MetaChat - What books are you reading at the moment?

"the Quiet American" by Graham Greene. It's like 170 pages! Why did I always picture this book being like 700 pages??

"the early short stories" of John Updike. There's a section called "far out" where he has stories from the POV of dinosaurs, microscopic creatures, etc. It is indeed far out.

posted by drjimmy11 30 March | 12:37

How appropriate that you posted this topic, gaspode.

* Moving Pictures, though I haven't gotten very far with it because of my others:
* Taltos, the fourth book in Steven Brust's excellent Vladiad. The tenth book comes out this year and I am rereading the first nine (for the fourth time) to prepare.
* The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time. This is a really interesting look at a billionaire banker's attempt to take down the high-stakes poker pros in the highest limit games ever played. I'm hooked.

posted by mike9322 30 March | 12:37

I'm rereading Up In The Air by Walter Kirn (razor sharp satire), and Famous People I Have Known by Ed McClanahan (a rollicking memoir of semi-fame in the 60's & 70's).

posted by jonmc 30 March | 12:41

Currently reading:
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers (thanks again, matildaben!)
La Diva Nicotina: How Tobacco Seduced the World
Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman.

posted by cmonkey 30 March | 12:43

I just started re-reading Jurgen by James Branch Cabell. I've read it a couple of times before, but it is worth re-visiting every now and then.

posted by King of Prontopia 30 March | 12:46

I've been trying to keep a resolution to read more books (and less internet), but not getting terribly far just yet. I have 3 unfinished books going right now:

Moll Flanders
Flora, Fauna, Earth and Sky: A book of essays on natural history by a friend of my mom's. Can't find it online.
Brave Men, Gentle Heroes, which is awesome -- it's a collection of oral histories by fathers and sons who served in WWII and Viet Nam, respectively. My father served in Viet Nam and his father in the Pacific theatre, so I bought the book for my dad for his birthday a while ago. He was so moved by it he gave it to me to read. Unfortunately, I can only manage to read it a few sections at a time, because it gets overwhelmingly sad and appalling in places. It's shocking, enlightening, and sad to read about the kinds of truly awful, deeply horrific experiences my father and grandfather went through, and have mostly kept to themselves. But I'm almost all the way through now.

posted by Miko 30 March | 12:47

I'm reading "A Wrinkle In Time" which I had read to me in fourth grade. I somehow wound up with a copy and thought would be a good tune-up for Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore."
I may switch gears and tackle Fred Moody's "Seattle and the Demons of Ambition" or finally(!) "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence."

posted by black8 30 March | 12:48

James Crumley - The Right Madness
Somewhat 'literary,' and very Montanan, noir/hard-boiled/crime/whatnot fiction.

Inga Muscis - Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil
Rambling, discursive, often hilarious book about race. I like it much better than her other book, which may be related to my being a white man.

Nicholas Johnson - Big Dead Place
About working in Antarctica. I'm only a few pages into it.

posted by box 30 March | 12:50

I just finished reading everything Jo Walton has written, which is not nearly enough. If you've never heard of her, she's fantastic and Tooth and Claw is a brilliant giggle all the way through while The King's Peace made me realize that the Arthurian cycle isn't, after all, completely played.

Now I'm reading two books by Jan Willem van de Wetering: Just a Corpse at Twilight and Inspector Saito's Small Satori. I really like him - I've read almost all his books.

posted by mygothlaundry 30 March | 12:55

Castle of Days by Gene Wolfe: I've got this big plan to read and re-read a bunch of Wolfe this year but other things keep coming up. Picking away at this collection of short stories and essays.

The Gods of the Egyptians by E.A. Wallace Budge: I have a number of titles on Egyptian mythology written by Budge that I've been debating getting rid of, because they take up a lot of shelf space and at least one person has told me that Budge has been almost completely superceded as an authority. Still, his writing is quite interesting if not terribly accurate, though once I finish rereading some of these titles they'll probably go off to the library.

