What are you currently reading?

[Haffner]

Again....this was just a fantastic, joyful read!  Loved it!!!

Oh yeah, I devoured that Classic more than once  .

[Kullervo]

What book of him do you plan to read?

Starting Nostromo now. The only other Conrad I've read is Heart of Darkness, which I read back in high school. I should probably read it again, but I am more interested in large canvases with some possible defects rather than perfectly constructed small portraits. I would hold Buddenbrooks above Death in Venice, for instance.

2666 was excellent -- less a novel than a huge collection of stories whose gravitational center is the fictional Mexican border town of Santa Teresa where hundreds of women are brutally murdered with no clue as to who the killers are. The influences are myriad, ranging from seedy murder mysteries to heady European literature from the first half of the 20th Century. I've read reviews that call this a "difficult" book, but for me it was imminently readable (save, possibly, for the section "The Part About the Crimes", which really is brutal in more ways than one). I can see this becoming something of a modern classic.

Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was also brilliant. Thank you Orbital for putting it on my radar!

[Florestan]

Starting Nostromo now.

You're in for a treat.

[Dr. Dread]

You're in for a treat.

Ice cream?

[Bogey]

A web synopsis:
Find answers to key questions about the Bible. How accurate are modern translations such as the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version? Why does the Roman Catholic Bible have more books than most Protestant Bibles? How can we be sure that the Biblical message has been accurately preserved through the centuries? How We Got the Bible, after more than forty years, has become a classic source of answers for these and other questions on how the Bible has come down to us. Now in this revised edition, you will find five new chapters covering the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Sinaitic Manuscript, the illuminated manuscripts, and more.

[rockerreds]

Joe Klein-The Running Mate

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Up next:

Henry James



Yes. Him.

The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels

Excellent! (can't see the pic...)

[Opus106]

Discover Music of the Classical Era
Stephen Johnson

http://www.naxos.com/naxosbooks/naxosbooks_classical.asp

And yes, Beethoven is featured in it.

[Dr. Dread]

Excellent! (can't see the pic...)

Just a picture of James.

Now:



I really enjoy his books.

[Bogey]

Just a picture of James.

Now:



I really enjoy his books.

Any you suggest starting with, Dave?

[Dr. Dread]

Any you suggest starting with, Dave?

I started with The Chill, because I was told it was one of his best, and I loved it so much I found a bibliography and went back to the beginning of the Lew Archer series:  The Moving Target. Well, that one was great too. So, now I'm pretty much just reading them in order. Here's the list of MacDonald's Lew Archer novels:

    * The Moving Target - 1949 (filmed with Paul Newman as Harper, 1968)
    * The Drowning Pool - 1950 (also filmed with Paul Newman as "Lew Harper", 1975)
    * The Way Some People Die - 1951
    * The Ivory Grin (aka Marked for Murder) - 1952
    * Find a Victim - 1954
    * The Barbarous Coast - 1956
    * The Doomsters - 1958
    * The Galton Case - 1959
    * The Wycherly Woman - 1961
    * The Zebra-Striped Hearse - 1962
    * The Chill - 1964
    * The Far Side of the Dollar - 1965
    * Black Money - 1966
    * The Instant Enemy - 1968
    * The Goodbye Look - 1969
    * The Underground Man - 1971
    * Sleeping Beauty - 1973
    * The Blue Hammer - 1976

He's become one of my favorite authors, having not let me down yet.

[Franco]

The Collected Poetry of Raymond Carver:

[Todd]

Finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun yesterday, and it is a fine piece of fiction.  It's set in Nigeria before and during the Biafran War and keeps its focus on five main characters.  It jumps back and forth between the pre-war and war periods, establishing the characters very well, and then describes some pretty horrific events, but on a small, human scale.  Adichie's prose is very direct and uncomplicated - no flowery or florrid flights of rhetorical fancy are in the book - but her use of language is often compelling.  She'll deliver potent lines (or even, perhaps, truths) in a simple, sometimes unrelentingly cold manner.  Such lines crop up time and again.  Was a quick, very good read.

[orbital]

Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was also brilliant. Thank you Orbital for putting it on my radar!

You're very welcome. I guess you would enjoy Oryx and Crake as well. I just finished it, and it was very close to excellent but somehow not at the level of Handmaid's Tale.

I got three Calvino ebooks none of which are Zeno's Conscience. I plan to read them once I am through figuring out the big deal about the Stieg Larsson trilogy part 1 

[Kullervo]

You're very welcome. I guess you would enjoy Oryx and Crake as well. I just finished it, and it was very close to excellent but somehow not at the level of Handmaid's Tale.

I got three Calvino ebooks none of which are Zeno's Conscience. I plan to read them once I am through figuring out the big deal about the Stieg Larsson trilogy part 1 

That's because Zeno is by another Italo -- Svevo, to be exact. Still, I need to read If on a winter's night a traveler.

[orbital]

That's because Zeno is by another Italo -- Svevo, to be exact. Still, I need to read If on a winter's night a traveler.

No mystery why it wasn't part of that batch then 

[Dr. Dread]

[Haffner]

Okay, I love Dean Koontz. I haven't read one of his books since the early '90's (they seemed to be getting way to formulaic, like King's later stuff f0r the most part).

Please let me know how this stacks up against the awesome Watchers, Whispers, Phantoms...

[Dr. Dread]

Each year, he writes one thriller and one pseudo-philosophical piece of hoohah (Odd Thomas and its sequels). The thrillers are usually better and that's what this one is. Also, I am waiting for the third and last Frankenstein book; good pulpy fun.

[Haffner]

Each year, he writes one thriller and one pseudo-philosophical piece of hoohah (Odd Thomas and its sequels). The thrillers are usually better and that's what this one is. Also, I am waiting for the third and last Frankenstein book; good pulpy fun.

I never heard of the Frankenstein stuff...this is getting VERY interesting.



Now reading:
Richard Wagner My Life