I just finished Imajica by Clive Barker. It’s a very cool messiah story with lots of magic and fantasy. And it’s pretty damn weird, too. I’d suggest it, if only as a manual on the craft of writing. It’s a very well-written book and he uses language really well.
Today, I’m going to pick up The Swords of Night and Day by David Gemmell, my favorite writer. It’s got Skilgannon, one of my favorite characters, and Druss, the best character ever. If it’s anything less than fantastic, I’m going to be a very cranky fanboy.
We keep a pile of community books at work (mostly older ones), so I often pick books out of there that I’d been meaning to read when I got around to them.
In that vein, I’m finally reading Pet Sematary. I’d seen the movie years ago, and while “the book is so much better” is something you expect to hear, I’ve been told that the book is much different, and the two stories are very dissimilar. Well, by page 280 out of 400, I’m not seeing that yet. Just about every path the movie took is in the book, and not much more. I really hope it picks up, 'cause I’m pretty disappointed so far.
It’s a fictional story centered around the Kennedy presidency and assassination. As with most Ellroy novels (e.g., L.A. Confidential), his fictional characters interact with real historical characters. The story follows fictional CIA and FBI agents as they infiltrate the Mafia and the Kennedy campaign/administration, plot the Bay of Pigs, and get involved with the assassination. Real historical characters that play major roles: the Kennedys (JFK and RFK), Jimmy Hoffa, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jack Ruby and, I assume, Lee Harvey Oswald (I’m not that far into the story yet).
My only quibble is that Ellroy chose to use Dallas PD officer J.D. Tippett as a minor character and portrays him as a corrupt cop involved in underground porn with Jack Ruby. By all accounts, the real Tippett was an honest and upstanding cop who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was murdered by Oswald. In using him this way, I feel that Ellroy has sullied the memory of a fine and decent man. Other than that, I’m enjoying the book.
Well, I just finished a rereading of Tim Dorsey’s Orange Crush and Terry Pratchett’s Nightwatch. Both are excellent. I am currently knee-deep into Tony Horowitz’s Blue Latitudes. Also excellent.
Just finished a biography of Woody Allen (updated) by Eric Lax. It’s, of course, about Woody but it’s told through the eyes of someone who holds him in high regard. It’s a good book if you like woody Allen.
I just started 1421 The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies. I bought it around Christmas but am just getting around to starting it now. I’ll let you guess when it takes place but I’m not really far enough to be able to give you an accurate rundown.
Ghanima, isn’t Tim Powers awesome? I was ready to have his babies after I read Expiration Date. (There may be some exaggeration in the last sentence, but not much.) He weaves the real world and elements of fantasy/the occult/whatever you want to call it so thoroughly that you almost expect to see ghosts lingering around ashtrays and spare change.
For class, I’m currently reading In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (I think that’s her name). I’m almost tempted to like it more than The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, which we read earlier. It’s about Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic. I’m also reading a TON of Cinderella stories for a paper I’m writing, which is interesting but odd, what with taking notes on fairy tales.
I’m also re-reading book one of The Belgariad, which I’m liking so far. I’m not yet through the first section, but I can’t imagine why anyone would have it on their “Books I’m not ashamed to like” list. It seems like a perfectly enjoyable fantasy book. What do people have against it?
History of Ideas on Woman, edited by Rosemary Agonito. It’s a compilation of essays through Western history on women and their position in society. It starts with Genesis and ends with the UN’s Declaration of Woman’s Rights. I just read the excerpt from Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and I feel like dancing on his grave, the big grumblegrumble. “Let woman be a plaything” – blah!
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Retelling of the Arthur story from the women’s perspective. Lancelot is waaay different. Kind of a prick, really.
I’m just about to finish Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.
The book I read before that was Choke by Chuck Palahniuk.
Mr. Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club. Both the above books are very … Palahniukian. It would be very difficult to fully explain them. They are chock full of satire and cynicism and odd, self-destructive characters and plots.
Choke features a sexaholic who pays for his insane mother’s care by pretending to choke in upscale restaurants and allowing himself to be saved by patrons who then send him money because they feel sorry for him. His day-job is as a blacksmith in a Colonial Village type place. His best friend collects rocks to keep himself from obsessive masturbation.
