The Culture Vulture
Member
I didn't like it. It was great at world building but really fell off about 1/3 of the way through. Didn't care about the romantic plot and felt their was no real conflict the last half of the book.
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What are you reading? (May 2014)
- Thread starter Maklershed
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I didn't like it. It was great at world building but really fell off about 1/3 of the way through. Didn't care about the romantic plot and felt their was no real conflict the last half of the book.
DietRob
i've been begging for over 5 years.
I'm glad I found this thread. I got a Kindle Paperwhite around 6 months ago and I've read more books in those past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years. I forgot how much I enjoy reading engaging stories. Anything even mildly interesting I find a way to enjoy it. However, that makes choosing a new book to read somewhat difficult for me.
I've found sites like WhatShouldIReadNext.com but really I'm just picking something at random and almost always find a way to enjoy it. I'd love to get some input from others on books I should read.
I'll list some of the books I've read and enjoyed in the past few months:
The Beach
Wayward Pines series
Moving Day
Ready Player One
1984
I've been slogging away with A Storm of Swords also. But honestly it's been a bit of a chore to read.
Any recommendations? I'll look over the OP in the meanwhile looks like it's packed with info and recommendations. I just finished my latest read a little earlier today so I'll need something to drift off to sleep to tonight.
I've found sites like WhatShouldIReadNext.com but really I'm just picking something at random and almost always find a way to enjoy it. I'd love to get some input from others on books I should read.
I'll list some of the books I've read and enjoyed in the past few months:
The Beach
Wayward Pines series
Moving Day
Ready Player One
1984
I've been slogging away with A Storm of Swords also. But honestly it's been a bit of a chore to read.
Any recommendations? I'll look over the OP in the meanwhile looks like it's packed with info and recommendations. I just finished my latest read a little earlier today so I'll need something to drift off to sleep to tonight.
The Best of Gene Wolfe:A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction by Gene Wolfe is a collection of short stories seemingly edited by Wolfe himself, containing stories written spanning the early 1970s to late 1990s, ranging from one to fifty pages each with an afterword. Wolfe mostly writes SF and fantasy stories with a literary bent, sometimes putting an interesting spin on classic tropes and genres.
These stories are chock-full of allusions to literature, mythology, and religion, Christianity and more specifically Catholicism. Wolfe's a prose stylist, which combines well with his penchant for unreliable or uninformed narrators, ambiguity and abstruseness, and varying story structures. This makes for both a delightful and exhausting read, so I'd recommend putting space in between his stories.
The standout stories in the novel were The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Hour of Trust, Forlesen, Westwind, The Hero as Werwolf, Straw, Seven American Nights, And When They Appear, Bed and Breakfast, and A Cabin on the Coast. The rest of the stories are of varying quality, with a few duds, like one of Wolfe's most celebrated short story/novella The Death of Dr. Island.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is by far my favorite novel I've read this year. The novel follow an aging butler traveling the English countryside to visit a former coworker, all the while reflecting on his career and service to his former employer, an important lord during the pre-WWII period.
Ishiguro's magnificent prose thoroughly enters the mind of a person devoted to their profession and employer that he cannot, in a sense, be normal. A person so devoted to the immediacy of the work and its importance, that he cannot see the obvious, which is slowly peeled away in his ruminations, confounded by the unreliability of his memories and his reluctance to draw them out into their full light. It's a tragic and powerful character study that'll stick with you.
The film version is a great adaptation, yet can't compare with the close first person narrative of the novel which focuses so much on memory and interiority.
The Stranger by Albert Camus, translated Matthew Ward, is a short novel that revolves around Meursault, a man living in French Algeria, whose mother has just passed. Immediately from the beginning of the novel you get a taste of Meursault's character, a man who lives in the present with not much care for the expectations of others. This leads him into trouble of course.
Camus' sentences are mostly simple and terse, with Camus aping the "American" prose style as explained by Matthew Ward, fitting the nature of novel. Meursault muses on the absurd nature of life; his life seeming to fall into some form of existentialism. It's a decent novel, until Meursault becomes heavily introspective, making for a great ending.
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I'm going to start Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri soon, a collection of short stories.
nakedsushi
Member
Same. I would pay maybe $0.50 for it, but not $5.
EsotericManiac
Banned
Almost finished reading Dune. I'll probably go through the whole series next
Wafflecakes
Member
I need to read that sometime. I have been putting it off forever...
I'm reading the Sot-Weed Factor by Roland Barth. Wow, is it enjoyable. Published in the mid-60s(?) it's an affectionate, bawdy parody of picaresque novels like Tristram Shandy.
