Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947330 times)

emma

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #330 on: April 29, 2008, 09:00:32 AM »
I finally finished "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" and am baffled by its positive reviews. 
That's a shame. I've got that one on my list. Only four days before I can read for fun again.

If fun's what you're looking for, don't bother with that one. Eugh. I was like three pages away from having the whole big plot twist/secret revealed to me and I just gave up. Boring!

Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #331 on: April 29, 2008, 09:18:53 AM »
Stephenson added to Amazon wishlist.  Thanks!

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #332 on: April 29, 2008, 11:22:13 AM »
Yeah, Special Topics flew pretty much every red flag I have.  It just made me skin crawl to look at it (I do judge books by covers, but also blurbs and titles and hype and sometimes even reviews).

I am loving Fortress of Solitude at the moment.  What an amazing book.  Also high on my list are Sidney Shainberg's Crust, Lewis Hyde's The Gift, Alan Weissman's The World Without Us, Frederik Jameson's Archeologies of the Future, Yeti No. 5, Luc Sante's Kill All Your Darlings

OK, I'm having an OCD episode.  I should unplug and get to my reading list.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

B_Buster

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #333 on: April 29, 2008, 06:17:20 PM »
things that are kind of scatalogical but also smart.  Any good ones that might satisfy these criteria?

I recently read Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. Neither is as good as Tropic of Cancer which I read a few years ago. I had put off Henry Miller for the longest time because I had gotten the impression that it was just sex talk. I was wrong. It's hilarious sex talk!

As for plot-heavy stuff, I also read a few Conrad novels recently: The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes, and Victory. I thought they were all pretty solid, but I was very impressed by the way he builds up the suspense in Victory (I practically ran home from the Light Rail station to read the last few pages). Unfortunately, there's some racial stereotyping in Victory that you'll have to get past, but once you do that, it's a great read.
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captain carrigan

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #334 on: May 01, 2008, 12:08:34 AM »
I'm having a lot of fun right now with Do Travel Writers Go To Hell? which is a how-they-make-the-sausage type memoir about one Lonely Planet writer's experiences updating the LP Brazil guide.  Apparently it's somewhat controversial in the travel writing world, as he apparently sort of admits to writing about places he didn't really visit.

todd

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #335 on: May 01, 2008, 12:11:17 AM »
Iit's somewhat controversial in the travel writing world

holy shit

Matt

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #336 on: May 01, 2008, 12:28:07 AM »
It was for school, but I recently read Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae and enjoyed it a great deal.
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Emily

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #337 on: May 01, 2008, 10:17:49 AM »
I finally finished No Country for Old Men and enjoyed it. Tied up some loose ends from the film. It was a pretty good read.

Then, inspired by the snippet I heard on fmu, I read A Good Man is Hard to Find and I was sort of surprised by the plot - never read it before & only caught about the middle on air. It was funny at parts.

And now I'm reading This is Your Brain on Music, and so far, so good. I skimmed it in the store & then sort of impulsively purchased it & I'm glad to have my own copy - it's oddly inspiring me to think about art projects.. so I'm happy with it & would go so far as to recommend it, even though I only just started it yesterday.

Anyone else read it/have an opinion?

manykant

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #338 on: May 01, 2008, 12:18:56 PM »
"This Republic of Suffering" by Drew Gilpin Faust was pretty fantastic. It's about how soldiers, their families and the country as a whole dealt with death during the Civil War.
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iAmBaronVonTito

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #339 on: May 01, 2008, 12:41:07 PM »
heres an open invitation: when i finish books, i dont hold on to them...generally.  if i can get a list going, does anyone mind if i send them books? 

right now, i have an overabundance of (barnes and noble) classics, like kafka, huckleberry finn, o. henry, frankenstein.  ive got chuck klosterman books i dont want (surprisingly not impressed), etc.  ive got stacks of books ive bought from goodwill that are mediocre (i.e., sex and the single girl, the population bomb, assorted random bios and fiction)




plus, if anyone else has books they want to get rid of, i'll trade or take them off your hands.

Pat K

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #340 on: May 01, 2008, 02:17:54 PM »
Luc Sante's Kill All Your Darlings

Luc Sante is the shit. I just read that Novels In Three Lines book that he edited recently and loved every page of it. Hilarious stuff.
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Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #341 on: May 01, 2008, 06:24:26 PM »
Yes, Pat K.  That was awesome.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

emma

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #342 on: May 01, 2008, 09:48:07 PM »
I was going to start a new topic for this but then I thought I'd use this one. That way, if no one replies, I will manage to only look slightly less cool.

Can anyone recommend some good poetry for me to read? Every spring I stop wanting to read novels and start wanting to read poems, but my local library has the lamest (non-existent) poetry section ever and when I go into bookstores I don't know what I'm looking for. I don't even really care about style--I like a lot of completely different poets for a lot of completely different reasons--I just want to find something that is beautiful and maybe thought-provoking and not angsty or too creepy.


Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #343 on: May 01, 2008, 11:17:13 PM »
Emma, Anne Carson is far and away my favorite contemporary poet.  Sante's translation of Novels in Three Lines, referenced above by Pat K, are also like awesome, grim little poems (written about a century ago by Felix Feneon).  I also like John Ashbery a lot, but he's not for everyone - very cerebral, postmodern stuff.  Also into: Pablo Neruda, Stanley Kunitz, Kenneth Koch, Philip Levine, Mark Levine.  As far as the canon goes, I like T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Rainer Maria Rilke.  Allen Ginsburg and Sylvia Plath are have been parodied to the point of cliche, but they've got some pretty great poems.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

dave from knoxville

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #344 on: May 02, 2008, 10:11:20 AM »
I'm not calling it a fave, but for kicks I have started reading Sylvia Browne's Secret Societies. I am just getting acclimated to the basic set-up; Sylvia has a "spirit guide" called Francine who enters her head (specifically, apparently, her right ear) and gives Sylvia insights into international secret societies. I was actually on the library list waiting for this thing for 27 weeks, so I am going to go ahead and read it and then get back to Handling Sin.

Are any of you in a Secret Society?