FOT SUMMER OF 2012 READING CHALLENGE

[yesno]

A little late to the FOT Reading Challenge party, but so far this summer I've put away the most recent Eugenides The Marriage Plot, and then took a notion to try Anna Karenina. It's not a decision I regret, but being 220+ pages into a book and still only 1/4 of the way through is...disconcerting.

I loved Anna Karenina! I don't read much fiction but I thought it was a blast.

I'm at the bit where the dude fucks up his horse but good. I think that was the name of the chapter, originally.

Which translation?  I hear the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations are all very good, and I was planning to read their Anna Karenina.

[yesno]

I finally finished that damn Neal Stephenson book REAMDE. 1000 page books like that take all the oxygen out of the room. Reading At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien at the moment.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/06/08/what-books-impress-a-girl/

[Steve of Bloomington]

I finally finished that damn Neal Stephenson book REAMDE. 1000 page books like that take all the oxygen out of the room. Reading At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien at the moment.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/06/08/what-books-impress-a-girl/

Interesting, but would have been more helpful to me some years ago...

[Mike Desert]

reading: Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports

and finally reading Treasure Island.

finished Spray Paint the Walls, and The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx. Wow, that was something.

[B_Buster]

A little late to the FOT Reading Challenge party, but so far this summer I've put away the most recent Eugenides The Marriage Plot, and then took a notion to try Anna Karenina. It's not a decision I regret, but being 220+ pages into a book and still only 1/4 of the way through is...disconcerting.

I loved Anna Karenina! I don't read much fiction but I thought it was a blast.

I'm at the bit where the dude fucks up his horse but good. I think that was the name of the chapter, originally.

Which translation?  I hear the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations are all very good, and I was planning to read their Anna Karenina.

I read the Constance Garnett translation. It was great.

[B_Buster]

I read the Library of America's Pauline Kael anthology (good) and Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem (very overrated). I'm currently reading Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (probably the best one of his I've read) and Dwight MacDonald's Masscult and Midcult (great stuff).

[hardweek]

Alright, I'm in. Time to lay waste to the books on my bedside table:

-This Cake Is For The Party, by Sarah Selecky
-Writing Gordon Lightfoot, by Dave Bidini
-The Game, by Ken Dryden
-Can I Keep my Jersey, by Paul Shirley
-griffin & sabine trilogy
-Post Punk Diary by George Gimarc
-stack of textbooks
-stack of razorcakes/roctober/mrnr

Go!

[~L]

Halfway through Drop Dead Healthy; it is hard to refrain from reading passages out loud to whomever is in my vicinity, as the anecdotal info is too funny not to share, which makes the reading goes slowly.  Unexpectedly picked up and finished Toni Morrison's  new book HOME; I had never read anything by her before, a cross between slow paced and brutally descriptive.

[not that clay]

Which translation?  I hear the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations are all very good, and I was planning to read their Anna Karenina.

I read the Pevear & Volokhonsky. It's actually easy reading so I don't think the translator matters much. It's just really long. It's a sensible question though. I had a couple of false starts with Demons/The Possessed until I found the P&V translation.

[Barry in Ireland]

A little late to the FOT Reading Challenge party, but so far this summer I've put away the most recent Eugenides The Marriage Plot, and then took a notion to try Anna Karenina. It's not a decision I regret, but being 220+ pages into a book and still only 1/4 of the way through is...disconcerting.

I loved Anna Karenina! I don't read much fiction but I thought it was a blast.

I'm at the bit where the dude fucks up his horse but good. I think that was the name of the chapter, originally.

Which translation?  I hear the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations are all very good, and I was planning to read their Anna Karenina.

Louise and Aylmer Maude translated the version I have. Good people.

[ndmvhc]

I'm currently reading Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I'm having the same reaction to it as I had to Roughing It by Mark Twain. Is this how writing was back in the day? Did everything have to be wordy?

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

2/3 of the way through Tearing Down The Wall of Sound and it's great.  I hate reading multiple books at once, but I'm also reading Ovid's Metamorphoses for research and Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon's Writing Movies for Fun and Profit because I'm going out to LA to beg for a new job next week.  That last one  isn't telling me a whole lot I don't already know, but it's a fun read and it's helping me freak out a little less.

I also just burned through vol. 9 of the Sandman series ("The Kindly Ones").  It never ceases to surprise me how Neil Gaiman is kind of a lousy writer who nonetheless managers to suck me in every time.  Though I guess the same can be said about countless other genre authors.

[wood and iron]

2/3 of the way through Tearing Down The Wall of Sound and it's great.  I hate reading multiple books at once, but I'm also reading Ovid's Metamorphoses for research and Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon's Writing Movies for Fun and Profit because I'm going out to LA to beg for a new job next week.  That last one  isn't telling me a whole lot I don't already know, but it's a fun read and it's helping me freak out a little less.

I also just burned through vol. 9 of the Sandman series ("The Kindly Ones").  It never ceases to surprise me how Neil Gaiman is kind of a lousy writer who nonetheless managers to suck me in every time.  Though I guess the same can be said about countless other genre authors.

You really hit the nail on the head regarding Gaiman and my experience with him. All of his stuff just seems completely stuck in the gear of "underworld=magic" and Hot Topic-level gothic stuff yet all of the material of his I've read or consumed I genuinely enjoyed, especially Sandman and American Gods. Wait, strike that. Neverwhere the miniseries was awful.

[Key Loser]

Just finished The City and The City by China Mieville. Great read.

About to start Little, Big by John Crowley

[davidgoeschatting]

Finished I, Partridge finally. That thing was like 300+ pages of jokes and jokes. A nice complementary piece to the Partridge saga.

Also finally getting to Snake 'n' Bacon, the Kupperman book I've missed. That's another one packed with funny.

And finally, cracked Sam McPheeters's Loom of Ruin this weekend. Saw him read a few chapters at a bookstore a few months ago. So far, very intense.