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Current reading - Page 47

post #2301 of 4874
11/3/08 at 4:18pm
In order to avoid further derail - Malazan Bool of the Fallen Thread
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post #2302 of 4874
11/3/08 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bendrix View Post
I would split the middle, actually, and start with The Diamond Age, especially if you have any affection for Charles Dickens and/or the Victorian era in general. I certainly respect Stephenson's work after, and Snow Crash is a fun romp, but Diamond Age just hit all the right notes for me.
The Diamond Age also has the virtue of being less than 900 pages. I second this suggestion.

Fake Edit: Will move Malazan discussion to the other thread.
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post #2303 of 4874
11/5/08 at 1:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyeball Kid View Post
Just finished this. The last half of the book is really good. This is the first Stephenson book that has a better finale than beginning, IMHO. Still, it's no Cryptonomicon, but then I'm a sucker for the Waterhouse family and Enoch Root.
I finished it as well and I wholeheartedly agree. It was the perfect book to bring me back into the fold as well where I could have easily given up on him after Baroque.

Since I still haven't finished the Baroque Cycle, I'll leave 'em out of my rankings. Mine are:

1) Cryptonomicon
t2) Diamond Age
t2) Snow Crash
4) Anathem
5) Interface
6) Zodiac
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post #2304 of 4874
11/6/08 at 12:25am
The Strong Man by James Rosen. It's about the life of First Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell. I just started this book and it flows pretty well.

So far it confirms what I found in Strange Bedfellows by Jules Whitcover. That Nixon had a thing about being around tall powerful guys. Not a sexual thing, but he always went for that. It was seen in Agnew and Connelly and it comes up here with Mitchell.
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post #2305 of 4874
11/6/08 at 12:45am
Haven't finished the books in my last post, but I'm also reading Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life by James Hawes. I love this kind of stuff, nonfiction with a sense of humor.
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post #2306 of 4874
11/9/08 at 7:02am
Currently reading The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film, by Tamara L. Falicov, which I chose over Contemporary Argentine Cinema by David William Foster, because it's written in such an advanced way, my non-native English skills had trouble keeping up. The damn thing reads like a doctoral thesis. Anyway, I've got another book on Argentine cinema coming, though the title escapes me. Somewhere in here I'll be finishing The Road, which I love so far, and starting Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles out of sheer curiosity.
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post #2307 of 4874
11/12/08 at 7:59pm
Dave Eggers' What is the What. I'm kicking myself for not picking this up earlier when it first came out. Holy shit, this is a great book.
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post #2308 of 4874
11/13/08 at 8:40pm
Forgot my copy of What is the What at home, but realized on my way to the bus stop that I had a copy of Augusten Burroughs' "Dry" in my bag. I finished that fucker on my lunch break after taking down a good chunk of it on the extremely slow bus ride to work. It's a decent book and I love Burroughs' style and voice, but it sort of fell apart for me a bit in the end...which I'm not entirely sure wasn't intentional.
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post #2309 of 4874
11/15/08 at 8:40pm
I'm reading Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, which is a nice documentation of all the ways Cheney used his experience to bulk up the his power, chairing meetings he wasn't supposed to attend, controlling the selection process for employees major and minor, taking over policy decisions from Cabinet members, fighting the General Accounting Office in court over unimportant documents just to strengthen the executive branch.
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post #2310 of 4874
11/19/08 at 10:57am
Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago
The first half isn't as good as you want it to be. His satire of society and government is kind of thin. The second half gets better when death starts flirting with a mortal. Not an original concept, but Saramago makes it work. I especailly liked his characterization of death as a woman sitting alone in a room with a scythe and a big filing cabinet.
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post #2311 of 4874
11/19/08 at 11:22am
Ender in exile, I've been reading this book series for years, so it's old habit.
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post #2312 of 4874
11/19/08 at 12:43pm
I just finished re-reading Watchmen, and now I'm making my way through 3xCarlin: An Orgy of George, which is a compilation of Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops, and some new stuff written in 2006. Why did I wait this long to start reading George?
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post #2313 of 4874
11/19/08 at 1:15pm
He died broken hearted thanks to your neglect, Olson. I hope you're satisfied.

I'm hitting the library tomorrow and scouring the shelves for the new collection of essays from either Artie Lange, Jimmy Norton or Michael Chabon. Fuck Dennis Leary. I doubt I'll have any interest in his little anecdotes.
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post #2314 of 4874
11/19/08 at 1:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Olson View Post
I just finished re-reading Watchmen, and now I'm making my way through 3xCarlin: An Orgy of George, which is a compilation of Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops, and some new stuff written in 2006. Why did I wait this long to start reading George?
Had this in my hot little hands at Barnes & Noble yesterday. They've got it on the discount rack for 12 bucks, but I decided not to pick it up. Should I regret the decision?
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post #2315 of 4874
11/19/08 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobClark View Post
I'm hitting the library tomorrow and scouring the shelves for the new collection of essays from either Artie Lange, Jimmy Norton or Michael Chabon.
One of these things is not like the others/one of these things just doesn't belong
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post #2316 of 4874
12/5/08 at 9:25pm
Walter Mosley's "Diablerie".

Its a very short novel(la?) at 180 pgs long,hopefully it'll be sweet too.I've yet to read a bad one from Mosley.

I'll be following that with Elmore Leonard's "Up in honey's room".
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post #2317 of 4874
12/5/08 at 9:42pm
2666 by Roberto Bolaño. I truly recommend it.

Following that some Cormac.
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post #2318 of 4874
12/7/08 at 9:04am
Prayers For Rain by Dennis Lehane
Echo Burning by Lee Child
Hell To Pay by George Pelecanos
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
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post #2319 of 4874
12/13/08 at 9:47pm
Sort of on a military/war kick right now having just recently read Tree of Smoke, Cryptonomicon, and Band of Brothers. Right now I'm about three-quarters through Black Hawk Down. For those of you who have read the book (or seen the movie) I have two words for you: Femoral artery. I'm not the wilting flower type, but something about that passage fucked my shit up and I almost passed out. Seriously, we're talking nausea, cold sweat, and numbness in the hands and feet. Not a good way to be on a crowded commuter train.
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post #2320 of 4874
12/13/08 at 9:54pm
Sometimes when I'm walking down a city street, I'll flash back to Black Hawk Down and I'll suddenly feel the need to figure out where to stand to minimize my exposure to ricocheting machine gun fire. The movie was good, but it didn't stick with me at all the way the book did.
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post #2321 of 4874
12/13/08 at 10:34pm
I'm reading Confederacy of Dunces, and it is not living up to the hype at all.
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post #2322 of 4874
12/13/08 at 10:35pm
Finished Phillip Pan's Out of Mao's Shadow, which I recommend. He's a Washington Post reporter and it's a collection of his journalism in China over the years dressed up as a book. Real 1984 and Brazil-style stories. People trying to make documentaries, actually use the legal system, protest, or stop the SARS epidemic without getting thrown in jail. Amazing how a bureacracy which can actually kill you is still a bureaucracy, and manipulable.

I think a good corrollary to Black Hawk Down is Me Against My Brother by Scott Peterson, which I read to doublecheck facts when I got into an argument about the movie here. BHD is full of amazing stories, Me Against My Brother is a Daily Telegraph reporter going into opinionated detail about the political situation there and in other countries. Gives a little more context about an entire city trying to kill them.
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post #2323 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:23pm
C.J. Sansom's "Dissolution".
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post #2324 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:25pm
Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon
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post #2325 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:25pm
Tim Weiner: "Legacy of Ashes. The History Of The CIA."

Terrific read. So far I wonder that your country still exists.
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post #2326 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:26pm
Just started The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Interesting. Very reminiscent of Dead Poets Society so far.
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post #2327 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quarant View Post
Just started The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Interesting. Very reminiscent of Dead Poets Society so far.
That is going to change a bit into something along the lines of a lesser version of "The Name Of The Rose" territory if I recall correctly. But an entertaining read nonetheless.
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post #2328 of 4874
12/17/08 at 3:39pm
The Secret History is a great book. Wish some director would adapt it.
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post #2329 of 4874
12/17/08 at 4:05pm
I just finished Infinite Jest. I made copies of the end notes so I wouldn't have to keep flipping back and forth. That helped tremendously. I thought it was great and funny and true. I'm not sure I've quite got my head around everything, but I know I really enjoyed reading the vast majority of it.

I'm now reading White Noise. This is the first Delillo I've read. It is really funny so far.
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post #2330 of 4874
12/20/08 at 10:04pm
Finished Talent is Overrated, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, In The Light of You, and Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse in relatively short order last week. Now I'm debating about whether I want to take a break from my year-end wrap up and read Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart or stick with books from this year and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.
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post #2331 of 4874
12/23/08 at 4:28am
I just read the third Books of Blood, which was the only one I hadn't read. It turns out I didn't just like Clive Barker when I was younger because he was dark and gory, he's an excellent writer, or at least he was when it came to short stories. As per Christmas tradition, I'm keeping the horror train rolling with A Good an Happy Child.
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post #2332 of 4874
12/23/08 at 5:36am
Good And Happy Child fucked me up. There's a whole thread about that book.
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post #2333 of 4874
12/23/08 at 6:11am
I'll be avoiding that till I'm done in a week or so.
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post #2334 of 4874
12/23/08 at 10:13pm
The claws really come out in Wordy Shipmates. Angry Sarah Vowell is angry -- she pretty much nukes Reagan's co-opting of John Winthrop's "shining city on a hill" and Reagan himself in the first 50 pages. She starts off talking about how the the reasons why the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded are also the reason why America can't help but try to solve other people's problems; sometimes in the worst ways possible. I'm not finished, but it's really angry and pretty damn good.

