What are you currently reading?

[Antoine Marchand]

Similar reaction as Antoine's.

It is not similar at all, Henk. I said I have not read Nietzsche... Well, I have just read one of his books: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, which is an incomplete and very illuminating book, but not too much representative of his own production.

P.S.: I have tried two or three another Nietzsche's books, but I have not finished them.

[Opus106]

Well then maybe Adiga's novel has some truth in it regarding the culture of corruption in India. I feel a lot of anger in that book, anger at the injustices in Indian society. Sometimes I thought that the writer should lighten up a bit. There is humour in there, but it's very dark humour, very sarcastic.

Sarcastic is putting it rather lightly. In fact, I picked up it expecting "only" a sarcastic take on the myth that India as a whole is on its way to "Superpower-dom". As you say, the humour in it is indeed dark, and it keeps getting darker as the narrative develops.

[Brian]

Sarcastic is putting it rather lightly. In fact, I picked up it expecting "only" a sarcastic take on the myth that India as a whole is on its way to "Superpower-dom". As you say, the humour in it is indeed dark, and it keeps getting darker as the narrative develops.

I thought the humor was delicious and the narrator's voice really entertaining and colorful - but maybe that's because I'm over here and not over there.

EDIT: But I also thought the dark twists at the end were chilling and the book as a whole really emotional. I'm not too cold-blooded!

[Opus106]

I thought the humor was delicious and the narrator's voice really entertaining and colorful - but maybe that's because I'm over here and not over there.

Perhaps. But there were moments when he made me smile too. Just for the record: I don't consider it a horror novel nor do I consider it utterly distasteful -- perhaps not worthy of a Man Booker, but that is another story. It's more of a case of the relative difference between expectation vs. the actual thing.

I'm not too cold-blooded!

Ha!

[karlhenning]

A cold-blooded Texan? Land sakes!

[Brian]

Perhaps. But there were moments when he made me smile too. Just for the record: I don't consider it a horror novel nor do I consider it utterly distasteful -- perhaps not worthy of a Man Booker, but that is another story. It's more of a case of the relative difference between expectation vs. the actual thing.

Have you read Richard Wright's novel Native Son? In many ways White Tiger is the plot and anger of Native Son transplanted onto a new continent.

[Opus106]

Have you read Richard Wright's novel Native Son? In many ways White Tiger is the plot and anger of Native Son transplanted onto a new continent.

Nope. Thanks for the rec.

[Mn Dave]

Just finished a good book about Louis Armstrong called POPS. Am now reading HYPERION by Dan Simmons.

[DavidW]

Am now reading HYPERION by Dan Simmons.

Really?  I'm reading the Terror by Dan Simmons!

[Mn Dave]

Really?

Really.

I read DROOD recently.

[DavidW]

Is that the completion of Dicken's unfinished novel?  I saw it next to the Terror but felt like embracing the artic cold.

[Mn Dave]

Is that the completion of Dicken's unfinished novel?

Not really. http://www.amazon.com/Drood-Novel-Dan-Simmons/dp/0316120618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305841149&sr=8-1

[DavidW]

Oh that sounds fun!

[Mn Dave]

Oh that sounds fun!

I really enjoyed it.

[Lethevich]

.[asin]0345480848[/asin]

Via the audio recording. The reader mispronounces a lot of stuff, but the book is wonderful. It is written in a conversative way, rather than as a history - it feels like part travelogue, part political and social history, and part food talk.

[karlhenning]

Very interesting, Sara.

[Coco]

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I first thought I read UNEXPURGATED EDITION... 

[Coco]

This is the suppressed version

[Bogey]

In preparation to our summer trip to "The Pulse".  This 1943 Pulitzer holds up very well and fortunately Ms. Forbes can write at an engaging level.  (Todd, this would be a good one to check out.)