I finished The Dead Zone last night and what a fantastic book. It was very slow in the middle but it just added to Johnny's character (and builds up at the end). I didn't see the end scenario coming till the end of the middle. It was obvious that Johnny had to deal with Stillson but the parallels with other notorious
delusional political assassins
was done very well. The lead up to
the attempted assassination, Johnny falling apart physically and mentally, the letters mailed out and Sarah visiting his grave were all heartbreaking
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
Guns, Germs, and Steel was awesome. I think I liked Collapse even more though. I meant to watch the TV series Diamond did on GG&S but I only caught one episode. I hope they rerun it this summer.
Reading this for school. We're doing a dystopic study in English and are also watching the film Gattaca. It's such a great book and some of the writing is just fantastic. The descriptions and style of writing are great and along with my somewhat cynicist of a teacher, it's made me think about hedonism and commercialism.
so I'm going to do that one first. I would take forever to finish all the Dune books first before I got around to this one so I'll focus on The Road to start with.
so I'm going to do that one first. I would take forever to finish all the Dune books first before I got around to this one so I'll focus on The Road to start with.
Reading this for school. We're doing a dystopic study in English and are also watching the film Gattaca. It's such a great book and some of the writing is just fantastic. The descriptions and style of writing are great and along with my somewhat cynicist of a teacher, it's made me think about hedonism and commercialism.
This is easily one of my favourite books. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying it as well. Bradbury writes so clearly and poetically, that it's difficult to find fault with anything in this particular novel. Brilliant.
Jonas Gardell - En komikers uppväxt
- Swedish homosexual comedian on his childhood. About bullying, loneliness, being a kid.
Great book, some passages are straight out of my own past. Funny & sad.
Britt G. Hallqvist - Festen i Hulabo
- A brilliant children's book. A very warm and welcoming book with great rhymes,
language and the funniest pictures ever by Helga Henschen. I loved it as a kid, too.
Reading now:
King Lear - Shakespeare (Inspired by the Shakespeare movie adaptions thread)
- I want to understand Ran better. Haha.
Gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Philippians
- Good read. NT > OT for me so far.
Tove Jansson - Sommarboken (The Summer Book)
- By the wonderful woman who came up with The Moomin <3, a book about a young girl hanging out
with her grandma on a small island in summer. Brilliant so far. Beautiful language and real insight into
children's thoughts and feelings. She either has great memory or hangs with kids alot because this is real.
Karin Boye - Dikter (Poems)
- A collection of poems by swedish poet and novelist. My mother bought it for 47kr ~ 6$.
It feels strange, having almost a lifetime of poems in one volume. Only reading her earlier
ones so far, released when she was 22 yrs old. Some of them are brilliant, some just confuse me.
This was easily the biggest surprise a book as given me. I really didn't enjoy the movie and was happy to find the book was so superior it was on a whole other level. Such an intense and emotional book.
Okay, I'm seeking GAF's for advice on what to read here. Though I don't normally seek out books based on subject or genre alone, for once I'd like to read something very particular. To be specific, I'd like to read something cyberpunk. Something with rainy nights, neon lights, and noir-style dialogue or writing. I read and loved Neuromancer and from the sounds of it, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep may be down that road too.
Its fantastic. Truly gives a great picture of Paul and gives a great context to many of the issues he faced and challenges he received from his opponents.
John Wooden- Greatest coach in the history of American sport and a fantastic man to boot.
Still chuggin through this. Its so detailed with so much information which while very valuable, it isn't something I am able to read daily for long periods of time.
Bulgakow's wife once said her husband was no Dostojewski. She may be right, but this book is simply amazing. It works on so many levels, it has a critique of the Stalin era which is unparalleled ("Animal Farm" is comparatively a nice book, nothing more, nothing less) and the storytelling is just awesome. Bulgakow worked 12-13 years on that book. It does show. Putting aside Dostojewskis work there never was any book which sparked my interest in the bible like this one (of course only for historical reasons, I'm no Christian any longer).
I have been on a bit of a post-apocalyptic streak lately.
Started with The Road. I liked it, which some what surprised me since I wasn't that fond of the narrative/writing style and whiny kids tend to annoy me even if they are written realistically.
I then moved on to this.
Resurrection Day. It is an alternate reality that takes place 10 years after the Cuban missile crises lead to a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. Russia is destroyed and the US is basically a 3rd world country that is reviled around the world for starting it. The book itself is fairly average and it is more of a political thriller than anything, but I liked the "what if" scenario.
