Books, CAN YOU READ?! Options

[Frisk]

Ender's Game- I dunno. It was pretty interesting to read, but it was short. Friend has the series, so I figured I may as well give it a try before the hype from the movie gets really big.

Speaker for the Dead- Miles ahead of Ender's Game. It almost feels like it's written by a completely different person. Really enjoying it so far.

A Feast for Crows- I don't remember :(

Paradise Lost- Satan's all "yo guys, we should fight god for all eternity. Wouldn't that be awesome?" and his demons are all "you know it, boss".

Lolita- Borrowing a professor's copy. Not really re-reading per se, just checking out the annotations that my copy didn't come with and reading the professor's notes on it.

[Dr Strum]

Paradise Lost- Satan's all "yo guys, we should fight god for all eternity. Wouldn't that be awesome?" and his demons are all "you know it, boss".

Best summary of the poem I've ever heard.

Just finished Nabokov's Pnin. Enjoyed it at a lot. Perhaps I identified to much. Currently reading Suzuki/Grady's Tree: A Life Story and liking it even more. I grabbed a few other library books, one on Gödel's incompleteness theorem, another book by David Suzuki, and Bill McKibbin's eaarth [sic]

[Frisk]

1Q84
The Time Traveler's Wife
The New York Trilogy
ADWD

Picked up all those at Barnes and Noble over the weekend. Also reading Xenocide.

[Rhiannon]

Oh right, this topic exists. GUYS I'VE BEEN READING STUFF. ALSO SCREW ITALICS

I finished A Lost Name, and actually that whole eighth volume from that huge Le Fanu collection. I did like A Lost Name and one or two of the short stories quite a bit, but the rest was mostly disappointing. I'll start volume 7 when I've finished one of these other collections. Can't keep reading short story/novel/novella collections at the same time like this. I don't have enough cool bookmarks for it.

I also (finally) finished The Picture of Dorian Gray which is stupid because I had struggled to read to page 75 or so over the span of at least a year, and then I picked it up one day and read the rest of the book in two sittings. No clue why I was having a hard time reading it before... and to make it even stupider, about a week after I finished it I started reading the original/uncensored version (which is super notsecretly gay and actually makes more sense because of it) alongside rereading the censored one. Just to get a really clear idea of all the changes. I'm on chapters 12/14 now, so I'm nearly done.

I'm 370 pages into Les Mis, too. I took a break when it was suddenly time to read the Picture of Dorian Gray a billion times, but yeah. I remember reading people viciously defending abridged editions of this because of some sewers and Waterloo sections, and I was so sure they were just being whiners. Especially when I got to the Battle of Waterloo part and saw that it was only about 50 pages. But you know what? I'm sorry, guys I called whiners in my head. I totally skimmed that part until near the end (when suddenly things of relevance happened) after trying to brave my way through for only like 10 pages. There were some interesting bits there but they weren't actually interesting to me because I opened the book to read about poor people, not Victor Hugo Writes An Essay And Stealthily Sneaks It Into His Novel.

I also finished Brave New World but feel bad because I don't really have any comments on it. Seems far more likely than people being controlled over jerkery, observation, and censorship, so that's pretty neat. On the other hand, I'm not really sure how much I enjoyed actually reading it. How will I ever be a respectable reader now. :(

The New York Trilogy

GASP I LIKED THAT A LOT POST YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN YOU FINISH?

[Rhiannon]

Read this collection of Oscar Wilde's short fiction, and it was the best thing. MY THOUGHTS (NOT ACTUALLY SPOILERS FYI)

