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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

I'm not sure that the word great applies to the book PT, but I'm going to allow a few days to digest the story. Is the other book you mention written in the same style?
 
I just read I Am Legend in about 3 hours, a sleepless rush. Perfect way, I think.

Not the best writing, but he does tension well, and makes a fair show of the interior monologue of despair. The fist did come crashing down on the bar a couple of times too many but it's a minor criticism.. very good.
 
Just finished The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Picked it up at the charity shop as I'd enjoyed The Ugly Bones and Lucky but this one was really slow to start, hard to read then ended in an just as it got interesting.
 
'In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century', by Geert Mak.

Only two chapters in so far. Never heard of this (Dutch) author before, but it proves to be a very entertaining read... :)
It's sort of like an anecdotal travelogue, cross-referencing European history and politics from 1900- 2000, and fortunately the author is a professional historian and not just a journalist, which gives the book a bit more depth, IMO. (</bias >)

A bit too chatty for some, maybe- and dunno how well his writing has carried over in translation (I'm not reading the english version), but you can tell he knows his stuff.
 
Fictionist said:
Slaughterhouse 5

Read it on the train home and I consider it to be a very odd little book. Very odd indeed.

:confused:
Click to expand...

It's very odd ent it?

I came to it as a seasoned sci fi lover constantly told 'oh you'll love KV'

I liked, but didn't love. He's a darling of the lit-snob folks who hold him up as some great of the genre. He is good, and inexplicably gnarled and piercing with his prose. But not the champion of sci fi held up by so many booker-sucking snoblites
 
I've just finished 'Needs Must' by Kris Needs. Really enjoyed it.

Now I am struggling once again thro 'Sophie's Choice' - everyone loves this but I struggle with it. I think the way he writes pisses me off as I almost never put a book down halfway through.
 
DotCommunist said:
It's very odd ent it?

I came to it as a seasoned sci fi lover constantly told 'oh you'll love KV'

I liked, but didn't love. He's a darling of the lit-snob folks who hold him up as some great of the genre. He is good, and inexplicably gnarled and piercing with his prose. But not the champion of sci fi held up by so many booker-sucking snoblites
Click to expand...

I thought that there were moments where the prose was good, but there were other aspects of the book which annoyed me - the continuous repetition of 'so it goes' began to grate rapidly (I know why it was used and what it represents), and I'm not entirely certain what he was trying to articulate. If the point was to raise questions of morality regarding the bombing of Dresden, or the futility and ugliness of war and the effects of involvement, it really couldn't have been less convincing. Maybe I just don't read enough Sci-Fi so I can't really say how well he compares with other writers from within that genre, but this has left me distinctly underwhelmed (or perhaps I've completely missed the point - assuming of course that there is a point!). Someone recently gave me a copy of Frank Herbert's 'Dune' to read and gushed whilst doing so.........but I have a bad feeling about even attempting to read that book.

:(
 
1/4 of the way into Graham Swift's Ever After & it's beginning to irritate me... JM Coetzee's Dairy of A Bad Year is sitting on the shelf winking at me.
 
Fictionist said:
I thought that there were moments where the prose was good, but there were other aspects of the book which annoyed me - the continuous repetition of 'so it goes' began to grate rapidly (I know why it was used and what it represents), and I'm not entirely certain what he was trying to articulate. If the point was to raise questions of morality regarding the bombing of Dresden, or the futility and ugliness of war and the effects of involvement, it really couldn't have been less convincing. Maybe I just don't read enough Sci-Fi so I can't really say how well he compares with other writers from within that genre, but this has left me distinctly underwhelmed (or perhaps I've completely missed the point - assuming of course that there is a point!). Someone recently gave me a copy of Frank Herbert's 'Dune' to read and gushed whilst doing so.........but I have a bad feeling about even attempting to read that book.

:(
Click to expand...



Dune is THE science fiction masterpiece imo. It's far, far better than Slaughterhouse 5. Read it.
 
Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Makes This World by Lewis Hyde.

One chapter in, absolutely GRIPPED
 
I am about to order

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Cave by Jose Saramago
Side Effects by Adam Phillips
 
sojourner said:
Looks interesting. I did a bit on Anansie and Eshu at uni, and found all of that fascinating
Click to expand...

it is, he works through the trickster myths and then relates them to people like Picasso, Cage and that. Not quite sure where he's going for it, but he writes in a really winning way, it's a lot less dry than I expected.
 
I'm reading many, many boring law books but, in between reading them, crying and hammering my fists on the walls until I'm left with a coupla bloody stumps, I've been reading this amazing book I found in Oxfam, which I think may be my best ever find

Without Conscience by Nuel Emmonds in conversation with............wait for it.................only Charles Manson! It's an account of his entire life, drawn from 7 years of interviews and it turns out Charlie is pretty Dennis Hopper. In fact, I am reading the whole narrative in Hopper's voice. I never normally go for crime books but this one really is very compelling.
 
I honestly had not thought that for a single second till just now. Ritualistic suicide seems the only way forward for me from here. My spidey pun sense is clearly knackered.
 
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