MetaChat - Time for another reading roundup!

I, because I am several years behind most of my fiction-reading peers, am reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. I'm enjoying it, and have plowed through most of it in the last day or so. I'm also reading 1491, based on matildaben's recommendation, which is great.

Haven't read a lot else lately. Usually I'm a big history reader, but nothing has grabbed me recently.

posted by gaspode 14 December | 11:38

Marrow and The Well of Stars by Robert Reed.

f-ing brilliant. super=high-tech super-concept science fiction.

posted by By the Grace of God 14 December | 11:40

Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon's new novel. It's very good, and a lot of fun, although I wish it weren't quite so long as I have some other things I'd like to read.

posted by omiewise 14 December | 11:40

Really, Marrow? Is that the one about the giant ship, with the secret in the center? If so, I ended up really disappointed because death was overcome for all the characters, which made for a distinct lack of suspence. But maybe I'm thinking of another book.

posted by omiewise 14 December | 11:42

I just finished rereading Teenaged Hipster In The Modern World, a collection of Mark Jacobson's articles (the profile of Punk magazine founder Legs McNeil is brilliant and it's not the only one). I'm currently rereading Heebie Jeebies At CBGB's: A Secret History Of Jewish Punk which is also really good (and not just because it features full chapters on my beloved Ramones and Dictators).

This weekend, I may attempt to begin the new Pynchon. I have to wait till then since it's too damned heavy to take on the train. I'm also having difficulty finding new fiction that interests me.

(on preview: woah, freaky, omie)

posted by jonmc 14 December | 11:45

The last book I finished was "We need to talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver.

And I thought it was FANTASTIC!
Probably the best book I've read in the last 10 years.

posted by seanyboy 14 December | 11:53

Accelerando by Charles Stross, a really interesting and cool take on the intersection of technology and human consciousness, through four generations of a family. Stross is my new favorite sci-fi writer, he writes good character driven stories in a very readable style and then adds more new ideas per square inch than I would have thought possible.

posted by doctor_negative 14 December | 12:07

Reality Dysfunction: It's huge - but sometimes I like to get absolutely swallowed up in a big, big story, if the author can keep it going without getting tiresome. This accomplishes that to some degree, if not with the characters, then with the action... though it would be a lot better if the characters were more compelling. But it's science fiction of a certain sort, and I'm happy to go along with that. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you are into action-oriented science fiction, and epic stories of the "cast of thousands" sort. (But if you are, the worlds of RD are wonderfully fascinating.)

posted by taz 14 December | 12:07

(oh I like the Reality Dysfunction books, taz, except for the fact that Hamilton can't really write endings...)

posted by gaspode 14 December | 12:08

Hominids, by Robert L. Sawyer -
"Hey, what if Neanderthals won the Evolutionary Lotto?"

Overcoming Life's Disappointments, by Harold Kushner -
"Hey, if Moses can get over his shit, so can YOU!"

Only Revolutions, by Mark L. Danielewski -
"Hey, when is a book not a book? When it's written by Mark L. Danielewski!"

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman -
because I should have read this by now.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 14 December | 12:15

The Golden Compass is part a trilogy with some great imagination and story telling.

I'm currently working on Memoirs of a Geisha.

posted by Doohickie 14 December | 12:21

LT, I like your one-line book reviews. :) I adore "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and that reminds me that I need get more Pullman... what should I get, guyz?

posted by taz 14 December | 12:26

I've been doing some career-related reading lately, something I usually avoid, but this time I enjoyed it. I just finished Roger Lowenstein's biography on Warren Buffett and I'm just starting The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham, Buffett's mentor and Columbia prof.