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THE HAPPY PRINCE - so heartbreaking I cried
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE - so heartbreaking I cried
THE SELFISH GIANT - it was nice I guess
THE DEVOTED FRIEND - so mean that... yeah, I smiled
THE REMARKABLE ROCKET - so hilarious I cried
THE PORTRAIT OF MR. W.H. - eh. Even if I had more knowledge on the subject I don't think I'd have been into it
THE YOUNG KING - I read this twice and I didn't really get it either time. Not paying attention? If so, why not? Maybe not very engaging.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA - heartbreaking and I swear I've been told this story before
THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL - Good, and a bit better after reading The Little Mermaid to see what he did there
THE STAR-CHILD - pretty much: ... :( ... :'( ... :o ... :) ... D:
and I dunno after that The Canterville Ghost was silly in all the right ways, and then The Doer of Good, and especially The House of Judgement, were heartbreaking. I THINK THE SECOND OF THOSE ACTUALLY DID MAKE ME CRY BUT I CRY AT EVERYTHING THESE DAYS I GUESS

EDIT: MY GOD IT'S ACTUALLY SPELLED "JUDGMENT" I SURE DO HOPE THAT WAS A PUBLISHER CHANGE THAT'S GROSS

So that was great. And then I was reading this other collection of random Oscar Wilde things, because it had some poetry that wasn't in the collection I already had (skipping The Ballad of Reading Gaol for now though for reasons) and also lectures/nonfiction writings. In the nonfiction things he kept mentioning the same people over and over again, especially Poe and Baudelaire. Just like Victor Hugo keeps mentioning Voltaire except I'm not gonna trust a French guy talking about a French guy. I will trust non-French guys doing the same, though, so I got Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil the next time I went to the store and daaang. Some of this is brutal. ALSO DEFINITELY FOR SURE SOME OF THESE ARE ABOUT SEX. I'm really liking it so far, though.

I hope Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Manguso, and Oscar Wilde are pleased with themselves. I'm finally getting into poetry because of them. Even if one of those three only wrote "poetry" rather than poetry...

I read A Study in Scarlet AND WAS DISAPPOINTED even though I enjoyed the first half. If the Hound of the Baskervilles doesn't knock my socks off this huge Sherlock Holmes collection I have propping up my keyboard is going to be staying there for a very long time. Also started my first Discworld book, Mort. Only 50~ pages in and this is amusing, yes. Current Les Mis progress is page 655/1432, which is still not half way. :( Still enjoyment, but it's been introducing a new character and that takes some time.

I also finished Moby-Dick like one hour ago (!!!!) and I don't remember half the book because it's too long but I'm pretty sure (and I'm pretty worried by this too) that I remember the infomercials about sperm whales and whaling more than I remember THE STORY OF ISHMAEL IS A DUMMY WHO ENDS UP ON THE WRONG BOAT ON THE WRONG DAY WITH THE WRONG CAPTAIN. For all I know I even made up that part of the story. It got pretty special near the end, there, though, and I at least remember the prose being suddenly beautiful at random parts throughout the whole thing. ... probably need to reread, and this time not over the span of 3-4 years.

To remind myself of what a terrible person I am I am putting a list here of all the books I am technically reading at the moment.

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LES MISERABLES BY VICTOR HUGO. I REALLY LIKE HIS NAME.
THE COLLECTED OSCAR WILDE BY OH COME ON. After this Essays section I'm considering myself done because everything else I've either read and/or have in a different book.
MORT BY TERRY PRATCHETT
FLOWERS OF EVIL BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
TALES OF REBIRTH PROBABLYBADNOVELIZATION VOL.1 BY SARA YAJIMA
THE STORIES OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV BY REALLY DON'T BE SILLY
DREAMSONGS VOL.2 BY GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
A STUDY IN SCARLET & THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE I'm including this here because I left my bookmark in it after finishing a Study in Scarlet.
NOT COUNTING: HERMAN MELVILLE SEVEN COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED NOVELS because Moby-Dick was the 6th and I don't want to trick myself into thinking I've read the five that came before it.

I am human garbage.

This post has been edited by Rhiannon: Jan 13 2014, 09:00 PM

[Raijinili]

oooh pratchett.

[Dr Strum]

Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil

Had that. Had to put it down because of the darkness and the raep. Fucking French.

whaling

On the moon?


