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What's top of your reading list?

Started by Ed, December 29, 2008, 06:05:13 PM

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Geoff_N

What they hear in the dark by Gary McMahon

elay2433

Just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - entertaining read. I was reluctant to leave the world Stieg Larsson created. So much so that I almost jumped straight ahead into the second book, but instead decided to take a break. Now I'm reading The Prince of Tides. Pretty good so far.

desertwomble

Quote from: elay2433 on January 29, 2011, 06:35:36 PM
Just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - entertaining read. I was reluctant to leave the world Stieg Larsson created. So much so that I almost jumped straight ahead into the second book, but instead decided to take a break. Now I'm reading The Prince of Tides. Pretty good so far.

I started this book, but got sidetracked with other books.

Will try to grt back to 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' on the 3-hour commute this morning.

DW :cheesy:
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Pharosian

Just finished Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. It's a great cautionary tale, and presents many of the viewpoints around so-called security measures. It can be downloaded for free from the author's website: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Rev. Austin

A friend at work has lent me The Scarlet Imposter by Dennis Wheatley, because she says he writes a lot of occult-based stuff (did he do To The Devil a Daughter?) and so far it's very easy to read but utterly pumped full of exposition and blatant infodumping, that's more amusing than off-putting (ie characters vomit out personal facts that the person they're talking to would actually already know). 

I'm also working my way through 50 Psychology Ideas You Must Know and 50 Literature Ideas You Must Know, both bought from The Works, and both very informative and succinct (each chapter is four pages, and details the main points/ideas behind certain things, such as 'Delusions', or 'Gothic fiction' etc).
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delboy

Dennis Wheatley was one of my boyhood writing heroes - both for his occult novels and his war novels. He was banned for years. Good to see him back!

Derek
"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

leatherdykeuk

Never did like Wheatley's style, I'm afraid, and reading non-fiction about how vile he was in real life means I never will again.

Grillmeat

I'm about 2/3 of the way thru: 1 Dead in Attic. By Chris Rose
It is a collection of stories he wrote during a two year period (just before and a year and half after hurricane Katrina). He was a reporter there when everything went to hell. Some of the stories are absurd, others are funny and some are just tragic. While most books focused on who was to blame in the aftermath of the disaster, Rose focused on the stories of the people who went thru the disaster and tried to rebuild after. It is all told in first person as he observed it.
The book's title takes its name from the graffiti like short hand that was used to tell searchers and volunteers what areas had been gone thru and what, if anything was inside the buildings. A good read, if somewhat depressing.....
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Rook

Finished John Irving's The Fourth Hand today. It was enjoyable. Not The World According to Garp (one of my favorites), but I didn't expect it to be, so I liked it. Irving raises some interesting ideas, and takes a character who should raise all the feminist hairs in one's body, and makes him sympathetic. Irving manages to portray the MC in a manner which brings up a certain sense of sweetness and redemption. Even as the MC continually commits acts of exceeding emotional stupidity against various women in his life.

Think I might re-read Garp, next... It's been an age.  :smiley:

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elay2433

Rook, try A Widow For One Year by Irving. I read it last year and still find myself thinking about it from time to time.

Finished The Prince of Tides. Pat Conroy can really cut loose with some poetically beautiful descriptions. I was initially blown away, but toward the end of the book I was sick of it. A bit overdone I thought. There a few things that bugged me - characters occasionally acting completely out of character, a few over the top situations that made me completely aware that I was suspending my disbelief. All in all it was pretty satisfying, though I don't reckon I'll be picking up another Pat Conroy book, at least not any time soon.

Just finished Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon. Pretty entertaining read, though I think it was intended for a younger audience (I'm 31).

Not sure which one to pull from the pile next.

Rook

Quote from: elay2433 on February 16, 2011, 01:26:06 PM
Rook, try A Widow For One Year by Irving. I read it last year and still find myself thinking about it from time to time.

Will do!  :afro:

Quote from: elay2433 on February 16, 2011, 01:26:06 PM
Just finished Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon. Pretty entertaining read, though I think it was intended for a younger audience (I'm 31).

I have that one around somewhere. I started it and that was my impression (of course, I'm twenty-four and it was a couple of years ago, but that was what I thought, too... Nor do I have anything against full blown children's lit.)--  But I wasn't in the mood for the style at the time-- I was looking for something closer to The Stand. (Which is ironic, because I think I ended up reading a John Gardner short story collection instead-- work bearing little resemblence to King.) Keep meaning to go back to it, but there's always been something more inviting.

Into The World According to Garp, and am enjoying it with equal glee as the last time.  :afro:

I think, Sebastian, there for I am.
Say Hi! on Twitter: @rookberg

Pharosian

Tonight on my way home from work I popped in disc 16 of the 24-disc story I'm listening to in the car. I've been listening to it for weeks now. It's called The Children's Book by AS Byatt. The best word I can use to describe it is "sprawling." It's the story of several interconnected families, and features a cast of close to 40 characters whose histories we learn to a greater or lesser degree (the Wikipedia article says Byatt used an Excel spreadsheet to keep all the characters straight). The central character is Olive Wellwood, who writes children's fairy tales with a dark edge to them. She lives with her husband, her sister, and several children in a house called Todefright in Kent. The story opens in 1895, but some back story covers a period of several years prior to that. The timeline has progressed to 1900 or 1901 by this point, and it supposedly goes up to World War I.

While the writing is accomplished and evocative, by around 8 discs in, I was despairing of ever being able to discern anything resembling a plot. I'm still not sure there's a plot, but at least by now there are a number of interesting character arcs.  I'm not sure I would have been able to get this far reading a physical copy of the book, but the narrator is superb, which helps.

The thing that's unusual is that its focus changes so drastically from one section to another. At some points the narrator goes off on what seem to be tangents, discussing the political climate at the turn of the century or the Paris Exposition or the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's all very adult, talking about the Fabian Society and socialists and anarchists and suffragists... and at other points, the focus is very personal, dealing with one or another of the young people in the story. And at still other points, there are long passages of one or other of the fairy tales which Olive Wellwood wrote for her children.

I can't make a blanket recommendation, but if you're interested in the historical period of the late 19th/early 20th Century and can keep a cast of thousands straight, you might find this an interesting read.

delph_ambi

AS Byatt always strikes me as interesting and worthy and clever and erudite etc etc, but ultimately boring. Probably better to listen rather than attempt to read her books. I've never managed to finish one.

delboy

I'm currently in the midst of The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane. It's not bad. I think much of it would get hammered in the crit group  :/,  - especially young Mr Kane being way too keen to put all his research on the page. That said, I'm in the midst of doing a lot of learning/research myself around the Roman era so, without my writer's head on, I'm actually enjoying that overt background content. Next up there are a couple of non-fiction books I want to plough through. Then... I'm wanting another bash at War And Peace. I've tried once and failed, but it's a book I want to read at least once in this lifetime so I reckon it might be time to have another try. Anyone read it?

Kind regards,
Derek
"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

delph_ambi

I've read 'War and Peace' at least twice, though not for a good number of years. Definitely worth it, and a MUCH better read than 'Anna Karenina' which just annoyed me.