wheelspinner
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Jul 18, 2009 18:42:25 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Jul 18, 2009 18:42:25 GMT -5
I thought it would be interesting for the regular readers amongst us to pop in occasionally and tell what is next on their reading list, and what attracted them to that book.
Maybe a quick note on whether the book fulfilled expectations after reading it would be good too.
I'll start.
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wheelspinner
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Jul 18, 2009 18:47:06 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Jul 18, 2009 18:47:06 GMT -5
Blue - The History of a Colour, by Michel Pastoureau
Reading this because I enjoyed his other book "Black"
The Class, by François Bégaudeau
Got this from the library because I enjoyed the film made from it. My wife, a teacher, is cacking herself laughing at it right now, so I'm keen to get my hands on it.
The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen
Here's one I picked up because of a review in the NYT best seller list.
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Jul 19, 2009 2:27:27 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Jul 19, 2009 2:27:27 GMT -5
I currently have over forty books in my "up next" category on my shelves. You see, there was a book sale a the library and then another fantastic sale at the bookstore. Then there are the seven books sitting on my coffee table that I am mid-read. Also the books that got put up on the shelves rather than back on the coffee table when I moved. So, heavens knows what's next. I'm currently currently alternating between The Little Stranger and Caveman Logic . Then I guess I'll go back to some of my other non-fiction books I've not yet finished, such as Collapse and, I think, The Tipping Point . (I'm reading Gladwell's stuff out of order.) And then likely go for a quick palette cleanser by Janet Evanovich because a friend of mine has been pushing me to read something of hers. If I get myself sufficiently organised, I'll be better at reporting here.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Jul 20, 2009 12:00:38 GMT -5
Post by Pax on Jul 20, 2009 12:00:38 GMT -5
I'd love to tell you guys interesting things that I'm reading, but they're all technical books now and for the foreseeable future. If anything I'd be telling you "books I bought recently that I'd like to read but I have no idea when I actually will."
I'll share a couple of those when I get a chance.
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wheelspinner
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Jul 20, 2009 18:09:07 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Jul 20, 2009 18:09:07 GMT -5
Blue - The History of a Colour, by Michel Pastoureau
Didn't enjoy this as much as Black. They were far too similar, which made me realise that Pastoureau is writing to a formula and rehashed a fair bit of material in Black.
The Class, by François Bégaudeau
My wife got a lot more out of this than I did. I guess you have to be a teacher to get a lot of the situational humour. I thought the film was much better - more dramatic and with more rounded characters.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Jul 23, 2009 12:40:18 GMT -5
Post by Pax on Jul 23, 2009 12:40:18 GMT -5
A story I'd like to get to is "Eve: The story of the First Woman."
It's a novelization of one author's concept of what it would have been like to be the first woman (and mother) on Earth.
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wheelspinner
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Jul 23, 2009 20:43:02 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Jul 23, 2009 20:43:02 GMT -5
Just started "What Is the What", by Dave Eggars.
I read a review of his new book which mentioned this, and it sounded interesting. Saw it in the library, so I grabbed it on the spur of the moment.
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Aug 10, 2009 19:06:21 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Aug 10, 2009 19:06:21 GMT -5
I finally finished Caveman Logic and have to say that it was one of the more clear and refreshing inspections of how our primitive brains function within the context modern society, particularly as it pertains to religion. (Sort of Desmond Morris greatly updated.) It was a tonic I needed. I'm mid- The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and am quite enjoying the subtle, subdued, quiet pace of the story. I'm enjoying her words. However, arrived in the post today was Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Freewww.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926145/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249948908&sr=1-1An editorial comment A veteran journalist's acidically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.In the midst of a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, Charles Pierce had a defining moment at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where he observed a dinosaur. Wearing a saddle... But worse than this was when the proprietor exclaimed to a cheering crowd, “We are taking the dinosaurs back from the evolutionists!” He knew then and there it was time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed.
I may just have to put Waters aside for a bit and read through this. Any insights would be helpful right now. Or maybe humour about it all. I like to believe this applies to a very vocal minority in the US, but gads I wish the sane majority would find a voice. A loud one.
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wheelspinner
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Aug 11, 2009 7:29:00 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Aug 11, 2009 7:29:00 GMT -5
That one cracks me up. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.
