Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947611 times)

Steeley Chris

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1710 on: September 15, 2011, 07:23:47 PM »
Just finished "Catch-22"
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fonpr

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1711 on: September 15, 2011, 08:19:34 PM »
Just finished "Catch-22"
Yes.  There's #5 for you Mike.
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B_Buster

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1712 on: September 16, 2011, 09:08:30 AM »
Just finished "Catch-22"
Yes.  There's #5 for you Mike.

Really? I remember some hilarious moments, but overall it didn't knock me out. Something Happened, on the other hand, is one of the best books I've ever read (it's also the most brutal).
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fonpr

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1713 on: September 16, 2011, 09:27:41 AM »
Something Happened is not in my database, yet.

This will be rectified.  Thanks.
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JonFromMaplewood

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1714 on: September 16, 2011, 10:36:51 AM »
Just finished Blood Meridian.  Jesus Christ.

Now I am onto Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal.
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Greggulator

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1715 on: September 26, 2011, 03:53:31 PM »
I just finished The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. It's about one family trying to put its life back together after a few million people leave earth in an unexplained Rapture-type incident.

What a strange book. I have no idea if I liked it or not. The characters are pretty flat and ho-hum. Perrotta's one of my favorite writers -- I really loved his short-story book, The Wishbones and Election. The characters in those books are just so memorable -- especially in Election, which is really great in how the tone shifts during each character's voice.

But the world created in the book is so memorable. I kind of like that -- the incident envelops everyone and no one's really special afterwards.
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JonFromMaplewood

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1716 on: September 26, 2011, 10:48:12 PM »
My daughter and I are reading Murder on the Orient Express together.  I remember loving it as a kid, but man did it not hold up.  That has to be the dumbest ending of a book ever.
"I'm riding the silence like John Cage up in this piece." -Tom Scharpling

dave from knoxville

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1717 on: September 27, 2011, 08:22:21 AM »
I'm in Nashville on state business, and picked up copies of a Lovecraft collection, as well as a complete Poe. Haven't read either in 30 years. Thought Tom might need some back-up advice if the demon summoning thing goes wrong. From what I remember, Lovecraft's best advice is generally "RUN AWAY".

During this demon summoning period, has anyone else thought of a demon named Jeff?

Christina

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1718 on: September 27, 2011, 08:38:27 AM »
My daughter and I are reading Murder on the Orient Express together.  I remember loving it as a kid, but man did it not hold up.  That has to be the dumbest ending of a book ever.

Ha, yeah. I remember reading it maybe at 12 or 13 and having to go back because I thought I'd missed something.

Many times over the years and years I worked in bookstores, I had people ask for Christie novels b/c they were good for practicing English, like they were easy to understand & the vocab was simple. I thought that was interesting.
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Christina

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1719 on: September 27, 2011, 12:26:55 PM »

If you don't like the first Foundation book, you can safely skip the rest of Asimov, with the possible exception of the first book of the robot series.


I read all the Robot, Empire and Foundation books.  They all merge and get really weird toward the end, but not in the most interesting way.  As I remember, I liked both Robot and Empire better than Foundation in the end.  He's a much, much better idea guy than a writer.

Troof. Quantity doesn't equal quality (see also: Steve Allen).

For Sprawling Space Opera/Hard SF/Multiple Worlds & Races type books - I'd recommend Peter Hamilton, although be warned, his books are ENORMOUS and rarely standalones, mostly he does big series. Also Alastair Reynolds.

I also liked the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson - it's probably pretty dated now but it definitely falls into that hard SF category, where things have a "real" ring to them.

Oh, I could go on. Me, I'm reading Les Miserables now. Because I want to, that's why.

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Austin From Chicago

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1720 on: September 27, 2011, 01:26:07 PM »
Just recently finished these books:

John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Joesf Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls
Don Carpenter, Hard Rain Falling
Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I just started Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on the recommendation of my girlfriend. Of the above, I enjoyed Don Carpenter's the most. If any other FOT has read any of these, I'd love to hear others' opinions on them. Also, if anyone has any book discussion suggestions for the small Midwestern public library at which I work, I'd love to hear that too!
LN5OG

mostlymeat

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1721 on: September 27, 2011, 03:13:43 PM »
Just recently finished these books:

John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Joesf Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls
Don Carpenter, Hard Rain Falling
Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I just started Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on the recommendation of my girlfriend. Of the above, I enjoyed Don Carpenter's the most. If any other FOT has read any of these, I'd love to hear others' opinions on them. Also, if anyone has any book discussion suggestions for the small Midwestern public library at which I work, I'd love to hear that too!

I couldn't get past page 50 of Life of Pi, dunno why.

Hard Rain Falling is amazing, I totally loved it.

-AG

Austin From Chicago

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1722 on: September 27, 2011, 03:27:17 PM »
Just recently finished these books:

John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Joesf Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls
Don Carpenter, Hard Rain Falling
Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I just started Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on the recommendation of my girlfriend. Of the above, I enjoyed Don Carpenter's the most. If any other FOT has read any of these, I'd love to hear others' opinions on them. Also, if anyone has any book discussion suggestions for the small Midwestern public library at which I work, I'd love to hear that too!

I couldn't get past page 50 of Life of Pi, dunno why.

Hard Rain Falling is amazing, I totally loved it.

-AG

Yeah, there was a bit of a brouhaha about Life of Pi at my library - I wanted to use it for the subject of a book discussion, and out of the 8-10 old ladies who usually participate, only one showed up for the discussion. The rest either returned the book prematurely, or refused to participate (one old lady was heard to decline participation in a Life of Pi book discussion because the lead character is Indian. Sad face.)

I was trolling through the list of reissues put out by the New York Review of Books, who are always good at ferreting out lost masterpieces, when I saw Hard Rain Falling. They sort described it as On the Road with terminal depression, and they were right. It's like if Werner Herzog had directed an adaptation of the biography Kerouac and set it in a prison. A truly, epically sad and profound book, but one that is also bizarrely compelling and funny at times. I bet AP Mike would LOVE this book.
LN5OG

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1723 on: September 27, 2011, 03:28:38 PM »
I liked Hard Rain Falling a lot. But rather than going to the hard work of actually coming up with any insightful commentary on it, I'll just link to the Believer article that turned me on to it and is quite an interesting profile of its author:

http://believermag.com/issues/201001/?read=article_weinman

Bonus point of Best Show-related interest: Probably Don Carpenter's best-known work, out of a field of distressingly unknown candidates, would be his lone screenplay credit, the little-seen cult favorite Payday, which centers on a tour de force performance by Rip "Artie" Torn.
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mostlymeat

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1724 on: September 27, 2011, 03:49:04 PM »
Bonus point of Best Show-related interest: Probably Don Carpenter's best-known work, out of a field of distressingly unknown candidates, would be his lone screenplay credit, the little-seen cult favorite Payday, which centers on a tour de force performance by Rip "Artie" Torn.

Whoa, I had no idea! Payday rules so hard.

Hard Rain Payday. WOWSERS.