caruso_stalker217 wrote:Haven't heard of that particular book or author.
I'm currently trying to read an entire Peter Straub book that wasn't co-written by Stephen King. It's been slow-going.
caruso_stalker217 wrote:
I'm also listening to Frank Muller's reading of Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard.
Al Shut wrote:Dreamsongs Volume I
a collection of George R.R. Martin short stories, reaching back unto his time writing fan fiction in high school.
caruso_stalker217 wrote:I started reading The Stand last month, but set it aside to beef up my August reading with Sharp Objects and Dirty Money, both of which I read over three days. Sharp Objects is Gillian Flynn's first novel and the first of hers that I have read. It's pretty good. She's a terrific writer. I'm reading her second novel Dark Places right now which apparently has been made into a movie that may come out some day starring Charlize Theron, which is a terrible casting choice. I'm picturing more of a Kate Mara type for that character, or anyone who isn't eighty fucking years old.
caruso_stalker217 wrote:Here's what I read for April and May:
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Gunslinger, Stephen King
The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King
The Waste Lands, Stephen King
Paradise, Toni Morrison
Another, Yukito Ayatsuji
I don't think I'll be setting any record for number of books read this year.
caruso_stalker217 wrote:I haven't been reading as quickly as usual lately, so I'm still trudging through Wizard and Glass.
Why would you skip Drawing of the Three??
so sorry wrote:TheBaxter wrote:i just read TKaMB for the first time, in anticipation of the release of GSaWM (i love acronyming things!). somehow i got through school without ever being assigned to read that book. probably a good thing, it's the kind of book i would've hated in high school but which i can appreciate now. it really does live up to its reputation.
that said, atticus finch becoming a racist? well, i'll have to read it to figure out exactly how that happens. but on the surface, yeah, it sounds pretty... far-fetched.
Well I'll anxiously wait here for your detailed review...
TheBaxter wrote:so sorry wrote:TheBaxter wrote:i just read TKaMB for the first time, in anticipation of the release of GSaWM (i love acronyming things!). somehow i got through school without ever being assigned to read that book. probably a good thing, it's the kind of book i would've hated in high school but which i can appreciate now. it really does live up to its reputation.
that said, atticus finch becoming a racist? well, i'll have to read it to figure out exactly how that happens. but on the surface, yeah, it sounds pretty... far-fetched.
Well I'll anxiously wait here for your detailed review...
so i finally got to read Go Set a Watchman. is it good? ehhhhhhhhhhh.......
it's not To Kill a Mockingbird. whoever the editor or whoever it was that told Harper Lee to rewrite the thing and make it about them as kids, and the trial and all that stuff, was a smart person. the biggest problem with this book is that it doesn't really have a plot. i mean, the story basically amounts to this: scout goes home, finds out atticus is a racist, gets really upset, they have an argument, things get hashed out, touchy-feely, blah blah. i mean, there are themes and stuff, and ultimately the story is more about children learning to see their parents for who they really are, and accept people's faults, and promoting understanding between different viewpoints, and like i said, blah blah blah. some of that stuff is good. but it's a slog getting there. because up until the end, really, pretty much NOTHING HAPPENS for the whole book. characters talk and then scout gets upset and walks around the town stewing, another conversation, more stewing. it gets tiresome. TKAMB had, like, scenes, and plot points, and things that make stories a bit more enjoyable to read. i guess i'd say the GSAWM themes are maybe a bit more mature and complex, but TKAMB is a lot more effective. if it had been this book that she released instead, no one would remember it 50 years later.
this book is an interesting time capsule. TKAMB has its anachronisms, and language that wouldn't fly in a book these days, but this book takes it a lot further. at the same time, though, there are parts that show how little really has changed since these were written; portions of this book sound like they could be lifted directly from the comments section of any Yahoo news article about Obama (or any Yahoo new article at all, for that matter). the difference i guess is that people in the book aren't shy or embarrassed about saying those kinds of things publicly, as opposed to writing them anonymously through the internet like they do today. and even the people on the "right" side of the civil rights issue in this book themselves spout off opinions that would make even a Tea Partier blush: atticus gets scout to agree that the black race is "backwards" for example, and everyone in the book seems to agree that interracial marriage is a bad thing.
ultimately, i think the book is interesting from a historical perspective. i don't think it's really a very good book though, and lacks the timeless quality that makes TKAMB, even despite some of the dated language and ideas, still relevant today.
Wolfpack wrote:Just finished up John Scalzi's Redshirts, now working on Apocalypse, the last novel in the Fate of the Jedi series. These Star Wars novels have been getting kind of repetitive. I'm glad they hit the reset button on them. I was growing weary reading about this character or that protagonist feeling the almost palpable dark side energy suffusing the area. I get it. Evil is afoot.
so sorry wrote:Wolfpack wrote:Just finished up John Scalzi's Redshirts, now working on Apocalypse, the last novel in the Fate of the Jedi series. These Star Wars novels have been getting kind of repetitive. I'm glad they hit the reset button on them. I was growing weary reading about this character or that protagonist feeling the almost palpable dark side energy suffusing the area. I get it. Evil is afoot.
So when the new books come out, you going to be able to erase your brain of all the previous novels that have now been rendered moot?
Wolfpack wrote:so sorry wrote:Wolfpack wrote:Just finished up John Scalzi's Redshirts, now working on Apocalypse, the last novel in the Fate of the Jedi series. These Star Wars novels have been getting kind of repetitive. I'm glad they hit the reset button on them. I was growing weary reading about this character or that protagonist feeling the almost palpable dark side energy suffusing the area. I get it. Evil is afoot.
So when the new books come out, you going to be able to erase your brain of all the previous novels that have now been rendered moot?
Nope. There's plenty I won't be able to forget, like Thrawn and Mara Jade, the Karen Traviss novels, the Yuuzhan Vong destroying Coruscant, etc., but some I will just naturally forget because they weren't anything special. There's only so many unique ways you can have the Dastardly Sith of the Week test Our Heroes' commitment to the light side.
TheBaxter wrote:just finished reading "Childhood's End". it's been on the TO READ list for a while now, but figured i better get it done before the SYFY miniseries comes out. now that i've read it, i'm not so sure i have much faith that the miniseries can possibly do justice to the book. it's possible is 'spose, but i don't have that much faith in syfy.
Wolfpack wrote:I'm reading Foundations in Pharmacokinetics, the heartbreaking story of what happens to a drug when given to a patient. Plus, there's math!
Al Shut wrote:Wolfpack wrote:I'm reading Foundations in Pharmacokinetics, the heartbreaking story of what happens to a drug when given to a patient. Plus, there's math!
Spoiler: If you break the patient's heart, you're doing it wrong.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest