Books what you is reading: Page 6 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Books what you is reading

RocktheCasbah

Just started Disturbing The Peace by Richard Yates. Apparently, Mad Men was (partly) inspired by this book. An amazing amount of stuff has happened and I'm only 18 pages in!

Burnwinter

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is an interesting read.

Not much of an SF novel though, it's basically a thinly veiled espionage thriller. Peeling back the SF, it's politically pretty questionable. At one stage it invites the reader to sympathise with a character (a CIA agent, more or less) who more or less orchestrates the gang rape of a geisha turned sex slave by a Thai general and his entourage, as a political ploy.

Quite a bit of crypto-racist East Asian caricature in there as well. Ah well.

Burnwinter

Ladies' favourite James Franco has written a novel:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/01/04/james_franco_s_novel_three_reasons_it_might_be_good.html

Nice effort, doing the job of the paparazzi for them.

RocktheCasbah

Finished Disturbing The Peace last night and... wow. Brilliant read, though if Mad Men is indeed based on it, I'm a bit worried as to how things will turn out for Don Draper!

banduan

I've found that the Internets has killed my reading appetite somewhat. Used to mow through books each in one sitting.

Gurgen

Reading Felix Yusopov's memoirs. So far it's mostly lavish dinner parties and gay sex. Looking forward to Rasputin's murder.

mags

Read the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo quite a while ago...It was the only one of Larsson's three books that I found to be decent, a good thriller, but after the first one, it was all down hill....A lot of artificiality, writing style/translation, I don't know, they left me talking to myself about writers selling out...

As to Dan Brown, I think I speed read it, it was bad, bad, bad. He should stick to teaching or back to school and take some writing classes...

One of my all time favorites - mystery/thriller genre - is from John Le Carre...His first one, called Call for the Dead...He is right at the top of the list for cold war spy stories....I reread my favorites from him once a year. Him and Jane Austen...Now that's a duo....

flobaba

Just finished the Dragon Tattoo series. You're right mags. It was all a bit 'meh' after the first one.

Halfway through C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity at the moment. Very inspired and refreshing.

Klaus

I finally finished Sometimes a Great Notion. What a fucking masterpiece it is. I could have been done with it a long time ago but I've been dragging it out. I didn't want it to end. I think I'm going to have to read nonfiction for a while. Everything else will just pale in comparison otherwise.

mags

Klaus wrote:
I finally finished Sometimes a Great Notion. What a fucking masterpiece it is. I could have been done with it a long time ago but I've been dragging it out. I didn't want it to end. I think I'm going to have to read nonfiction for a while. Everything else will just pale in comparison otherwise.

Read it many, many moons ago....Loved it...Great book....Don't know if you knew, Paul Newman starred in the movie version of SAGN...It didn't translate on the screen for me.

And following Kesey's life back in the day was a trip in itself, The Merry Pranksters, etc...A truly larger than life man who experienced everything to the fullest...

Klaus

Yeah, I knew about the film but I haven't seen it. Figured it wouldn't translate well. The charm of the book is how the narrative switches back and forth between several first person narrators all the time. It's terribly clever. It gives the characters huge depth and explains their motives and feelings; things that they for various reasons are unable to communicate to eachother. I've seen the book being compared to Faulkner but I don't think he ever did anything quite like it. Absalom, Absalom is mentioned as an inspiration on Wiki for instance, but it had a much more traditional structure. In Sometimes a Great Notion the narrator can switch inside a paragraph, or sometimes even a sentence. And then there's the "objective" narrative that keeps getting tangled up in there too. It's such a genius way to plot a story.

Ricky1985

Was given a book the other day to read by a friend, the memoirs of Harry Flashman. Never heard of him or knew anything about him (this seems to astonish people!), but I'm a hundred pages into the book and it's an extremely interesting read.

Burnwinter

Aren't the Flashman books fiction Rick?

Mirth

I has 'Kafka on the shore' lined up once I get some free time. Any reviews?

Ricky1985

Irn Bru Newt wrote:
Aren't the Flashman books fiction Rick?

That's not how I had it relayed to me, and it's not written that way. Although googling it it seems you're right. That puts a downer on it then!

So can someone explain to me how this connects to 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' - I was a little confused when my mate was explaining it to me (not sure he knew exactly).

Klaus

General Mirth wrote:
I has 'Kafka on the shore' lined up once I get some free time. Any reviews?

First half of the book is probably the best thing he's ever written apart from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Second half gets a bit more linear and predictable but I enjoyed it a lot more than Norwegian Wood. I know I'm in a minority here though. Have you read anything else by Murakami?

Ricky1985

I've read a few books in the last couple of weeks that I have wanted to read for ages; The Hobbit, 1984, Animal Farm, Great Expectations, and a few biographies; Obama, Derren Brown and Steve Jobs, as well as a few more non-fiction books that interest me.

It has been so nice actually reading again. Easy to get out of the habit.

Mirth

Did you enjoy the Hobbit, ricky? And have you read the LOTR - how do they compare? I haven't read either, I'm just interested in perspective since there's so much expectation around Tolkien's work.

Klaus wrote:
General Mirth wrote:
I has 'Kafka on the shore' lined up once I get some free time. Any reviews?

First half of the book is probably the best thing he's ever written apart from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Second half gets a bit more linear and predictable but I enjoyed it a lot more than Norwegian Wood. I know I'm in a minority here though. Have you read anything else by Murakami?

No, I haven't! I know roughly what to expect though, which is why I'm looking forward to reading this in a weeks time. I've heard good things about Norwegian Wood as well, may pick it up later if I've enjoyed Kafka on the Shore.

Klaus

Ah! Well, let me know what you think about. It might be a little difficult to get into unless you're familiar with his style, but you really should read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle too regardless. It's a stunning book.

Ricky1985

General Mirth wrote:
Did you enjoy the Hobbit, ricky? And have you read the LOTR - how do they compare? I haven't read either, I'm just interested in perspective since there's so much expectation around Tolkien's work.

No, haven't read the LotR, so can't offer a comparison. I did love the Hobbit, though. Parts of it were amazing, Tolkien really does draw you into his world. I just can't wait for the film now. Will be great to see what they do with it.

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