What with spending every minute watching films lately, my reading has suffered. Still I am getting towards the end of What is the What. (It's a big book at around 480pp). I'm not that impressed. The Lost Boys of Sudan is certainly a fantastic story, but I just don't find the main character that appealing or engaging. I feel a bit uncomfortable about that, because he is a real person and this is his life story, slightly fictionalised. I can't help but think that Eggers' novel would be better if he'd used Valentino's insight to write a completely fictional account based on solid research, and been more free to come up with characters that engage us more.
Next up is Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. I read somewhere (NYT Review of Books?) that this is the best novel on 9/11 yet, so I picked it up when I saw it at the library.
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wheelspinner
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Aug 18, 2009 5:29:32 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Aug 18, 2009 5:29:32 GMT -5
Done with Netherlands. Great book. The author uses the idea of a cricket club in New York as a way of underlining the alienation of the main character, Hans, from his US environment, which is exacerbated when he is separated from his family after 9/11. The book is enriched by a charismatic Gatsby-like figure in Chuck Ramkissoon, a shady Trinidadian that Hans meets at a cricket match.
Next up is Tom Ron Smith's Child 44, which my wife recommends. She loves the detective genre novels and thinks this one is really good. Why not?
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wheelspinner
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Aug 28, 2009 5:48:44 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Aug 28, 2009 5:48:44 GMT -5
I finished Child 44 now. About 80% of it is very good, but it goes a little off the rails in the last act.
While I found it a bit unbelievable, I was shocked to find it was based on real crimes. I looked up Andrei Chikatilo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo) and was horrified to read about him. I'd never heard of his killing spree before.
For a complete change of pace, I am now reading The Man in the Yellow Doublet, the latest in Arturo Perez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste series. I'm a sucker for Reverte; I've read everything of his that's been translated into English. The Alatriste books are all swashbuckling and derring-do, like the Three Musketeers. A superb film was made from them starring Viggo Mortensen - well worth checking out.
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Aug 28, 2009 7:23:35 GMT -5
Post by MacBeth on Aug 28, 2009 7:23:35 GMT -5
Chikatilo was a horrible man....unspeakable crimes. The stuff of movies, not life, one hopes - and is wrong. With convictions on 58 victims, I cannot even imagine how many more went uncharged.
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wheelspinner
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Sept 4, 2009 18:54:33 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Sept 4, 2009 18:54:33 GMT -5
"Take that Malatesta, you scoundrel!" (Twirls abundant mustache with panache).
OK, done with The Man in the Yellow Doublet. A good swash-buckler, but not a patch on The Siege at Breda. That book followed Alatriste and Inigo into the Flanders wars, and is one of the best accounts of the ugliness and futility of war that I've ever read. (Perez-Reverte was a war correspondent before being a novelist, BTW).
Now I am reading The Good Thief. When that's done, my library books will be finished and I can get back to my neglected bookshelves. The Girl Who Played With Fire and T.S. Spivet are screaming for attention.
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Sept 8, 2009 17:53:25 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Sept 8, 2009 17:53:25 GMT -5
Just finished Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger a much gentler, more subtle book than her previous ones. I'm not certain how I feel about it just yet. I doubt it will stick with me in quite the same way her other books have. Next up is Margaret Atwood's just-now release The Year of the Flood. I ordered it online before I even realised it hadn't yet been released. Atwood's on a performance/reading tour with this book, for which I have tickets to attend at the end of the month. I'm so excited. Apparently it's not just a book reading but a reading of a condensed version of the book along with actors, musicians, and an original score. The day after is followed by seeing the Dalai lama speak. Not that that has anything to do with books, I'm just wound up.
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wheelspinner
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Sept 11, 2009 7:50:21 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Sept 11, 2009 7:50:21 GMT -5
Done with The Good Thief. I'm just snacking on The Lost City of Z until I get to the library tomorrow. There I will pick up Open Veins of Latin America, for something a bit more substantial.
I still want to get to The Little Stranger, G. I have so many on my shelves right now that are all high priority. These include:
The Girl Who Played With Fire T.S. Spivet The Little Stranger The Children's Book The Black Swan The English Civil Wars The Middle Sea The Half Brother City of Laughter The Savage Detectives Necropolis
and many more. Who knows when I will get to them all?
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wheelspinner
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Sept 27, 2009 6:15:52 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Sept 27, 2009 6:15:52 GMT -5
I finished The Lost City of Z. That was really interesting - I had never heard of the explorer Fawcett before.