Fors Clavigera by John Ruskin: a series of monthly "instructive letters to the workingman of Britain" on political economy that over the course of 13 years (starting in 1871) turns into something altogether different, as Ruskin digresses and wanders into fascinating hills and dales. The only currently in print version is for libraries and goes for US$98 a volume, so I've been picking my way through Alibris looking for deals on copies that won't actually disintergrate in my hands (most are from 1905 or earlier).

posted by PinkStainlessTail 30 March | 12:56

Now I'm reading two books by Jan Willem van de Wetering: Just a Corpse at Twilight and Inspector Saito's Small Satori. I really like him - I've read almost all his books.

Oh, me too. He's part of the reason I wanted to go to Amsterdam!

I'm reading Singularity Sky by Charles Stoss, The Captive by Marcel Proust and A Man Could Stand Up by Ford Madox Ford. All very good. I've been having a hard time concentrating lately, though.

posted by omiewise 30 March | 13:03

I'm currently reading With God On Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right by Esther Kaplan. It's fascinating yet horrifying. (Yes, I'm in my political-book phase)

posted by sisterhavana 30 March | 13:05

Box if you haven't read the other Crumleys, and you can tolerate the right madness get the early ones, starting with the last good kiss, he's one of my favorites, but the early stuff is much more together (although dude has never actually written a plot that makes total linear sense.)

I am reading manuscripts, dicking around in a few MFK Fisher books and I need to swing by the bookstore to pick up a bunch of new stuff to read, I'm not sure what yet. My inclination is a sci-fi by someone I haven't read before, a new copy of Moby Dick, something history-ish or hist/philos of science and a book about canoeing and/or hunting. OH and rebuy some late PKD books, I'm on the mood.

posted by Divine_Wino 30 March | 13:10

I'm not reading anything at the moment, but am spending a lot of time paging through the pictures in this book: The Graphic Works Of Odilon Redon. I only learned of Redon a couple of years ago, and he's become one of my favorite artists. A poster of his painting of the Buddha hangs in a central location in our house.

posted by BoringPostcards 30 March | 13:12

I read The Last Good Kiss fairly recently, and loved it, but I haven't read any of Crumley's other books. Are there any particular ones you'd recommend?

Didn't mention earlier: also leafing through the Chip Kidd book, a Hiroshi Sugimoto book and a few gardening books, and I'll probably start Michael Eric Dyson's Come Hell or High Water tonight.

posted by box 30 March | 13:26

McSweeny's collection.

"Best Women's Erotica, 2005." (no link because I'm at work)

posted by rainbaby 30 March | 13:30

Birthday gift from a well-meaning friend: Why Men Love Bitches.

posted by go dog go 30 March | 13:35

Stephen King's "Cell" (when I'm at home) and Charles Stross's "Iron Sunrise" (it's a good back-pocket book for work, just).

re: Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" - I can't get very far with that book. I love everything else he's written, but the whole cat-torture thing makes me put it back on the shelf.

posted by Incharitable Dog 30 March | 13:36

Wittgestein's poker and finishing up City of fallen angels, dear ericb's earlier suggestion.

posted by carmina 30 March | 13:45

Almost finished with Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. It's pretty good, and I definitely had a few minor Eureka moments (not being a historian myself).

Next up on the list is Francis Watson's India: A Concise History because I'll be going out there for almost three months come May. Yay!

posted by AwkwardPause 30 March | 13:57

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Keep the River on Your Right by Tobias Schneebaum

posted by goatdog 30 March | 14:07

Incidentally, I love how the question asks about "books" (plural), and how just about every respondent has had multiple books. We're either multitaskers or ADD, the lot of us. I love you guys! *sniff*

posted by mike9322 30 March | 14:08

I'm in a bit of a lull, having run out of money to buy books. I actually got myself in trouble this month because I bought some books I oughtn't have. But in the last four weeks I've wanted escapist reading, so I've read five or six science-fiction books—the best two, I think, were both by William Barton.

A big chunk was reading George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, which has been a nice surprise. And the books are huge, which is a big plus for me because I read too fast to savor shorter books. I did have enough self-control, just barely, and didn't buy the most recent only available in hardcover. Three C. J. Cherryh books, I think. I think I've read almost all of her books now, over the last year.

