Well, I finally finished Henry James’ The Ambassadors. I dunno, it didn’t really grab me, and reading it turned into a slog. It’s true I’ve been busier than usual lately, and squeezing in reading time has become harder, but I don’t think that’s it. I’ve read many other authors’ writings from about the same time period (1903) and enjoyed them all, but this one seemed rather slow. The writing, again, can only be described as “ponderous,” much more so than other authors I’ve read from that era. I know James thought it the best of his books and most critics rate it highly, but I have to agree with the likes of EM Forster, who didn’t much care for it himself. This was my first James, and I’ll have to try another one.
Also again, the theme of traveling abroad to hunt down a wayward relative bogged down and having too much fun in some sinful fleshpot of a city is something one runs into oneself here in Thailand.
Next up for me is something a little more fun, I hope: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. The film version has been playing at the local art filmhouse here in Bangkok, and the sequel The Girl Who Played with Fire just started, but we’ve been avoiding them until we could read the books first.
I’m through with it, and I loved it. I don’t know what’s not to like, frankly, as long as you like superheroes. It’s witty, funny, engaging, and gives you insights into the psyche of superheroes and supervillains that you’ve not had before. Two thumbs up and a recommendation for purchase!
Back on Murder was excellent, a solid detective story with a very good character a la Harry Bosch. I’ll be looking for this author’s next book. Now starting Burn by Nevada Barr; I’ve always imagined her books were a little too mass-market for me, but it’s set in New Orleans, and that appeals to me.
I just went through the last 3 months of this thread and now I have a list of 30 books to try to get tomorrow on my pre-vacation library run. I feel like I should be contributing in return.
Cory Doctorow’s Makers was good. It got a bit repetitious and was always a little starry-eyed about the two main characters, but I’ll look at some of his earlier books now.
Stiff by Mary Roach (about cadavers) is great non-fiction, informative and funny. If I were a writer I would like to write like that.
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is wonderful. A poor village kid in the new India works his way up. Very dark comedy. I love stumbling blindly on good books that everyone else apparently already knew about.
In audiobooks, I am pacing myself through the Aubrey-Maturin series, now on book 13 or so. It’s really just the same story over and over but for me, it’s Simon Vance’s narration that makes the books delightful.The one book that was only available by that other guy was merely to be endured to continue the series.
I put Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone on my MP3 player without knowing anything about it, simply because I could download it from the library right then; everything else I tried was on hold. The narrator has a great accent and I loved the setting. The medical background and especially surgery scenes just made it even better.
What the narrator giveth, the narrator also taketh away. I started the Dresden Files with 2 audiobooks, and the narrator was making me resent the character. Read the next one in print and I liked it better and will continue the series with long breaks, I think.
I will put some Simon Prebble-narrated books on hold after all the recommendations here.
I tried to read it a few months ago and gave up after about 40 pages. Way more trouble than it was worth.
My contribution: something I’m confident already will make my top ten list this year: The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman. I’m not the first Doper to read it, and it would be very, very sad if I were the last – a really wonderful book about the various members of the staff of an international newspaper based in Rome. Individual chapters on each person, but the interweaving of the references make it more than a series of short stories. Really well done.
I absolutely hate giving up on a book, I’ll make it through just about anything once I pick it up, especially if it’s supposed to be one of the greater works of literature. I figure there must be something I can get out of it. But this one has left me scratching my head.
BTW: There has been much speculation as to what the family factory back in Woolett actually makes. Said to be a common, everyday item, it’s never actually named in the book. The consensus among the literati seems to be that it’s probably toothpicks. If so, the family is essentially wanting their wayward son to give up the glamor of turn-of-the-20th-century Paris and return to rural Masachusetts to take charge of a toothpick factory. Yeah, right. I don’t blame the poor guy for escaping.
One of the most liberating moments of my life was when I realized I don’t have to finish a book. The way I figure it, I’m not going to have enough time in my life to read all the books I do want to read, why waste time with the ones I don’t?
I’ll usually give a book 50 pages to see if it grabs me … couldn’t even make it that far in The Ambassadors.
Which narrator did you dislike? I’ve listened to Patrick Tull and to Simon Vance. I agree that Vance’s narration is better than Tull’s, but I don’t like the voice Vance does for Stephen and I’m having a hard time getting past that. The Vance readings are much easier to come by, though.
Aren’t the Dresden Files books narrated by James Marsters?
Yup, 50 pages is my cutoff too. If the author hasn’t hooked me by then, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that she ever will. I forced my way to the end of far too many sucky books before adopting the 50 Page Rule, and I’ve never regretted it since.
Burn was extremely sordid. Child sex slavery in New Orleans! This seems quite a departure from the author, judging from the Amazon reviews; a number of them say they’ll never read any of her books ever ever again. Apparently this recurring character (she’s a National Park Ranger) usually is out in the wilderness catching people who poach animals and start forest fires, and that’s where people like her, and having her in the city looking for nasty pedophiles is too ooky. And ooky it was, but an engrossing read. I’m glad I read this one first, because if I’d read books about some park ranger out in Wyoming, my snooze alarm would still be going off.
Thank you. She’s doing her oompa-loompa dance right now.
This is next on her reading list.
I am reading Victoria’s Daughters by Jerrold Packard. Rather sad in a way. Queen Victoria’s five daughters were essentially members of a caste with material privileges but enormous restrictions on their lives.
The BPL was missing only volume 10 (Far Side of the World) as a downloadable MP3 file so I had to ferret out a copy elsewhere on CDs and the only version around was the Patrick Tull. After 9 volumes I was imprinted on Vance so Tull just seemed so wrong. Had I started all the books with him as narrator I might have liked him. He is definitely more breezy and “hup, hup” than Vance. I don’t remember if it took a while to accept all of Vance’s characterizations, but by now I embrace them all, even Stephen (see what I did there?). I doubt I’ll ever watch the movie as I’m not a Russell Crowe fan and don’t want him taking over my mental images.
I get how once you dislike a voice there can be no going back. George Guidall’s became unbearable to me and as a result I skipped some good books on cassette.
I don’t mind James Marsters voice at all, I guess it was more his performance. Especially since it’s first person. He would get so drony as Harry, and things that were supposed to be charming like his confessions of being a little caveman in how he wants to protect women became obnoxious. It made me start to hate Harry, and I didn’t want to lose a multi-book series. So when I read the third book in print, I could inflect my own inner voice to make Harry likeable again. Does that make sense?
Other readers I’ve really liked are the late Frank Muller, and Phillip Pullman reading his own stuff with an auxiliary cast.
I dunno, maybe I just choose my books carefully, but I can’t remember the last time I started a book I ended up feeling was no good. They pretty much all grab me. But I do try to do some degree of research on each one beforehand, a screening process so to speak, so maybe that helps. Plus I really do like 19th-century and early 20th-century works in general.
Completely agree, Parenchyma. Marsters has a strange, awkward, hesitating reading style and though I like his voice a lot, I had to give up on the audiobooks. I almost wish he had read the thing in character – as Spike.