In other readings, I just finished Steven Milhauser's book of short stores called The Knife Thrower. It was good, but by the end of it I was sorta of sick of his style.

posted by mullacc 14 December | 12:27

I'm reading Haruki Murakami's new collection of short stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. So far, it's very hit-or-miss. There are some great stories in there, and some that just make me shake my head. I'm a huge Murakami fan, but I'm underwhelmed by this book overall. Only halfway finished tho, so it could balance out in the end.

posted by smich 14 December | 12:31

I tend to read several books simultaneously. Currently on the fiction side:

The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man by Thomas Mann
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

On the textbook side:

Musical Counterpoint
Differential Equations
Information Abstraction and Presentation

I am liking Anansi Boys much more than I did American Gods. My main complaint with Gaiman is his lukewarm skill at making the extraordinary seem ordinary. For some reason, Gaiman seems to think his situations are too alien for his readers to suspend belief, and his attempts to maintain belief backfire. Actually, I blame his editors more for this than Gaiman himself.

The Confessions of Felix Krull is an unfinished novel that Mann allowed published during his last year alive probably for the money. It lacks Mann's usual depth of exposition and reflection and is most likely a first draft to flesh out the characters and establish timelines. As such it makes for a pleasant read without Mann's usual demands on readers to question their own personal motives.

I prefer to read Virginia Woolf aloud because her phrasing is so perfectly lyrical, and in that respect The Waves is for me her most satisfying.

posted by mischief 14 December | 12:39

I love The Waves.

I am on a decidedly unintellectual Agatha Christie kick, which tends to happen when I'm stressed and overworked, and the constant reading about murder tends to make me even MORE jumpy. It's like a roller-coaster for my nerves. It's lovely.

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 12:45

I will be reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman, starting Monday, when I report for Jury Duty (for the second time in a year).

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 14 December | 12:51

Second for We Need To Talk About Kevin. Not on my ten year list, but most excellent.

Collected Short Stories of Amy Hempel (Hempl?) came out this year and it is absolutely mandatory.

posted by rainbaby 14 December | 12:54

I just finished The family that couldn't sleep by D.T. Max, about a family with a prion disease called fatal familial insomnia. Nonfiction, it also talks about the history of the discovery of prion diseases and the "mad cow" events of the past 10 years. I liked it. Written for the layman.

I'm now reading Alibi by Joseph Kanon. Fiction, set in Venice just after WWII. (I am a sucker for books about/set in Venice!) A man travels there to visit his mother and meets his mother's boyfriend and a Jewish woman who survived a concentration camp. The intersection of these three people has horrific consequences.

posted by initapplette 14 December | 12:58

Wilhelmina Baird, because I got a copy of Clipjoint at the used bookstore purely by chance. I liked it so much I found the other two in the series, bought them and read all three. Fabulous, I think. Not haute literature, but fabulous: fast paced and crazy and so on. Space opera. Cyberpunk, even. The third book isn't as good as the first two, though. Then by a lucky strike I just found her only other book, Chaos Come Again which I started last night and am not so far liking anywhere near as much.

I just reread Little, Big too, which is my all time number one favorite book, and, unusually for me, I read some nonfiction, Alix Kates Shulman's Drinking the Rain, which I didn't expect to like much and did.

posted by mygothlaundry 14 December | 12:59

Anansi Boys is excellent IRFH :)

posted by doctor_negative 14 December | 12:59

Smonk by Tom Franklin, it's as if Kurt Vonnegut woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and wrote a very very dark, hilarious western.

posted by drezdn 14 December | 13:00

Finished 1491 and The God Delusion. My review of the former is on my Vox blog.

Started Don Quixote for book club and am liking it.
Started The Discoveries by Alan Lightman, a great science writer anthologizing and introducing the great discoveries in 20th century science.

Still working on Darwin's Origin of Species.

As for fiction, I read Nell Freudenberger's The Dissident, and finished it, but in my opinion it was instantly forgettable because it basically followed the template of "contemporary novel about a dysfunctional family" that is so overdone these days.

The best fiction I've read lately is Ian MacEwan's Saturday, which is actually one of the best novels I've read in the last 5 years.

posted by matildaben 14 December | 13:01

I am reading Mary J. Carruthers’ The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, which is excellent, but... a bit of a special-interest title; meanwhile I’m dipping into a few of the articles in an abridged translation of Pierre Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary. The other week I finished a weird but fascinating little 1940s novel called The Image of a Drawn Sword, and am very much looking forward to getting started on Against the Day.

posted by misteraitch 14 December | 13:02

(init, would you mind sharing your favorite Venice titles? I've reread my Donna Leons too many times, and Watermark needs a special occasion, so there's obviously room on my bookshelf for more!)

