before it there is

Spoiler

a zombie Nazi army at the bottom of a lake where a rock festival is being hosted

so that makes up for it.

 

[ILOVEASIANS]

Just finished up The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three and plan to move on to part III tomorrow. Can't wait. I've enjoyed the first two installments quite a bit.

 

[Salazar]

So any tips or suggestions? Should I try harder books? Longer books? I really enjoyed Survivor, it was a great ride but I feel like I got off to soon. Much like the protagonist and his 1st time....

Nicholson Baker's 'The Mezzanine'. The style, the footnotes, the immense pleasure in detail: all of these things will slow you right down.

 

[Night_Trekker]

Even Harold Bloom likes Cormac McCarthy. He can't praise Blood Meridian enough.

I know opinions are wonderful and unique and special like snowflakes and all that, but only someone completely ignorant about what makes great literature (or someone irritated by McCarthy's sudden popularity, thanks almost entirely to Oprah's Book Club) could read McCarthy at his best and come away claiming he isn't a very talented writer.

If you don't like his work, that's one thing. Representing him as some sort of hack is just factually incorrect.

 

[Salazar]

If you don't like his work, that's one thing. Representing him as some sort of hack is just factually incorrect.

Part of the (comic) pleasure and utility of allowing for a variety of responses to literature lies in opening the doors to stupidity as well as wisdom. Besides, errors of judgement are more grave and influential than errors of fact: it underrates and diminishes them to characterise them as such.

 

[Night_Trekker]

Besides, errors of judgement are more grave and influential than errors of fact: it underrates and diminishes them to characterise them as such.

I like that :lol

 

[ElectricBlue187]

I've probably said this before but The Road is by far the best novel I've ever read.
If Oprah's book club is what it takes for more people (like my parents) to read it then so be it.

I'm

Spoiler

still

reading The Algebraist - Ian M. Banks

 

[Vinci]

'Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age' by Kenzaburo Oe. As emotionally complex and interesting as short novels can be.

'The Rachel Papers' by Martin Amis. Caustic satire on adolescence. Very funny, quite short.

Both writers are fearsomely clever, but neither of these books is a difficult read.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll make sure to grab a couple of books of each and see how she responds to them.

@ sparky2112

It's not so much that I think Brief Interviews is the greatest thing ever, but it gives me some idea as to the sort of writer I'm dealing with - and I think it illustrates enough distinctiveness to make him appealing. I like when authors try some crazy, kooky shit and it pays off, though Wallace is able to do this more satisfactorily than most due to his almost poetic sense of language.

At any rate, I should be delving into Infinite Jest rather soon. I'm about halfway through Brief Interviews. Looking forward to it.

 

[ShallNoiseUpon]

Finishing these one up:

Just started this one last night (for the fourth time)