I like Gay. Have you read the Paperhanger story yet? ::shudder:: I’ve read two of his novels – The Long Home and Provinces of Night. I liked them both, but was mildly annoyed at the similarities of plot and theme. It was almost like reading the same book. But that’s my problem, not his. Writers often revisit things that affect them deeply, and as long as they’re doing a good job, I shouldn’t bitch about it.
Would you consider him Southern Gothic? Or Southern Realist/Naturalist? He reminded me a bit of Flannery O’Connor and Larry Brown.
I’m still on The Forsyte Saga, and am really, really hoping that the Irene-Soames-Bosinney triangle is resolved soon. It’s fascinating, but I might put it on hold when the new Chabon book gets here.
I’m reading 1635: The Cannon Law, a recent part of a series by Eric Flint and a bunch or colloborators which began with 1632. It’s an alternate history in which a West Virginia mining town, circa 2000, along with about 3,000 population, vehicles, guns, mine, power plant and whatnot, is transported whole into Germany during the Thirty Years War.
This one takes place a few years afterward, when the Americans, who now have a nation behind them (they allied with some down-timers to form the United States of Europe, which takes up some of Germany and some of Scandinavia), have set up an embassy in Rome. Then a Spanish cardinal attempts to take over the papacy by force and the Americans and their German and Italian friends get caught up in the fight. Not a deep, meaningful book, but loads of fun and sort of educational.
Yes, I read Paperhanger last time I picked it up about a week ago. It was chilling, and not one to read with your child napping in your arms!
I consider him heavy-handed Southern Gothic. I like it, but I am getting this vibe of “we’re from the south and look how fucked up and weird we are!” like in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I mean, I’m from the south and yeah, we’re weird, but we ain’t all homicidal!
ETA - I realize that’s what makes it Gothic, but Gay seems a bit, I don’t know, in-your-face about it. The 15000 btu Electric Chair just felt so cliched to me. The others I’ve ready are a bit better.
I mentioned Up Country, by Nelson DeMille in the October thread – it’s a long book and I’m a slow reader – but who knew DeMille was such an engaging writer? I’m married to this book right now.
DeMille, a Vietnam veteran himself, went back in 1997 to write a magazine article and came home with the seeds of a what wound up being a really stunning little thriller. In the book, an Army investigator, who is also a Vietnam vet, goes back to present day Vietnam to try to solve a 30 year old homicide. So, we get a tour of the country as it is today, through the eyes of someone who was there in 1968.
Not to mentioned that we don’t know who’s working for who, why our hero was really sent there, whether the government of Vietnam is going to let him leave, who the girl is, why the murder took place, or whether they’re all just going to tumble off some lonely potholed, ogforsaken road.
I like DeMille – I remember liking Plum Island and another, the title escapes me. Sounds like this Viet Nam book has substance. Back to Amazon. Sigh. (A good sigh.)
I’m just finishing up Eight Skilled Gentlemen, and many thanks to the folks who recommended Barry Hughart’s three Master Li and Number Ten Ox stories in the thread on fantasy reading. I’ve enjoyed these tremendously.
Among others on the November stack are:
Snake Agent by Liz Williams “John Constantine meets Chow Yun-Fat” Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett Kabbalah: a Love Story by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner Death and the Chaste Apprentice by Robert Barnard “Irreverently humorous and captivating” Radiant Mind by Peter Fenner A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis 1902 Vienna and new trends in psychology Never Turn Away by Rigdzin Shikpo Finding Water by Julia Cameron the latest in the Artist’s Way series, with the theme of persistence.
I’ll be spending lots of time in airports and in elder care, so I wanted to make sure I had airport/airplane/waiting room reading. I always choose and pack my books before I choose and pack clothes…
I just finished my six month long project to read every Hugo winning science fiction novel (Rainbows End was entertaining although I think Vinge pushed his destruction of creativity theme a bit too far).
