Okay folks, let's get this party started.
What book(s) are you reading right now, and what do you think of it?
Instant Review: Kafka on the Shore
slightly disappointing
Quick Review: Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions
This should actually be called sci-fi in today's terminology, although it is simple, straightforward fiction written in an era when sci-fi meant outrageous space opera. Borges writes about totally fascinating "what if"s that bring philosophy down to earth. Themes in this book are repeated in everything else he writes, but he does it here first and best. Here's a story from Fictions, worth your time:
http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html
I'm reading Good Omens, so far it's pretty good, but I'm only a few chapters in...
Reading Iron & Silk, about 1/3 through it. Good stuff - an American in his 20s, traveling through 1980s China.
Very amusing anecdotes that still describe China today - EVERY driver on the road honking ALL the time, day and night; regulations against everything, waivers for said regulations, new regulations created on the spot to invalidate what those waivers are permitting, etc.
I just read The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. Someone said his fiction was a lot like Philip K. Dick's sometimes... they were right.
It's basically about someone attending a convention at a hotel where all sorts of other weird societies and groups have congressed, and soon the place is sacked by the rioting local populace. The narrator hides and then undergoes a series of hallucinatory realities.
I haven't read much of his work, but I love Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius to death, even though it does take quite an effort to get through it, as short as it is. The whole text is available on the net, for those curious:
http://aegis.ateneo.net/fted/tlontext.htm
And on the subject of the thread, last thing I read was Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist, which was highly entertaining. It did feel a bit like he took all his earlier books and melted them down and poured them into a cast for this book, but I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
Stanisław Lem - Solaris
Been reading this for a while. Not a lot of text, but seriously creepy. Refreshingly different, and I'm looking forward to reading other Lem stuff (several people have recommended him).
Jorma Ojaharju - Valkoinen kaupunki ('(the) White City')
Book about my hometown of Vasa (Vaasa). I doubt anyone is interested. ; )
just finished:
Boris Vian - L'Ecume des jours
loved it, almost as good as the ever-brilliant arrache-cœur. If you like the gruesome brand of absurdist-dadaist surrealism that oscillates between acidic humour and utter bile, this is for you.
Jan Hendrik Frederik Grönloh - De uitvreter
Liked Titaantjes better, which was amazing. De uitvreter also exhibits some serious greatness, but I'm missing those golden peppercorn sentences à la »..."Springen kon je het niet noemen", had de brugwachter gezegd, die te laat kwam om hem tegen te houden, "hij was er afgestapt"...«.
Joseph Roth - Hôtel Savoy
Still undecided whether Radetzkymarsch, Kapuzinergruft or that is his best work. In any case: Man could that guy write! His narrative is remorseless and very clear - no euphemisms. At the same time, he maintains a light air of sympathy for his characters - chapeau!
Владимир Сорокин - Голубое Сало
It was puerile and/therefore boring. Pushed by the likes of Yerofeev for a reason (Choroschi Stalin was similarily shitty), I don't see neither what's so great or so scandalous about this puberal waste of paper. F-
>>4
I loved Good Omens. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman really made a good author pair for that book. If nothing else, it was just really funny and clever.
"The kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance."
Donna Tartt - My little Friend
I read it in the original and the RS traduction, and the traduction was almost better. The original is just so fucking lo-fi (grave mistypes), that I couldn't help but dot at it. I mean, I don't really want the fucking internet outside of it's confined habitat inside my computer, and I especially don't want it inside my books, thanks!
The wording is very "english", which I didn't like so much, and there's some severe problems with the speed of the narrative sometimes, but the ending is good, the storyline is delightfully uneventful in parts, and when the author dedicates herself to situations and characters instead of the "action", it's pretty decent. Additional points for the theory of mind working even for meth-heads and tranq-addicts in this book. Too bad my favorite character (Allison) is somewhat of a slop-job. Otherwise largely negligible, 4/6 pts.
>it's
haha
I tend to read a few books at a time, mostly because I'm a master of misplacement, and because I'm wired that way.