I, too, recently read a Janwillem Van de Wetering Grijpstra-De Grier book, Hard Rain, which is now one of my favorites. He is a delight to read, isn't he? I love, love, love those books. I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but I've been reading all the Richard Layman books I can get my hands on. They're trashy, and occasionally misogynist, but I am fascinated by the fact that every one of his books has gone in directions that have surprised me.

I think now I'm going to go back to some substantial non-fiction and finish The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith, Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants by Steven Vogel, and McPhee's Annals of the Former World.

This week I've been watching movies. Touch of Evil was the most recent. Also The Aristocrats, Stalingrad, Crash, and tonight I think I'm going to watch The Brown Bunny and possibly The Dreamers.

posted by kmellis 30 March | 14:10

Box
Try "The Wrong Case" and "The Mexican Tree Duck" but really going through them in chronological order is a fine thing to do.

I have to read multiple books at once, although I don't think I'm add as much as I just go through phases where I want more of a buffet style input into my brain. When I read some things (like neil stephenson or james jones or pynchon or other fiction that requires sustained attention) I stick to them pretty exclusivly.

posted by Divine_Wino 30 March | 14:13

PS Box,
Look for the phrase "no one has ever hit me that hard in my whole awful fucking life" in one of the books and tell me that whole passage isn't a perfect little distilled nugget of noir.

posted by Divine_Wino 30 March | 14:15

I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces now while Godel, Escher, Bach continues to mock me from my nightstand (I only got through 1/3 of it before I had to take a break). During my break from GEB, I've also read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (thanks again, mudpuppie) and Freakonomics.

posted by mullacc 30 March | 14:16

cmonkey, I loved Stiff. Her new one looks good too.

Yesterday I read The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex while sitting in my local Borders store. It was a rainy day, good for reading a book cover-to-cover.

Next on the list is Las Vegas Babylon. I'm also a little ways into Lunar Park, but I can't decide if I'm liking it.

And I just saw that my favorite guilty pleasure author, Sarah Waters, has a new book out that I'll probably also read at Borders (so I don't have to pay for it).

posted by mudpuppie 30 March | 14:22

Things are all out of whack for me reading-wise right now. I much prefer to read one book at a time, maybe two if one is fiction and the other is non-fiction. But right now I am reading the following books:

Fun with a Pencil by Andrew Loomis
Thinking Visually; A Strategy Manual for Problem Solving by Robert H. McKim
I'm a fan of older drawing instructional books and after a bit of a drought in that department, I got a slew of them recently so it's a treat to be reading both of these.

Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation by Gilles Deleuze
So far this has been quite good and seems very straightforward for Deleuze. Although, I admit to prepping for it with some other reading.

I'm stalled mid-way through Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra by John F. Szwed (which I started, oddly enough, because of a comment made by Miko, I think, in AskMe about the author of the book). And, I just started American Gods by Neil Gaiman for take over my nightime reading due to setting the John F. Szwed book down.

posted by safetyfork 30 March | 14:22

oh, mullacc, Godel,Escher... is one of my favorite books of all time. Try to read it. It is hard, I know. But oh so worth it. I gave up big time on another Hofstadter book though, which greatly embarrasses me.

posted by carmina 30 March | 14:25

black8, I think I should re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance now that I've been educated and deeply immersed (and love) exactly what he is arguing against. It might annoy me, I don't know. I liked it a low when I read it many years ago.

cmonkey, matildaben, Stiff has been added to my wishlist. Thanks so much!

box, Big Dead Place came from the website by the same name. Last year, I think, I went through a big Antarctica phase. I love that site. I imagine the book is many of the stories from the website. I also reread, and recommend, Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica. He was one of the artists-in-residence, so the novel is pretty accurate.

carmina, Wittgestein's Poker has been added to my wishlist. Thanks! When you said you'd not made it through a Hofstadter book, I guessed, wrongly, that it was Le Ton Beau De Marot, which I started but didn't finish. I've obviously not been paying attention since I don't know if I even knew about that Fluid Concepts book. Hmm. But I just now see that he's got a new book coming out! I am a Strange Loop in July.

