What Are You Reading?

[caruso_stalker217]

New Moon. Bloo-man, you disappoint me.

[Maui]

my bathroom reading right now is NEW MOON, I hear the writing gets better from TWILIGHT, not likig the Romeo and Juliet symbolism being shoved right in my face though

Well Meyers made some bold choices with New Moon that didn't quite work for me. However, you've just started, so I'll wait til you are done to rip it apart.

[Bloo]

New Moon. Bloo-man, you disappoint me.

I promised one of my best friends I'd read them, she had me by the short hairs :LOL:

[Bloo]

my bathroom reading right now is NEW MOON, I hear the writing gets better from TWILIGHT, not likig the Romeo and Juliet symbolism being shoved right in my face though

Well Meyers made some bold choices with New Moon that didn't quite work for me. However, you've just started, so I'll wait til you are done to rip it apart.

I just finished the first "month" or however she breaks it up, with Edward and the Cullens leaving poor poor Bella

I think I'm losing more and more Oleg cred

[Maui]

I think I'm losing more and more Oleg cred

It's all about impressing those guys, eh?

[The Todd]

100 pages into Duma Key and loving it-FIVE!!!!!

That book was a LOT better than I would have guessed it to be.

Seconded-FIVE!!!!!

The Todd finally finished Duma Key over the weekend and thought it was awesome! Much better than I was expecting when I started reading and WAY better than some of the shit he put out before his "retirement".

Of course The Todd liked it so much, I ended up jumping right into Just After Sunset (his latest collection of short stories). Finished the first one, Willa, and currently reading The Gingerbread Girl. I like them both so far (although Gingerbread is reminding me of a very short version of Dean Koontz's Intensity).

King claims his renewed vigor for short stories comes from editing The Best American Short Stories 2007. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the awesomeness of his son's 20th Century Ghosts, in which Joe Hill steals the title of 'Best Short Story Horror Writer of the King Family' from old Stephen.....

[Vegeta]

"The Given Day" by Dennis Lehane

[Bloo]

I think I'm losing more and more Oleg cred

It's all about impressing those guys, eh?

it's a guy thing

[Ribbons]

Says the guy reading Twilight!

[Bloo]

Says the guy reading Twilight!

it's not my fault, I was forced to read the series, I was belive me

[Maui]

That's ok Bloo.

If you tell us that you have read all of Chuck Palahniuk's writings, then puff your chest a few times and then grrrrrrrrrrrrrr a bit, all will be well in the world or atleast in the book forum.

[minstrel]

I'm a nerd. Right now, when I'm not reading magazine articles, I'm reading about the technical aspects of the art of writing. Right now I'm deep into Analyzing Prose, by Richard Lanham. It's rather bizarre and arcane, and it kind of amazes me that people have bothered doing THIS much analysis of prose, but guess what? They have! They've analyzed it to death. It's dead now. Starting to smell, in fact. Maybe I shouldn't be reading this book.

[MadCapsule]

I'm almost finished with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (after my third attempt at reading it) and I honestly kinda hate it.

[Ribbons]

I'm almost finished with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (after my third attempt at reading it) and I honestly kinda hate it.

Care to elaborate, paisan? You've got me a little spooked because that's in my pile of books to read

[MadCapsule]

I'm almost finished with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (after my third attempt at reading it) and I honestly kinda hate it.

Care to elaborate, paisan? You've got me a little spooked because that's in my pile of books to read

I find it to be wordy and tedious. Chabon likes to (at least in this instance; I haven't read anything else written by him) write very long rambling sentences that veer off in so many different directions that I often find that I've lost interest in whatever the hell he was originally trying to get at in the first place. I also get the sense that Chabon must have had a bet with his peers to see who could get more of their readers to run to the dictionary to look up words that absolutely no one uses. Now, I'm all for expanding one's vocabulary, but this is just irritating.

I'm just not invested in any of the characters, either. Some of them die off and I'm alarmed at how much I just don't care.

Also, the beginning was just flat-out boring.

I'm sorry if I've colored your opinion or soured you on it before you've read it but, well, you asked...

