*What book are you reading ?

[Dirty Martini]

I've just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

It's a very fine read, I like the expansive and unfussy style very much. Chabon manages to be quietly conventional in the way he moves the writing along, slightly oldfashioned I think, and then he'll drop in a pure gem. It works.

The first half/two-thirds is beautifully plotted, with two or three strong themes that get pushed and pushed, but never too much. It works brilliantly on that level. It was obviously a novel that took a lot of planning, and that planning is worn pretty lightly...

But the problem I have with the book is that some of the fight goes out of it after the war. The detailed and episodic structure of NYC in WWII becomes a bit too sparse. The gaps are bigger, the strokes are broader, and it kind of meanders in the last 150 pages or so. The riot of detail is lost.

I'll definitely be reading more Chabon though

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I've just finished 'Violence' by Slavoj Zizek which was certainly thought provoking and needs some further quiet contemplation.

Have now moved onto Carmen LaForet's 'Nada' which is a beautiful little book, about the experiences and inner thoughts of an 18y/o girl who moves to Barcelona to stay with family, set not long after the Spanish Civil War. It has been published here about ~50 years after it came out in Spain and i would highly recommend it, it's a really enjoyable and engrossing read so far.

Also enjoying whizzing through 'The Black Swan' by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which is about the unpredictability of life, as well as dipping in and out of 'Chomsky on Anarchism' which does what it says on the tin basically.

 

[El Jefe]

I've just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

It's a very fine read, I like the expansive and unfussy style very much. Chabon manages to be quietly conventional in the way he moves the writing along, slightly oldfashioned I think, and then he'll drop in a pure gem. It works.

The first half/two-thirds is beautifully plotted, with two or three strong themes that get pushed and pushed, but never too much. It works brilliantly on that level. It was obviously a novel that took a lot of planning, and that planning is worn pretty lightly...

But the problem I have with the book is that some of the fight goes out of it after the war. The detailed and episodic structure of NYC in WWII becomes a bit too sparse. The gaps are bigger, the strokes are broader, and it kind of meanders in the last 150 pages or so. The riot of detail is lost.

I'll definitely be reading more Chabon though

much as it's absolutely my favourite novel of the last few years, i do know what you mean. The latter third is still wonderfully written IMO, but does suffer in comparison with the genius of the rest....

 

[Pieface]

I find that the episode in the Arctic (??) is the tipping point for all that but I can't be sure it wasn't just my disappointment at the change in their personal dynamic. I got quite upset that everyone went "grown up" and real life took over. Well it took over after he'd stopped going mad in the snow.

 

[El Jefe]

I find that the episode in the Arctic (??) is the tipping point for all that but I can't be sure it wasn't just my disappointment at the change in their personal dynamic. I got quite upset that everyone went "grown up" and real life took over. Well it took over after he'd stopped going mad in the snow.

yeh, i think I was so swept along by the passions and excitements of their lives, was so in love with all three of them, that when real life kicked in it felt flat. But maybe that had to happen..

 

[chooch]

The first half/two-thirds is beautifully plotted, with two or three strong themes that get pushed and pushed, but never too much. It works brilliantly on that level. It was obviously a novel that took a lot of planning, and that planning is worn pretty lightly...But the problem I have with the book is that some of the fight goes out of it after the war.

Yep. Entirely agree with that. It seems to lose that comic book derring-do when he dashes those hopes that so much of the first part relies on.

I wasn't convinced by anything after the first four pages of the antarctic. Still enjoyed it enormously, mind.

 

[bluestreak]

To my embarrassment I'm finally reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Interesting stuff. Very grim in places, merely slightly grim in others. Like many similar autobiographies it's a strange mix of beauty and ugliness.

It makes me realise that 1930s southern black americans lived in a way that bears a resemblance to medieval serfs and peasants and that perhaps we can learn more about how our ancestors lived from works like this than from the history books that are primarily concerned with the ruling classes, IYSWIM.

 

[sojourner]

To my embarrassment I'm finally reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Interesting stuff. Very grim in places, merely slightly grim in others. Like many similar autobiographies it's a strange mix of beauty and ugliness.

It makes me realise that 1930s southern black americans lived in a way that bears a resemblance to medieval serfs and peasants and that perhaps we can learn more about how our ancestors lived from works like this than from the history books that are primarily concerned with the ruling classes, IYSWIM.

I can't begin to tell you how much I loved the series. Do you have the rest?

