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18 January 2012
Follow up to yesterday: What are you reading right now? Do you recommend it/them?→[More:]I'm reading Hirohito and the making of Modern Japan, which is just fascinating because I don't know a thing about Japanese history. The author comes through a bit in the book though, which is distracting when you're reading a biography/history type thing.
I just finished The Obamas, which I really enjoyed. I briefly glanced at I Do, Now What? thinking it might be cute, but it just solidified the suspicioun I had that Giuliana Rancic is an idiot.
I'm reading Fear of Physics by Lawrence Krauss. I'm really excited to see him talk next week. I used his book, The Physics of Star Trek in one of my favorite projects back in high school (which was a real-life look at FTL travel and current possibilities for space exploration beyond the shuttle).
I'm just starting "In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century" by Geert Mak, the Dutch author. It's really engaging, but I'm not far into it yet. I hope to make inroads into it for the rest of this week. It was actually a gift from my mother who gave it to me since are planning a trip to Europe in September.
Re: Krauss, did you watch him on youtube?
Reading now: Foucault's Pendulum. Not sure if I recommend it. It has its moments. It's like the DaVinci Code done by a smart person.
I just started the latest Daisy Dalrymple mystery despite having not read the first two in the series--I like it a lot so far, interesting character and setting.
1. The Edwardians, by Roy Hattersley
2. A book of radio scripts of my favorite old radio show, Vic and Sade
3. Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan
4. Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope
And one or two other things. I wish I were more focused in my reading.
"Tomato Red" by Daniel Woodrell. It's a short novel (arguably a novelette) he wrote a few years before Winter's Bone. I'm only a third of the way through it, but I'm enjoying it. I really like his style.
"Matched" by Ally ... someone. It's for my book club, which has been choosing an annoyingly high number of Young Adult books. I actually like the book a lot so far, even if it mostly seems to be Fahrenheit 451 Lite, but I find that there's not much to discuss about YA books (or, at least, about the YA books we've read) without sounding fairly silly.
It's like the DaVinci Code done by a smart person.
This is damning with faint praise if ever I've seen it. No disrespect intended, Obscure reference. Indeed anyone named Obscure Reference talking about Umberto Eco is about as eponysterical as it gets.
I just started The Way of the Traitor by Laura Joh Rowland, and I kind of hate it. It's set in roughly the same time and place as The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is almost not fair because that book was so. super. awesome. My main quibble is the incredibly stilted, cheesy language: lots of sneering, villains who are total gay cliches, all that. So: too much mustache-twirling.
I am back in the middle of the Mary Russell books, having finished The Language of Bees. Which was good, but -- unlike the others -- goes directly into God of the Hive. Which I do not have. Gah! It also reminds me that I only have two books to go in the existing canon. Double gah!
Speaking of that, though, I just started the BBC Sherlock series, and it's another reminder that I haven't read the original Conan Doyle. So I'll probably get to that.
If 2011 was about comfort reading, 2012 looks like it'll be filled with mysteries. I recently read Meg Gardiner's Jericho Point, with China Lake on the way via BookMooch, and those Barbara Vine recs from the other thread look good.
I needed something a little less dense and emotional after finishing The Known World, so I'm reading A Little House Sampler, which is something of a misleading title. It's not samples from the published Little House books, but a collection of early stories, newspaper articles, and excerpts from first draft versions of the Little House books.
Addendum:
"Da Vinci Code by a smart person" -- HA! I think there's a whole genre of those books. I've had Foucault's Pendulum on my shelf for quite a while, so maybe now's the time.
In that vein, I just reread Rule of Four because I'd previously started The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and needed to wash the taste out of my mouth. (Same sort of problem as Way of the Traitor, above: too much mustache-twirling without enough wit, with the added bonus of unnecessary yet strangely insufficient chick lit framing.) I also have The Dante Club on my shelf, but am hesitating. This genre is such a crapshoot!
I'm reading the latest Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance, in hardback (a Christmas gift) and on my Kindle I'm reading a biography of Warren Zevon, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Man, he was an asshole.
I just started The Devil in the White City, which is fantastic so far. My two best recent reads were The Known World, coming up for MeCha discussion thread ion January 20, and The Book Thief. I admit to also enjoying my current audio book, An Echo in the Bone.
The Ornament of the World is a survey of Moorish Spain on either side of the year 1000 or so. Very interesting history, and the poetry that came there out of North Africa planted the seeds of the chivalric verse, which went on to develop into what we consider European Literature.
The writing is at times rather non-flowy, and the book as a whole would be more interesting with a better writer, but still very worth reading.
Just - as in half an hour ago - finished The Magician King and I really, really loved it, even more than The Magicians. My only issue is that I scored an advance readers copy cheap from the bookstore where I work and it's MISSING PAGES 319 & 320 which is not so important, only, you know, THE DENOUEMENT AND THE CLIMAX. If anyone who has a copy would like to scan and email me those pages I would be forever grateful. Still even missing that I think it might be one of the best books I've ever read. Granted I have been reading a whole lot of pretty lame urban fantasy shit though so it's possible it just shines so brightly in comparison.
Right now I'm re-reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, trying to cast the upcoming HBO series in my head. I love this book, and it's a little treat I'm allowing myself while I bounce back from this horrible cold I've had since December.
I've had Foucault's Pendulum on my shelf for quite a while, so maybe now's the time.
Over the last 15 years of so, I've taken a few runs at Foucault's Pendulum and never managed to make a dent in it. As silly as it sounds, I though the biggest stumbling blocks were the physical size of the library book coupled with the time limit imposed by the return date.
No, really: that's what I thought. I do a ton of my recreational reading either in bed or in the bathtub, and a BIG HEAVY BOOK is unpleasant in either position. I finally bought a paperback copy late last year, thinking it might be more inviting.
Um. That's not what happened. It's sitting beside the bed. I think I got 20 pages in before I put it down, not even marking my place. I'll go back to it some day, but not this month.
I find Foucault's Pendulum most enjoyable when I'm not really trying to parse the various theories/references being floated. I'm sure I'd find it even more enjoyable if I had a deep understanding of all those references, but, since I don't, I try to avoid the middle ground of thinking I should know what they're talking about.
In college I was reading The Name of the Rose and had the book out while I was waiting for my Italian class to start. The instructor asked me if I was going to read it in Italian. I was like, Lady, I've got enough problems with the English, thanks....
I'm on a nonfiction kick lately. I finished Christopher Hitchens' Why Orwell Matters last week...which inspired me to pick up some of Orwell's nonfiction. The Collected Essays, Letters, and Journalism of George Orwell comes in three thick volumes at my local library; not normally my cup of tea but I'm halfway through the first volume already.
He was a consistently interesting and CLEAR writer, and his literary criticism in particular came as a pleasant surprise to me. He is very, very funny at times, too. The collection also contains diaries he kept when writing books like The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London. Recommended for any student of 20th century history or literature, or just anyone who likes to read good writing.
I just finished Good Germs, Bad Germs which was surprisingly awesome. I picked it up to give to my sister who works in infectious diseases, but then I had a long train ride and started reading it and couldn't put it down.
I feel like I know so much more about how antibiotics work and why we get all sorts of diseases.
And the stories that surround each drug trial or discovery are really interesting.
Highly recommend, even to non-science people.
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