[Bloo]

well I'm still plowing through Myer's 2nd Twilight book NEW MOON

in the meantime I've read King's EYES OF THE DRAGON

and am currently reading the play THE LARAMIE PROJECT by Moises Kaufman and The Members of Tectonic Theatre Project which is about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard

[YualBrenna]

This Book Will Save Your Life - A.A. Homes

same author as The Safety of Objects (and so far the better of the two)

[King Psyz]

Watchmen


Since seeing the movie anytime soon is out. Not sure what I will read next.

[actionz]

http://sourceradix.com/m/20090318.html

[Spandau Belly]

I enjoyed a quick nonfiction read

BORN ON A BLUE DAY

This is the memoirs of Daniel Tammet, a young man with Asperger's ( a highly functional level of autism) and who has savant abilities making him similiar to the character Dustin Hoffman played in Rain Man. He has the ability to perform incredibly complex calculations in his mind and retain endless amounts of detailed information and recite it perfectly, but has trouble with things we find commonplace such as regular social interactions and finding our way around town and gauging peoples' moods.

Tammet has been featured on television and in documentaries in the UK and is frequently used as a gateway to understanding autism because of how high functioning he is.

He is very good at explaining the way certain things make him feel and the way his mind works and his limitations. If you have any interest in autism or have anybody in your family with special needs such as this, I recommend reading this book. It didn't take me long at all. I don't read very quickly, but even for me it was a quick read.

[Ribbons]

Spandau - have you heard of the book Look Me In The Eye? I'm pretty sure that's an autobiography about someone with Asperger's as well, although I don't think they have Rain Man-like skillz. Anyway just figured I'd mention it in case you were interested.

[Spandau Belly]

I haven't heard of that book. I'll keep it in mind. Thanks Ribbons.

[TonyWilson]

Currently reading the second book of the Red Riding Quartet
Think Ellroy but done Yorkshire. The first book is a descent in to hell and madness for a young reporter investigating the disappearance of a young girl that maybe linked with other missing girls around the county, as the book progresses the true face of the corrupt police, politicians and businessman who control the area becomes clear. It's a savage read, fast moving, graphic, complex but it's not all grit and realism there's also an undercurrent of the occult and the supernatural (especially in the second book - Nineteen Seventy Seven), visions and hauntings and perhaps prophecy. The second book fills in a few mysteries from the first and recaps events from other perspectives while telling a new part of the whole story that also segues into the real life Yorkshire Ripper investigation, other real events like the Steven Kizsko false imprisonment are weaved into the narrative either by direct reference or with the names of the parties involved changed. The Quartet has been adapted into a trilogy of films for channel 4 and they look pretty good but quite a lot has been changed or cut and characters amalgamated into others so even if you've seen them the book are more than worth tracking down.

[stereosforgeeks]

I'm reading The Hellmouths Of Bewdley right now. It's a short story collection of B movie type topics. So far they've ranged from a person committing suicide, to demented doctors, bikers and prostitutes, the only Dumbledore man in town, etc...

It's the first novel of Tony Burgess's trilogy which contains Pontypool Changes Everything (about a zombie type infection that effects communication) and is a movie by Bruce McDonald is coming out shortly.

So far I'm not terribly impressed with the book but I wanted to read it first before delving into Pontypool, which Ive heard great things about.

[Maui]

well I'm still plowing through Myer's 2nd Twilight book NEW MOON

Yeah, I didn't like New Moon that much, in fact I lost a bit of interest in it and started reading something else, then came back to it. While the whole shape-shifting wolf thing is cool, it just seemed to be too much Bella and Jacob and I found myself getting pissed off with Meyers for not having Edward in the storyline sooner. When they adapt this for the big screen, they are definitely going to have to play up the whole Italy/Volterra vampire scene and play down all the boring Jacob/Bella storyline AND they better get the wolves right or it could be a real mess. Let's hope that Summit gives them the budget to do the proper VFX for this.

