What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

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George

Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 27, 2007, 05:57:21 AM
Same here, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, Radio Free Albemuth and A Scanner Darkly are probably my favorites.

How is this movie?

karlhenning

Reading this again, and it's even better with each revisitation:



It's a sorry reflection on the state of things, to see how the Shostakovich Wars play out in amazon.com "reviews" of this book.

bwv 1080

Quote from: George on July 27, 2007, 06:00:37 AM
How is this movie?

It was good.  The most faithful PKD adaptation yet.

George

Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 27, 2007, 06:09:15 AM
It was good.  The most faithful PKD adaptation yet.

Thanks. I have been considering it.

rockerreds

Theodore Dreiser-Jennie Gerhardt

Great stuff.

Tancata

Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 27, 2007, 06:09:15 AM
It was good.  The most faithful PKD adaptation yet.

Yeah, it was quite good and followed the book very closely. A bit too closely, I thought, since a lot of the really trippy stuff in the book didn't (IMO) transfer very well to the screen given the literalist adaptation.

M forever

Quote from: karlhenning on July 27, 2007, 06:03:13 AM
Reading this again, and it's even better with each revisitation:



It's a sorry reflection on the state of things, to see how the Shostakovich Wars play out in amazon.com "reviews" of this book.

I haven't read the book, but it appears to me that the criticism that she only used "official" sources is somewhat valid (if that is what she indeed does in the book), especially given the "realistic" nature of these during Soviet times. There may be a need for something like that after all the controversy around "Testimony" though. How would you reply to those negative reviews?

Steve

I'm nearly through with Quo Vadis. Next up is a reread of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.




Danny

Almost done with 'The Devils' by Fyodor; up next a re-read of "The Idiot" (that's if I don't burn out of Dostoevsky again).

Ten thumbs

I have just read the life of Lucrezia Borgia. I don't know whether or not to be disappointed that she never killed anybody. There were some interesting references to Renaissance music and musicians though. What do we know of the musical entractes written as stage entertainment? The most moving part of the book was the letter to the Pope that Lucrezia dictated on her deathbed. Do you think we should all write to his Holiness?
A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little—but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time:
A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.

orbital


Took this as a summer vacation reading. Turned out to be a pretty good book. The characters are very lifelike, and Ms Nemirovsky's unsentimental writing despite what she probably went through during the same period is extraordinary. Recommended! (Altough it is incomplete of course)

bhodges

#431
The score to Louis Andriessen's Workers' Union (from Donemus), which a friend lent me over the weekend.  Fascinating to see the instructions Andriessen gives, to create the results he wants.

--Bruce

orbital

Quote from: George on July 27, 2007, 06:00:37 AM
How is this movie?
I thought it was horrible, can't even remember if I finished it.  But I've never read the book so it might still be a good adaptation.

Lethevich



A weighty tome, hope I have the endurance to finish it.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

bwv 1080

#434
Quote from: Lethe on July 30, 2007, 08:56:36 AM


A weighty tome, hope I have the endurance to finish it.

I read the first one - thought it was excellent.  How many volumes will this eventually take him?  Vol 1 came out in 1991, 2 came out in 1999 and supposedly 3 is due this year

Sumption is apparantly a prominent attorney in the UK, not a professor:

http://www.brickcourt.co.uk/members.asp?bar_id=9

Lethevich

#435
I skipped the first one (I'll definitely get it if vol. 2 is a good read) - I ended up with vol. 2 as I found it second-hand in mint condition for £4 in a charity shop - I love charity shops :D The graphic design on the covers is very clean and good - rare for a history book - it's what made me notice it on the shelf.

I have concerns over how tolerable 3 large volumes might be - my previous biggest read was The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel - and that at least had the benefit of having a wider scope...

Edit: No doubt an abridged version will appear once all the volumes are published - but abridged books are for sissies :D
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

bwv 1080

Quote from: Lethe on July 30, 2007, 09:47:07 AM


I have concerns over how tolerable 3 large volumes might be - my previous biggest read was The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel - and that at least had the benefit of having a wider scope...


You read the full three volumes?  Being I merely read the abridged version of that one.

Lethevich

#437
Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 30, 2007, 11:14:37 AM
You read the full three volumes?  Being I merely read the abridged version of that one.

Yep, at seperate times. God bless libraries for holding unusual things like that :P I don't think that I took much of it in, though, it became a chore after a while and I skipped a few parts - I think I was trying to prove to myself that I could do it. I should probably go back to it, it'll be easier now I'm a bit older. I own the abridged version too (another cheapo charity shop thing) and wouldn't be without it due to tons of extra photos and nicer paper.

Edit: This is making me want to read both of them now (Hundred Years War and Mediterranean, that is, not both the Mediterranean versions - *shudder*) :(
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

sidoze

going to reread Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Looking forward to this as when I read it for the first time 5 or 6 years ago I thought it the funniest book I'd ever read (and still do). Will be interested if I'm as positive about it now.

orbital

Quote from: sidoze on July 31, 2007, 12:57:51 PM
I thought it the funniest book I'd ever read (and still do).

That would be Without Feathers and Getting Even for me.

Woody's new book came out, but still in hardcover. I have a thing against hardcovers unless they are really thick books. I'll have to wait for the paperback I guess.