The bulk of the story covers the life of Ebeneezer Cooke, a feckless and diffident poet in the mould of Candide, who's commissioned to write an epic poem about Maryland.
Some of the prose is absolutely wonderful though. Barth delves deep into the verbiage of the period and it lends the writing this baroque, sensuous quality that's slightly alien to modern novels.
"Forget the word sky," Burlingame said off-handedly, swinging up on his gelding, "'tis a blinder to your eyes. There is no dome of heaven yonder."
Ebenezer blinked twice or thrice: with the aid of these instructions, for the first time in his life he saw the night sky. The stars were no longer points on a black hemisphere that hung like a sheltering roof above his head; the relationship between them he saw now in three dimensions, of which the one most deeply felt was depth. The length and breadth of space between the stars seemed trifling by comparison: what struck him now was that some were nearer, some farther out, and others unimaginably remote. Viewed in this manner, the constellations lost their sense entirely; their spurious character revealed itself, as did the false presupposition of the celestial navigator, and Ebenezer felt bereft of orientation. He could no longer think of up and down: the stars were simply out there, as well below him as above, and the wind appeared to howl not from the Bay but from the firmament itself, the endless corridors of space."
The bulk of the story covers the life of Ebeneezer Cooke, a feckless and diffident poet in the mould of Candide, who's commissioned to write an epic poem about Maryland.
Some of the prose is absolutely wonderful though. Barth delves deep into the verbiage of the period and it lends the writing this baroque, sensuous quality that's slightly alien to modern novels.
"Forget the word sky," Burlingame said off-handedly, swinging up on his gelding, "'tis a blinder to your eyes. There is no dome of heaven yonder."
Ebenezer blinked twice or thrice: with the aid of these instructions, for the first time in his life he saw the night sky. The stars were no longer points on a black hemisphere that hung like a sheltering roof above his head; the relationship between them he saw now in three dimensions, of which the one most deeply felt was depth. The length and breadth of space between the stars seemed trifling by comparison: what struck him now was that some were nearer, some farther out, and others unimaginably remote. Viewed in this manner, the constellations lost their sense entirely; their spurious character revealed itself, as did the false presupposition of the celestial navigator, and Ebenezer felt bereft of orientation. He could no longer think of up and down: the stars were simply out there, as well below him as above, and the wind appeared to howl not from the Bay but from the firmament itself, the endless corridors of space."
I'm about three quarters of the way through this. It's pretty good - I've read nothing on Ludwig before but always found him to be an interesting character, so I gave this one a go.
And I have yet to finish this. It's an excellent "all-rounder" approach to learning about Carthage - the people, their society, religion, culture, history, etc. It doesn't really go into the wars very much but that's understandable as they've been covered pretty extensively. Since I've read through Livy, Polybius and Goldsworthy's books, this is something different to me. I've learned a lot that I wouldn't have if I'd just stuck to things like Wikipedia. Some fantastic photographs of artifacts inside, too.
Maklershed
Member
The Dresden Files are on sale today for $1.99 each. I never paid much attention to them but I see a lot of people in here read them. Should I purchase them? And if so, how many books? Looks like they have 7 books on sale. Should I get all of them?
DieUnbekannte
Member
If they sound interesting to you, I'd recommend to at least buy the first three books, because the series starts kind of slow and really gets good with the third book. Nevertheless I also enjoyed the first two ones too.
I would. I'm a huge fan of the series. Like the person above me says it starts off a little slow, and that's especially true for the first book, but after that things pick up considerably and it got me hooked.
They're trashy, throw away fun with a character who is always as powerful as the plot calls for. If you were ever going to buy them then I'd recommend you do it at the $1.99 price.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I got the Audible version to listen to this summer while walking the dog. 32.5 hours. Haven't started it yet.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I recommend Ghostman by Roger Hobbs to everyone, but I don't think anyone else here has actually read it yet.
Easystride
Member
Reading Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool right now.
Don't be a weeabo while you live and be an educator for JET...and if you do, I want you to become my Gaf Secret Santa and send me weeabo stuff!
DietRob
i've been begging for over 5 years.
Sounds interesting I put it on my kindle list. For now though I decided to start reading Under the Dome. I watched a couple episodes of the show but wasn't terribly interested in it. So far through the first several chapters the book is pretty good.
I added that to my to-read list not too long ago. Seems like something I would enjoy as well.
I started reading this, have wanted to read it for a while since the influx of books I read last year dealing with this subject, and bought it recently as it's on sale at amazon kindle.
Now reading...