mullacc, I have A Confederacy of Dunces but haven't read it. It's packed away, alas. I've read Godel, Escher, Bach twice, actually, it's an important book to me (as it is for so many). I wonder if I should read it again. It's been 18 years or so. I think, though, I'm going to work through Godel's proof myself, finally. *makes note to self* And isn't The Corrections great? I loved that book.

posted by kmellis 30 March | 14:32

I finally got around to checking out Cryptonomicon, to see if it lived up to the hype. And I'm enjoying it, although Stephenson has some really, really weird storytelling tics that keep provoking big conversations with Mrs. Cobra about conventions in novels.

And Concrete: The Complete Short Stories, by Paul Chadwick. Good but not great indie comic stuff.

posted by cobra! 30 March | 14:32

Divine_Wino, I now have 3 books for you.

And I think you should read Gaddis' JR if you haven't.

I'm reading Durrell's Reflections on a Marine Venus and Carr's 1491 plus Finley's World of Odysseus, Verga's The House by the Medlar Tree, Laxness' Iceland's Bell, Johnson's Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors & Friends, a textbook on investment banking (in a desperate attempt to make my day job at all interesting), the odd Conan story, and the screenplays from Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers" and Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (I'm always reading that one).

I just bought my brother Oakley Hall's Warlock and Farrell's The Singapore Grip for his birthday.

posted by Hugh Janus 30 March | 14:34

Repairman Jack, baby.

I am so not an intellectual.

posted by Zozo 30 March | 14:44

carmina & kmellis: Oh, I definitely plan to finish GEB. I just needed a little break to keep from getting bogged down. What I've read so far has been excellent.

And, kmellis, I'm interested in what motivates you to read a book for a second (or third or more) time? I've been wanting to read The Brothers Karamazov again, but I keep putting it off to read something new instead. It's probably a silly thought, but I feel like there are so many classics out there I haven't read that I'll fall hopelessly behind if I start re-reading.

posted by mullacc 30 March | 14:48

I just finished Richard Price's "Ladies' Man" which jonmc's cube-mate Kevin called "the autobiography of jonmc." Oh, is he so right about that one.

I've since moved on to "The Wanderers," which is fascinating slice of life in the Bronx in the '60s. Reminds me of the time I read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" two years ago on the way to/from work on the 2 from Flatbush, reading about a New York City that has mostly disappeared. Good times.

In-between those, I've been devouring Maeve Binchy's "Quentins" and Fiona Patton's "The Stone Prince," mostly because I am afraid to get new books because my one, lone bookshelf is already full and double-stacked with books and I don't want to get any new ones just yet.

Incidentally, I think we all should get on Library Thing, so we can all peek at each others' collections. And then trade at will! Once I remember what my password is, I'm definitely spending some quality time and uploading my entire collection.

posted by TrishaLynn 30 March | 14:54

Hugh Janus: What sort of banking do you do? I ditched my i-banking job last December - I was doing M&A at a bulge bracket in NYC but I trade that job for a private equity gig (different shit, same smell to me though). Before I started at the bank, I read a bunch of banking-related books and I have the canonical textbooks - but, shit, when the job started to become a day AND night job, I just couldn't spend my free-time reading about it. Escapism is key.

posted by mullacc 30 March | 14:54

I second Antartica.

I also love and depend on rereading, it's a lifestyle.

posted by Divine_Wino 30 March | 14:57

mullacc: you want to re-read Brothers Karamazov because it's awesome. That is all.