Fawcett's exploration of and disappearance in Amazonia was the perfect precursor to the book I am reading now - Open Veins of Latin America. The latter gives the story of what happened after the explorers and conquerors opened up Latin America for commerce.
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wheelspinner
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Oct 29, 2009 3:07:18 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Oct 29, 2009 3:07:18 GMT -5
Just finished James Ellroy's latest: Blood's A Rover (great title).
I hated The Cold Six Thousand; Ellroy's choppy style got on my wick and I had to struggle like mad to finish it. So I was dubious about the sequel. But this latest is a stunning return to form. The smart-aleck writing style is still there, but it's not as extreme. The novel is a fabulous compendium of plot, counter-plot, love, hate, double-cross, vice and idealism. Where I struggled through 6,000, I roared through this one. It's great.
Now for some lighter fare: Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals.
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Dec 5, 2009 21:49:24 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Dec 5, 2009 21:49:24 GMT -5
I haven't kept up, here. I finished The Year of the Flood a while ago and it's a brilliant book set in the same time line as Atwood's previous book, Oryx and Crake, but it follows different characters. The prior book followed the newly emerged elite in a world run amok by corporate scientific advancements, and Flood follows the people outside of the elites who deal with the fallout of the damage wrought by the corporate progress. Oryx and Crake first is not a "must read" for Flood to make sense, but I'd recommend it anyway as Oryx sets up so much of the landscape.
I next got my hands on Audrey Niffenegger's new book (gack I hate typing her last name) Her Fearful Symmetry. AN, for those who don't recognise the name, wrote the surprisingly popular The Time Traveler's Wife. (Surprisingly popular not because it didn't warrant the attention but because it was her first book, she wasn't a big name writer, and the book caught fire by word of mouth.) Symmetry is a ghost story worth reading. In a lot of ways it's a very different book from Wife, so anyone expecting more of the same from her ought not, but the characters in Symmetry are absolutely from Niffenegger's voice and imagination. There's a layering of rather unlikeable characters that you care about nonetheless that seems distinctively her. I'd recommend it and have.
Next up, I don't know yet. I have a few stacks waiting for me, and I can't decide what I'm in the mood for, yet.
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Dec 6, 2009 6:13:31 GMT -5
Just looked again at #14. You know, I stuill haven't got to a single book on that list.
I just finished Her Fearful Symmetry. I won't say anything about it until you're done, but I'd be interested in your opinion.
I am punishing myself by reading Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas. God it's depressing. I have also seized Peter Carey's newest "Parrot and Olivier in America". It looks like it will be a welcome return to magic realism for Carey, which will make nice change from the more straightforward novels of recent years.
Since I moved out of my library's zone, I've decided not to join another library until I've made a serious dent in the list in #14, as well as a bunch of other books in boxes around the place. Once I'm done with the current two, I plan to plough through the last two "The Girl Who..." books end-to-end.
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Dec 6, 2009 10:29:21 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Dec 6, 2009 10:29:21 GMT -5
I have finished Her Fearful Symmetry. If you'd like to start a new thread, maybe, with a spoiler alert in the title, I'd love to discuss it while it's all fresh in my mind.
Late last night I began and finished the final book in the hideous Twilight series. I exchange books with some young people at work, and they were in love with the series. They insisted I read it, so, in the interest of fair play and demonstrating an interest in what clicks with them, I read the series. Now, on with my nefarious plot to get them to read good stuff. ;D
I can't quite decide what to read next.
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Calluna
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Dec 7, 2009 23:00:47 GMT -5
Post by Calluna on Dec 7, 2009 23:00:47 GMT -5
I read Child 44 this summer, too, wheelspinner. Just noticed your post on it now. Probably read it about the same time you did. I really enjoyed it. But, I don't recommend the sequel to it; I don't think the author was as into it...it read like it was forced/rushed by publisher deadlines. And, since G keeps recommending it (and some others have too), I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake. It's okay. I'm still not a huge fan of Atwood's writing style. It just seems to use unnecessarily flowery words and a very choppy writing style. I'm about halfway through and getting into the story now (though it seems pretty cliche under all those flowery words...standard apocalyptic man destroyed their own world type stuff). Atwood takes WAY too long to get to the point of what the heck she's writing about, so the beginning was pretty annoying as she beat all around the bush while I was trying to figure out if the main character is really in some post-apocalyptic future world, or if he was just a mental patient trapped in his own delusions. Oh, man, and the names of all the companies she makes up are so cheesy! It's been a long time since I've read anything by Atwood, because I remember having this same disoriented feeling from reading previous books of hers, where I couldn't quite figure out what was going on from all the round-about-ramblings, but that was when I was in college and trying to cram in reading books in a night or two while juggling all my other courses, so thought I might have missed some appreciation for her writing that I'd grasp now (that has happened with many other authors that I just couldn't take time to appreciate when rushing through to complete assignments for courses). Apparently not. Oh well, at least now I know for certain she's not an author for me. I'll still finish the book I have, because I'm stubborn that way.
