What are you currently reading?

[Coco]

Hey, the last book I read was from 1914!

[Ataraxia]

Hey, the last book I read was from 1914!

WOW!!! 

[Karl Henning]

That reminds me Karl, as nook friends we can lend each other books!  I saw that feature yesterday, it's really cool!  Most of my ebooks are on the kindle unfortunately, and out of my nook books the only one with the lending feature is the Hunger Games, sorry dude.

That is a nice feature; how do we connect there? I mean, at some point you've got to have something lendable other than Hunger Games, right? : )

[DavidW]

That is a nice feature; how do we connect there? I mean, at some point you've got to have something lendable other than Hunger Games, right? : )

There is a social part on the tablet where I can look at what friends are readiing and it also has available books to lend from friends.  It looks like anyone on good reads I see as friends, but only nook friends have the lending feature.  There should be something similar on the simple touch... if not you have to go peaking around on your account page on the bn website.

[val]

MICHEL ONFRAY:        Contre-Histoire de la philosophie (7): La Construction du Surhomme

As usual a very original approach of some major moments in the History of Philosophy. This volume his dedicated to Jean-Marie Guyau and Friedrich Nietzsche.
I specially liked the interpretation given by Onfray of "Also sprach Zarathustra".

[Philoctetes]

Currently reading books about masculinity and grief, as well as prepping for two lectures (Intelligence, being one. Liberia, being the other).

[jlaurson]

In the process of continuously lowering the level my literary pursuits, I have now arrived at this...
in this particular, very nicely made and beautiful Penguin hardcover edition.




I. Fleming
Introducing James Bond
Casino Royale
Penguin, 2008

German link, UK link




I. Fleming
Introducing James Bond
Live and Let Die
Penguin, 2008
German link, UK link




I. Fleming
Agent 007 at Home and Abroad
Moonraker
Penguin, 2008
German link, UK link


Mainly, I am just curious how differently the book experience is, given that the films have probably taken on greater cultural significance than their origin. Certainly for me, since the Bond films played a considerable role in my adolescence [not to mention the joy of discovering all the crude innuendo that I had innocently overheard when young], whereas I've never read anything by Fleming, not even chitty-chitty-bang-bang.

[Karl Henning]

It's been quite a while, but I've read Casino Royale and Live and Let Die.  Very different to the cinematic treatment (of course, in the case of the campy 60s version of the former, that goes without saying . . . .)

[DavidW]

Casino Royale reads more like a gentleman's adventure rather than a modern action movie.  Ditto the Bourne Identity, reading it is a completely different experience from watching it (at least the Matt Damon version, have not seen the Richard Chamberlain version).

[chasmaniac]

Hey, the last book I read was from 1914!

The last book I read was in 1914!

I'm reading a goat's innards right now, and lemme tell ya, The future is gross!

[jlaurson]

It's been quite a while, but I've read Casino Royale and Live and Let Die.  Very different to the cinematic treatment (of course, in the case of the campy 60s version of the former, that goes without saying . . . .)

I never read the original film Casino Royale, but from what I hear it was either a spoof or hiding behind pretending to be a spoof, no?

Ah, answering my own question, courtesy Rotten Tomatoes:

Retired after years of international espionage, Agent 007 is lured back into action to battle the evil spy organization SMERSH in this notoriously incoherent parody of the James Bond films. David Niven portrays the aging Bond, who atypically rejects the advances of a variety of women, and agrees to battle SMERSH's hold on the lavish Casino Royale only after organization head M is murdered.

The new Casino Royale film was great... and as quickly as it had raised my hopes that James Bond was going into the right direction again, as a series, it went below all the lows that the later Brosnan adventures hit (not that he's to blame). A series of music/action videos in search of a plot. Gross. A Quantum of something..., alright.

Right now I'm reading up on Baccarat online to better understand the inner workings of the book. One gets side-tracked, though... with Lord Lucan and such.

[Karl Henning]

I never read the original film Casino Royale, but from what I hear it was either a spoof or hiding behind pretending to be a spoof, no?

Well, with Woody Allen playing Jimmy Bond, Jr, it had better have been a spoof!

[bhodges]

Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale - An entertaining look at grammar, from an author who encourages people to consider when to break the rules in writing (hence the "sin"  ). Lots of fresh thinking here--and good for writers of all levels.

[asin]0767903099[/asin]

--Bruce

[Karl Henning]

Misread that as good for writers of all evils, Bruce . . . .

[bhodges]

Well, who knows? Hale may have intended that as well!

--Bruce

[Fëanor]

Sequel to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ...

The Honourable School Boy ~ John le Carré

[Cato]

This book should be better known:

[asin]B004YTN23A[/asin]

Solomon Northup wrote this account of his kidnapping by con men, who lured him away from his home in Saratoga, New York, drugged him, and sold him in Washington D.C. into slavery.  He lost 12 years of his life before being rescued and returned to his family.

Highly recommended: you will feel so outraged at times that you will want to reach back across the decades and do something to save him!  An antidote to the "happy slaves" of Scarlett O'Hara, whom Northup did occasionally find, but they were a great exception: even while admitting that some slaves were "happy," he is not willing to compromise on the issue, as one can imagine!

[Geo Dude]

Currently reading Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Charles Martin, The Iliad translated by Richmond Lattimore, and Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges.  All are fine works.

[lisa needs braces]

Ah, answering my own question, courtesy Rotten Tomatoes:
The new Casino Royale film was great... and as quickly as it had raised my hopes that James Bond was going into the right direction again, as a series, it went below all the lows that the later Brosnan adventures hit (not that he's to blame). A series of music/action videos in search of a plot. Gross. A Quantum of something..., alright.

I enjoyed Casino Royal as well.

The sequel was really hurt by the Hollywood writers' strike from a few years back.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/daniel-craig-says-writers-strike-fucked-quantum-of-solace-he-rewrote-scenes-with-marc-forster#

Actor Daniel Craig and the director desperately tried to save by themselves a barebones script that was turned in hours before the writers' strike. Obviously they didn't succeed. 

[Ataraxia]

Robert McCammon's USHER'S PASSING, thanks to a certain Mr. W.