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23 February 2008
Hasn't it been at least a week since we had a book thread around here? Whatcha readin?→[More:]And what books are are on your wish list?
I'm reading A Wrinkle In Time for myself. I'm also reading the Moomintroll books to my daughter.
I hadn't heard of the Moomin book series, but I'm enjoying them. We're reading the short stories in Tales From Moominvalley now. They seem to be written just for me. I'm the Hemulen who loved silence. I'm Snufkin who wants to wander the forest alone. I'm the fillyjonk who saw disaster coming.
On my wish list are In Defense of Food, and The Head Trip.
I hadn't known about the Moomintroll books until I read Alison Lurie's last book about children's literature. I bought them, but then had to pack them away because I was about to move out of my place on CPS.
I just started Dakota Grand, by Kenji Jasper--it's a semi-literary urban-lit book about a hip-hop journalist. It's decent, so far.
And I started The Fattening Of America, which is a book about obesity written by an economist. With so many good books about food and obesity, and so many good books written by economists, I don't think I'll finish this one.
I'm just finishing a short novel - Since You Ask by Louise Wareham, which I picked up on my last trip to NYC. Just a couple of pages to go. I'm not sure what I'll read after that, I have a few choices.
The Moomintroll books are some of my favorite books in the whole world. Everyone should read them - they're just amazingly fantastic.
I'm rereading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle - I'm about halfway through the last book, The System of the World. I liked it the first time I read it and I like it even better this go round. The only problem is that each book weighs, like, 10 pounds or something and if you drop one on your toe it really hurts. Also, they're hard to hold up in bed. Other than that, excellent. ;-)
I just finished "Yes Man". As with other books set up the same way, I find the whole man-child takes an annoying task to a ridiculous level theme a little obnoxious. But the book has cute moments.
Just finished "The Golden Notebook" by Nobel-Winning Doris Lessing. Very good, intense immersion into the mind of woman falling apart under the pressure of a failed relationship and a crisis in the Communist Party. (My blogification).
Also, I think Philip Roth's basically been ripping it off for the last 30 years with the genders reversed.
Quite heavy going though, so not sure what to read next. Not really in the mood for Mary Gentle's "Ilario". Grabbed "Navigator" by Stephen Baxter from the library, but that series is getting pretty awful so I may not bother. So it might be "Treason's Harbour" by Patrick O'Brian, or "The Pirate Wars" by Peter Earle. Yo ho ho.
Still working through Suite Francaise, which is awesome but requires focused attention, so I tend to only read a bit or two at bedtime. I'm also reading Obama's Dreams From my Father in an attempt to understand where he's coming from a bit more - I'm still in his childhood, but it's a very interesting and unusual story. Plenty more after I get done with those...
Just turned the last page on The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and not sure what to do with myself. I loved it, though the first half was better. I found it to be one of those books that helped me with my own writing by giving me permission to place a camera on the wall next to an ordinary person and track their ordinary movements until an extraordinary story emerges.
It's so weird loving an author in translation... especially when you love the diction and tone. Those would seem to be sensitive to translation.
My mother has been recommending Lessing to me for years and pretty much did a breakdance when she won the Nobel. The Golden Notebook has been mentioned specifically. But I can't see myself with a book about crisis in the Communist party... it seems like forever ago that western intellectuals actually gave Communism a chance. With everything that's happened since then, I don't know if I could sit through stories of the early days when they first started to look around and ask 'Hey wait a second, is this working?'
Tell me I'm wrong and it's not about all that, TheophileEscargot, so I can still go read that one.
Trying to start Waverley by Scott. I've been meaning to read something by him for years and just have never gotten around to it. Have it in ebook form (all my books, save for two on pedagogy, are in e form these days) and I am still trying to get through all the crazy introductions and prefaces and author's notes etc. I swear there would be 50 pages of preface if this were in hard copy. Anyway, so I'll probably just skip past all that and start on the story, because as it is I just keep giving up after a few paragraphs and start reading blogs.
So thanks for this reminder that I should start trying again. Nothing like a weekend to make a good start on a book.