Think I am going to switch gears and read this next. Shatner always manages to amuse me and I have heard decent things about his new book.
I made it though A Game of Thrones in a few days and am most of the way through this. Saw AGOT so many times on GAF that I had to check it out. Fantastic series so far even though I'm not a very big fan of the genre.
I made it though A Game of Thrones in a few days and am most of the way through this. Saw AGOT so many times on GAF that I had to check it out. Fantastic series so far even though I'm not a very big fan of the genre.
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
Bulgakow's wife once said her husband was no Dostojewski. She may be right, but this book is simply amazing. It works on so many levels, it has a critique of the Stalin era which is unparalleled ("Animal Farm" is comparatively a nice book, nothing more, nothing less) and the storytelling is just awesome. Bulgakow worked 12-13 years on that book. It does show. Putting aside Dostojewskis work there never was any book which sparked my interest in the bible like this one (of course only for historical reasons, I'm no Christian any longer).
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
For the active users here, I've created a group on www.goodreads.com. Its a webpage that allows you to track what books you've read, rate them and also social networking functions with other readers. Here's the group page for anyone that's a user on that site...
Just finished with The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Loved it. Really entertaining with the papal intrigue. Tomorrow I am going to start The Road by Cormac McCarthy because of this thread and because it is really short it seems and can get it down in a couple days.
Saw this in the boostore the other day, might have to pick it up. Can anyone say what it is really about? Does a zombie Mr. Darcy go on a killing spree of all the English socialites? Cause if it is, that sounds awesome.
Just want to say I popped into the OT forum cause I'm waiting for a friend and was bored by the Gaming Discussion, and I am very pleased to find such interesting, varied, and mature discussions on here. Plan to spend more time on the OT thread from now on.
'Love and Friendship' by Alison Lurie. I just finished 'Faculty Towers', Elaine Showalter's appreciation of the academic novel, and this was one she mentioned as being rather good. It is, so far.
Saw this in the boostore the other day, might have to pick it up. Can anyone say what it is really about? Does a zombie Mr. Darcy go on a killing spree of all the English socialites? Cause if it is, that sounds awesome.
Okay, I'm seeking GAF's for advice on what to read here. Though I don't normally seek out books based on subject or genre alone, for once I'd like to read something very particular. To be specific, I'd like to read something cyberpunk. Something with rainy nights, neon lights, and noir-style dialogue or writing. I read and loved Neuromancer and from the sounds of it, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep may be down that road too.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is considered a staple of the genre. The other "big one" that is often said in the same breath as Neuromancer is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Another book that a lot of GAFfers seem to be crazy about here is Altered Carbon, which is a newer cyberpunk novel. I haven't read it myself, but cyberpunk lovers on this forum have consistently been recommending it. Sorry, but I don't know the author. I'm sure you would be able to look it up.
I'm still working on finishing Stalingrad by Antony Beevor (I'm slogging through it so slowly...seems appropriate) and now I have a cadre of free classics that I downloaded from Google Books to work through once I'm done.
I think I'll pick up the newest Malcolm Gladwell book too since I enjoyed Blink and ....god, I forgot the name of the other one I read.
I can't say that I would recommend Pride and Prejudice. I guess it is technically one of the so-called classics, although I found it incredibly boring and static throughout. Definitely not my cup of tea.
Saw this in the boostore the other day, might have to pick it up. Can anyone say what it is really about? Does a zombie Mr. Darcy go on a killing spree of all the English socialites? Cause if it is, that sounds awesome.
Well, I'm only a quarter or so through, but so far it is Pride and Prejudice and there happens to be a zombie outbreak going on. They still go to balls and spend their days talking about who asked who to dance and all the other boring crap that made me only pretend to read this in high school. It's ok, but not enough zombie action yet. I have hope but it's strictly toilet reading so far.
Picked up Fight Club, Rant, Pygmy, and Diary, all by Chuck Palahniuk, the other day on sale. Already finished Fight Club, but anybody have opinions on which (if any) of the others to keep? Don't know many people that have read his books, but consensus seems to be that Diary is pretty bad overall, while Pygmy is written in a weird-ass way to the point of incomprehensibility in some parts.
See, once I try to pin one story down in the book, I can't. With the exception of maybe one or two that don't really hit, they're all amazing. The Laughing Man and A Perfect Day for Bananafish and the Battle of the Eskimos and the one about Willy.... There's too much there to pick.
