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Ian McEwan - Saturday (Wikipedia). I finally got around to read this much-hyped novel and I can't say I regret it. The strongest point of it certainly are the characters, or better said the character. Through him McEwan manages to convey the fears and doubts of the upper middle class in the occident since the start of the new decade, as well as the sharp contrasts in Western society itself. I can only recommend this book to everyone, I found it to be outstanding.
I have this book sitting in a stack, not being read. I picked it up when I grabbed Atonement. Unfortunately, I thought that it was an overhyped piece of garbage that wasn't as good as the movie, so I put Saturday all the way to the bottom of the list. I'll move it up a few notches, however, seeing as you seemed to like it (and you don't seem to read many boring, overly pretentious novels.
As for me,
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin
This is a really, really good book. The main plot is that a character can change the entire fabric of existence with is dreams, only he can't control it. A psychiatrist that learns of this gift/curse attempts to use it to his own ends, but the dreams are like the wishes of a djinn, unpredictable (ie: if you wished for a million dollars, it would appear, but then so would the cops because the money is stolen, etc.). While sometimes over-explaining her science (a weakness of Le Guin's, and why I didn't really care for The Dispossessed), Le Guin writes beautifully and inhabits her characters to a degree most sci-fi writers seem incapable. A very good book.
between breakfast and now I've finished(in no order):
Philip dick: Man in the high castle, transmigration of timothy archer, and I'm cross reading 3 different short story collections by dick right now.
Vonnegut: slapstick
T.Pratchett: the 5th elephant, the unadulterated cattup
I've started Irving Welsh's 'Glue' but didn't find it to be as captivating as Trainspotting. Porno is supposed to be better but plays chronologically after Glue... or so I heard.
And... I am pretty sure that I am forgetting something... maybe Nightwatch by T.P... ah sod it.
edit: oh yes, I put my nose into a short story collection and "the futurologic convent" by stanislaw lem. I put both books down because I felt that the translation was exceptionally horrible... the story collection being the prime example of horrid translation
Will have to get me some better translations...
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
While a little over-long and over-detailed for my tastes (this book takes a considerable time to read), it is brilliant writing and a fascinating story. Very, very good if not quite as good as his Memories of my Melancholy Whores
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Short Stories of... This is a collection of 43 short stories Fitzgerald wrote between 1920 and 1940, selected by his later biographer Matthew Bruccoli (Wikipedia). Adoring his works by now, I really appreciated this assemblage, showing how the mood of Fitzgerald's stories changed over time, becoming a mirror of his marriage, financial difficulties and the detoriation of his and his wife's health. Bruccoli added a small description of each story's publication process which sheds further light on the circumstances Fitzgerald worked in. Definitely worth reading for anyone interested in Fitzgerald or the Jazz age and of course for anyone searching for some great short stories - this collection includes a fair share of real gems.
Peter Handke (Wikipedia) - Sommerlicher Nachtrag zu einer winterlichen Reise. This is the follow-up to the "Winterreise", which I commented on earlier in this thread. It continues the theme of criticizing the portrayal of Serbia and Serbs in Western media, but seems to be less blunt and one-sides about it. It culminates in the description of the author's visit of Srebrenica, which is very sobering and - in my opinion - somewhat in contrast to the stark attacks on the "victims" (quotation marks seem implied by the author) in the Winterreise.
Douglas Coupland - Microserfs (Wikipedia). This was a great read, and refreshingly uplifting. Sometimes a little positivity can be a nice change, without having to sacrifice content. The book should be (and possibly is, I'm not that deep into geek subculture) a bit of a bible for nerds and computer geeks, containing a seemingly infinite number of pop culture and computer references, brilliantly witty one-liners and stabs at nerd life all around. The style is very original (or was when the novel came out), including many pages entirely devoted to the narrator's notes(.txt) on his computer desktop - collections of thoughts and associations. Below the cover of references, jokes and style lies the tale of a group of young people finding an own idea of the meaning of life and developing identities - a theme that was also explored in the other Coupland book I've read, Generation X. Of the two, I definitely prefer this one, but both are certainly worth reading.
Wow! This was such an excellent book! I loved his characters and the way everything comes together at the end of the story. The geeky humor and also the sometimes rude humor is quite entertaining and I found the whole book to be very engrossing. It's a bit of an undertaking, the paperback version I had was a few inches thick and it took me about a month of reading it at night before bed and sometimes during meals. I can't wait to read some more of his writings.
Also, the mathematical and technical portions of the book were pretty neat. I'm not exactly a mathematician, so I can't speak for its validity, but it seemed to work.