Well scarabic, I don't think you have to have been a Communist to read the Golden Notebook. I think if you've never passionately believed in anything you'd find it hard to understand what she's so upset about though.
Also you have to remember that the history of the age was that you had had the massive slaughter of WW1, then the Great Depression, then WW2. If you looked around and said asked "hey, wait a second, is this working" you wouldn't necessarily see capitalism as doing that much better.
I really liked the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Ought to get around to reading Kafka on the Shore sometime.
I liked the Golden Notebook a lot but it's been years since I read it - actually, I read it around the same time that I was making my way through the reading list for a philosophy of Marxism class, so, ya know, it's been a while. Still, I agree with TheophileEscargot that you don't have to have any knowledge or background in communism to like the book; remember that in many ways it was one of the early and important feminist texts, too. Anyway, though, if you're just wanting to try some Lessing, my favorites are the Canopus in Argos chronicles which I recommend wholeheartedly and which are kind of more relevant to today, even though they're SF and 25 year old SF at that.
Today? Principles of Insurance Course #23. To counteract that, porn.
I might have to quit my library book "The Understudy" which is good and funny and all, but I just find myself not picking it up. I have something called "First Words" from the library too, which is a collection of the first published works of well known authors. That might be good, and I could skip around - put it into the rotation mentioned above.
I'm currently making my way through Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express. I read it once several years ago, but don't remember much of it. It's a very enjoyable read so far.
Still working on The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007, which actually looks at stuff published in 2006. Next is either Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam (picked up for $2 in a thrift store!) or American Gods.
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I'm only about 50 pages in, but it's great. The blurb talked about redemption, and I was in the mood for redemption.
The Midnight Disease, by Alice Flaherty, which I've started before, about obsessive writing. (I'm still trying to figure out how to get it, the "disease," I mean. Motivate my lazy ass.)
John Ashbery's Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror. One of those books I want to like more than I do. Interesting, though.
And I just finished an article by this guy in the Writer's Chronicle, called "Conrolling the Distance Between Reader and Character: The Primary Process." Incredibly insightful. Not nearly as jargony as its title might suggest. So that's why if I try to force myself to describe my narrator, it feels off...
Wind Up Bird Chronicle is definitely on my list. And I very much want to finish One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I started a long time ago and will need to reread, I think (no hardship there).
Ah, books... one of my favorite topics (next to sex and cupcakes.)
Last night at work I actually started "The Negative", book 2 in Ansel Adams' great series. I had started it before, but didn't get far before being distracted. Now I wish I had read through. It's been really great for me since I'm pretty stagnant with my photography. Plus, since I'm shooting film again, it's quite helpful.
In the past, I've wanted to read The Golden Notebook, because:
1. The Memoirs of a Survivor is one of my favorite books.
2. I love anything about notebooks.
However, I don't think it is really a book Id like. I just hate pretty much anything political in a Hulk Smash! sort of way, even though (or because) it's the way humans seem to do business.
I've got a copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles here, just waiting for the right mood to hit me to start into a big long book (I mostly prefer shorter stuff).
I just finished my Reveiewer's Copy of the new Richard Price, entitled Lush Life and I'd say it his best since Clockers, if not Ladies Man. I'm about three quarters of the way through Tim Sandlin's Honey Don't which is funny as hell. I've got Chuck Klostermans fiction debut on deck, along with Rumspringa a book about Amish Gone Wild (really).
I just hate pretty much anything political in a Hulk Smash! sort of way, even though (or because) it's the way humans seem to do business.
Heh. I had a great instructor recently who wouldn't let me get away with this - he'd respond to us saying "I hate politics" with the mini-lecture "Politics is the study of the use of power. All humans have power and use power every day. You live politics. You can never get away from politics." Ouch. I have to admit he had a point.
Even so - I get what you're saying, but you still might like The Golden Notebook. It's an interesting picture of human beings wrangling and discussing and having relationships as they work within this semi-underground movement. I read it on my mother's recommendation when I was in my late teens - I didn't get a lot of it, but I do remember the emotional complexity.
Rereading Red Mars-Blue Mars-Green Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson), just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma, just picked up Spook (Mary Roach) which is really funny and enjoyable, but much less informative than was Stiff.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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