:: Sniff :: You guys are great. This is one of the reasons I love this Board so much.
I’ve just picked up one, two, three . . . fifteen recommendations for books that sound good. You guys rock – in the restrained and quiet way of bookworms, of course.
It’s lunch time in my world, and I am marching my behind down the street to Barnes & Noble for a selection of three or so new books. I shall return with a bag of literary goodies, and I’ll let y’all know what I bought.
In the meantime, keep those recommendations coming.
I have just begun The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carré, and am working my way through The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity by Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. In the car, I am listening to The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
My personal rule is that I don’t buy hardbacks but wait for the book to come out in trade paperback, otherwise I’d spend all my money on books. (“When I have a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food.” – Erasmus) So that left out a number of excellent choices, which I’m looking forward to with great anticipation – chiefly GregAtlanta’s book, which looks great.
So I bought Pinker’s Words And Rules, Donoghue’s Slammerkin, and Ozeki’s My Year of Meats. And I’ve got a list of about twelve more to work through.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. Keep 'em coming; I’m taking copious notes.
Guns, Germs & Steel.
I got this one at the library after reading about it here. Not exactly light summer reading, but fascinating nonetheless. I had to renew it, since I couldn’t get through it in three weeks.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
I just bought this one from the library sale shelf ($1 for a nice HB copy). I’ve heard a lot about it, so I hope it’s good. If not, I only wasted a buck.
I’m in the middle of Eden Close, by Anita Shreve. I’m undecided about her as an author. I’ve read most of her books, and tend to like them as a whole, but she has an odd writing style.
I read Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier this past spring. It was really good. Crankyasanoldman, do you like The Poisonwood Bible? I thought it was great. I got a copy of it in the Great SDMB Book Swap, but had already read it, so I passed it on to a friend. Kingsolver’s other books are good, too.
This is how much of an OSC freak I am. In the last week I purchased both Ender’s Game in hardback and the original novella in the Analog, August 1977 edition so that I can get them signed when I meet OSC next Monday.
Onto the question at hand. This weekend I just finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I’m not that into the cybergeek novels but this one had an amazing opening to it. Many parts of the book felt like a roller coaster ride. Its downfall isn’t that it ran out of steam so much as it seemed to come to a dead halt from time to time. The protagonist Protagonist spent way too much time talking and not enough time doing. Fortunately, YT the rebel Kourier was there to take up the slack and I enjoyed her character much better.
I’m slowly wading my way through Gödel, Escher, & Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter. It won a Pulitzer prize and this 1000 page monstrocity is so complex, they don’t even attempt to explain what it’s about on the back cover. Heck, the author even tries to do it in the foreward and practically admits defeat. Philosophy? Religion? Mathematics? Logic? History? The world as a whole? Yes.
About three hours ago I bought The Outpost by Mike Resnick. Haven’t started it yet. I bought Will the Last Person To Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun? last year on a complete whim. Truly, on a whim. I liked the title. It turned out to be one of the best collection of short stories I’ve read. Both funny and poignant. So I’ve bought my second book from him now and I’m hoping it lives up to my expectation I have of him.
That’s a great one. I read it back in high school, then spent several weeks wandering around in a daze, trying to get my brain back to normal. I’ve been meaning to reread it ever since…
If you like it, check out his Metamagical Themas. It’s an anagram of “Mathematical Games,” and both titles are equally appropriate.
The first I’ve been trying to push on everyone I meet (it’ s that good): THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY by Shelley Jackson. This book is already acquiring a cult-status here in New York. Everyone seems to be talking about it. Beautifully written, extremely disturbing book. A high-concept book that’s also a page-turner–very rare thing. Essentially, it’s a book of stories in which the body’s functions are turned inside-out and loosed upon the world with creepy results. One story “Cancer”, in which an expanding, pulsating blob of cancer haunts a neighborhood, will stick with you for days. Another, “Blood”, in which the city of London literally gets its period each month filling the streets and sewers with rivers of blood, will make you look at menstruation in an entirely new way. “Phlegm” is completely disgusting–I won’t even go into what it’s about—Blegh!! But one story, “Sperm”, gets my vote for possibly the most disgusting literary experiece of all time (outside of a Judith Krantz book). Pick it up and find out why…
Another good one is NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN by Ben Marcus. Another high-concept book though a bit more difficult than Jacskon’s. Not exactly beach reading. Samuel Beckett and Paul Auster fans will be into it. Very disturbing and compelliing in a way I can’t exactly classify. Also, laugh-out-loud funny. This book was so utterly bizarre and extreme that I actually went in search of some articles on Marcus just to see if he was as freakishly psychotic as he makes himself out to be in the book…Nope, he’s a normal guy…a Columbia writing proffesor, no less.
To Kill the Pope by Tad Szulc. A fictionalized account of the investigation into the assasination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981. I like the writing style, and the story is a gripper. Not too mention that the spoiler twist pretty wild in the story (I wonder if that part is really true)…
The New Sins by David Byrne. Interesting little book – it’s leather bound with gilded pages, and about the size of a traditional prayer book or devotional – He presents virtues as if they were now sins… and because they are sinful, they ought to be fun… or is that really what he meant? jury is still out…
----> I need a light humor read here before classes start, so I’m looking for that to round out the reading right now…
Note: Last I checked the Johnny Depp vehicle From Hell was based on the graphic novel of the same name.