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Calluna
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Dec 7, 2009 23:12:42 GMT -5
Post by Calluna on Dec 7, 2009 23:12:42 GMT -5
Late last night I began and finished the final book in the hideous Twilight series. I exchange books with some young people at work, and they were in love with the series. LOL! I have the first book in the series on my Kindle. It was a free download. I download anything that's offered free (and it is often a first in a series...they of course hope you'll get hooked and buy the rest of the series for a fee). I haven't read it yet, and didn't have high expectations. The free books are usually good for light reading when I don't have a lot of spare time to absorb a better book. There are also a bunch of free smutty romance trash novels...yep, read them too. They make good bedtime stories. ;D My boyfriend was amused that I managed to download an erotic fiction short story too. I thought it was just another trashy romance, until I started reading. That was a fun little read (note that I didn't stop reading once I figured out what it was). ;D (I didn't even know Amazon carried stuff like that.) I currently have 82 unread books on my Kindle. Most are free things, a few I've actually paid for. A mix of classics, contemporary junk, bestsellers, award winners, things recommended by friends, etc. I'll probably read a bunch over the holiday break, but right now, it takes me a couple weeks to finish a book when I'm just reading before bedtime.
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Dec 12, 2009 4:31:13 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Dec 12, 2009 4:31:13 GMT -5
And, since G keeps recommending it (and some others have too), I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake. It's okay. I'm still not a huge fan of Atwood's writing style. It just seems to use unnecessarily flowery words and a very choppy writing style. I'm about halfway through and getting into the story now (though it seems pretty cliche under all those flowery words...standard apocalyptic man destroyed their own world type stuff). Atwood takes WAY too long to get to the point of what the heck she's writing about, so the beginning was pretty annoying as she beat all around the bush while I was trying to figure out if the main character is really in some post-apocalyptic future world, or if he was just a mental patient trapped in his own delusions. Oh, man, and the names of all the companies she makes up are so cheesy! It's been a long time since I've read anything by Atwood, because I remember having this same disoriented feeling from reading previous books of hers, where I couldn't quite figure out what was going on from all the round-about-ramblings, but that was when I was in college and trying to cram in reading books in a night or two while juggling all my other courses, so thought I might have missed some appreciation for her writing that I'd grasp now (that has happened with many other authors that I just couldn't take time to appreciate when rushing through to complete assignments for courses). Apparently not. Oh well, at least now I know for certain she's not an author for me. I'll still finish the book I have, because I'm stubborn that way. Maybe not an author for you. Out of curiosity, I'm going to assume that the other of Atwood's you've read is A Handmaid's Tale. Am I right? Anything else? I'm generally not a fan of speculative fiction, but I really enjoy Atwood's prognostications -- like in Oryx and Crake -- because it's all reality based on current science, research, and ongoing scientific development that's being sponsored and forwarded by corporate interests rather than humanitarian interests and/or pure research. So that's where some of the fascinating stuff comes in, with this particular book, for me. (Sidenote: Most members of Atwood's family are scientists of one sort or other. Her father was a biologist, and she has a nephew who is a physicist, and those are the two I can think of off the top of my head. She's the only artsy-fartsy member of her family. I saw her at one book promotion -- a large affair at a local college here -- and she talked about the need for writers to mesh with scientists to make science and current research and technology accessible to more people. She talked about needing to have people who had the language to convey those ideas to we regular folks. She told the audience an anecdote about being at dinner with her nephew and saying to him, "So, the universe. What's going on there? Is it waves? Is it strings? What?" and then she said, "And he went" and she shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head side-to-side as if to suggest he was saying, "Well, you know, you're kind of right, and sort of not, and it's kind of like that, but..." It was very funny. I agree with her that we need people with language and words to connect with science people to let the rest of us know what's going on. So that's one aspect of Oryx and Crake I liked, is that Atwood's making an attempt at bridging that gap, because she has first-hand information.) So if you look specifically at the science being talked about, (even though at this point it's even a bit outdated, although the green glowing bunnies came to pass) you'll likely recognise research you have