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 13:04

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. It's the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia. I bought the set quite a while ago, but it's been sitting in storage.

I never read the series as a child, but I'm enjoying them now. Some say there's too much Christianity in the books, and although I can see that I seem to be able to "read over" it and enjoy the books as a bunch of kids stories. For what it's worth Mr. Lewis himself was reluctant to call them allegorical Christian stories due to a lot of the content being obviously non-Christian.

posted by deborah 14 December | 13:04

I'm reading Kavalier and Clay, and it's so good I don't want it to end. In order to delay the inevitable, I'm reading it in little bites...one or two pages a night. Apparently quitting smoking has strenthened my general willpower, because I've never before been able to "dose" books so that they last longer - I usually try and then fail miserably, reading the whole book in a night.

posted by SassHat 14 December | 13:05

I have begun reading the gardening books of Beverley Nichols. I am very fond of gardening books; in fact, I often find gardening books more satisfying than actually gardening.

posted by JanetLand 14 December | 13:09

The Ghost Map about one of London's many cholera epidemics.

Garbage Land about humans and all their shit.

I recommend both.

posted by cmonkey 14 December | 13:25

I'm reading Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o--a political satire set in the fictional African nation of Aburiria, written by a former Kenyan political prisoner who now lives in the US. I'm not yet sure if I can recommend it without reservation--it's entertaining so far, and I've laughed aloud, but there's a bitterness to the satire that may not be to everyone's taste.

posted by Prospero 14 December | 13:42

I'm still reading The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow. I've been so busy with the new job and all, I haven't had time to sit for a few hours and finish it off, though I'm 2/3 through it.

My lovely boss gave me a $100 gift certificate for Amamzon.com for Xmas. I ordered a funk box set and 10 books, so I better get crackin'!

posted by black8 14 December | 13:43

occhiblu: With pleasure!

In the company of the courtesan, by Sarah Dunant. Fiction, about a courtesan who arrives in 1500s Venice determined to carve a niche for herself among the city's gentlemen in search of such services, and the dwarf Bucino, her business manager. Also very good is Dunant's Birth of Venus, set in Florence in the same time period.

A Venetian affair by Andrea di Robilant. Nonfiction. While preparing his family's palazzo for renovations, the author, a present-day member of one of the oldest Venetian noble families, finds a trunk of forgotten letters containing secret correspondence between his ancestor and a young woman of illegitimate birth and dubious social standing.

Miss Garnet's angel by Salley Vickers. Fiction. A retired schoolteacher travels to Venice after a dear friend has died. Her story is related alongside the story of a painting of Tobias and the Angel that she finds in one of the city's many churches.

A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi. Nonfiction. Recounts the author's courtship by a Venetian man and her subsequent move there with him to live.

posted by initapplette 14 December | 13:54

Thank you! Once I get my head out of sleepy English villages, I'll check those out!

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 13:57

I'm reading Pogue Mahone:Kiss My Arse which is about the Pogues and looks promising so far. Paints a picture of hell raising, great music, fierce relationshipis and booze.
Also reading The Bear by Faulkner for my book club and this too looks very promising, however it is in a writing style that takes a getting used to.

posted by alteredcarbon 14 December | 14:05

Also, two books that profile (of sorts) present-day Venetians: The city of falling angels by John Berendt. While Berendt is in the city researching an article, La Fenice, the city's grand opera house, is destroyed by fire.

Venetian stories, by Jane Rylands, wife of the (as of the book's writing) Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. Rumored to be based on acquaintances of Rylands, this book caused ill feelings among Venetians who suspected that they were being pilloried by Rylands.