Currently:
"Regulators" by Stephen King as Richard Bachman
"Cryptonomicon" by Neil Stephenson
"Vampire Hunter D": the first novel translated into English.
>I mean, I don't really want the fucking internet outside of it's confined habitat inside my computer, and I especially don't want it inside my books, thanks!
Hehe
The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
Best review at: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ozickc/putterp.htm
The chick-book thread should pay attention... this book contains 5 odd stories about Puttermesser, a woman between thirty and sixty years old depending on the story. She creates a golem in her sleep, she becomes mayor of New York, she is murdered and then raped posthumously, she visits Paradise. Each story starts out fairly realistically and then becomes rapidly abstract and fantastical. The words are carefully chosen, written with great skill. This Ozick person is a master.
Benito Mussolini - Rudolph
Instant Review: "Lol".
Исаак Бабель - Собрание сочинений
I'm afraid to list this on Amazon with all the good reviews, but the Penguin Classics translation of this book SUCKS HAIRY COCKS. Book itself is pretty sweet writing, but it's ruined by some translator who decided "hey it's a Russian book so let's use random Russian words all over the place".
(hint: Isaac Babel - Collected Works)
Just finished:
Lord of the flies :William Golding.
Reading:
Band of Brothers : Stephen E Ambrose.
Mobile suit Gundam : Yoshiyuki Tomino [Translated into English]
Andrzej Stasiuk - Dukla
(in the O.K. traduction)
Didn't expect something like that to come from Poland. Stunning.
>>22
they're suddenly really keen on suicide and rape in the subway there now, aswell?
>>25
oh, to keep with the tradition of twentieth-century misogynists.
Actually, no.
tl;dr: WORDS, WIT, WORLD!!!
long:
The work's strongest point is the very elegantly maintained balance throughout the whole book, I liked that. Also, I enjoyed the somewhat Gogolian collapse into into chaos.
On the weaker side - which somewhat bogged down the experience for me - is prima facie the language (I don't quite follow the "The words are carefully chosen, written with great skill."). While it's agreeably written, it didn't strike me as quite as pristine as I'd expected from >>17. As mentioned in >>12, probably a very unfair bias on my side. Sorry. Otherwise, I must admit, that a fair amount of ennui just stemmed from the fact that I'm probably miles away from the writer's world. We don't share the same brand of humour, my interest in the cultural environment employed is negligible, her intellectual affiliations that seep through the whole work are lightyears far from mine; and so I remained reasonably entertained, but largely unimpressed.
>>26 So you're saying you're unimpressed because of an unfair bias?
probably.
Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost
Light read, but extremely entertaining, because well-plotted (polyphonic!) and placed in my favorite epoch of british hystory (Restoration/Ministry of Clarendon) and elegant use of famous figureheads of the fledgling science (Wallis, Morland, Boyle) and politics (Clarendon, Thurloe, Arlington), modelled after details gleaned from historical correspondence etc.
Especially Wallis' arrogant, hateful and bitter brilliance and Morland's monomanic, wily borderline-genius truly shine.
World well-built, closely following Plessis' humorous bonmot about the Englishmen of that time being "an odd gang of ill-mannered louts which spend most of their time in joust by seeking to crush each other by endlessly sputing biblical quotes".
Ending uneventful, writing so-so, overly nattering at times, entertaining.
3/6
To be fair, a person's taste in literature doesn't always have to be fair. People do have preferences when it comes to writing styles, and what they consider humorous.
I'm not really a huge fan of a few of the writers listed, and I see that an author of which I am a big fan, Steven King, has coming under some criticism. For those who wonder why I'm a big fan, I like his characterisation, and imagery.
Others don't like it, but it's what I like. I don't like other things, but other people do.
How could you even judge a work of fiction without subjective bias? It's a big set of lies packaged to evoke emotional response of one form or another. Pretending you can be objective about literature is just silly.