It's been a while since I wrote anything in here, sorry for abandoning it. Here is my extensive list:
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction by David Sheff
This book was very powerful and very striking. It tackles addiction from the side of he family, where they are in this, in the betrayals and hopes and failures and trials, and it does so in a very strong, very compelling manner. I would definitely recommend this for anyone looking for some compelling non-fiction.
Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays by David Sedaris
Sedaris' weakest book. Some of the stories are good, but many of them feel like imitations of the others and lack the clarity and insight into the screwed up human condition that Sedaris' essays have. While it's decent, it's not great.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Definitely one of the best American books, in my opinion. It tells the story of two Jewish cousins who meet in the years before WW2 (one fleeing nazi occupation in Czechoslovakia) and create a famous comic book character. At some 600+ pages, it's a time investment, but one that's very, very well worth it. Chabon is probably my favorite author at the moment and for good reason. This book won the Pulitzer and it certainly deserved it. Just go read it.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
A book that I knew I needed to get around to reading but that I didn't think that I would really like. Wrong. This book, while sometimes frustrating does a superb job at capturing the nuclear family, as it grows as it splinters, as it reforms, through the tragedies and triumphs of it's members. This book was definitely up to the hype. Very good stuff.
Old School by Tobias Wolff
While I love reading anything by Wolff, I definitely prefer his short fiction. This book, dealing with an elite prep school in the 1960's is a coming of age tale and though it is very short, it does an amazing job at handling it. The book also is something of a treatise on writing and writers and both are handled very well. Why the down introduction I just gave it? I don't know, it's very good, but not as great as his short fiction tends to be I guess. Still definitely worth a read.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
This was one of those books I had just never gotten around to reading (much like the Corrections), so I did. Ugh. While, to be honest, I have to say that I only read the first 300 pages (leaving 150 or so), I couldn't do any more. It was like if the movie Airplane lasted for 6 hours. The jokes, funny once, repeat themselves over and over and over. They cease to be funny or clever and are parodies of themselves. This book was like Dada paintings: Dada was a reaction to war, and the point was that war is silly and absurd and completely out of reason and so the paintings were absurd and with no reason. They had no point, no narrative, no meaning, they were just absurdity. It works good in CONCEPT, but in practice, it's annoying. This book is pure dada and like it, works only in theory. In practice it was absolute torture to read.
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I don't really care for the characters of this book, I don't really care for the stilted way that it's written (it was the 1930's after all) and I think it ends on a note that shortchanges two characters very much. That being said, it is a brilliant book. Easily Fitzgerald's best, it capture the span of a marriage in all of its phases SO WELL that I forget that I don't care for many of the parts because I so love the whole.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
It's done, I've read all of Sedaris' books. Like any of his collections of essays, this book is clever, funny, well thought out and tragically true to life. Like I've said before, Sedaris, in his essays, so truly nails the human condition, with such original humor that you sympathize and empathize completely with the tragedy that's befallen them while you laugh your ass off. Very good.
Yeah, it's summertime baby, which means book reading marathons. Woot.
Recently I've read Eragon and Eldest, which are really good books.
Currently working my way through the His Dark Materials trilogy. Which is The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. So far these are really good as well. Quite different than you would expect. :tup:
As engaging as it is brilliant. I had never gotten around to reading anything by Salman Rushdie and decided to start with this. Wow. This book is big (topping 530 pages of densely packed prose), but it is difficult to put down. Weaving the tale of India's modern history into a new fairy tale, Rushdie has captured the spirit of the times so wholly and so truly it is almost an alternate history. There is great reason this book won the Booker prize and the Booker of Bookers (the best of the best of the Booker) and it should be read by all.
Haha. I read fast. Plus I've been on vacation travelling around England since the 24th, so Starting with Kavelier and Clay on the Airplane I've been ploughing through the rest every time we're on a car or I have a moment of quiet. Soon though I will have to return to working full time and trying to get some real writing done, and the book reading should slow down a little bit (but not too much I hope).
Still though, you read freaking Cryptonomicon, a book I've WANTED to read for a long time but am still too terrified to pick up. 600 pages is gigantic to me, 800 is absurd and 1000 pages makes me tremble.
Still though, you read freaking Cryptonomicon, a book I've WANTED to read for a long time but am still too terrified to pick up. 600 pages is gigantic to me, 800 is absurd and 1000 pages makes me tremble.