So glad to see people reading the source material. It's definitely under-appreciated. Too bad there's been three movies and not once have they gotten close.
I'm just about to start it this month. What do you think of it?
I just finished:
An amazing, in depth, important book. Spanning from the idea of nucleus research in the early 1900s and the progression to the shaping force of our species. Rhodes deals with such an immense topic in a very human way, by the end of each chapter you really feel as if you know the individual scientists: their personalities, their lives, their decisions. Step by step he brings the reader into the light, with accurate science explanations and research and story-telling. Nothing has held my attention like this book for a very long time. Everybody should read it, or at least the last half.
Thanks to the reading thread last month, I picked this up. Having already read, and enjoyed Do Androids Dream... and Scanner Darkly I imagined I'd like it. I couldn't have been more surprised. It's ten times any other effort of his I've read. I almost felt like I was reading the Grasshopper novel they mention - I just couldn't put it down. Each of the character arcs he chooses held something for me. A great, imaginative world that seems disgustingly plausible in some (a lot of) respects.
I finished Snow Crash this week, and read the Tao Te Ching. Snow Crash is humorous and tight with its plot, and managed to stimulate my mind a little. It was much more enjoyable than Neuromancer which is the only cyberpunkish book I have read and can compare it to. The Tao Te Ching is mostly over my head.
I have about 100 pages to go in Collapse, and then I move on to Guns Germs and Steel. I recommend Collapse to anyone with any interest in history or sociology.
I also started A Farewell to Arms, and Becoming Enlightened by the Dalai Lama.
Been on a hunt for more Gaiman of late, having already enjoyed Stardust, American Gods, and Sandman over the last couple of years. Been a busy week thus far.
Started with Neverwhere, which I really enjoyed although it was weaker than any other novels of his, I felt. It made me want to see the BBC series, but HMV were selling it for £20 so I passed on that, will get it some time later off the net. I didn't like the ending a great deal. I like that Neil Gaiman's endings almost always feel like "happy" endings where you didn't really get what you wanted, memorable pieces that are both meloncholy and uplifting, whereas this one...
I'd put off Anansi Boys for a while because I heard it wasn't very good. Dear Those People: Fuck you. I find it damn near impossible to place Gaiman's works in preferred order, but damn it all if Anansi Boys isn't spectacular to the point that I want to put it up there. This one is really, really terrific, although the surprises it had in store were too damn obvious
I'm fairly sure I knew the twist before Nancy mentioned the starfish.
The relationships were also coming to an obvious conclusion.
What's fantastic is despite these being problems that I'd usually expand upon until I dislike the book, there isn't that issue with Gaiman's works. They're well written, interesting even when predictable (which they almost always are), and clever.
I read The Graveyard Book in a day, and it was glorious. I'd heard this one described as being one of his children's novels, and thought I could read it with my little brother, but I'm glad I decided against it because it'd probably terrify him.
Some points: Again, predictable. Again, who gives a shit, it practically reads itself. I love McKean's art, no surprise there, and chose this copy over the other just for his art.
Was actually looking to pick up some more Sandman, but they didn't have any volumes I didn't, but I found this beauty instead. I'd honestly never even heard of it, and was a little wary, but I'm a couple chapters into and loving it. Seems pretty great so far.
Started this in April, does it count? It took me awhile to get through this one. I prefer Collapse quite a bit more, as I liked how that book was organized around case studies of the collapsed civilizations. That was far more interesting to me than the separate sections in Guns on proximate causes, plus there was quite a bit of linguistic subject matter that I'm less interested in.
I'm a big fan of his show, GPS on CNN, as he's not just another talking head and is genuinely knowledgeable about foreign politics and the international scene. Very good and an easy read considering the subject, although if one is really versed in this type of material, there's nothing new here.
A very quick read, due to the fact that I could not put it down. What can I say that hasn't already been said about this? It's bleak, horrifying, and tragic. You know things don't get better. But you feel the love and the heartbreak between father and son. An absolutely stunning book. I will have to reread it before the movie comes out.
Got this a while ago, never had a chance to read it. Anyone have any opinions on it before I start?
Finished up Signal to Noise today. It was great, but I don't feel like I can genuinely attribute that to Gaiman, as it felt a little pretentious and padded in the writing. McKean's art was absolutely stellar, though, and the construction of it was on a whole other level.
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