She's almost unbearably brutally honest at times about herself, and the series is a fantastic window on so many aspects of black american life

 

[Roadkill]

Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

 

[d.a.s.h]

Tom Wolfe - Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (short stories and essays)
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

Is it any good then? I've been put off by other people saying how dense and incomprehensible they found a lot of it, so I've tended to stick with books like Simon Singh's The Big Bang which is kind of the easy-read version of ABHOT

 

[Roadkill]

Is it any good then? I've been put off by other people saying how dense and incomprehensible they found a lot of it, so I've tended to stick with books like Simon Singh's The Big Bang which is kind of the easy-read version of ABHOT

I've only read a chapter and half so far, but yes, it's very good. It's surprisingly easy to read, given what the subject matter is, although I have had to stop and go back a page or two a couple of times to make sure I've grasped the thread of what he's on about!

 

[Fictionist]

The Metamorphoses Ovid (translated by Arthur Golding)

 

[mentalchik]

Re-reading Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub !

 

[gaijingirl]

I'm reading The Girls by Lori Lansen. It is about Rose and Ruby who are the worlds oldest craniopagus twins. It's fiction and yet another one I have bought from Asda with the R&J book club sticker on. So far I'm really enjoying it and last night it made me giggle quite a bit.

I enjoyed that too. I've lent it to one of my, very very motivated, EAL (English as an additional language) students - along with "A gathering light"... both good books for teenage girls I think.

 

[chooch]

Tom Wolfe - Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (short stories and essays)

How is that? Cos he can write like god's more urbane drunker brother when he wants.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Yep. Entirely agree with that. It seems to lose that comic book derring-do when he dashes those hopes that so much of the first part relies on.

I wasn't convinced by anything after the first four pages of the antarctic. Still enjoyed it enormously, mind.

Yeh, after the comics became a job rather than the quirky passion they had been, I felt Chabon got a bit lost.

yeh, i think I was so swept along by the passions and excitements of their lives, was so in love with all three of them, that when real life kicked in it felt flat. But maybe that had to happen..

There are lots of good things in the domestic last third, but I thought that Sammy perhaps lost a bit of definition then. Clearly unhappy and defeated, I don't think his unhappiness was sketched out fully enough.

Still, a cracking book, and one I'm glad I took my time over.

---

Now it's Football Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper. Interesting, but I can't help thinking I've read all this stuff elsewhere.

 

[d.a.s.h]

How is that? Cos he can write like god's more urbane drunker brother when he wants.

The book has some of Tom Wolfe's writings from the 1970s. So far, it's enjoyable reading, in particular a piece on US Navy fighter pilots. Wolfe's good at getting inside the alpha male/hero/'jock' mindset.

 

[chooch]

Just starting Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, by Richard A Peterson.

 

[Dirty Martini]

I finished Football Against The Enemy by Simon Kuper.

Football and politics around the world. Almost never boring, but it badly needs an update (it was written in 1994), and some of it feel like it comes from a completely different era. Also, I feel I've read a lot of this stuff before, which isn't necessarily the writer's fault -- his book was part of the first wave of 'new football writing' and a lot of writers have taken it as a starting point. I liked Jonathan Wilson's Behind The Curtain, a very similar book in some ways, more.

I've started Where Were You, Robert? by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, but it hasn't grabbed me yet.

 

[sojourner]

Foucaults Pendulum - Umberto Eco

Something I've been meaning to read for about 10 years now, and picked up in a 2nd hand shop not long ago

On chapter 9 now, and have run the gamut of frustration, confusion, identification and laughter (well, more of a 'HA', and some smirking to be precise ) so far. Liking it more than I thought I would

 

[stonefield]

The Cull by Mark Frankland.
Reading it for the 3rd time it is excellent.

 

[Spion]

The Gorse Trilogy - Patrick Hamilton

 

[Barking_Mad]

The Master & The Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

 

[quimcunx]

A clockwork orange.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The Gorse Trilogy - Patrick Hamilton

Is that a re-read? I remember us talking about Hamilton some time ago.

I should give it another go, it's been too long

 

[Dirty Martini]

I've started Where Were You, Robert? by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, but it hasn't grabbed me yet.

Fuck I was bored by this.

 

[chooch]

Fuck I was bored by this.

I shall give it a miss. Rereading The Emperor because I'm not feeling pressed to read anything else, except the country book, which should be an alongsider for a few weeks. That Pole can surely write.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

 

[Orang Utan]

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

An amazing book!

I'm reading Memoirs Of A Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen - it has a fantastic opening, which I will post in a minute