lets keep talking about books

[CadmiumYellow]

the last few books i read in a row were kinda sad, it was an accidental trend i walked into. somebody told me to read razor's edge by somerset maugham, and i followed that with a book of short stories by nikolai gogol, the first of which was called diary of a madman (that shoulda been an indicator)
that was the second book i have read of maugham's, the first being Of Human Bondage, and they were both good, solid novels with at least one eccentric character. gogol was a fabulous writer because he could convincingly mix fantasy/unreality with what you read as the everyday (even though it is always talking about a time and place that is neither here and now). in this stage he sets goofy, oddball characters, like the guy who hid in a carriage from the militia he invited to dinner in nothing but underclothes, and the ghost that roamed the streets stealing overcoats from rich people. sometimes he choses to end things at awkward, pathetic moments, which is effective cause it benefits from both lightning-impact and staying power.

i read more chekhov stories which are WONDERFUL, and you could fit them into any occasion. you could read chekhov when you feel serious and studious just as easily as you could while waiting in the dentist office. they are not always happy but they are always convincing and poignant.

to return to speaking of unreality, i also finished house of the spirits last week. it reminded me so much of 100 years of solitude it was ridiculous, the only difference being garcia had i think a higher percentage of fantasy. i think i liked that ratio more, but house of the spirits had a nice, rich family history to it cause you got to meet more than one generation, which is a device i usually like very much. it also made me really want to go to south america.

now i am reading gravity's rainbow, which so far discusses war and crazy people in densely-worded sentences. it reminds me of catch-22 but the manner of writing is all thomas pynchon, meaning there is SO many words the description is borderline incoherent and if your mind wanders for even 30 seconds you have NO IDEA what's going on. the reading becomes an attempt at decoding but it's fun, the details are unpredictable and the imagery is great.

i want to read all summer and am open to recommendations of anything that's good!

[WWW.SETH.COM]

no joke, I just this past tuesday bought a copy of Gravity's Rainbow. I read the first three pages on the bus and hung my head with sadness at my seeming inability to truly comprehend the magnitude of Pynchon's wordsmithing. I have a bunch of books on the chopping block first, but Gravity's Rainbow is like a very tasty treat waiting at the end of the road.

I was also just think about the need for a new book thread, so thank you for that.

If you are sad and need some pick me up books let me recommend the light-hearted Terry Pratchett or Jasper Fforde. Both are definitely not as literary (well kind of) as the kind of books you seem to enjoy, but they are both extremely easy, positive, light reads that create excellent, memorable characters. Also, Jasper Fforde has a series (the Thursday Next books) where the first book concerns an alternate world where terrorists are holding the original manuscript of Jane Eyre hostage and one of the main forms of criminal forgery is original pieces of famous literature sold on a black market of bogus texts.

If you want to maybe try another run at the book club idea with Gravity's Rainbow, let me know. I would be all for it. I can catch up or whatever, and maybe some of the other SP readers would be interested. I just have to finish the book I am currently reading but that should be over by tonight.

Finally, allow me to push a book on you, the book I have been foisting on most of my friends. Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which is an excellent Jewish-alternate history-chess thriller-noir-murder-mystery-book. And, uh, I would really like to talk about it with one of the goyim.

[CadmiumYellow]

seth this is great let's talk about gravity's rainbow all the time please!! it is hard, don't feel bad, i'm pretty sure it's supposed to be this way. how cool is pirate??

i read the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by michael chabon 2 summers ago i guess, he is such a good writer i was very impressed! so i'm thinking i will probably take you up on this recommendation as soon as i find a copy

[WWW.SETH.COM]

Yeah, I actually purchased a copy of The Yiddish Policeman's Union specifically so I could loan it out to friends. Just so I could talk to someone about it.

Well, when I said that I read the first three pages of Gravity's Rainbow only, I was speaking literally. I still had to finish reading the dense-ish Olympos by Dan Simmons. It was good, but it was like slogging through a swamp that smelled like cinnamon buns. It was a good time, but it took a while.

I actually am about halfway through this other book right now, the first book of Dean Koontz's ongoing Frankenstein trilogy. I heard about him only a little while back and apparently he's one of these New York Times bestsellers. So I picked up a book that people on amazon.com seemed to love (the book has a 4.5/5 star rating) and grabbed a large-print copy from the Carnegie Library in Oakland. So far I am unimpressed. He flows okay, but it's like junk food so far. And I don't mean candy, which is awesome. I mean like bland chips. It ain't bad, but as far as fiction goes, it definitely ain't good. But it is quick reading. And I try to finish my books, so I should be done tonight.

[الله أكبر]

I'm currently reading a book about the Balkans. It basically traces the history of the region from 1804-1999, chronicling the various wars, uprisings, and nation- and state-building. The overlying theme is that the war-torn history of the Balkans is a result of major power intervention, mostly in the 19th century.