Also - yeah! I've got a whole list of book recommendations from this thread. Woo!

posted by gaspode 30 March | 14:58

TrishaLynn, I am happy to buy you as many books as you like, my friend. I never, EVER, lend books (or cds for that matter). Nor, do I borrow. What, read it and return it? And what if I like it? Do I go out and buy a new one then? But, it will not be the copy I read! Does this sound strange?

posted by carmina 30 March | 14:59

I just finished "Mr. Norell & Jonathan Strange", which I found delightful and the first two Disc World books. Tonight I start Haruki Murakami's "Dance, Dance, Dance".

posted by taz 30 March | 15:06

i just got back from shopping at my favorite place--BookOff--dollar books! : >

I got:
Wild Life-- Molly Gloss
The Music of Your Life -- John Rowell (stories)
The God of Small Things -- Arundhati Roy
Martin Dressler -- Steven Millhauser (this is an extra copy of it to loan out) : >
Kaaterskill Falls -- Allegra Goodman
Havoc in its Third Year -- Ronan Bennett
A Star Called Henry -- Roddy Doyle
Master Georgie -- Beryl Bainbridge

posted by amberglow 30 March | 15:08

mullac, I read GEB a second time because my first reading was lazy. The second I was more careful and being the difficult book that it is (in some ways) I can confidently say that I actually read it. :) I'd like to read it a third time, maybe, because I am greatly more intellectually mature now at 41 and with my education and whatnot. And I think my perspective will be different, especially because that book and some others formed the core of a lot of my views on some subjects I am deeply interested in—and I've now worked on some of these things so long that I've made them my own. So the book might be very different to me now.

But for the most part, I re-read only very few books and I do it for pleasure. I mostly read for pleasure, for that matter. My favorite book, ever, is War and Peace and I'm itching to read it again. The very, very best books are worth re-reading. I watch some films multiple times, too, but not the way some people do. Only the few that are really good.

posted by kmellis 30 March | 15:11

Quicksilver: Volume One of The Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson
But it's been taking me forever to finish. I forget exactly when I started this one.

Wherever you go, there you are - Jon Kabat-Zinn

Pro Digital Photographer's Handbook - Michael Freeman

Getting Things Done - David Allen
Another hard one for me to finish, I feel so uncool because I'm not doing that GTD thing like Merlin.

posted by tommasz 30 March | 15:15

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. I have never taken so long to read a book in my life as I am taking with this one, because I crack it open at bedtime, read a few pages, and conk out. That's depressing me. As for other books I'm reading... Law school casebooks. Oh, the cases. So many cases.

posted by amro 30 March | 15:22

amberglow: The God of Small Things is a delicious book. A feast of words so perfectly picked, like a bowl of tart, ripe berries swimming in fresh cream. I ate the pages greedily, the stray syllables dribbling down my chin.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 30 March | 15:31

I will say that my book reading, which is all over the map for me, breaks down nicely into the differences in how and when I'm reading the books.

Drawing books: In the morning, working through some of the excercises.
Francis Bacon: The subway to and from work (not enough room to spread out with the drawing books).
American Gods: Bed-time reading.

I wish I had thought of that while I was posting the first time.

On preview: I was wondering which of the books he just bought that Amberglow was going to read first. I think there's a vote for one from IRFH.

posted by safetyfork 30 March | 15:35

The Double Jose Saramago

Rise of the Creative Class Richard Florida

posted by chewatadistance 30 March | 15:42

taz, you'll love Dance, Dance, Dance.

Amberglow, have you read Paddy Clarke Ha Ha HA? I think it's Doyle's masterpiece. I just finished Oh, Play That Thing and thought it was better than most novels, but not better than most Doyle. Have you read Graham Swift's Waterland?

And kmellis, I'm chuffed that you're rereading War & Peace. After decades of listening to me go on and on about it, my brother finally read it last year, and called me every couple days to tell me how good it was.

We agreed that one could teach a course on the history of the Napoleonic Wars using War & Peace and scant other texts and really fire up the two or three students out of forty who would actually crack its daunting spine.

And mullacc, I work in treasury operations -- foreign currency derivatives: back office stuff, counting beans.

posted by Hugh Janus 30 March | 15:57

Just finished -- 'A History of the World in Six Glasses' by Tom Standage.

Just started -- 'The Lost Painting; The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece' by Jonathan Harr.

posted by ericb 30 March | 16:06

A Wrinkle in Time is one of my all time favorite books, black8. I should really re-read it as an adult.