If I think of more, I'll send the titles via email to avoid hijacking this thread!

posted by initapplette 14 December | 14:08

I got Cesar's Way from the library yesterday and will probably buy a copy for my daughter. So far it's a neat success story.

posted by auntbunny 14 December | 14:09

Thanks! There are so many crappy books about Venice that it's nice to have recommendations for good ones.

posted by occhiblu 14 December | 14:13

Just finished a burst of Daniel Woodrell novels. Just started 'Kickback,' a graphic novel, and Michael Lewis' pro football book, 'The Blind Side,' I think it's called. Working slowly through that newish Laura Kipnis book, and hoping to start Hal Niedzviecki's 'Hello I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity' tonight. Amy Sedaris' book is languishing unread, as is Steven Levy's iPod book and Sam Harris' 'Letter to a Christian Nation.' Oh, and I've been frequently referring to Linux and networking books lately.

posted by box 14 December | 14:57

Silence of the Grave, by Arnaldur Indriðason from Iceland. My mother has been getting me into these, along with Henning Mankell. This won a bunch of awards (outside Iceland) and was just made into a movie, which I hope they'll export.

I'm also reading Sons of Caesar, about the infighting amongst the early Roman Emperors, and watching I, Claudius.

posted by stilicho 14 December | 15:25

I'm currently reading:
Cradle to Cradle by By William McDonough & Michael Braungart.
-- Excellent reconception of the way we make and build, it offers a model for the evaluation of business, environment and sociological factors in decisions we make in regard to products, services, and architecture. (I recommend it, even if it's a bit slight on the details). The book is waterproof!

Architectures of Time: toward a theory of the event in modernist culture by Sanford Kwinter.
It seems like Kwinter has written the introduction for some of my more favored architectural theory books so I thought I'd give his own work a go. It's heavy on transferring Deleuze, Bergson, Nietzsche into the architectural domain -- which is of interest (and part of the initial draw), but thus far I've found his treatment of morphology and relativity to be more fascinating (The chapter on Sant'Elia is pretty cool, too. More looky via google imgs.)

The recent issue of Tape Op.
-- My favorite recording magazine! Infinitely fascinating and I'm not even close to a proper engineer.

On deck:
Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky and the Pedagogical Sketchbook by Paul (I was feeling a little Bauhaus lacking a few weeks ago).

posted by safetyfork 14 December | 15:33

Klee.

posted by safetyfork 14 December | 15:35

I haven't read anything in a few months and felt ashamed by that fact when I was talking to hugsnkisses about books at the London meetup last Friday. Therefore tonight I shall start up my Dystopian reading again by picking up Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". I'm also waiting on We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind on order, which looks like it should be good.

posted by TheDonF 14 December | 15:47

Book? What's that?!! I've been so busy i haven't had time to read! I'm still on page 51 of The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Pal, that i borrowed from specklet 3 months ago!!! I love that book, i just can't find the time to sit and finish it!

posted by ramix 14 December | 18:07

Another thumb's up for Birth of Venus. Didn't know she had written anything else, I'll have to check it out.

I have A Handmaid's Tale in the "to be read" pile. I tried reading it a long, long time ago and couldn't get into it. I'm hoping I have better luck this time.

posted by deborah 14 December | 19:34

I've been reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father. It has been very slightly less tedious than I imagined it might be. Next up: The Audacity of Hope, about which I am not hopeful. I've also been reading Sam Harris' The End of Faith, and his response to the letters that book engendered, Letter to a Christian Nation. He's doing what would be the Lord's work, if the Lord were an American, but it's heavy sledding.

So, I have a copy of Gunter Grass' The Rat on the bedside table, and have just ordered his study guide for the book. How Teutonic to have written a study guide for what you originally passed off as a novel! I knew it was course material when I read it in 1990 or 1991. We'll see how Grass interprets Grass.

posted by paulsc 14 December | 20:33

Last novel I remember reading was the new McCarthy.

posted by trondant 14 December | 21:27

Another recommendation for Anansi Boys. I'm just starting into American Gods, and am fearing it won'r be as good. :/ I also just finished Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, true story about a Hungarian robber in the 80's & 90's. I really liked it - enough historical info but not so much to be boring. I could see this one being made into a movie. Currently very much into The Tender Bar, a memoir of a kid who grew up in NYC, enamored with the intrigue of the regular crowd at the local dive bar. I can't help but think the NYC MeChas would like this one.

posted by chewatadistance 15 December | 01:45

14 December 2006