[Bloo]

well I'm still plowing through Myer's 2nd Twilight book NEW MOON

Yeah, I didn't like New Moon that much, in fact I lost a bit of interest in it and started reading something else, then came back to it. While the whole shape-shifting wolf thing is cool, it just seemed to be too much Bella and Jacob and I found myself getting pissed off with Meyers for not having Edward in the storyline sooner. When they adapt this for the big screen, they are definitely going to have to play up the whole Italy/Volterra vampire scene and play down all the boring Jacob/Bella storyline AND they better get the wolves right or it could be a real mess. Let's hope that Summit gives them the budget to do the proper VFX for this.

well I've finished New Moon and jumped right into ECLIPSE, which I enjoyed a lot more. You've pretty much summed up my feelings on New Moon

one thought, if the vamps and the werewolves are such natural mortal enemies, why aren't the wolves in more places (the specifically mention in...Eclipse I belive that the Volturi weren't going to recognize the wolves scent) or why didn't the Native American's send out their wolf warriors out further to totally eliminate the threat

my biggest complaint about NEW MOON was the lack of any real WW action, we hear Jacob talk about but not really describe or go into detail about their fight with Laruant, they had BETTER include that in the movie version.

I will also say that if that Spanish The Orphanage guy gets to direct ECLIPSE I think it'll be a good marriage of directior and material

overall New moon felt like filler, Eclipse not too bad

haven't had a chance to start Breaking Dawn yet

[DennisMM]

I have just started My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully. It's the first-person story of a man who was given an "icepick" lobotomy when he was twelve, because his stepmother thought he was bad and uncontrollable. Shades of Frances Farmer.

[Maui]

well I've finished New Moon and jumped right into ECLIPSE, which I enjoyed a lot more. You've pretty much summed up my feelings on New Moon

one thought, if the vamps and the werewolves are such natural mortal enemies, why aren't the wolves in more places (the specifically mention in...Eclipse I belive that the Volturi weren't going to recognize the wolves scent) or why didn't the Native American's send out their wolf warriors out further to totally eliminate the threat

my biggest complaint about NEW MOON was the lack of any real WW action, we hear Jacob talk about but not really describe or go into detail about their fight with Laruant, they had BETTER include that in the movie version.

I will also say that if that Spanish The Orphanage guy gets to direct ECLIPSE I think it'll be a good marriage of directior and material

overall New moon felt like filler, Eclipse not too bad

haven't had a chance to start Breaking Dawn yet

Bayona...hell yeah! Orphanage was his directorial debut and he did a wonderful job.

No, WWs only exist in Forks. New Moon was basically a Bella/Jacob story with a bit of excitement thrown in at the very end with Italy/Volterra crew. I found it boring in parts, tempted to skip through some stuff but that's a reading sin for me, no matter how boring material can be.

Let me know your thoughts on Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

[Nachokoolaid]

Thought I'd pick up Gabriel Garcia Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE again. I haven't read it since college, and I'm really enjoying it. It's amazing that one man was able to write this. It seems so epic, and yet so personal. I really want to try his LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, which I heard was good, and bit easier to read.

[Bloo]

well I've finished New Moon and jumped right into ECLIPSE, which I enjoyed a lot more. You've pretty much summed up my feelings on New Moon

one thought, if the vamps and the werewolves are such natural mortal enemies, why aren't the wolves in more places (the specifically mention in...Eclipse I belive that the Volturi weren't going to recognize the wolves scent) or why didn't the Native American's send out their wolf warriors out further to totally eliminate the threat

my biggest complaint about NEW MOON was the lack of any real WW action, we hear Jacob talk about but not really describe or go into detail about their fight with Laruant, they had BETTER include that in the movie version.

I will also say that if that Spanish The Orphanage guy gets to direct ECLIPSE I think it'll be a good marriage of directior and material

overall New moon felt like filler, Eclipse not too bad

haven't had a chance to start Breaking Dawn yet

Bayona...hell yeah! Orphanage was his directorial debut and he did a wonderful job.

No, WWs only exist in Forks. New Moon was basically a Bella/Jacob story with a bit of excitement thrown in at the very end with Italy/Volterra crew. I found it boring in parts, tempted to skip through some stuff but that's a reading sin for me, no matter how boring material can be.