I've cracked Little Children by Tom Perrota, but can't seem to get a long enough stretch of time to read it. I'm a pretty fast reader and absolutely hate putting down a book once I get into it, so I don't really read in drips and drabs like normal people. It's all or nothing.

posted by jrossi4r 30 March | 16:22

I haven't, Hugh--i want to tho.

chew, i was really disappointed in the Double, and i love Saramago...i never finished it, which is really rare for me, esp with an author i like.

and starting tonight, i'll be savoring God of Small Things--thanks, Flo : >

posted by amberglow 30 March | 17:44

I kinda go by cover design and/or whether the author's name rings a bell, usually--Paddy Clarke's name i knew, but i hadn't read any of him.

posted by amberglow 30 March | 17:45

I should pull out GEB (again), but I need to finish Robert Charles Wilson's Spin and Jonathan Strange and Mr Morrel. I'm waiting for my copy of Charlie Stross' Accelerando to show up as well. I just read a coupl e of turn-of-the-century NYC mysteries by Victoria Thompson, and started re-reading Lost in a Good Book while waiting for my daughter at the dentist yesterday.

posted by jlkr 30 March | 18:07

carmina: Not too strange. I remember borrowing very many Pratchett books from my friend Kielle because not only did she have most of them, she had the UK paperback versions because she liked the art. When I decided to start up my own Pratchett collection, I can only get the uninteresting US paperback versions and for some reason, a bit of my enjoyment is lost. (Although I do have the uninteresting signed US hardback version of "Monstrous Regiment" from his last tour and the galley copy of "Thud!" that I snaked from the genre books gal at work.)

posted by TrishaLynn 30 March | 18:18

Amberglow: Where is BookOff? Sounds like I need to add it to my list of places to visit when I come to NYC. : )

posted by sisterhavana 30 March | 18:41

I read the Discworld books so fast, a couple hours, that I hate to buy them. So I haven't in a while. I think I'm two behind now.

jrossi4r, I've never had self-control when reading and will read for 12 or more hours straight, often when I should be sleeping. Now that I don't have anywhere I have to be, it works out a little better. But I'm the same way: I pretty much read one book at a time and straight through. It's only nonfiction books that I don't read quickly, and they're the only ones that I don't always finish. I think I've mostly been lucky when buying fiction, or perhaps I'm very careful and research to find good authors and books, but for whatever reason, there's very, very few novels I haven't finished. The mass of books I mention above that I've read in the last four weeks was basically almost all my waking hours each day for three weeks, excepting when I came and visited here and mefi.

posted by kmellis 30 March | 18:47

I'm going to treat this thread as my libary list. You guys are awesome.

I'm reading:

Yeats Is Dead
Scar
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
and Cunt, an old favorite.

posted by Specklet 30 March | 18:53

I've cracked Little Children by Tom Perrota, but can't seem to get a long enough stretch of time to read it.

Definitely make the time, jrossi. Perrotta is the Richard Price of prosaic suburbia. His other novels are great, too, and his short story collection Bad Haircut, contains 'The Weiner Man,' one of my favorite shorts of all time.

posted by jonmc 30 March | 18:55

I've just finished Peter Hoeg's "Miss Smilla's feeling for Snow", and wondering what to read next.

posted by dhruva 30 March | 20:22

dhruva, have you seen the movie? It is a really good one.

posted by carmina 30 March | 22:55

Also, Høeg's semi-autobiographical Borderliners is incredible. Cathartic and incredibly sad. Høeg reveals the psychological world of orphaned children with a tenderness an pespective wrought from his own bleak youth.

I can only compare it to other great semi-autobiographical novels like Black Boy, and it compares favorably.

But it's painful to read.

I'd recommend it ahead of other Høeg.

posted by Hugh Janus 31 March | 08:41

Ahhh, I adore that book, dhruva!!! ("Smilla's Sense of Snow" in the versions I've had)

I think I've bought it about six times, and at this moment, of course, I don't have a copy. I can never resist lending it out.

posted by taz 31 March | 08:50

30 March 2006