Currently reading half a dozen language books (one Japanese, one German, one Old English, two Spanish), a textbook with readings on environmental ethics, and some Poe.
Recently got off of a huge ecology/mushroom kick, having read a couple by Suzuki, Stamets and others. I read Sun Tzu's The Art of War last week, and before that Where the Wild Things Are by Dave Eggers. I can see why Sun Tzu's is a classic, and Eggers paid due justice to Sendak's classic in his novelization, but neither is one I would recommend to anyone who didn't already own it.

Books mang. Cool stuff.

[Rhiannon]

Man, last year was entire months ago. Since then I finished reading all the nonfiction stuff in that Oscar Wilde collection. The Critic as Artist Part II and The Soul of Man Under Socialism were particularly good/interesting. I also finished The Flowers of Evil a lot sooner than I expected to because I didn't realize half the book was the poems in the original French (though I was very pleased to learn this). I'm about half way through Mort and sort of lost interest (I'M SORRY RAISAPH). Also veeeery slowly going through the short stories section in this Edgar Allan Poe collection. A few of these are actually pretty silly. NOBODY EXPECTS SILLY FROM HIM. Still reading through Les Mis slowly, despite starting out so fast.

Started reading Oscar Wilde's plays. I'm such a bad person I didn't care for them for the most part. Salomé stood out for being fucking weird and feeling totally different from most of the stuff I've read by him (possibly because of the translation from French). I also loved the ending to A Woman of No Importance. But I really didn't see much to like about Lady Windermere's Fan or An Ideal Husband. Putting off reading The Importance of Being Earnest (despite it being apparently THEEEEE thing) because I found out there are two versions of it and I have both but I don't know which to read/read first. :(

I also read Kenji Miyazawa's Night on the Galactic Railroad (or Night Train to the Stars as my copy translates it BUT THAT SOUNDS TEN MILLION TIMES LESS COOL AND ISN'T HOW I WOULD TRANSLATE IT SO SCREW THAT). It's a bilingual version, so what I did was read a paragraph/chunk of dialogue in Japanese first to the best of my ability without any dictionaries (since that's boring), then read the same in English. It was cool because I actually understood a lot more of it than I expected when I first glanced at it. It has furigana for a lot of kanji, though, so that's probably why. ... still didn't help me realize that 白鳥 is supposed to be swan, though. I liked it a lot, though it really was jarring when suddenly MANUSCRIPT MISSING and it started talking about something totally different. Did not know before then that this was actually unfinished. also that ending. :(

Lately I've mostly been reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Because the movie seemed really cool every time I watched it except I never understood a second of it. I only have four chapters left so I'll probably finish it today or tomorrow. AND YES, IT DOES MAKE SENSE AS A BOOK. It also has a sense of humor I can agree with and smile at which involves pointing out the fact that at one point, one character looks like a horse. Every single time it has the opportunity to:

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No one had time to notice things like horses coming out of houses.

"Keep your mind on the Witch!" the horse beside Sophie yelled.

"It's all right!" gasped the horse.

"Yes, it must have been an illusion," the horse said wisely.

An arm came out of the side of the horse and hauled Sophie back toward the quay.

The arm came out of the horse and dragged her upright as the two monsters streaked past in a scatter of salt water.

"No idea," said the horse.

I mean it's not the most amazing book ever but I was enjoying it and I have a newfound respect for it after such a horsey chapter.

[Rhiannon]

APRIL WAS LIKE THE START OF THE YEAR AND NOBODY READ BOOKS SINCE THEN

Since my last post I finally finished The Hound of the Baskervilles and I have mixed feelings. Many of the chapters bored me, but some had some mystery to them which is actually what I was hoping for, and there was one chapter that totally knocked my socks off with atmosphere. But I came out of it feeling like I hated half of it (just like A Study in Scarlet, how scary). Maybe the short stories will be a better choice for me after all. Also finished Howl's Moving Castle. This was a nice book. Calcifer was always cute, there was horsing around, like I said before, and I will certainly read more from this author after I've moved and can start collecting books again. Also, (REAL SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE BOOK)

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Sophie is so Sophie. She spent all her time talking to hats and watching those hats become and be sold exactly as she had told them they would, but she couldn't figure out that she was making herself old.