The book of imaginary creatures by Jorge Luis Borges
instareview: reeks of 'invisible cities' but is moste awesome in its own righte
ps. i also have the 'whatshisname' book, inwhich he doesn't use a single e
pps. Umberto Eco, i think, but i can't be bothered to look it up
Then how does he sign his name?
Kurt Tucholsky - Gesammelte Werke
While I disagree with some of his political views, as a writer, an aphorist and satirist he is quite unbeatable. In the (german, nota bene!) 1920s this guy was intellectually already in the 21st century. Also, his brilliant writing and his caustic wit are utterly funny.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
It's not as good as I expected, but okay.
I'm actually re-reading it right now because I was too young to quite get it the first time.
But it's still kind of annoying.
I even finished it! It was kind of annoying most of the way through, though. Holden's repetitive narration gets old pretty fast.
Maybe you need to space out reading it over the course of time, to lessen the annoyance. My interest was piqued with it's interesting/cryptic reference in Ghost in the Shell, and was furthered when I read about John Lennon's murderer. Can't remember his name now though (´д｀)
Baltasar Gracián y Morales - El Criticón
Every page a letdown. I can see (by a long stretch) how people might have "enjoyed" this book in the fundamentalist Spain of 1651, but how today's critics manage to praise this as "a pleasurable read", "aesthetically pleasing" and "entertaining" is beyond me.
F-
Luisa Famos - Poesias
(original - there is a Camartin traduction I'm curious about but haven't yet looked at)
Partly incredible (Pitschna indiana, Meis nom, Hoz valutuon a fün), partly horrible (np 4 "GOD").
Overall pleasing, 4.5/6
Bernhard Hennen - Die Elfen
Well, a pretty well written Fantasy book. If you're into fantasy stuff and are in need of a good book ( And able to read german, obviously ), I can only recommend it.
Kenzaburô Oë - Tagame Berlin-Tokyo
(in the SF traduction)
I'm not sure how much I agree with the ostentatious autobiographical element, but the subtle and carefully crafted narrative is very enjoyable. The book is more complex than his earlier works - in my eyes a plus. Can't comment too much on the writing per se, because I'm unable to read the original.
Overall a solid novel, nice.
Terry Pratchett — The Colour of Magic
I'd put off reading any Pratchett for ever and ever and finally go around to checking him out. He's great. Silly yet well-written fantasy: looking forward to finishing this book and reading more of his stuff.
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
I read this alongside an encyclopedia to understand various refernces. I think I read the encyclopedia 90% of the time. o.o;
I just finished an August Wilson play, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." It was pretty good, but I still like "Ma Rainey's Big Black Bottom" better.
Mercedes Lackey — By The Sword
I'm a fantasy buff, and Lackey is an old-school fantasy writer... which means the chances of me liking her stuff are slim to none. Most of the older fantasy is clichéd as all hell and is no fun to read no matter how well it's written. However. By The Sword is freaking great, despite the fruitiest and most demeaning cover art I've ever seen in my life. Excellent writing, interesting characters and plot: I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I reward it **_4 out 5 internets**, and may rate the coveted 5 internets if there's lots of explosions and sex in the last third of the book.
...who am I kidding — who the hell else here reads fantasy?
Christoph Ransmayr - Morbus Kitahara
A morose narration about people in a post-ww2 Europe where instead of the Marshall-Plan, an extreme version of the Morgenthau-Plan/JCS1067 (thinly guised as "Stellamour" in the book) has been implemented.
Quality through the skies, the somewhat cyclic structure works out great (which is quite the feat), and instead of all-out focusing on a monomanic dystopia, it places the protagonists in the spotlight, preventing the narrative from getting lost in uninteresting and repetitive details. Writing tailorfit for the story.
6/6 pts.
I bought a copy of "Wicked" and will probably start it this weekend. it's written as a prequel to the wizard of oz about the wicked witch of the west before she became the wicked witch of the west.
Wicked - I read it recently, it really was not that good. First 1/4 of it was very interesting though!
Ian McEwan - Saturday
I'm somewhat tempted to describe it as the textual equivalent of someone masturbating over a neurology textbook. However, masturbation usually involves some sort of enjoyment, while this book definitely doesn't.