Let me know your thoughts on Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

yeah the WW in Forks only is stupid imo, I live in Kansas I have to wonder if maybe we have Werecoyotes because we have more coyotes then wolves out here

ECLIPSE I thought had a stronger story, less locked into her "inspiration" material, the banter and the give and take between Edward and Jacob I enjoyed

Bella to me still isn't that great of a char. she just is there, while everyone around her is much more intresting

I think it's also the most "rereadable"

[caruso_stalker217]

Fuck's sake, man. Fuckin' TWILIGHT. It's not enough I gotta hear about it at work all the fuckin' time. Damn.

Anyway, I haven't been reading shit so I guess I got no reason to be here anyway.

[Bloo]

Fuck's sake, man. Fuckin' TWILIGHT. It's not enough I gotta hear about it at work all the fuckin' time. Damn.

Anyway, I haven't been reading shit so I guess I got no reason to be here anyway.

HEY noone's forcing you into this thread

I"m also currently rereading THE HISTORIAN by elizabeth kostovs (or however you spell her name) but I'm not like booking through it

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

I've got about a hundred pages to go in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and I am enjoying the hell out of it. This Roth guy is pretty good, I should look into more of his stuff.

[Maui]

Bella to me still isn't that great of a char. she just is there, while everyone around her is much more intresting

An extremely bland character to read about and Kristin Stewart portrays this brilliantly, or is that just her lame acting?

I think you will find that these books are forgettable, I did. They don't stick with you with any kind of WOW factor.

[Ribbons]

I've got about a hundred pages to go in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and I am enjoying the hell out of it. This Roth guy is pretty good, I should look into more of his stuff.

The Human Stain!

[caruso_stalker217]

I don't know about the book, but the movie was one of the most pointless fuckin' things I've ever seen.

[Spandau Belly]

Man, I think that Human Stain movie was made soley to knock Coppola's Stoker's Dracula off the top for most miscasting in a feature film. And Tony Hopkins is in both of those films, at least in Dracula he's not trying to play a black.

[caruso_stalker217]

The part that just really pissed me off the most was the whole scandal thing, where everybody thought he was calling the two black students spooks even though he said he meant ghosts because he'd never seen them in class and also in context it was obvious he meant ghosts and it seemed like a pretty easy thing to get out of if you just got pissed enough and pointed out to everybody how fucking stupid they are and you wouldn't even have to reveal your terrible secret of being a white black man and your wife wouldn't fuckin' die of scandalitis or whatever the fuck was going on there.

Kidman's tits were a plus, though.

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

Plus Ed Harris too. best thing in it, anyone?

Can we talk about what we've read in the last 12 months of not being here?

Me? Blood Meridian. Very cold. Very devoid of human decency. Very violent - and not in a 'oooh violence is cooool' kinda way. The graphic images and how they represent human's having no soul or mercy for other humans or even innocent animals is just so off putting. Even reading this on a train it made me say out loud 'fuxake!' or something as a particular scene was so unbelievably evil.

2 more things though. How are they gonna make this into a movie? Simply due to the story's narrative and the central character of The Kid hardly even getting a mention in the middle part of the story.

Also, The Judge's speeches. About the bear, etc. I get what he's saying, but there's more REAL profound (a word I use too much bit not here) stuff he's getting at. Which I find hard to penetrate and have always pledged to go back t read one or two of his speeches again.

Cormac McCarthy. He's 'out there' man in this book, even more than he seemed to be in the No gentleman movie.

Wonderful novel this though. Hard read, but worth it.

[Bloo]

Bella to me still isn't that great of a char. she just is there, while everyone around her is much more intresting

An extremely bland character to read about and Kristin Stewart portrays this brilliantly, or is that just her lame acting?

I think you will find that these books are forgettable, I did. They don't stick with you with any kind of WOW factor.

I haven't seen anything from Kristin Stewart that blows me away she even looks bored when on the red carpet

yeah that's what I'm finding out, but I told my friends I would read them but they had to read the Sookie Stackhouse books (of which I had the first 2) for me

[Maui]

I haven't seen anything from Kristin Stewart that blows me away she even looks bored when on the red carpet

Word. Not to mention all the fashion faux pas she makes on the red carpet. *meow*

yeah that's what I'm finding out, but I told my friends I would read them but they had to read the Sookie Stackhouse books (of which I had the first 2) for me

Are those books any good, re. Sookie Stackhouse? I've watched True Blood on HBO and was curious about the books.