Now for the first time in a while I’m casting about for what to read next. Next one on my list is probably going to be Wintersmith, the only one of Pratchett’s Discworld books that I haven’t read yet and its sitting in my “To read” pile. I’ve also now read about 65% of Lois McMaster Bujold’s total output and since I enjoyed at least the science fiction ones I feel like I should finish those off. I still haven’t read the last three Harry Potter books and while I’m not a fan of the series I want to read them at some point just so I’ll understand what the fans are talking about. I want to read a bit more of CJ Cherryh’s science fiction as well…
Do you have it under that title? If so, you might have the novelization for the movie (I forget who did that). The book on which the movie is VERY loosely based is Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I just finished Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil, about a young English couple in 1920s China and the crisis which, to a degree, brings them back together after he discovers she’s been unfaithful. I liked it and hadn’t thought I would.
I’ve just begun Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, which I’m only about 20 pages into. So far, I’m not diggin’ it much. We’ll see. I’ve had Tolkien’s “new” book The Children of Hurin on my bedside table for months now, but haven’t gotten far in it. I’m also browsing through the Library of America’s edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s works, and am now reading “At the Mountains of Madness.” Creepy. A college friend was gaga for Lovecraft but I’ve never actually read any of his stories from start to finish.
It has both titles on the cover but it’s definitely a post-movie printing. Harrison Ford is also on the cover. I never thought about the possibility of it being a novelization of the movie. I figured they were just promoting the movie. Aaaargh. :smack: I feel ripped off. It’s not my copy, it’s my partner’s from a class she had in college. She hated the book but she’s not a fan of sci-fi at all. (I still love her though.)
There is no novelization of the movie – they’ve been printing Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep” with the Bladerunner movie poster (and title) on the cover ever since the fim came out a quarter of a century ago. This is starting to challenge those long-time leaders of Unchanged SF Movie Tie-In Covers, Fantastic Voyage, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Planet of the Apes. I know. I’ve read 'em all.
I was fondling An Arsonist’s Guide at Borders; perhaps now I’ll actually buy it. I just finished Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother, which I liked. It’s not as inventive a story as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but it was funny and sad and in all, an enjoyable way to spend a few days.
I’ve just started Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and I’m having some trouble getting into it. I’m about 50-odd pages in, so I’ll decide whether I want to bail out or not soon, but so far I’m not connecting with anything or anyone in the book. I’ve still got Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma sitting on the shelf.
I used to force my way to the end of every book. Then (mostly for my book club, which sometimes picks stuff I don’t care for) I adopted a 100-page rule: if the author hadn’t hooked me by then, I knew he or she probably never would, and I could put the book down guilt-free. Eventually I came across a book so soul-destroyingly bad (I forget what it was, probably due to PTSD) that I went to a 50-page rule, and that’s worked out well for me ever since.
I am starting to do something similar. I have no hard and fast rule, but if I’m still not into a book after about 1/3 I usually put it down. It still feels wrong to do. Dating back from a time when I had more time and less money, I read anything I bought. Now I have much less time and more money and I just don’t like to spend it reading something bad.
Exactly. I’ve come to the conclusion that life’s too short, and there are too many other great books worth reading, to force your way to the end of a book you hate (if you don’t have to read it, of course, such as for a class or a job).
Phew! I have to say, I would’ve been surprised if it was a novelization because it’s a great book. The only thing that’s annoying is the person who had it before my partner wrote tons of notes in the margins. Ridiculous notes which show an uncanny ability for pointing out the painfully obvious. My favorite notes are the ones where the girl spoils something in the book that is coming up in a few pages. I keep daydreaming that Deckard “retires” her.
Oh so you’ve tried to read Dan Brown’s work too eh?
I don’t recall what I listed for October, but I guess I must have finished them, since I carry around new books. I’m reading (alternatingly) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer on the train; I like Morrison’s book, but Chaucer is hard work. Still, it seems something one’s got to have read at some point. My further November reading will be, probably in that order, if I finish any of it:
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. I need to re-read this for class, and excellent excuse to get a good Cambridge edition copy instead of the crappy cheap Penguin I have now. Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, also for class (but more tentatively). I also have a crappy Penguin of that, which I couldn’t get through. I hope the annotated one (Norton) will help me a little with the damned symbolism.
I’ve got absolutely no non-fiction around, which is a bloody shame. Must get myself something of that.
I’ll also put in a plug for Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan. Not a good deal moneywise (took me about four hours to read and cost ten bucks), but a very good read. Had to read this for the same Hamlet class that I’m also reading Hamlet for, but so far I find the connection tenous…