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I'm always reading several books at a time. The most recent purchases have been Pete Dexter's Deadwood (yes, it's the basis for the TV series), My Boring-Ass Life by (his majesty) Kevin Smith and a book called The Card about the history of a Honus Wagner tobacco card. I'm also rereading Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth and Ladies Man, of course.
Devices and Desires by K.J. Parker. Kind of a fantasy novel (though no supernatural stuff so far) where an exiled engineer becomes embroiled in politics and warfare in a mountain kingdom.
Very very good so far. Interesting and well-drawn characters; and a superb, complicated plot with lots of maneuvering and machinations between the characters.
I'm near the end of Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch and looking forward to Day Watch and Twilight Watch.
(They're VERY different from and much more subtle and philosophical than the two (so far) films, although I love the movies as well. taz, you'd probably enjoy these, and the trilogy gives you over a thousand pages the way you seem to like.)
(I have a paperback copy that fits in my back pocket when I take the pups to the dog park, and I like to read Gibson constantly anyway because his style and his way of qualifying reality just sort of... put me in a place I like in my mind. I could just re-read him to appreciate his poetic prose, in fact.)
I finished Gibson's new novel Spook Country a while back and loved it (of course.)
I just finished "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb, and started on an old Lisa Alther paperback (Two Women) I picked up somewhere for a few pennies, but have had to abandon it, it's sooo dated and hackneyed.
So this evening I need to sort through my small-ish pile of unread books to find something either I haven't read before or that I can stand to re-read.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, and so far am liking it very much. TheophileEscargo, I have a LibraryThing page, which seems to be the natural enemy of Shelfari, if their blog is to be believed.
Pete Hamill's Snow in August, which is only OK so far, but I'll finish it. I want to like it, because I like his nonfiction writing so much, but it's a little clunky, not challenging at all.
On deck there are some good things. My mom bought me this interesting title, Suite Francaise, a novel by a Jewish writer who died in the holocaust. The book was only rediscovered in the 90s. She also lent me Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which has been on my list for ages.
Just finished Pullman's The Golden Compass the night before last. Due to the post about about metafiction on askme, I started On A Winter's Night A Traveller last night, but I might find it too annoying to continue. Goleman's Social Intelligence has been on my nightstand for a while, so I might switch to that. Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem is my current "car" book, which I read over coffee or lunch if I'm out or if I have to wait somewhere.
I've been thinking about getting a Shelfari account, if only to remember not to buy books I already have. On preview, I had no idea of the rivalry with LibraryThing.
Lessee. Right now, I'm reading "GLUT: Mastering Information Through the Ages" by Alex Wright, "Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing" by Fred M. Donner, "The Gospel of Thomas" by Ron Miller (for Sunday School) and "Skin Tight" by Carl Hiassen.
Just finished "100 Myths About the Middle East" by Fred Halliday.
I've been trying to read some sociology books by Peter Bergen, but damn they're dense.
Right now, because I have run out of fresh reading material, I am re-reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short stories. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the only one anyone has heard of, but actually I prefer the others. They're light and cute and still have a bit of a barb to them.
Recently read:
• The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies. The first book in this trilogy is nowhere near as compelling as the first in The Deptford Trilogy, but the overall work is stronger. If you can get through the first part, you'll be happy you did later on.
• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This is one of the best nonfiction titles I've ever read. It's the memoir of a Somalian woman who grew up watching her country torn apart by war; she was raised in a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia and Kenya. In her teens, she became a devout Muslim, but she struggled with the ideas until finally, facing an arranged marriage, she escaped to Holland. In her book, she makes the case that Islam is almost entirely to blame for wars and corruption in eastern Africa. It's a very hard argument to swallow, but one that you can understand -- if not necessarily embrace -- as you read her life's story.
• Slam by Nick Hornby. So disappointing. Seriously? Hornby's foray into young adult literature leaves something to be desired. It's preachy and cliche, but it does include a cool bit of time travel. Then again, if you're going to read a modern YA book by a man, meant for a male audience, you should really direct your attentions to Ned Vizzini.
Ansel Adams 3 book series: "The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print". "The Negative" is a good introduction to his Zone system for exposure. No fiction for me right now.
Just finished Pullman's The Golden Compass the night before last. Due to the post about about metafiction on askme, I started On A Winter's Night A Traveller last night, but I might find it too annoying to continue
I adore His Dark Materials, of course. I also utterly adore Italo Calvino, but just couldn't hang with On a Winter's Night. It might be a love-it-or-hate-it book. Hate it.
DarkForest: If On a Winter's Night... really is excellent if you can stick with it. Think of it as more of a quest than a book - but a beautiful storyline emerges, and needs you to sort it and make sense of it. It's another highly-ranked book in my pantheon.
I've been reading Stevenson's System of the World for the last year. I can't seem to read fiction lately, I read one page and then get all ADD lose interest.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. I had high hopes for it after reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but so far I'm disappointed.