[Bloo]

Are those books any good, re. Sookie Stackhouse? I've watched True Blood on HBO and was curious about the books.

they aren't bad, I have only seen a couple of episodes of True Blood so I can't compare but they're well written, have a very good mytholgy behind them, char. are likeable, campires are acutlally vampires and don't SPARKLE and the first 2 feature a good murder mysteries and some decidely adult situations

I usually don't comment on fashion stuff because I like what I like and I know that my taste is differnt...well that and I'm a stright male but yeah her fashion blows, I bet really tacky designers that get cut early on Project Runway (or make it to the end) love her though

[Maui]

they aren't bad, I have only seen a couple of episodes of True Blood so I can't compare but they're well written, have a very good mytholgy behind them, char. are likeable, campires are acutlally vampires and don't SPARKLE

Well Meyer's had to do something different with the vampires, separate herself from other vampire authors like Anne Rice for example. No one else has done the sparkly skin vampire bit before, but yeah, it was lame.

[Bloo]

they aren't bad, I have only seen a couple of episodes of True Blood so I can't compare but they're well written, have a very good mytholgy behind them, char. are likeable, campires are acutlally vampires and don't SPARKLE

Well Meyer's had to do something different with the vampires, separate herself from other vampire authors like Anne Rice for example. No one else has done the sparkly skin vampire bit before, but yeah, it was lame.

One thing I liked from Myers, and I'm sure it's been done before, but comparing it to a venom and I liked how she has used the "sparkle" for the more traditional vampires in that they use it to attract their victims (or at least that's how I read it) but it was just a really strange idea that didn't work for me

[The Todd]

About to start Angelica by Arthur Phillips.

Angelica

From the bestselling author of The Egyptologist and Prague comes an even more accomplished and entirely surprising new novel. Angelica is a spellbinding Victorian ghost story, an intriguing literary and psychological puzzle, and a meditation on marriage, childhood, memory, and fear. The novel opens in London, in the 1880s, with the Barton household on the brink of collapse. Mother, father, and daughter provoke one another, consciously and unconsciously, and a horrifying crisis is triggered. As the family’s tragedy is told several times from different perspectives, events are recast and sympathies shift. In the dark of night, a chilling sexual spectre is making its way through the house, hovering over the sleeping girl and terrorizing her fragile mother. Are these visions real, or is there something more sinister, and more human, to fear? A spiritualist is summoned to cleanse the place of its terrors, but with her arrival the complexities of motive and desire only multiply. The mother’s failing health and the father’s many secrets fuel the growing conflicts, while the daughter flirts dangerously with truth and fantasy. While Angelica is reminiscent of such classic horror tales as The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House, it is also a thoroughly modern exploration of identity, reality, and love. Set at the dawn of psychoanalysis and the peak of spiritualism’s acceptance, Angelica is also an evocative historical novel that explores the timeless human hunger for certainty. “Angelica, Arthur Phillip's spellbinding third book, cements this young novelist's reputation as one of the best writers in America, a storyteller who combines Nabokovian wit and subtlety with a narrative urgency that rivals Stephen King" –Washington Post From the Hardcover edition.

[TonyWilson]

Currently reading the second book of the Red Riding Quartet
Think Ellroy but done Yorkshire. The first book is a descent in to hell and madness for a young reporter investigating the disappearance of a young girl that maybe linked with other missing girls around the county, as the book progresses the true face of the corrupt police, politicians and businessman who control the area becomes clear. It's a savage read, fast moving, graphic, complex but it's not all grit and realism there's also an undercurrent of the occult and the supernatural (especially in the second book - Nineteen Seventy Seven), visions and hauntings and perhaps prophecy. The second book fills in a few mysteries from the first and recaps events from other perspectives while telling a new part of the whole story that also segues into the real life Yorkshire Ripper investigation, other real events like the Steven Kizsko false imprisonment are weaved into the narrative either by direct reference or with the names of the parties involved changed. The Quartet has been adapted into a trilogy of films for channel 4 and they look pretty good but quite a lot has been changed or cut and characters amalgamated into others so even if you've seen them the book are more than worth tracking down.