... or maybe she did know it, because being an old lady is actually cool in some ways.

I also finished Mort and as amusing and stuff as it was, it made me pretty sure I don't want to read any more Terry Pratchett, Sorry RaiSaph I messed it up. :( I also read Nahoko Uehashi's Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. I read this during my lunch breaks at my former elementary school's library. English translation, obviously. It was alright. It didn't do some of the things in the anime that I really liked so I'm kind of disappointed, too. Not sure if I'll get around to reading the second novel they translated. I'd be interested in it, but needs more interest, like having more than just the two. The libary did also have the second novel, but I wasn't really around long enough to read it, so I never did.

can't and won't by Lydia Davis... I read the story about an airplane having to do an emergency landing while I was waiting for my flight to Seattle, and that was perfect with perfect timing. The rest, I believe, I read at my old elementary school. I did enjoy reading her little stories, dreams, and anecdotes. But now the book has been tossed in a large box for donation. I bought and read Rachel Kline's The Moth Diaries because of this article she wrote. But despite all the lesbian vampirism going around, this book was extremely lame. I might try her again if she actually writes a hardboiled detective novel, but otherwise I'm done.

Now, Dave Eggers. I read Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? and it is quite possibly the most clearly meaningful book that he has written (except I haven't read all of them). I'll probably post more about it on the Daveggers thread. But know that I am impressed. It's also neat that it's literally all dialogue.

Other things I read since last post (how did I read this much): Persepolis (good, would read more), Generation Me (author was nasty at random for no reason, book was overall pointless from any perspective), reread Island of the Blue Dolphins (laaame I bet I only pretended I liked it because of that dog she decides to be friends with), Waiting For the Barbarians (good but seemed like an inferior retread of themes that are in the much better Disgrace except Disgrace is the newer book, although I was particularly fond of the last few paragraphs in Barbarians), An Anthropologist on Mars (Oliver Sacks being fabulous again. There are so many interesting things in each of his writings, man), and The Tempest (I wrote about this in the SHAKESPEARE IS STUPID thread).

YOU GUYS NEED MORE BLOG IN YOUR BOOKSPOSTS MY POSTS MAKE ME FEEL BAD

[Dr Strum]

Waow I haven't posted here recently - and the last four months I read SO MUCH! Since last posting I read:

• Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov. Absolutely amazing. I reread it about eight months later. Twice.
• Bend Sinister Nabokov. Pretty funny. Hilariously irreverent ending.
• Despair Nabokov. Fucking hilarious, with a genuinely interesting take on a typical mystery formula. As with most Nabokov, everything is just set up for the ending.
• Homage to Catalonia George Orwell. Really fascinating to hear more about the anarchist and communist (ie losing) sides of the civil war.
• The Feminist Porn Book Various. Working in social justic I hear a lot of porn demonization. This was a cool book in that it was written by feminists who make porn, who use it as a vehicle for sexual liberation, sex education, and, of course, masturbation.
• Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut. I liked it a lot. I can't say why. It was funny, heartbreaking, strange, quick... I liked it a lot. That's all.
• Moby Dick Herman Melville. Excellent! I wanted to find a whaling ship to join.　I understand it's status as a classic.
• 1Q84 Haruki Murakami. Great. Not my favorite (lol, I've read just one other), but it was really good. Fantasy mixed with a ton of sex. Worked for GoT, right? I think all of you future writers should take note of this formula...
• East of Eden John Steinbeck. After Pale Fire, this is my favourite of those I read this year. The final line of dialogue... Wow.
• On the Road Jack Kerouac. Pretty fun. Definitely inspirational. Read it in a hammock, probably would have enjoyed it more on the road.
• A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan. I was given this. It was a surprise. It was really good. Really depressing, however, and I intend to rebel against everything the book told me.
• Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk. Excellent. Fuck the movie was great enough, right? If you've seen the movie you've basically read the book, but it was... Even more visceral. The film had form, the book had flashes of light.

