Finished both 1Q84 and Reamde over the Thanksgiving Holiday, and now I’m burning through A short History of Nearly everything, with The Swerve up next.
Also the third in the Strain Trilogy and The Prague Cemetery on deck.
Didn’t start Anil’s Ghost as planned – the negative reviews at Amazon put me off, at least for awhile.
Recently finished The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I like the concept and I like Thursday Next so I’ll read more of these. I picked up five of them at the library sale.
Started The Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell – my first Cornwell.
I think I shall be reading Reamde for the next three of these threads.
Yeah, it’s pretty chunky.
It does have a much better ending that most of his previous novels, though, so you’ve got that going for you. Which is nice.
And?! I have read a bunch of reviews but no “first-hand” impressions. Wha’dja think?
First off, thanks to **Delphica ** and Snickers for their recommendation of The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness - and may I add, this novel is AMAZING as an audiobook; I can’t imagine it having the same impact just reading it on the printed page. (Tho I am curious how the “noise” was depicted in book form & on reading other reviews - I didn’t have to decipher the written dialect).
Nick Podehl was the narrator and his performance was superb! I couldn’t help but see Manchee as Dug from the Disney/Pixar film Up and his portrayal of Aaron was truly frightening.
It’s certainly not a happy book; and the neverending peril was a bit wearing; still, I have The Ask and the Answer audiobook on hold & am eagerly awaiting it.
Read Reamde, then went on to Ready Player One.
Both were very good, I especially liked Ready Player one.
Reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 now.
Oh yea, forgot one. On the drive to Thanksgiving the family listened to The Emerald Atlas audiobook. Also very good.
[ Wanted to make sure I hadn’t already posted about this one]
Another case where the audiobook experience may be better than the hardcopy (writer’s quirk: no quotation marks for dialog) : The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. It’s not normally the type of book I’d read - a crime novel with an unlikable protagonist & LOTS of profanity! But Paul Michael Garcia, the narrator, really brought the characters to life - Po Sin was my personal favorite. I had an inkling of what caused Web’s issues (tho he was probably a dick before that) pretty early on; but the reveal was still pretty powerful. There’s violence & gore & things just keep getting worse for Web - but Huston has some interesting things to say about human relationships along the way.
I’m reading **After Dark **by Haruki Murakami. First book I’ve read by him and it’s really good! I’m already on the waiting list at the library for several more of his books.
I just finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and I’m glad to be done with it. It was basically nothing but weird symbolism that I didn’t get the point of.
Before that was Super Sad True Love Story, a dystopian book that I liked a lot.
And before that was Gone by Michael Grant, which is a young adult dystopian/sci-fi deal where everyone over the age of 14 disappears in this town. It was good and it’s a series so I’ll be reading the rest of it soon, plus I recommended it to my 11-year-old. I think anyone who likes the Hunger Games would like it.
Finally there was **The Fortunate Son **by Walter Mosley. Lots of symbolism there too (I don’t like books that you have to sit around all day analyzing them to get the point, I’m just not that deep I guess) but the story itself was also very interesting, so I was impressed.
I really like Huston. His stuff is way more violent than I usually prefer, but the dialogue is so wonderful - even without standard formatting. In his newest novel, Sleepless, he actually uses normal dialogue formatting for the first time.
Mystic Arts is the most lighthearted and least violent of his books that I’ve read. HBO shot a pilot for a show based on the book, but they chose not to proceed with it.
It wasn’t my favorite.(That will always be “Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”) That being said, it was a great story that could have used just a little bit of judicial editing. What’s weird is that it could also have used some additional exposition in a few areas.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but the exquisite detail that marks much of Murakami’s work was, well, misplaced, is the only way I can describe it.
I think the combination of three volumes into one book was the overriding problem. if an editor had looked at this as one volume, much of the repetitiveness would have been left out.
Again, Murakami not on his “A” game is better than 90% of the books out there.
Thanks - since my fave is Hard-Boiled Wonderland, too, it helps put things in perspective. I hope to start it in a week or two…
I just finished this too. As the epilogue says, Eunice’s parts were better than Lenny’s endless navel gazing. It wouldn’t work without both, though. In the beginning, it seemed in danger of getting annoying, but I think the alternating narrators saved it.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! The series has become one of my favorites.
In the book, the noise was depicted in a way that reminded me of graphic novels, different fonts, sizes, and weird spacing that made it feel separate (and intrusive) from the story. It worked well enough, I definitely got a good sense of it.
Still puttering my way through Nero Wolfe–currently in The Golden Spiders. My more serious reading seems to have fallen off a cliff, as I haven’t opened *Decline and Fall *or *Tristram *in weeks. Oops.
On deck, we’ve got a pulp novel that I discovered thanks to perhaps the worst marketing strategy ever: an iPhone application that tries to sell you out-of-copyright books. In effect, it just gave me a list to take over to Amazon, where I can download such books to my kindle for free. Oops! The book in question is King of the Khyber Rifles, by Talbot Mundy. Here’s hoping for good fun. Also on deck is a bit of an impulse buy from the comic book store, Blacksad. Hardboiled furries, what fun!
Yeah, I liked Eunice’s parts better too. Of course, her parts being way shorter than his gave them a lot less opportunity to drone on and on. I liked it, and I would recommend it, but I wasn’t sad when it ended.
And Joshie was such an ass!
Writing down lots of recommendations here, thanks!
Almost finished re-reading Dorothy Sayers’ Wimsey/Vane series, which I always enjoy. A little English detective/romance never lets me down in cold, stormy weather. Next cold, stormy weekend, I’ll dip into Snuff finally. I’ve been saving it.
Weekend before last, I wrapped up a re-read of Connie Willis’ Blackout and All Clear. I had forgotten a lot of detail, so it sucked me right back in. There are some of her short stories I don’t like, either, but To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether are some of my go-to feel good books. I downloaded Miracle and Other Christmas Stories as a holiday treat, though I’ve read some of them in other collections.
I continue to listen to the Harry Potter audio books while working out, as it keeps me distracted. I’m getting toward the end of book 7, so I’ll have to think of something else until I can restart the loop! I simply adore the narrator (Jim Dale), and I don’t even read the books anymore.
Looking forward to PD James’ (can you believe she’s 91?) new Austen “sequel”, Death Comes to Pemberley.
On the Christmas list are Reamde and The Mind’s Eye (Oliver Sacks). I haven’t read one of his for a while, but I remember enjoying them. Also asked for the Catherine the Great bio by Massie. I usually read and re-read favorite novels, so I’m trying to expand my horizons a bit.
Finished John Grisham’s The Firm. Quite good. A couple of plot holes, but the story is so enjoyable that it’s easy to gloss over them.
Next up: Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth.
I bought a bunch of Murakami books a few years ago, based on recommendations. I eventually read* Wild Sheep Chase*, which was just awful. Now I’ll probably never read the others I own.
Just finished Dune (made a topic about it too!). I’m trying to decide whether or not to move on to the next Dune book or pick up a few books I’ve wanted to read for a while.