Right forget what I said about Ellroy, Peace is hewing closer to Dante and William Blake in the final 3 novels, insanely complex with many many threads left to be tied up by the reader on reflection of the whole thing. Nineteen Seventy-Seventy is a spellbinding tale of a reporter and copper both in relationships with prostituites and both on the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper but they uncover the edges of something far larger and just as dark, here the bravura poetry takes hold as terrifying visions of evil and innocence claw into the two protagonists.
Nineteen Eighty is a character study of the last good man in Yorkshire or so it would seem, Peter Hunter - dedicated and prepared for war, war on the corrupt coppers and war on the ripper and perhaps the whole of Leeds but even he is carrying secrets that powerful, monstrous entities can exploit. Again the books contain dark dark poetry amongst the prose; stream of concsiousness, perspective changing run on paragraphs from the victims and the ripper and the police investigations points of view of the murders begin each chapter giving the reader a feeling that even someone always ready for battle can't win if they don't understand what they're facing/
Finally, finally the haunting Nineteen Eighty-Three - as complex as the other three book put together - the novel takes the point of view of 3 characters who were peripheral characters in the other 3. One of the characters story is told in the second person and another is told with a character talking about himself in the third person. The evil heart, the Dragon of the quartet is revealed but so much else is left for the reader to investigate; as the book flashes back to the times of the previous 3 works and to 2 other times before them, Ninteen Eighty Three becomes a sort of codex, but it's more than just that, it's where the political and the personal are revealed as inextricable and a terrifying half blind vengeance is wreaked.
The Quartet is an extraordinarily powerful and deeply affecting, scarring work. It's sad and full of rage and punctuated beauty and it will stay with you long after the final heartbreaking moments.

[Nachokoolaid]

Well, I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, and that was great again. I went back and read WATCHMEN again, and that was also good. A friend gave me a copy of THE GUNSLINGER, and I'm about half through it and I''m trying to contemplate whether I'm enjoying it enough to read that entire Dark Tower series. It's okay in parts and not so much in others. I'll probably finish them just because I'm usually a completist. Anyone got any opinions on this Dark Tower series?(no spoilers!).

[caruso_stalker217]

Personally, I think the first four Dark Tower books are some of the best shit King has ever written. Then he wrote the last three.

[Bloo]

Well, I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, and that was great again. I went back and read WATCHMEN again, and that was also good. A friend gave me a copy of THE GUNSLINGER, and I'm about half through it and I''m trying to contemplate whether I'm enjoying it enough to read that entire Dark Tower series. It's okay in parts and not so much in others. I'll probably finish them just because I'm usually a completist. Anyone got any opinions on this Dark Tower series?(no spoilers!).

keep reading them! agreed with caruso the first 4 are probably Kings best stuff, the other 3 are...ok

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

Well, I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, and that was great again. I went back and read WATCHMEN again, and that was also good. A friend gave me a copy of THE GUNSLINGER, and I'm about half through it and I''m trying to contemplate whether I'm enjoying it enough to read that entire Dark Tower series. It's okay in parts and not so much in others. I'll probably finish them just because I'm usually a completist. Anyone got any opinions on this Dark Tower series?(no spoilers!).

keep reading them! agreed with caruso the first 4 are probably Kings best stuff, the other 3 are...ok

Yeah get in there, Nachoo!!! By the time you've finished with The Gunslinger you'll be all ready to get going on the other novels. The Gunslinger I thought was pretty consistent throughout, sometimes with action and high drama, then quieter moments, but it's towards the end that all that hard to describe real far out farked up shit with talk of the Universe, different dimensions or worlds starts to happen where the book 'takes off' so to speak. Not giving away too much I hope.

I found that The Drawing of the Three was such a turbo superfast read where I was so excited to read what happens next that I was flicking through the pages faster than my eyes could keep up. A cliche I know, but heh, I don't read that many books in my past, so it's a rather fresh experience for this illeterate fark!

The Waste Lands I'm reading now, and I do love it right at the halfway point. I DO hope the books get better and not becomes just... OK though. But consider me in for the whole ride, Roland!