Normally I'm a fan of her short stories, but I just wasn't that thrilled with this novel. I guess it's because of the Kafkesque tone--a little light and mocking, a lot bleak--that I didn't think gelled very much with her very reality grounded short stories.
Franz Kafka - Das Urteil (and other short stories). This little collection of stories includes my personal favourite "Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle" (Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor) as well as "In der Strafkolonie" (The Penal Colony) and "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis) and a number of shorter stories. I've read most of them before, but it was interesting to go back after a few years and look at them anew. Reading them all one after another, instead of one at a time, magnifies the themes of alienation, inferiority and breaking down in the face of an overwhelming obstacle that are present in most stories by Kafka. Well worth reading.
Rainer Maria Rilke (Wikipedia) - Wladimir, der Wolkenmaler (and other short stories, sketches and views from the years 1893-1904). These particular stories - the first collection of Rilke I've read - all stem from the author's formative years, which shows in the wide array of styles and themes. Included are parables, some narratives about the coming of age as well as two essays about art and one account of a modern Swedish school. Perhaps these last texts would have been better suited for a collection of essays instead as an addendum to the short stories, as they don't necessarily help in understanding and cannot be compared properly to his views - if there is a difference.
Bertolt Brecht - Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar (Wikipedia). This is a short (one act) play about the Spanish Civil War. It basically calls for involvement in conflicts of ideology (Brecht was a socialist) and damns a position of neutrality as an involvement in its own right - non-action implying acceptance of the actions of the opposed ideology. While this approach seems sensible in this particular example, problems become apparent when viewed in light of George Bush's "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"-rhetoric.
I finially finished Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It took me a long time to read because there is so much information on each page. I have a fascination with Nazi Germany because to me its so utterly insane those events took place.
This is one of those books that you have to read and digest, well at least for me. Some of you power readers, but it took me a month cause I wanted to fully absorb the information in there.. haha I read it before going to sleep to. I'm not that slow. heh
Great book! I recommend it to everyone. It's almost a must read IMO.
Joseph Heller - Catch 22 (Wikipedia). I enjoyed this more than dragonfliet, although I can see where he was coming from in his critique. I do believe the style worked rather well in showing the absurdity of war, especially when coupled and contrasted with the more tragic elements (i.e. Yossarian's friends dying one after another). As a matter of fact, I found that the novel was at its weakest when it lost more and more of its humorous approach during the last hundred pages or so, and the tragedies took over almost completely. The ending, however, reconciled me even with that part.
Anne Frank - Diary of... (Wikipedia). I read this in the German translation. This book probably should be mandatory reading in schools of all countries, preferably in classes around Anne Frank's age level. Not only does it shed some light on how people in hiding from Nazi Germany lived, but also delivers a good insight on the self-reflection of Jews in their situation of that time, as well as being - perhaps most importantly - a great coming of age account.
Hugh Laurie - The Gun Seller (Wikipedia). This was similar in humour to Catch 22 in quite a few regards, which is good, because it's one of the kinds of humour I enjoy very much. Unfortunately, somewhere in the course of the book, it stopped being a parody of the spy genre and started being an almost regular spy novel itself. Now don't get me wrong - it held my attention all the way through to the end, but I found it to be getting a little too serious for its own good. Does this make sense?
I thought since this is the only graphic novel listed in time magazine's best english novels list I could post here about it.
I've finished the last issue(12 volumes) 20 minutes ago and I am still a bit in shock about the ending... to be honest, I was ready to accept that Akira might get companie on my own personal list of awesomeness... but I am pissed off at the ending. might be able to think more rational about the novel later on... t'was very good until the last issue and the "resolve". The last panel, on the other hand is pure brilliance again...
Ugh, I feel so freaking lazy not updating my list more often. I mean to!
@Balton: I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like the ending of Watchmen. I was extremely pleasantly surprised at the ending because it was the most natural and logical thing I could have thought of. Even though the rest of the book had been absolutely wonderful, I was expecting something much more typical of the genre (superhero books), which it most certainly was not.
I think that the simultaneous ideas that good men must do terrible things for the greater benefit for the majority, contrasted with the Who Watches the Watchmen? motif were absolutely brilliant. The two things must coexist to keep themselves in check.
Just my opinion, however.
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
This book alternates between brilliance and boredom. We fall into the main character as he struggles to emerge from his coma and we are thrilled to be with him as he attempts to find his way back into his life: he tries to reconnect to his wife of many years, to his friends, his children, his business, all of which he has forgotten.
Then there is a lot of reading. We get summaries of so many books, of so much information, of so much stuff that we are overwhelmed and bored. Our protagonist ago...more This book alternates between brilliance and boredom.
