What are you currently reading?

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

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JBS


Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Ken B

Quote from: JBS on August 10, 2019, 04:01:40 PM
https://opensourcedefense.org/blog/what-is-going-on-with-mass-shootings-lessons-from-past-solved-problems

Interesting read. I saw a good analysis of school shootings along those lines a while ago. But the media want clicks and the political want tsuris.

milk


I found Ender's Game to be rather unmemorable but I heard this was different so I've given it a chance. I'm finding that this is surprisingly good and even reminds me of Ursula Le Guin. Sadly, I find 99% of SciFi unreadable but, happily, this one is a pleasurable fluke.

milk

Quote from: Ken B on May 17, 2019, 07:17:30 PM
The Shamed interests me. We seem to have settled on Gladys Kravitz as our new role model. Was it worth reading?
I thought this was a very engaging, entertaining and moving read. It's also very timely. I think people still are not considering this problem enough. Actually, I wish there were more writers as god as Ronson.

Ken B

Quote from: milk on August 11, 2019, 04:55:18 AM
I thought this was a very engaging, entertaining and moving read. It's also very timely. I think people still are not considering this problem enough. Actually, I wish there were more writers as god as Ronson.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree about this kind of problem.

Ken B

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1958
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And

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André



About a quarter of the way through. A page turner indeed.

Artem

Here's what I read over a week time of a vacation. All were moderately enjoyable but definitely not those authors' best work.


SimonNZ

After Dark is almost certainly my least favorite Murakami, not downright bad, but his least typical, the least of what I like reading in him.

TD:

Finished volume two of the Richard Evans third reich series, which was even better than the already excellent volume one. Didn't think I'd continue into the third volume on the war years as military history is less interesting to me and I've already read quite a bit about the holocaust, but the sheer quality has me pushing forward. So starting today:


JBS

Quote from: SimonNZ on August 18, 2019, 05:06:15 PM
After Dark is almost certainly my least favorite Murakami, not downright bad, but his least typical, the least of what I like reading in him.

TD:

Finished volume two of the Richard Evans third reich series, which was even better than the already excellent volume one. Didn't think I'd continue into the third volume on the war years as military history is less interesting to me and I've already read quite a bit about the holocaust, but the sheer quality has me pushing forward. So starting today:




I saw your post about the first volume, and got it today after work at Barnes and Noble.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

SimonNZ

#9370
Quote from: JBS on August 18, 2019, 05:48:41 PM

I saw your post about the first volume, and got it today after work at Barnes and Noble.

I'll be very interested to hear your opinion of it whenever you get to it.


edit I also realise now I shouldn't have given away my unread copies of the Klemperer diaries some years back, thinking I'd never get around to them. Evans refers to many such source material, but Klemperer is one he returns to repeatedly, and the extracts have whetted my appetite for more. Will have to buy again.



and another I'll have to get but hadn't heard of before reading vol.2 is Freidrich Reck's Diary Of A Man In Despair, which I see is now in a NYRB edition:


Ken B

#9371
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183033/israel-insider-guide

Never seen the Reck, but my library has a copy. Added to the list, which grows faster than it should.

Mookalafalas

I am reading Rachel Cusk's Kudos. It is the 3rd part of a trilogy, but as there are is no plot and no characters (except the author), it shouldn't matter that I am reading it out of order (I read book 1 some time ago). Beautiful writing and provocative ideas. I'm a big fan.
[asin]B077DZ1WNZ[/asin]

   Exact OPPOSITE of my summer reading experience, which might serve as a warning for some. I wanted some light "beach fare"--and chose a famous fantasy series. I like the escapism of fantasy, but find it is usually (pretty much always?) unreadably bad. Anyway, after hearing of it off and on for years, I started Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time".  I have big problems with aspects of the writing--huge mountains of unnecessary detail and description--but it was narratively engaging enough that I kept reading. It ended up being 14 LONG books. I kept deciding to stop, but then fell back in... It ate my summer.
It's all good...

Ken B

Quote from: Mookalafalas on August 31, 2019, 05:50:16 PM
I am reading Rachel Cusk's Kudos. It is the 3rd part of a trilogy, but as there are is no plot and no characters (except the author), it shouldn't matter that I am reading it out of order (I read book 1 some time ago). Beautiful writing and provocative ideas. I'm a big fan.
[asin]B077DZ1WNZ[/asin]

   Exact OPPOSITE of my summer reading experience, which might serve as a warning for some. I wanted some light "beach fare"--and chose a famous fantasy series. I like the escapism of fantasy, but find it is usually (pretty much always?) unreadably bad. Anyway, after hearing of it off and on for years, I started Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time".  I have big problems with aspects of the writing--huge mountains of unnecessary detail and description--but it was narratively engaging enough that I kept reading. It ended up being 14 LONG books. I kept deciding to stop, but then fell back in... It ate my summer.
I am told you have to read it twice to fully appreciate it ...

jwinter

Quote... Anyway, after hearing of it off and on for years, I started Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time".  I have big problems with aspects of the writing--huge mountains of unnecessary detail and description--but it was narratively engaging enough that I kept reading. It ended up being 14 LONG books. I kept deciding to stop, but then fell back in... It ate my summer.