And currently I'm rereading Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, because it was great the first time and I nearly shit my pants when I discovered it in a hostel book exchange. Oh it's so good. Chapter 13: The Hero Appears is still one of my favorite love stories of all time. Currently on chapter 22.

[Frisk]

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullars. I liked it a lot. It had a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird vibes in it. I can't decide whether it's too mature to really be considered a good adolescent/YA book or not. MOSTLY TO STURM HERE: It reminded me a LOT of Steinbeck's way of writing, particularly his style of characterization and the prose style. It isn't quite as epic, though, and feels a lot more centered around the individuals than the ideas behind the characters. I definitely really liked it and feel like it was pretty influential on me.

IS THAT BLOGGY ENOUGH RHIA?

[Dr Strum]

Holy crap, a girl I met recently (that is, like two weeks ago in a hostel in Guatemala) recommended The Heart is... to me because I had read East of Eden!

I'll check it out.

[Rhiannon]

YES IT IS. I VERY ENJOYED YOUR POST.

[Dr Strum]

Since my last post I have read...

• Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov. Really short, really depressing. Autobiographical, except for the... Uh... Ending...
• The Tempest by Will.i.am. Shakespeare. I have a hard time commenting on Bill S's works. I like the word play and the fantastical elements and all. That's about all I can conjure.
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Really good. There's a soft spot in my heart for Iran (I don't know why, don't ask), and seeing a proud, patriotic picture painted without propaganda, of the struggles of its citizens and of the coming of age of the main character in the setting of the revolution was heartbreaking.
• Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle. If you listen to The Mountain Goats you ought to read this. I really enjoyed it. It made me want to start/join a snail mail RP. Though I'm still not totally sure I understand the title. I know the reference describes the narrative structure of the novel, but I don't know if there's more symbolism at play given what the "Wolf in White Van" represents narratively (Satan!). My brain's kind of fried today. Can't really think critically.

Which is why I'm NOT presently reading what I'm currently reading: The Michel Foucault Reader! Also The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I'm a little over halfway through. I'm enjoying it, and I really like the characters, but I think the only thing really keeping me on the book is the fact that I have no idea where the plot is going, or if there even is a real plot to follow.

[Frisk]

I HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE I STARTED THE SEMESTER OH MY GOD OKAY

Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. This was the first book for my American novel class. It read like a typical war novel reads to me: very concerned with the events at hand, at every angle, at any given time, with less focus on characterization. That said, I really enjoyed it. The characters had depth and the writing was very tense and concise. It's pretty much the opposite of Alas, Babylon in every possible good way.

Island by Aldous Huxley. SO THIS WAS JUST A REALLY LONG ESSAY REALLY ON WHY OUR SOCIETY SUCKS AND HOW IT COULD BE BETTER. I don't like it when the story and plot are literally just backdrops for the author's ideas, and this book was one hundred percent that. It hasn't really turned me off Huxley though (there were a few really great passages, like the drug spiritual mind trip journey). If I ever get a chance I'll read Brave New World

Alas, Babylon. Don't remember off the top of my head who wrote it. The world ends and people put it back together. The whole thing was pretty unrealistic to me. A pretty big deus ex machina at the end, too. It felt like one long propaganda piece for America in the 1960's. Everyone bands together and works to put the world back and nuclear fallout really isn't that big a deal. It's pretty much the opposite of Fail-Safe in every possible bad way.
OH BUT THERE WAS A REALLY INTERESTING PART ABOUT A BANKER.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken motherfuckin' Kesey. Best book I've read for class so far. It's weird that the book I enjoyed the most I have the least to talk about. But yeah. If you're interested in how mental facilities used to be run (or masculinity stuff), you should check the book out.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. It's about Ken motherfuckin' Kesey. It was pretty enjoyable, and for a biographical/historical piece of nonfiction, it's very novel-y. The prose style was awesome, but it was exhausting to read sometimes. It made me want to read On the Road really badly, so that's probably the first thing I'll read when I get the chance.

Upcoming books (non-italicized because I'm lazy): In Cold Blood, The Crying of Lot 49, and somethingelse I don't remember.