[CadmiumYellow]

mits i always mean to read history nonfiction books every so often but i always end up reading novels. on my list this summer is landscape and memory by art historian simon schama, which from what i understand is a sort of mixture of both? like it'll talk about folklore and forests in germany but it's still artful and pretty-sounding. i started it a while back but put it aside, when i am more invested in attempt 2 i will post an update

[WWW.SETH.COM]

Yeah, I just looked Koontz up on wikipedia. If that information is to be trusted, he seems pretty conservative and kind of a hack. Anybody whose novels can be broken down into a formula (*COUGH* Clive Cussler *COUGH*) does not rate with me. On the other hand, he's been very successful, so I respect that. But I don't really respect his fiction. Most of his protagonists and antagonists seem very two-dimensional, mere vehicles for him to ride into a desert of adjective and nouns instead of an actual character.

Really, he feels like the poor man's Stephen King. Mostly because where King can be unsettling in his depictions of flawed heroes and sympathetic (sometimes) villains, Koontz's villains are apparently always all-the-way evil and his heroes are always the good guy, never the bad person. Of course, this is just what I am seeing in the book I am reading and what I can discern from the sites I see on the internet, so I could be way off base. I can also see the draw that brings people back to Koontz. He is like The Da Vinci Code. He's quick and simple and popular in his non-challenging ideas. Although I guess The Da Vinci Code was kind of controversial because people don't understand how some books are fiction. So maybe the comparison doesn't work.

Speaking of Stephen King, do you have an opinion on him? I have a read a few of his books, none of the really popular classics he put out earlier in his career though. And the first three books of the Dark Tower series, which I thought were pretty good. But I never read The Stand, Salem's Lot or The Shining, King's really famous stuff.

And, just to throw it in at you, have you read any Norman Mailer? I have added The Naked And The Dead to my reading list, but I don't know anyone who has read any of his work.

[Larry Flyntz]

Has anyone read any Christopher Moore?  One reviewer said he was like a combination of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, which sounds nice.  But I don't always trust reviewers.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

Really, he feels like the poor man's Stephen King.

This was exactly my impression of him as well, Seth. I've only read one Koontz book in my entire life, Intensity I think it was, and it was pretty much exactly like you describe the one you're reading. Very bland characters, who can really only farily be described as "characters" when you precede that with the word "stock." It was one of the easiest books I've ever read, but also incredibly boring when I thought about it afterwards - not that there was a whole lot to think about. The writing itself wasn't TERRIBLE but it also was nothing special at all.

Stephen King, for as formulaic as he could himself be, he was excellent at tricking you into not noticing. Also his prose wasn't halfbad (when he could actually still write) and his characters usually had a bit of depth that made them relatable and likeable (even when they were just carbon copies of characters from his other stories). The Dark Tower series definitely had the potential to be his best work. The first four books are really good, with the exception of all the glaring plotholes and inconsistencies between chronology and the characters. They still encompass what I believe is his greatest writing, and also his most imaginative and original ideas. Of course he completely self destructed the series by the fifth book, but I blame that mostly on the fact that he was almost killed when he got hit by that van and lost his fucking mind. Don't get me wrong, they're not great pieces of literature that will make you rethink the workings of the universe or any such thing, but they are great fun and extremely entertaining. I've read A LOT of King in my days, and probably all of his most famous stuff.

If you're interested in reading any King, Seth, I would recommend you stick with that route. The Shining and The Stand are the only two that I could say are definite "must reads" of King's, so if you're looking for something I'd start with those. After that, 'Salem's Lot is a pretty cool scary vampire story, and was actually the first King book I've ever read. I also really enjoyed The Tommyknockers, which was a neat scary alien story. And I lied - 'Salem's Lot is NOT the first King book I've ever read, before that I read one short stories collection and one book containing four novellas - Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Four Past Midnight respectively. I HIGHLY recommend both of these. They are much older King, and I read them roughly around 4th grade. There are images from those books that haunt me to this day. Also, Four Past Midnight contains two of his most famous stories, The Langoliers and Secret Window, Secret Garden, the latter of which is INFINITELY better than the shitty movie.  It also has The Library Police Man and The Sun Dog - The Library Police Man is one of the most deeply terrifying stories I've ever read. Nightmares and Dreamscapes is neat too and has a really cool mixture of stupid scary beach reading and some slightly deeper stories that went entirely over my adolescent head. Oh also "IT." I've tried to read this fucking book twice and never finished it, but what I read was great and even Ethan liked it at point and he can never ever take that back.

you should check out The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood if you haven't already read it. You'd particularly enjoy it - it has a lot of really strong feminist themes, as well as other things. It's also just a neat story set in a very scary future. The basic jist is it has become very difficult for women to conceive, so now younger women in lower social classes are kept as "Handmaids" to wealthy, usually older, couples with the express purpose of bearing children for them. There are hints of some sort social and political upheaval that has lead to this "new order" or whathaveyou but no real explanation is given as to what happened to the world to create this society. Also, it is very important to read the "Historical Notes" included at the end, as they are actually part of the novel itself.