You finished all 14 books?!  I'm impressed, I tried to read it years ago and stalled out around book 5, too many unresolved plotlines and characters to keep track of.... I really loved the first book though.

Having finished it, was it worth the 10,000+ pages?  I enjoy epic fantasy, but that's like half a dozen Lords of the Rings....

My father keeps trying to get me to start Terry Goodkind, but I can't get past the first few chapters.  I just can't take his prose; too wooden, no sense of style.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Mookalafalas

Quote from: jwinter on September 01, 2019, 05:36:30 PM
You finished all 14 books?!  I'm impressed, I tried to read it years ago and stalled out around book 5, too many unresolved plotlines and characters to keep track of.... I really loved the first book though.

Having finished it, was it worth the 10,000+ pages?  I enjoy epic fantasy, but that's like half a dozen Lords of the Rings....

My father keeps trying to get me to start Terry Goodkind, but I can't get past the first few chapters.  I just can't take his prose; too wooden, no sense of style.

  Jordan was a smart guy, and the action and political motivation of his characters and their respective cultures, etc. were consistent and complex, But his powers of description are very limited--he returns to the same adjectives, motifs, and expressions over and over again. I am a guy who generally feels obligated to read every word of a book, but in this series I skimmed massively.  Clearly he loved working on it, because he inserts a gazillion mundane details, which often do little to develop his world. The work has 100s of characters, and dozens of plot lines--and you're right, many just disappear.  He died before he finished the series, and a guy named Brandon Sanderson wrote the last 3 books. Happily, Sanderson is a much more disciplined writer, with a better sense of pacing, sharper sense of irony, broader vocabulary, and better instincts about what can safely be skipped or elided. In other words, the series was stronger at the end than the middle. I guess that's why I couldn't stop.  But, I'm very glad it's over.

  And no, KEN, I will not be reading it again ??? ???
It's all good...

Ken B

Quote from: Mookalafalas on September 01, 2019, 08:25:42 PM
  Jordan was a smart guy, and the action and political motivation of his characters and their respective cultures, etc. were consistent and complex, But his powers of description are very limited--he returns to the same adjectives, motifs, and expressions over and over again. I am a guy who generally feels obligated to read every word of a book, but in this series I skimmed massively.  Clearly he loved working on it, because he inserts a gazillion mundane details, which often do little to develop his world. The work has 100s of characters, and dozens of plot lines--and you're right, many just disappear.  He died before he finished the series, and a guy named Brandon Sanderson wrote the last 3 books. Happily, Sanderson is a much more disciplined writer, with a better sense of pacing, sharper sense of irony, broader vocabulary, and better instincts about what can safely be skipped or elided. In other words, the series was stronger at the end than the middle. I guess that's why I couldn't stop.  But, I'm very glad it's over.

  And no, KEN, I will not be reading it again ??? ???
Can't blame a guy for trying.

Ken B

Actually Mook it sounds like you would enjoy Guy Gavriel Kay. He is not really my cup of tea but he is strong in the ways Jordan is weak. He writes mostly fantasy based on history. So a book based on Constantinople, or French troubadours, or early china etc. I might read his Last Light of the Sun "about" medieval Iceland.

Mookalafalas

Quote from: Ken B on September 02, 2019, 10:53:07 AM
Actually Mook it sounds like you would enjoy Guy Gavriel Kay. He is not really my cup of tea but he is strong in the ways Jordan is weak. He writes mostly fantasy based on history. So a book based on Constantinople, or French troubadours, or early china etc. I might read his Last Light of the Sun "about" medieval Iceland.
I'll keep an eye out, but I tend to really dislike that particular mix. When a writer creates an alternate reality with a tight set of rules to govern how things work, it's quite a challenge I think. But as far as our own world goes, I prefer cold logic, reasonable physics, and probability for everything. If it is supposed to be "our" world, even when fate and karma take a hand, or aboriginal peoples suddenly have mystical visions and insights, it turns me off cold.
It's all good...

Ken B

Quote from: Mookalafalas on September 02, 2019, 07:23:28 PM
  I'll keep an eye out, but I tend to really dislike that particular mix. When a writer creates an alternate reality with a tight set of rules to govern how things work, it's quite a challenge I think. But as far as our own world goes, I prefer cold logic, reasonable physics, and probability for everything. If it is supposed to be "our" world, even when fate and karma take a hand, or aboriginal peoples suddenly have mystical visions and insights, it turns me off cold.
My mantra is "nature has no mind". Any book that violates that gets turfed. I once gave up on a 1000 page novel on page 950 when something like those mystical powers happened.

I hope then I can enroll you in the "magical realism is shit" club. Every year we pick a Garcia Marquez book to not read. Each October a book will not arrive by mail.