Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947341 times)

masterofsparks

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #165 on: November 08, 2007, 11:13:18 PM »
Laurie, have you read the Loveless 33 1/3 book? I hadn't planned on reading that one - in fact, I'd been advised to avoid that specific volume. However, if I'm hearing it's good, I may reconsider.

All three of the ones Omar mentioned are good. I really liked volume on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as well.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.

bruce

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #166 on: November 08, 2007, 11:22:40 PM »
I really liked volume on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as well.
THats the only one I've really liked. The Replacements one is a total letdown.

masterofsparks

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #167 on: November 08, 2007, 11:28:30 PM »
Of the ones I've read recently, Doolittle and Murmur are really good. The Murmur actually turned me around on the album, which I'd never much liked before. The Exile on Main St. and Notorious Byrd Brothers books are excellent as well.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.

Matt

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #168 on: November 13, 2007, 03:21:15 PM »
I'm taking four reading courses this semester, so I haven't had a lot of time to read for pleasure. Luckily, I've been reading some pretty good stuff in my classes:
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Duane's Depressed, Larry McMurtry
Seven Guitars, August Wilson
Buried Child, Sam Shepard
Angels in America, Tony Kushner

This thread has provided me with a lot of stuff to check out, though, so thanks everybody!
It ain't ego, it's my love for you.

Beth

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #169 on: November 13, 2007, 04:47:50 PM »
Beth, here are some recent (as in, in the last decade) books you might like:

Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, You Don't Love Me Yet, Fortress of Solitude, and Men and Cartoons
Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections
Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases
Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Shelley Jackson's Half-Life
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies
Whatever that recent collection of 3 Rick Moody novellas is called

They've also been around for a while, but Philip Roth, Luc Sante, Don DeLillo, and Thomas Pynchon are all still writing interesting stuff.

Personally, I've really been into semi-forgotten obscure and/or experimental writers lately: David Markson, Frederic Tuten, Stanley Elkin, Flann O'Brien, Leonard Michaels, Roberto Bolano.  And Donald Barthelme, though he's kind of famous and obscure at the same time.  Some of these guys might be on the weird side, depending on your tastes.

Oh, and if you like sci-fi, Octavia E. Butler's work is amazing and terrifying.


a late thank you for this. I'll use my winter break well.

I read The Human Stain by Phillip Roth back in high school, and I remember enjoying it.

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #170 on: November 14, 2007, 11:32:29 PM »
I'm taking four reading courses this semester, so I haven't had a lot of time to read for pleasure. Luckily, I've been reading some pretty good stuff in my classes:
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Duane's Depressed, Larry McMurtry
Seven Guitars, August Wilson
Buried Child, Sam Shepard
Angels in America, Tony Kushner

This thread has provided me with a lot of stuff to check out, though, so thanks everybody!

Interesting selection there, rover96.  You a theater major?  Tony Kushner is my boy.

a late thank you for this. I'll use my winter break well


My pleasure!
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Matt

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #171 on: November 14, 2007, 11:42:54 PM »
I'm taking four reading courses this semester, so I haven't had a lot of time to read for pleasure. Luckily, I've been reading some pretty good stuff in my classes:
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Duane's Depressed, Larry McMurtry
Seven Guitars, August Wilson
Buried Child, Sam Shepard
Angels in America, Tony Kushner

This thread has provided me with a lot of stuff to check out, though, so thanks everybody!

Interesting selection there, rover96.  You a theater major?  Tony Kushner is my boy.

No, I'm just taking an American Drama course this semester, along with Fiction, Poetry and the American Novel. The drama course has been the most consistently interesting of the bunch, however. Hopefully I'll be able to delve into some other stuff in this area when I have a little more free time.
It ain't ego, it's my love for you.

Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #172 on: November 15, 2007, 10:31:29 AM »
I just started my first Cormac McCarthy book (All the Pretty Horses).  I'm only a little way into it, and my back is already up.  Am I completely misguided to think of him as a more prolix Hemingway?  And are run-on sentences a recurring schtick?  If so, yuck:  I'm not a fan of writing that calls attention to itself.  It is possible,after all, to craft beautiful language that doesn't in effect mug for the camera.

Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #173 on: November 15, 2007, 01:37:59 PM »
Sarah, did you ever read that essay that was in The Atlantic a few years back called "A Reader's Manifesto?"  Takedowns of McCarthy, Proulx, DeLillo and some others:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/myers

Some of the criticisms leveled will definitely validate your opinions toward McCarthy, but I think a lot of people were turned off by the mock-seriousness of the article.  Interesting, though.

I'm teaching "Medea" after Thanksgiving break, I'm so excited!

Matt

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #174 on: November 15, 2007, 02:16:17 PM »
I just started my first Cormac McCarthy book (All the Pretty Horses).  I'm only a little way into it, and my back is already up.  Am I completely misguided to think of him as a more prolix Hemingway?  And are run-on sentences a recurring schtick?  If so, yuck:  I'm not a fan of writing that calls attention to itself.  It is possible,after all, to craft beautiful language that doesn't in effect mug for the camera.


I understand completely. I read the first part of "The Crossing", and the language/structure was offputting to me as well.

I'd recommend "The Road" or "No Country For Old Men" - the writing style is totally different than his earlier novels; much more stripped-down and direct. "No Country For Old Men", in particular, doesn't have an ounce of fat on it.
It ain't ego, it's my love for you.

Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #175 on: November 15, 2007, 02:28:53 PM »
Thanks for the link, Susannah.  I feel less like the little boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" now--although, come to think of it, he, too, finds he's not alone in the end.  And the quotations in that article alone have persuaded me not to continue with All the Pretty Horses.  Phew.  There's a reprieve.

I don't like DeLillo, either.  I want writing to be transparent, authors to be invisible.  Failing that, I'll take clumsy writing with neat ideas, spot-on characterizations, and a good story over overworked bluster any day of the week.  It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of Neal Stephenson, despite the clumsiness of some of his language.

Now I have to find something fun to read on my shelves.  But next time I go to the library I will look for No Country or The Road.  I'm a sucker for postapocalyptic scenarios, so perhaps the latter will tickle my fancy.

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #176 on: November 17, 2007, 01:21:45 AM »
Quote
Now I have to find something fun to read on my shelves

As if.


Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #177 on: November 17, 2007, 08:48:10 AM »
Hmm?  Just what do you imagine my bookshelves are like?  I assure you, they're pretty much a desert.  All those Godine books you covet are in boxes upstairs--and they can't really count as "fun reads" in any case--and otherwise I'm not much of a book acquirer or keeper.  Stuff is the bunk.

Eric

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #178 on: November 17, 2007, 12:12:49 PM »
I could use some fun reads too, Sarah. My 'Literary Analysis' class has centered completely around Russian literature, mostly concerning death and pretty much devoid of any humor. Jeeze...I'm not saying they've been completely useless, I actually enjoyed Notes from the Underground and Invitation to a Beheading, in particular. But yea, they don't exactly inspire you to run a marathon...definitely wouldn't mind offsetting them with something lighter.

For the record, I know barely anything about literature - classical or contemporary - despite being an English major. This thread humbles me in a big way. The last book I read for pleasure was a biography of Harry Houdini. Somewhat regrettably, I've spent a  disproportionate amount of my free time obsessing over music and movies instead.

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #179 on: November 17, 2007, 04:58:54 PM »
Quote
Just what do you imagine my bookshelves are like?  I assure you, they're pretty much a desert.

Hate to admit it, but I envisioned you living in your own Hay-on-Wye.  With blue inkwells and quills set up strategically throughout the house.  Now I'm picturing you living in Jack Nicholson's barren white apartment at the end of Carnal Knowledge.