I’ve just finished Neil Gaiman’s latest, American Gods . I’ve been obsessed with that man since I read the Sandman books. For those of you into sci-fi and humor that pokes fun at religion, try his book with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens . It’s about the apocalypse, only Hell somehow misplaced the Antichrist. Really funny and definitely worth the read.
I didn’t like Shelters of Stone , Jean M. Auel’s latest, but I’m a gigantic forensic anthropology dork, so I picked up Kathy Reich’s newest paperback Fatal Voyage . The woman is a practicing forensic anthropologist, so unlike Patricia Cornwell she actually knows what she’s talking about. The writing is excellent but the details can press on the old gag reflex, so her books definitely aren’t for the faint of heart.
And anyone tried Running With Scissors yet? Whoooo boy. Try a childhood as imagined by John Waters. My brain was so fried after reading it, I stuck to Nora Roberts romances for a week.
Well, since the Anne Perry book came out 2001, and the film From Hell was based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore of the same name, published in the 1990’s, I’d say you might have it backwards. However, Moore’s graphic novel was also based on a number of the theories surrounding the Whitechapel murders, so… ahh, you add it up. I’m sleepy.
I just finished Guenevere: Knight of the Sacred Lake, which is Rosalind Miles’ second book in her Arthurian series focusing on (you guessed it) Guenevere. It was all right, but it’s not the best Arthurian fiction I’ve read.
Currently reading Excalibur, the third and final volume in Bernard Cornwell “Warlord Chronicles,” also Arthurian. Cornwell’s vision of the Arthurian landscape wins points with me for originality and risk-taking. His Merlin is a primitive, perpetually irritating Druid who performs more sleight-of-hand than true magic, his Guenevere is intelligent but conniving, and his Lancelot is a downright villain. Definitely a more brutal (but perhaps more honest) look at the possible roots of Arthur.
Next up is something not Arthurian (got to take a break sometime): Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, and possibly listening to Jeremy Irons read an unabridged recording of Nabokov’s Lolita.
Currently reading Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park and The Mote in God’s Eye. I’d say both are in the good-to-excellent range, and I’d highly recommend them to anyone.
Plus, I recently finished Zeitgeist by Bruce Sterling and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. Both books were mostly enjoyable, but uneven; DoAC possessed beautifully written passages unfortunately interrupted by a rambling and largely distracting internal monologue. Zeitgeist started strong, with an interesting focus on backwater Middle Eastern politics, and a cutting analysis of pop culture. Sadly, it floundered when the plot refused to lead anywhere and Sterling abandoned his insightful analysis, focusing instead on poorly implemented and concieved instances of magic realism and postmodern gimmickery.
Next up; To the Lighthouse (Woolf) and possibly A Farewell to Arms.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, by, oh hell, y’all know who wrote it. I only have about 110 more pages to go. And I would recommend it, were it not for the fact that probably everyone here has read it.
Having the attention span of a fruit fly, I started a new book today!
The Whore’s Story : Women, Pornography and the British Novel 1684-1830 by Bradford K. Mudge.
I swear this book practically leaped off the shelf into my arms when I was in Powell’s Books last month!
Oh and I have Guns, Germs and Steel in my “to read” pile.
In my bag right now (these are the books I am reading at this very moment, the books thrown at the foot of my bed is the TBR pile)
Web of Darkness by Helen Brooks.
It is a Harlequin. Yea, so what?
The Color of Water by James McBride.
Recommended to anyone who believes there is a way to “act black”.
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.
The latest of what I call my SDMB books. Not as good as my last SDMB book (Guns, Germs and Steel), but interesting enough. Is it me or does Demon-Haunted World read like it was written for 7th graders? I know that the moon looks like there is a face on it, but really children there is no man up there. Really!
Just started The Great Hunt, second book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I don’t care what anybody says, it ain’t as good as Tolkien’s world. I’ll see how this book pans out as the first one was okay but not earth-shattering. If it doesn’t, I’m going to start in on The Book of Ash series by Mary Gentle. Amazon reviewers generally place it above The Wheel of Time series.
At work I’m plowing through a 1700+ page monstrosity known as Mastering Windows 2000 Server by Mark Minasi.
I’m gonna hafta get a copy of the Guns, Germs and Steel book, everyone here seems to regard it highly.
Oh yeah, I’m also reading The Thing fan fiction at www.outpost31.com. Some very readable stuff there.
Grim Spectre, I know what you mean about The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I found it annoying for a while as well, but really enjoyed it. However, my favorite book of that style and era is Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels. Fantastic book, and IMO, Thompson’s best. I have a feeling he was actually sober while he wrote some of it.
I’m about to finish Ellroy’s The Cold Six Thousand which picks up where American Tabloid left off. Politzania, it is a worthy successor, if you’re inclined.