Brasyl by Ian McDonald, and I am trying to figure out how the hell he knows so much about Sao Paulo and Rio, since by my reckoning, he hasn't lived there (I have actually spent some time researching this dude, because, seriously? How does he know so much?). Book's just okay, though.
I did those a couple of years ago. They're excellent. The two more recent ones were my favorites. Let me also plug my favorite Le Guin, The Birthday of the World.
Miko, you've convinced me to give Winter's Night another go. Damn you. :)
Octothorpe, it's not you. I waded through the first two novels of the Cycle, then just quit a third of the way through The System of the World. Just. Couldn't. Keep. Going. It's a shame, because I'm normally a Stephenson fangirl, but, not this go 'round.
The most recent purchases have been Pete Dexter's Deadwood (yes, it's the basis for the TV series)
I did not know that. For some reason I though Deadwood was based on -or at least inspired by- Oakley Hall's Warlock (which is a damned good book that you should really read, especially if you liked Deadwood).
I'm currently reading Van Reid's Cordelia Underwood (the first Moosepath League novel). It's fun. I'm also reading The Sikhs by Patwant Singh, as a result of this askme question.
Brasyl by Ian McDonald, and I am trying to figure out how the hell he knows so much about Sao Paulo and Rio, since by my reckoning, he hasn't lived there (I have actually spent some time researching this dude, because, seriously? How does he know so much?). Book's just okay, though.
His River of Gods did the same thing with India (and was also just okay). He's sort of a sci-fi Michener.
Re Ian McDonald, I think there's a kind of "What I Did On My Holidays" SF sub-genre where the author constructs an alien/future/parallel universe civilization based on his last trip abroad.
I'm not very keen on it.
I seem to recall McDonald's earlier books like "Desolation Road" being very imaginative. Haven't got into his recent stuff though.
Picked up Emotional Design on a whim; a nice, light theoretical read but marred by a couple dud sections. Hit one of them and know the other is coming and haven't been able to get back into it.
Right this second: Constitutional Law: Cases in Context, Vol. 1. Damn school. Reading King Lear for similar reasons, although that's more palatable (I like social sciences more than the humanities, but DAMN is Taney boring).
When I get a free moment, I'm going to reread Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday for the nth time.
For whatever reason, I've always loved Pearl Buck books, or at least most of them. I lost interest in "Imperial Woman", but I'm reading "Peony" right now and enjoying it.
And, just because, I'm reading the 7th book in the series "The Complete Peanuts" collection, 1963-1964. They only release two per year, and being the "Peanuts" fan I am, I have every one. Except the new one, but that's on my Christmas list.
I did read "The Golden Compass" a few years ago and enjoyed it. I just don't have the time to devote to reading as much as I'd like.
Ooooh! Geek Love. What a neat book, I found it to be a real eye-opener to what fiction could be (much as Pynchon did). Good books, good times. Man, I love to read. Thanks for the post!
I just finished No Country For Old Men, which I wanted to read quickly right before I saw the movie, and so now I'll probably return to Jon Jackson's Detroit-centric crime fiction. I'm slowly paging through books about op art, fabric patterns and freight train graffiti. And I just checked out James Twitchell's Shopping For God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart To In Your Face, and the latest in the Flight comic anthology series.
Kovacsland, by Diana Rico (biography of Ernie Kovacs); The Autobiography and Other Writings, by Benjamin Franklin; A Concise History of World War II, edited by Brigadier General Vincent J. Esposito, USA (Ret.); and Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II, by Len Deighton. I swear I'm not one of those WWII obsessive guys - I just happened to see them on the shelf here among Science Girl's father's books and was interested enough to pick them up.
I haven't been able to read fiction for something like twenty years now. I don't know why, but it just doesn't interest me much anymore.
Miko - you've convinced me to stick with If On a Winter's Night too, as I was feeling the same sentiments as DarkForest. I have to admit I can feel the tug to continue, wanting to see what the heck happens to the briefcase.
I've been writing a novel for NaNoWriMo, but now that I'm almost done with that, I've picked up Straitjacket Society by Masao Miyamoto. It's a fascinating look at how the Japanese bureaucracy operates and has helped me understand why their economy was allowed to collapse while everyone just stood by watching.
I've been dipping into Staying On Alone: Letters of Alice B Toklas for about a month, and just finished a PD James mystery (Original Sin) which I enjoyed. I want to start Sarah Waters' Fingersmith but I'm a bit apprehensive of reading it in public, as Affinity made me sob relentlessly on a 6-hour flight. I might keep it for the next time I have a day off to just read, just in case. My 'to-be-read' pile in the bookshelf is quite enormous, and I have a library book (Lawrence Durrell that I borrowed to go in the draw for a Wii but I do love his work) due Friday so I'll probably start on that.
Ya'll are reading some great books, love the love for Geek Love!
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