Cardboard-flat characters propped into an uninteresting narrative, which far too often stretches to give way to the author's monomanic ego-stroking over the neurological knowledge that would fail to impress even a freshman student of medicine.
Every neuro-post-op is more entertaining, and at the same time at least educating, while containing even more of the author's fetish, neurology.
-10/6 pts, F---
Chingiz Aitmatov - Dshamilja
(union edition)
The undoubtedly skillful writing is hampered by the fact that, if you dislike wading through a pit of molasses, this book is not for you. Therefore, this book wasn't for me. His artistic allusions to Kyrgiz traditions and the situation during the great patriotic war are worth a lot, but they don't make the book work for me. Too syrupish.
2/6 pts.
Pierre Bourgeade - Téléphone rose
Light, but extremely entertaining. Mornios and Le Têtard are some of the choicest flics to ever grace a book with their existence, the writing is very amusing, and the plot is so parodistic it almost wraps around itself. Extra points for being devoid of any respect for anything whatsoever.
5/6pts
Finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha, and an started on reading Geisha, a life.
Nagib Mahfous - Rihlat Ibn Fattouma
(Kilias traduction)
In a parabolic voyage (the title translates to "the journey of the son of fattouma"), a man named muhammad el-innabi ibn fattouma travels through unique regions, seeking the mysterious land of Gabal.
This plot serves as a metaphorical pretext for Mahfous' philosophical assessments of the world at large. Much more careful than "the children of our district" (indexed by el-Ashar U. for "heresy"), but largely also much too tame for my taste.
Narratively very stereotypically "arabic" (cf. Shota, Shamee, ..), which needs some getting used to. A hint of knowledge about critical developments in arabic history helps, but it's generally very easy to see what he hints at.
Overall, solid, but somewhat mediocre.
3/6pts
>>50
really?
I'm halfway through the book and I just love it! I am so very much in love with Elphaba! MOEEEEE!!!
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel
The paperback version of this book is far too cubical for comfort, but just one chapter in, I'm already enjoying it immensely. Page-long footnotes mocking ancient acadamic traditions are a definite plus.
Ursicin Gian Gieli Derungs - Il saltar dils morts
oh, how typical.
The Chrestomanci set of stories by Diana Wynne Jones.
Very light reading, since it's for kids. It's similar to Harry Potter, just older, shorter, and more entertaining.
Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow for the umpteenth time.
Can anyone recommend authors with a similar style?
Andreas Maier - Klausen
I always found Wäldchestag to be a masterpiece of almost Bernhardian proportions. Klausen isn't of the same...grandezza, but by no means a letdown.
Frank Rich - <i>Hot Seat</i>
Not exactly a work of eternal literature, but a fascinating collection of Rich's theatre criticisms and essays during his tenure at the New York Times. I'm currently up to the 1986-7 season (the book starts at 1980 and goes through 1993).
Before that I was working on Michael Kunze's <i>High Road to the Stake</i>, but lost my concentrated reading time to make progress on it....<i>Hot Seat</i> is something that can be read for 5 min here and 10 min there.
>>54
I read that a few years ago. Good book, but nothing overly spectacular.
Currently I'm reading 世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド by Murakami Haruki. I read the english translation (Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) a few years ago and loved it, but I'm just now getting to the point where I can actually follow it in the original language.
(anonymous) - plitoscht plitäza plibluscht
finally some belles lettres between all the academic sludge.
Written by an anonymous court clerk of the late 17th from Sariisa, published last year in a hist. annotated edition. Very coarse, very fitting language, describing the (somewhat agonizing) "life" in a small village of the time, which consists mostly of starving and then croaking. Very poetic in an awkward way, a bit like cuntrasts. I like!
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
kim - rudyard kipling
the hero of a thousand faces - joseph campbell
Peter F. Hamilton - Judas Unchained. No matter how far back in head my eyes keep rolling, it's still very entertaining. Except for the eye-rolling parts. As a writer, Hamilton lacks any kind of subtlety or finesse, but his silly space melodrama is second to none! I wish he'd write more about SPACE and less about PEOPLE.
