What are you currently reading?

[Artem]

The main plot of The Doll follows a story of a merchant, who falls in love with a girl from an aristocratic class. But, being over 600 pages the novel covers many dimensions of class, history, ideas and other subjects. Frankly speaking, I found it a bit dull during the first 300-400 pages of it, but it was worth finishing it.

[Mookalafalas]

Carson McCullers is extraordinary. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a beautiful, fascinating, and sad novel, and the novella (The Member of the Wedding, I think?) is especially surreal, funny, and heartbreaking. It actually made me uncomfortable. That one follows a teenage girl so madly in love with the wedding party that she thinks she can follow them on their honeymoon.

McCullers wrote the "Lonely Hunter" when she was 23, I think. I find that staggering.

  About O'connor not liking her, from the little I've read, nobody liked her very much.  She apparently didn't have very good social skills. 

   That "Member of the Wedding" used to be shown on network TV every year when I was a kid--often live, as I recall.  Sometimes a 40(?) year old actress played the 13 year old girl.  And did a great job.

[Ken B]

McCullers wrote the "Lonely Hunter" when she was 23, I think. I find that staggering.

  About O'connor not liking her, from the little I've read, nobody liked her very much.  She apparently didn't have very good social skills. 

   That "Member of the Wedding" used to be shown on network TV every year when I was a kid--often live, as I recall.  Sometimes a 40(?) year old actress played the 13 year old girl.  And did a great job.

It's been a week. Which 14 hard-boiled classics did you read?

[Mookalafalas]

It's been a week. Which 14 hard-boiled classics did you read?

   Got way slowed down.  I'm about 1/2 way through "Journey into Fear" which is quite good.  Too good, probably.  Not pulpy enough to just mash through.  I read the first 5 chapters of a Ross Macdonald and really disliked it.  I've mostly been downloading digital copies of all my {music} box sets as back-ups.  10 times easier than copying them myself, but still surprisingly time consuming (especially adding tags and cover art, etc).   It's winter break here, which means I am taking more care of my kids, and doing a lot more teaching (parents make their kids take extra classes during vacation). 

[Corey]

Lots of academic texts on Shinto and Japanese religion -- pretty much deathly dull to anyone not studying it.

[Drasko]

J. G. Ballard - The Drowned World

[Florestan]

Ion Ghica - Letters to Vasile Alecsandri

Of absolutely no value to anyone not interested in, and moderately familiar with, Romanian history in the general context of the diplomatic and military relationships between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, England and France, roughly between 1812 and 1859.

But from time to time there is something that I think it can make even the general audience laugh. For instance, this paragraph (my translation, slightly adapted):

As the year 1840 was approaching, all kind of catastrophic rumors were circulated: we´re going to be fried, believed some people, we´re going to be boiled, said another; to be thrown deep down in the abyss of the universe, some astrologers thought, to be lifted up high in the sky, said some prophets.

I must confess that I was ROTFL for about 10 minutes reading that. 

[Ken B]

As the year 1840 was approaching, all kind of catastrophic rumors were circulated: we´re going to be fried, believed some people, we´re going to be boiled, said another;

I must confess that I was ROTFL for about 10 minutes reading that. 

Oh sure, you laugh NOW, but when you are fry-boiled in another few years then we'll see who's laughing!

[Florestan]

Oh sure, you laugh NOW, but when you are fry-boiled in another few years then we'll see who's laughing!

I could name a few who´d rejoice over my being fry-boiled... 

[Ken B]

I could name a few who´d rejoice over my being fry-boiled... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broasting

[Florestan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broasting

Yeah, but is it halal? 

[lisa needs braces]

Pretty interesting work that explains why the internet is strange and so addictive and how it's leading to some bad habits. Not needlessly polemical.

[lisa needs braces]

I'm experiencing that work as an Audiobook through the service Audible.com. Thanks internet!

[Drasko]

[aligreto]

Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers; very amusing.

[Bogey]

Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers; very amusing.

A number of fans here of this book, including me. 

OK, I only know, and very much enjoy, the movie.  Let me know if this is one worth taking in.

[Drasko]

OK, I only know, and very much enjoy, the movie.  Let me know if this is one worth taking in.

I love the movie. I'm halfway through the novella and while much of it is very similar there are differences, it's bit more explicit in tone, and for instance the narrator isn't 'a kept man' as in the movie (so far at least). Capote's writing style is very nice and fluid, I like it.

[Artem]

I actually haven't seen the movie, but I loved that book. I read In Cold Blood right after it and it was just as amazing.

[Brian]

OK, I only know, and very much enjoy, the movie.  Let me know if this is one worth taking in.

The book is GREAT.

[Ken B]

The book is GREAT.

I read it in high school, and liked it. ICB is even better.