Survivor features the last known survivor of an Amish like religious sect who all killed themselves, who starts off as a house cleaner and allows himself to be guided by unscrupulous advisors to become a buffed, steroid ridden, religious media whore. The whole book is presented as dictation into the black box of a jumbo jet, which the protagonist has hi-jacked and is in the process of flying into the ground.
I highly recommend everything written by Chuck Palahniuk.
Oryx and Crake. Atwoods post apocolyptic novel. Disturbing. Disgusting. Beautiful. But definately can’t give it a blanket recommendation…its the sort of book that you have to know the person you are recommending it to.
Passion of Artemesia. Susan Vreelands historical novel about the female Renassance panter Artemesia. Good in a sort of “pulp Literature” sort of way - not stunning, not original, not extraordinarily well written, but good.
(Just finished rereading Sense and Sensibility - which I will recommend without reservations)
Currnetly re-reading Bertrand Russell’s A History of Westrn Philosophy (honestly). Grabbed it out of my bookcase on a whim and was surprised at how much more I am enjoying it now that it is not required reading.
Also checking out the Planetary series from Warren Ellis.
I just started Golden Fool by Robin Hobb. I’m only on page 5, so it’s too soon to honestly recommend it, but the rest of her Farseer/Fool books thus far were good (although emotionally wrenching at times).
I just finished re-reading Raymond Chandler’s The High Window, a hard-boiled-detective novel the way it should be done. (Read everything by him!)
I’m about to start one I stumbled across in the library, Tea from an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan, billed as a cyberpunk mystery. The cover blurb quotes Andrew Leonard in Salon Magazine as saying it “fits the classic noir mystery template set down by the likes of Raymond Chandler more comfortably then anything William Gibson has ever written.” Gibson likes it too.
Underworld by Don DeLillo. About 560 pages in…it’s been having a hard time holding my attention, but I’m too far invested in it to quit. Plus, I’m mildly curious to see how a few of the threads wrap up.
Just finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. It’s a very imaginative space opera in a hard sci-fi future (no faster-than-light travel, human-like aliens, etc.). Basically, it tells the story about an extincted intelligent race on a planet that has since been colonized by humans. One archaelogist feels that learning of their demise will be crucial to humanity’s survival on the planet. So while he seeks to unravel the mystery, another woman is cruising toward his planet in a vast intersteller vessel called a lighthugger, which is run by a cyborged crew and travels nearly the speed of light—she’s been recruited to kill the archaelogist because someone feels he is uncovering an ancient evil.
I won’t spoil anymore, but it’s good. Unfortunately, while Reynolds’ imagination shines, his writing is sometimes dry and lacking in suspense. Still, a good read. It’s an excellent story, and just a little unnerving. After reading this you’ll want to pick up the sequel, Redemption Ark, which hopefully ties up some of the loose ends.
Dorothy Sayers’ Christian letters to a post-Christian world. A collection of many years’ worth of essays. Very interesting and fun to read.
My bedside reading is currently an old book I’ve had around for awhile, Stories from the lives of noble women. Uplifting historical reading for young Protestant girls–each biographical sketch illustrates a womanly virtue such as Perserverance, Hospitality, Matronly Excellence, and Mental Energy and Self-reliance. I’m on Lady Jane Grey now (Womanly Virtues in Exalted Station).
And Storybook travels, a new book detailing trips you can take based on your favorite book. See Hannibal, Missouri with Tom Sawyer, Italy with Pinocchio, London with Paddington, etc. Great if you like books and want to travel with your kids.
Just finished Sunset and Sawdust , the new one by Joe Lansdale. It’s a mystery set in Texas in the 30’s, and it has a gorgeous redhead, a cyclone, moonshine, a good dog, oil (ohl), psycho killers, sex, hobos, and a plague of grasshoppers.
Am halfway into The Straw Men by Michael Marshall, who also writes as Michael Marshall Smith. This is also a mystery, with psychos, but without the cyclone, grasshoppers and moonshine. So far.
I’d recommend both books. I’ve read tons of Lansdale but this is my first Marshall.
Streets of Gold by Evan Hunter. I noticed it in a thrift store the day after I posted about Evan Hunter in another Thread. It’s an excellent novel about a blind New York City jazz pianist from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. I’ve tripled my knowledge of jazz.
I also bought two huge books by C.S. Lewis the same day–one volume of all the Narnia books, and one of his sci-fi trilogy. I read them both years ago, and want to see how a re-read goes.