Then it gets brilliant again, and then the ending is bullcrap. I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, even though it was very well written and often very interesting, but I DO want to check out some of his earlier stuff.
Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augustan Burroughs
Funny stories about the life of a self-obsessed gay man. I like Burroughs less than I do David Sedaris, because his wit is less dry and biting, but he has led an interesting life and he tells about it with a pleasant lack of shame. Very fun.
My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara by Jeroen Van Bergeijk
A not-that-interesting travel book written by a jerk. Yeah. The problem with this book is that the factual information is so...dry and not really that interesting. Which would be fine, usual, as travel books are less about facts and more about the stuff that happens. Well, not so much here. Jeroen gets duped a few times (which you'll see coming a mile away each time) and then essentially avoids talking to anyone, instead focusing on boring facts. Get ready for snap judgments on entire countries based on a few chance encounters and mildly racist pronouncements about why Africa can't get it's act together drawn from single encounters that have absolutely no sense perspective.
As you may have gathered, I wouldn't really recommend this.
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clark
This is the story of a bumbler who accidentally burns down Emily Dickenson's house when he's 18, and taking two people with it. He goes to jail for 10 years, gets out, goes to college, gets married and has kids. Then other famous writer's houses get consumed in flames and, bumbler that he is, our protagonist gets hopelessly caught up.
This is the kind of book I had hoped Catch 22 would be: absurd and silly, but fresh and imaginative. It is very often difficult to understand what is going through the main character's head (and he himself is often not really sure), but it is an uncertainty that feels natural. Also, for as hilarious as this book is, it's also a very serious piece of fiction that happens to explore, very successfully, the modern book scene. I definitely recommend this to anyone, despite it not being a perfect book, especially you folks who like wacky humor type novels.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Like a dream, a motif used a great number of times in this novel, the story unfolds in ordinary ways at first and grows increasingly more bizarre. We are slowly presented with a parade of characters from the most unusual walks of life and they all begin to slot together, to make sense in the narrative as a whole--which includes world war two battles, veterinarians, psychic prostitutes, mysterious singers and the underbelly of the political world. This book is hilarious, but heartbreaking, touching the very core of human emotion in perfect seriousness before launching into an absurd tangent that only heightens the tragedy of the book.
All of which is vague and unhelpful to the reader of this review. Let me try again. The novel, as absurd and complex and long as it is, is about people and the thing inside of us that has us do what we do. It explores the violent history of countries in the second world war and the outcome in modern politics. It touches on sex and friendship and marriage. It is not the scope, however, that defines this book--though there is certainly quite a reach it has--it is the compassion.
This is, by far, my favorite Murakami book (so far the 3rd I've read, the others being Norwegian Wood and After Dark). It's a long book, but it's very, very, very worth it.
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird (Wikipedia). I'm really glad I finally got to read this, and I believe - and while I admit that I hold this opinion of maybe too many a number of books, it surely is warranted in this case - that this is one of the basic works of literature that everyone should read once in their life, preferably early on. It's full of the right things. The character of Atticus Finch, specifically, is an outstanding ideal of a man, full of wisdom and kindness, yet believable in the context of the book.
Juli Zeh (Wikipedia) - Adler und Engel. This took me by surprise, as I was expecting a different story altogether (it was an impulse buy, based on the fact that I liked a travel report by the author I read earlier), but I'm very content with what it actually turned out to be. What appears as a simple story about a man not being able to cope with his friend's suicide quickly transforms into a tale of organized crime, international law and the political situation of the Balkan in the 90s - and the question of the involvement of all people the aforementioned man knows in these affairs. Some minor, yet irritating flaws in the solution of the puzzle can't change my impression that this is a great debut novel, and certainly reason for me to check out more of her works.
Voltaire - Candide (Wikipedia). This brilliant satire evokes amusement even two and a half centuries after it was written. Besides the obvious religious blasphemy, it showers blistering ridicule on a multitude of writers, philosophers and politicians, seemingly leaving out nobody. Well worth reading, even if one isn't interested in the philosophy of it, the absurdity of the adventure is a laugh in itself.
Yep, finally finished this one. Possibly the best book I've ever read. Took about the first 2 chapters to really get into it but once I got through those it was a marvellous read. A very real depiction of anthropology and psychology and the relation between the characters seems so natural and true.
Next book I'll be moving onto is the third book in the Ender saga (Speaker being the second). I'm really curious to see if dragonfliet is as right about this one as he was about Speaker.
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