first-hand knowledge of. Her speculative fiction is based on facts, not on fancy. She doesn't invent wholesale; she takes reality and extrapolates it. She looks at the trajectory it's currently on and watches where it has the potential to go. So, for the lay person, that's thought-provoking. Then she looks at the potential social impact of that science. The rise of scientists becoming the social elite, living in gated communities, secure and walled off from everyone else. That's what we do with people we "value" in our society more than other people. Currently, it's driven by greed and a whole lot of celebrity -- be it sports or artistic. She suggests that, if scientists are the ones making the most money for companies (who are more and more financing university science research, which is frightening) then those people would become the elites of society and have the privileges doled out to them. Then what of everyone else? And what happens when science is removed from the community at large and their needs? One idea in I found interesting in Oryx and Crake was the notion of science trying to rid society of or almost entirely devaluing the arts. I thought that was kind of funny given that the arts is imagination driven and, without imagination, there's no scientific progress. You need a leap of imagination -- what happens if I.....-- to take the next step. One would assume one discipline withering without the other. As for the companies with goofy names, look at the product-naming trend right now and tell me she's done anything that's not a current trend. We can start with Shake-Weights and go to Slap-n-Chops. You can't tell me that the cheesy corporate naming is out of line. (Plus, Atwood has a fabulous sense of humour. When she says the names of the companies and products that's she's used out loud, she laughs or giggles. It's really funny. She's knows they're silly. She's doing it on purpose mimicking current trends.) But anyway. I could go on and on. I love Atwood's words. She has a facility and ability with words that leaves me breathless. She is the only celebrity I've ever met who left me speechless. I've met her twice, now, and choked up so badly both times that I could hardly speak. I'm that in awe of her talent. And I've met and been up close and personal with a number of famous-types and never, ever choked up. I've never not been able to speak. With her, I can't. It's embarrassing, actually. I therefore stare at her words and her facility with words as much as I read her stories. She has an amazing ability with crafting writing. I can stare at that endlessly with her work because that turns my personal crank. Her characters are rich and well-rounded. There are actual characters/people. Her books are diverse in whether or not they are character driven or plot driven or idea driven. I'd say that Oryx and Crake, and the follow-up to it, The Year of the Flood, are character and idea driven, not so much plot driven. I understand, entirely, that some people way prefer plot-driven books. I pay very close attention to what people tell me they're looking for in a book, and I wouldn't recommend all of Atwood's work to anyone, unless I knew they enjoyed staring at words and how they're strung together the way that I do. Some people prefer plot-driven books (which is what it sounds like, to me, Calluna, that you may prefer) and I'd not recommend Oryx and Crake to them. Although I'd recommend Oryx and Crake to you for the science ideas. However, if you prefer plot-driven books, and I was going to recommend Atwood to you, I'd recommend Alias Grace or Lady Oracle to you, because those are far more plot-heavy books than some of her others. The characters are always, and unfailingly, three-dimensional. That's my short version. Sorry to go on about it.
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wheelspinner
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Dec 12, 2009 18:50:49 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Dec 12, 2009 18:50:49 GMT -5
I have finished Her Fearful Symmetry. If you'd like to start a new thread, maybe, with a spoiler alert in the title, I'd love to discuss it while it's all fresh in my mind. Late last night I began and finished the final book in the hideous Twilight series. I exchange books with some young people at work, and they were in love with the series. Barf. Hideous is the word. I heard a term a while ago applied to the Browns, Rowlings and Meyers of this world: "The triumph of marketing over content". I have to say I agree, and nothing would ever persuade me to read that dreck while I have so much good stuff on my shelves.
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Dec 12, 2009 18:57:32 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Dec 12, 2009 18:57:32 GMT -5
My boyfriend was amused that I managed to download an erotic fiction short story too. I thought it was just another trashy romance, until I started reading. That was a fun little read (note that I didn't stop reading once I figured out what it was). ;D (I didn't even know Amazon carried stuff like that.) Reminds me of when I read The Swimming Pool Library on the train. It has some extremely frank homosexual love scenes in it. I was most uncomfortable reading that next to a lady who kept glancing at my book. I shudder to think what she thought of me!