If you're familiar with Vowell's work, it's still an "easy read" but it's probably the one that requires the most effort to be put into it, because she's talking about history and names that the average reader might not have a knowledge or grasp of. It's not a travelogue like Assassination or Partly Cloudy Patriot for the most part. The best way I can describe it is that it's a book-length expansion of the parallels made in the McKinley chapter of Assassination.
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post #2335 of 4874
12/28/08 at 1:00pm
Finished The Secret History. The Dead Poets Society undertones fade pretty fucking fast. It's a great book though, really elegantly written.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingfan View Post
The Secret History is a great book. Wish some director would adapt it.
Absolutely. I'd love to see someone like Gus Van Sant take a stab at it.

On to Yiddish Policeman's Union now. I was underwhelmed by Gentlemen of the Road, but I've heard lots of great things about this, so hopefully it won't disappoint.
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post #2336 of 4874
12/28/08 at 1:25pm
I'm currently reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Considering that it won a Pulitzer I really feel I should be enjoying it more, but so far it's a slog. Then again, maybe I just hate footnotes.
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post #2337 of 4874
12/28/08 at 9:04pm
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
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post #2338 of 4874
12/28/08 at 9:25pm
Is it as awful as the critics have led me to believe?
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post #2339 of 4874
12/29/08 at 3:23pm
I just finished "The Master and Margarita" by M Bulgakov, Burgin & O'Connor translation.
What a great book. With so many variations of the story of Faust this is my favorite so far. I find myself becoming a bigger fan of Russian Lit with every novel I read. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Russian lit major or intelligencia. I just like the humor and the perspective of the few items that I have read.

Before that I finished “The Lust Monster of Melancholy Cove” by Christopher Moore. It was a fun light read and I have a few others of his that I plan on reading after Pratchett’s ‘Making Money’.
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post #2340 of 4874
12/29/08 at 3:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Supremo View Post
Is it as awful as the critics have led me to believe?
Don't know...I'm only a chapter into it right now. The book was discussed on To the Best of Our Knowledge on WPR back in October, and it sounded like it would be pretty good, so I grabbed it from the library. I'll update you when I get a bit further in.
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post #2341 of 4874
12/29/08 at 3:54pm
I had recently read a book called Shutting out the Sun which talks about this group in Japan in which they drop out and become shut-ins of society. It also examines the social problems of Japan and why they've been in a funk for the past 15 years.

There's also this great compare and contrast between Japan and Korea.
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post #2342 of 4874
12/29/08 at 10:24pm
I just finished Olympos by Dan Simmons. Ugh. Intriguing setup in the first book (Ilium) gives way to the "here's what Dan Simmons thinks of Muslims" show.

Onto Anathem, which should reaffirm my faith in intelligent scifi. Then it's Mark Evanier's Kirby, though I may be too distracted by the pretty pictures to read the words.
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post #2343 of 4874
12/29/08 at 10:48pm
Nice little moment of synergy between me and the missus yesterday, I've been meaning to read this for years now:



...come home to find it sitting on our kitchen table as she'll be teaching it to her year eleven english students next year, so it's given me a great excuse to finally get around to it and help her with that particular text in next years curriculum at the same time.
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post #2344 of 4874
12/29/08 at 11:44pm
All this talk of A Good and Happy Child got me interested, so after just finishing Wicked (don't laugh, I really liked it) I'm reading that.
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post #2345 of 4874
12/30/08 at 12:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
Nice little moment of synergy between me and the missus yesterday, I've been meaning to read this for years now:



...come home to find it sitting on our kitchen table as she'll be teaching it to her year eleven english students next year, so it's given me a great excuse to finally get around to it and help her with that particular text in next years curriculum at the same time.
great book. I love that cover!
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post #2346 of 4874
1/1/09 at 1:54pm
Okay, Wordy Shipmates is becoming kind of a slog.
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post #2347 of 4874
1/1/09 at 4:35pm
"ah telt ye ah'd gie ye a hand wi that Davie" - Irving Welsh's Glue.

It takes a little while to adjust to Welsh's writing and even longer to stop thinking in a scottish accent after a wee read.It's my second book of his,Crime being the other which was ok.
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post #2348 of 4874
1/1/09 at 4:45pm
The Day of Battle, the follow-up to Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn. Like crack if you're the slightest bit interested in WWII.
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post #2349 of 4874
1/1/09 at 6:09pm
About 2/3 through with "Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America". It's set in the US a few years after the complete collapse of the dollar and the economy leads to the complete collapse and isolation of the country.

There's some very nice writing and a nearly overwhelming air of melancholoy and loss that's hard to shake even when I stop reading.

But it also has nearly superhuman assasins, a crime lord ensconced in a tower in the ruins of NYC who is basically the de facto ruler of the remnants of America, and a traveling circus of cannibals who raze the remains of cities to the ground.

There's a little too much hippy-dippy nonsense about the evils of technology and capitalism, and gee aren't things actually much better this way bullshit, but otherwise it's a pretty great book.
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post #2350 of 4874
1/1/09 at 8:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Logan View Post
It takes a little while to adjust to Welsh's writing and even longer to stop thinking in a scottish accent after a wee read.It's my second book of his,Crime being the other which was ok.
Check out The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. It's Welsh's twist on the Dorian Gray story, and it's pretty damn fantastic.
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