Lastly, I just wanted to add that I absolutely LOVED The House of the Spirits and have been trying to get Ethan to read it for EVER.

[WWW.SETH.COM]

Flyntz, I actually have Christopher Moore on the hazy horizon of my "going to read" list. Specifically, I wanted to check out his book Lamb, about the time missing from Jesus' life, the portion not accounted for in the Bible. I understand that it explains the fictional-historical origins of the Easter Bunny.

I do want to read The Stand. But! Should I check out the abridged version or the director's cut?

[Larry Flyntz]

I wanted to check out his book Lamb

I got this for my Dad for his birthday.  I'm going to read it when he's done.  I'll let you know what I think.

[CadmiumYellow]

carly i super <333ed the handmaid's tale! (i was friends for a while with a girl that loveloveloved margaret atwood)

[The Ocean]

George RR Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire series:
A Game Of Thrones
A Clash Of Kings
A Storm Of Swords
A Feast For Crows
A Dance With Dragons (coming out Sept. 30th)

[WWW.SETH.COM]

I have heard a lot of really good things about A Song Of Ice and Fire, most of it along the lines of good writing and being very brutal to his characters. But in a good way that draws you in and switches up which characters you root for in the course of the books.

[Coney_Island_n*gga1983]

I am definitely on board the USS Margaret Atwood, holy shit

I sent her a postcard for my senior exhibition because she has directly influenced how cynical I am.

[Infinite Jerkgrinders]

Reading list for my short break this summer:

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson  -- Really I'm almost done with this one and I'm lovin it

Foundation book 2,
Foundation book 3 both by Asimov
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
The Confusion - Neal Stephenson

if you like fiction and cryptology and hackers and mythology and war, I'd suggest reading a Stephenson book. They're hilarious and awesome.

I gotta back Carly up with her recommendation to read The Shining and The Stand - most of the other books are a fun read, but not nearly as good.

I'm also planning on finishing up Imajica by Clive Barker.

[WWW.SETH.COM]

I read a Clive Barker book recently, Mister B. Gone. And despite the inventiveness of the story, it really felt kind of rushed and fragmented, like an idea that could have been a lot better if he had spent some more time on it. But it is the only Barker book I ever read, so I don't know if the style of that book is typical of his other work.

Is Imajica any good? I actually have his kid's book, Abarat, checked out of the library right now.

[CadmiumYellow]

gravity's rainbow is nuts, sometimes it is funny and surprising and i love it but other times it is confusing and i hate it, and just when i am about to give up it reels me back in with a clarifying detail. it is about war and politicians and everything so the slow, fractured presentation of information makes sense but, at the same time, wow. i have found that i can only read 30 to 40 pages in one sitting. i am on page 115.

today i went to the library so i picked up this side of paradise and house of leaves. i started both of them (what else would i do today it's raining) and so far i love them. f. scott fitzgerald was so good at making likeable eccentrics. and house of leaves has so much mythology surrounding it, i've heard many people talk about it so i couldn't help but pick it up, i love how unconventional its format is (pages with like 10 words and that's all, the word house printed in blue throughout for some reason, footnotes from made-up sources, an index that can tell you on what pages you can find the word "the," and etc.)

reading is all i have been doing and it feels good. it is probably a phase so look out, when it's over for a time i will want to watch a lot of movies

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

I do want to read The Stand. But! Should I check out the abridged version or the director's cut?

I've only read the unabridged version so I would suggest that one. Maybe someone who's read both could give you a different opinion, but generally I find that unabridged novels are the way to go.

There are so many books I want to read but I never have time. I should really stop wasting so much of my life on the internet and in front of the television and start reading again.

Also, if anyone is looking for lighthearted extremely well written scifi/fantasy to read, check out Shadowbridge by Greg Frost. Its the first book of his I know of that can actually be found in a Barnes and Noble, but he is a very well known and respected author in the scifi/fantasy genre and also best friends from college with my dad.    Shadowbridge is his latest book, its the first of a two part series, I think, and its really really good. I read the whole thing in pretty much a day (like six hours straight on trains and in stations waiting for trains, to be fair) but it was really cool and extremely well written. He also has a short story collection called Attack of the Jazz Giants or...something like that, which is supposed to be very very good.

 what did you think of Life of Pi? You seem to have read everything so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you've read this too. Also everyone should totally read Margaret Atwood - are there any other books of hers you'd recommend? I've only read Handmaid's Tale.

[CadmiumYellow]

you give me waaaayyy too much credit 
i've only read the handmaid's tale too but the atwood fan i used to know really liked lady oracle
i have heard life of pi is real good but i haven't read it, it's been on my list forever