I'm reading Journey to the West, the three volume set.
three-volume journey to the west? wu cheng'en's journey to the west?
did I read an abridged edition? the penguin classics ('monkey') is single-volume.
Well, in a way, yes. I first read the Arthur Waley version, and thought it was so great, I purchased the unabridged, illustrated version. The poetry is lovely. Here's a link to see what I'm talking about:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/7119006533/sr=8-3/qid=1143555158/ref=pd_bbs_3/002-3287713-7698469?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Battle Royale.
What? ._.
Samuel Pepys - Diary 1660-1669, Wheatley Edition
best book ever.
EVER.
Just started the WoT series last month. I'm on Path of Daggers now.. if i can find a copy of it at my library
La bas, by Hyusmans.
>>73
Finished that one last week.
I'm out of books now...
I just went to a Christopher Moore signing, and purchased A Dirty Job, Lamb, and Bloodsucking Fiends. He said that his next book will be a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends.
And he wrote the most sympathetic portrayal of zombies ever.
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Soon to start on Banana Yoshimoto's N.P.
Death of a Salesman
Depressed yet, >>82?
I'm currently reading The Stupidest Angel, thanks to the urgings of Cosmo Gunny. The author, Christopher Moore, seems to casually meander through the story, both in tone and pace.
It's a change from the last few books I read, which took themselves Seriously.
I always have several on the go, but currently
master of petersberg by JM Coetzee
and
City of Dreaming books by Walter Moers
David Weber - On Basilisk Station
According to The Internet Top 100 SF/Fantasy List it's supposed to be quite good, but so far I'm unimpressed. On the one hand it's a fun and brainless romp, but the rather heavy Mary Sue vibes I'm getting are ruining my enjoyment of it a bit.
PROTIP TO AUTHORS: please stop beating readers' heads with third-person evaluatios of how awesome the protagonist is at X, Y, and Z, mmkay?
hell yeah Catcher in the rye is my favorite book. Read carpenter raise high the roof beam and seymour an introduction. he makes alussions to catcher and his life. Holden Caulfield was hilarious, yet hypocritical, but enjoyed his uber harsh review of all the people in his life!
Holden Caulfield is a whiny brat on the verge of a nervous breakdown (there is a reason he's in a mental institution as he tells the story). As an insight into a troubled mind I guess it works, but overall he just gets kind of annoying. He's not hilarious, he's pitiable.
>>88 Holden isn't in a mental institution he has walled himself away alone from the world in the end of the book. I thought his observation about people were quite amusing. I like how he ogled girls and got angry at things that he himself did.
I was recently reading "Metamorphs", http://very.net/~nikolai/sf/meta/meta-1a.html. It grabbed me at first, but then at about part 3 it got really weird and lost direction altogether and then sort of went nowhere. But it was still an interesting read.
The Good Person of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht
I really like it, but can't help feeling I'm missing a lot by not seeing it performed.
The Black Company by Glen Cook.
It's a fantasy novel in a sketchy, almost stream-of-consciousness fashion. No excessive detail here.
And it's about the "bad guys". These people are on the wrong side, and they largely don't care, although they're scared stiff of their employers. They're gray people, each with agendas and rationalizations, trying to survive as members of a mercenary unit in a much larger game.
So far I'm liking it.
Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto
I just love her writing. Ity really makes you feel warm and fuzzy; it's dramatic but sweetly mundane at the same time. She deals mostly in relationships and the theme of family, so if you like 'human' writin, I'd recommend her.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Marai Remarque.
Good book. Currently reading it for a novel exam.
The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
As far as novels with many allusions to history and other works go, Pérez-Reverte makes me feel much less stupid than Eco.
Anyone ever read Romance of the Three Kingdoms? I want to get that book.
http://www.futrelle.com/stories/TheProblemOfCell13.html
It's entertaining!
About to read The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson. any good?