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison
I enjoy them. I never really had a problem with the whole just as powerful that the plot requires thing because I have a high suspension of belief mechanism and can just enjoy the ride. Basically, the first 2 or 3 novels are rather self-contained, but after that it starts to open up, the world gets bigger, connections are made, greater plots developed, etc
I have this on my shelf but haven't read any John Barth yet. Thanks for the rec.
Help me figuring out what to read next, reading-gaf!
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
The Downfall of Money: Germanys Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
I can't decide between these books.
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
The Downfall of Money: Germanys Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
I can't decide between these books.
Maklershed
Member
None! I choose the secret option - J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets
J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets by Curt Gentry
TestMonkey
Member
I vote for The Bully Pulpit. I haven't read that book specifically but I've read a couple other of her works and she's very good. Even though all of her stuff is super long it doesn't feel like it.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
The Macmillan book was well-reviewed but I have not read it. I am going to read another recently published book about WW1 since this is the centenary -- The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark.
The Culture Vulture
Member
Finished "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls" and started The Strain.
Can someone recommend me a good biography on Da Vinci or preferably Van Gogh? I don't read a lot of history books so the more approachable the better.
Can someone recommend me a good biography on Da Vinci or preferably Van Gogh? I don't read a lot of history books so the more approachable the better.
Sorry, I only accept double secret recommendations.
It looks interesting though! I will put it on my way too long list
I think I will go with this one then. I got interested in Yellow journalism and the bully pulpit from the Rockefeller biography that I read.
Yea, I think I would have chosen Sleepwalkers over the Macmillian book, but sleepwalkers isnt on audible (I will be listening to these at work). I'll probably get to Sleepwalkers eventually because I find it very fascinating.
If you are interested in WWI as well, I would check out Lawrence in Arabia. Its simply fantastic. It focuses on the story of 4 people, Lawrence of Arabia, A Standard Oil employee, A zionist, and a german spy, and their intrigues, machinations in the Ottoman empire during World War 1. The book really gives you an excellent picture of the different designs and goals of different nations and groups for the Ottoman Empire. I also like the focus on people on the ground doing the grunt work instead of people back in Britain, Germany or Standard Oil headquarters discussing grand policy.
It also gives you a broader picture of the war in the Ottoman empire by discussing the differences between recommended policy on the ground and what the big shots actually decided on, and a great deal of talk about Jamal Pasha and Mark Sykes.
Maklershed
Member
I don't read many biographies so this is shallow praise but its the best biography I've ever read. And I guess part of that has to do simply with what a fascinating/bizarre/paranoid individual he was.
Oh, I will definitely check it out since I am definitely interested in the subject and the man. The one issue is that it is not on audible, and I listen to my biographies at work
At home, I am going through the Oxford History of the United States. I know might sound dull, but it actually is quite fascinating because the volumes that I have read and are reading right now do a good job of telling an interesting narrative with incisive analysis. One thing that i also like is it tries to explain everything. Instead of certain important events, treaties, instances and the like that you learn about in history class, these books tell you everything so you can see the whole picture. It makes a lot more sense that way and definitely a more fascinating reading.
So, once I get done with that I will read your secret recommendation!
Maklershed
Member
You have a really good strategy there actually. I've tried and just can't get into audio books but I think I could deal with it for biographies or history stuff. It'd kinda be like listening to a really long podcast. I might have to look into this idea further.
Yea, the reason why I can listen to biography and history (popular history, not some dense academic tome) at work is that you don't need to devote all of your attention to follow along and if you miss something, its not that big of a deal. If it is, you can always rewind it a bit.
I definitely couldnt listen to fiction since that would just require too much attention and focus that you really can't be doing anything else. And what the hell is the point of an audio book if you can't do anything else, but listen to it?
Funny thing is, the reason why I started listening to audiobooks is that I ran out of hardcore history episodes
DesertEater
Member
I've been reading Taipei by Tao Ling. I read a little bit about it, but I haven't read anything else by the author, which people seem to either love or hate. The book is slow in pace, and everything that happens is described in a mundane way. What I love most about the book is the realistic depiction of characters and their emotions. So far i'm %60 in the book, so I don't how the book will end. I'm greatly enjoying the book so far, but I don't know if it is the kind of book that I would go around recommending to people.
Dusk Soldier
Member
Currently reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.
Finished
How did you like this?
Judging from your avatar, I am going to assume you enjoyed it, haha.
everyone hates themselves so they'll either love to hate it or hate that they love it
You got it. As much as I loved A Promise of Blood and the novellas, this was on an entirely new level. The wait for the third book is already excruciating.
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