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Dec 17, 2009 2:00:54 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Dec 17, 2009 2:00:54 GMT -5
I'm currently reading a really mediocre lawyer-murder-mystery book entitled The Trophy Widow -- a Rachel Gold Novel by Michale Kahn. It's a book I picked up at the library sale, and I wanted something a little less involved than the fiction and non I've been reading lately. I think I'll stick with the involved stuff because, while this is easy and not taxing in the least, I can barely tolerate the liberal use of cliched writing and thin plot. It's designed to be a page turner, and it is, but it's like eating snowflakes when you're hungry. I think I'll leave that weird simile all to itself.
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Dec 22, 2009 20:24:47 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Dec 22, 2009 20:24:47 GMT -5
Finished Parrot and Olivier in America. Not magic realism after all, but another of Carey's dives into Dickensian style. He seems particularly taken with Great Expectations, given Jack Maggs, and also the early scenes here. I'll write up a separate review.
Meanwhile, grinding towards the end of Man Gone Down. My reward awaits: I will then finish the Stieg Larssen trilogy.
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Dec 23, 2009 23:33:12 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Dec 23, 2009 23:33:12 GMT -5
Finally finished Man gone Down. It was an object lesson in why you should not put too much faith in "Book of the Year" lists. This one was on NYT Review of Books Top 10 in 2007. It is a turgid novel about the decline of a man that Thomas does nothing to make you care about. The whole novel is peopled by characters that do not engage you in the slightest, so why should you empathise with their lot in life? It was a maudlin, depressing novel, finished with a mawkish ending that Hollywood would have loved. A complete waste of time.
Now back to Stieg Larssen, who must deserve some kind of award for the least lucky writer in history, dying before he saw the publication of any of these monster-selling novels. He's detective fiction's answer to Pete Best.
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Jan 1, 2010 18:24:58 GMT -5
Post by wheelspinner on Jan 1, 2010 18:24:58 GMT -5
I finally finished Stieg Larssen's The Girl Who trilogy. Yay for me - it only took 15 months!
There's no question that, in Lisbeth Salander, Larssen invented one of the great modern heroines. She's a compelling character and keeps you hooked wanting to know more about her. The rest of his cast is less compelling, somewhat formulaic in fact. I was particularly irritated by the sexual success that Larssen bestowed on his overweight, middle-aged male lead, Kalle Blomqvist. I had to wonder about that, given that Kalle is clearly an analog for Larssen himself.
I thought the final book was a bit of a let-down, which shouldn't surprise, as he was dying as he wrote it. There were some horrible clangers in it, such as the early scenes where two of the main characters are in a hospital, two rooms apart. No matter what scenario you believe, one of these characters has tried to murder the other (opinions differ at this stage as to who was the victim ). At least one of them is wanted for questioning by the police as a matter of urgency. Yet Larssen wants us to believe that the police do not post a guard on the floor at any time, and only think of doing that after the inevitable occurs. Sorry, fail, bad editing. Same with the longish tracts where Larssen tries to explain Swedish law and politics. The whole book needed a serious re-edit, which was obviously impossible because the author had died.
Next up is Sam Savage's The Cry of the Sloth. It's a somewhat appealing title, given my current holiday mood.
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Jan 7, 2010 21:02:30 GMT -5
Post by Georgina on Jan 7, 2010 21:02:30 GMT -5
I gave up on The Trophy Wife . I have too many shelf-sitters to bother with anything that's not doing anything for me by mid-book. I'm messing with fiction right now because I read so much non-fiction for a while, I just want to be entertained. I like being informed but entertainment is what I yearn for right now.
It's got to be good entertainment, though. Well done and all. A friend of mine long-ago suggested Janet Evanovich -- the Stephanie Plum novels -- as funny and witty and entertaining. The books, apparently, make my friend laugh out loud. I had one sitting on my shelf as the result of the hardcover bargain table at Chapters. Oh my. Maybe if I'd begun from the beginning. I believe she's up to book fifteen with this character. I read book fourteen. The book stands alone -- you don't have to read the preceding thirteen to follow what's going on in this installment -- but I get the impression that solidifying who the character is was contained in the first novel, because in this one, she's simply annoying and astoundingly stupid, with two very impressive men in a tug of war for her. Why is anyone's guess.
At this point, I wouldn't recommend the books to anyone. Now, back to Malcolm Gladwell, or off into the quirky The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers or maybe re-read the spiffy new edition of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that I have. Too much is not good sometimes.
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