books

[corianderstem]

#5 Model Student by Robin Hazlewood

Yes, another book about a young model learning the ropes of the biz, written by another former model. What can I say - I was sucked into the dark underbelly of the modelling life!

But I'm done for now. Even though this book was mostly as fun as the Porizkova book.

I also started, and abandoned, another book last week. The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. It got raves last year, and ended up on some best-of lists. While it was an interesting scenario, and I did want to know what happened, there were just too many words.

Beautiful prose is one thing. Taking five paragraphs to explain how someone is feeling over and OVER again is another. Get to your freaking point.

So I chucked it after 100 pages. Life's too short for books you're not into. Especially when there's fluff about models to read.

 

[Saracene]

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

One of those strange books which you can't put down while you're reading it, but seems less impressive after you had some time to digest it. I really enjoyed the book's first half dealing with Amir's childhood and his relationships with his father and Hassan, his friend/servant, even though as a character Hassan is a bit too saintly and simplistic. The last part of the book that describes Amir's return to Afghanistan didn't quite work though; it felt like a jarring change of pace and a bit too melodramatic. And though it's weird to be irked by a minor thing like this, I was annoyed by the description of the main hero talking like Al Pacino's character in "Godfather" when it's clearly Marlon Brando that the comparison is meant to refer to,

 

[cobl04]

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

One of those strange books which you can't put down while you're reading it, but seems less impressive after you had some time to digest it. I really enjoyed the book's first half dealing with Amir's childhood and his relationships with his father and Hassan, his friend/servant, even though as a character Hassan is a bit too saintly and simplistic. The last part of the book that describes Amir's return to Afghanistan didn't quite work though; it felt like a jarring change of pace and a bit too melodramatic. And though it's weird to be irked by a minor thing like this, I was annoyed by the description of the main hero talking like Al Pacino's character in "Godfather" when it's clearly Marlon Brando that the comparison is meant to refer to,

I have to read this book for school, and I have to say since getting it I haven't been greatly looking forward to it. Maybe it's because we have to read about five other similarly themed books.

 

[corianderstem]

#6 The Anglophile by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

More chicklit, but one of the better ones I've read recently. There was a plot shift near the end that caught me off guard, and I'm not quite sure it worked for me, but in the end it came out okay, if a little weird.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

I picked up Sarah Gruen's Water For Elephants while I was away for the holidays because I realized I'd forgotten to bring The Satanic Verses. I'm over 100 pages into it and I still can't decide if I like it. It's really well researched and authentic, but I can't say I really like the protagonist, and the writing isn't as strong as I was expecting it to be considering all the fuss I've heard about the book.

I'll probably use the Borders gift card I got for Christmas to pick up Love Is A Mixtape since it's out in paperback now.

Oh, and has anyone read the memoir Eat, Pray, Love? I can't remember the author (and am too lazy to look it up), but I've been thinking about buying that, too. It sounds like it could be wonderful or really fluffy and awful, so I'm not sure.

 

[corianderstem]

Yay, BonoIsMyMuse is back!

I absolutely LOVED Eat, Pray, Love. It's one of the best books I've read in the past several years. Elizabeth Gilbert is the author. I didn't think it was fluffy at all - considering some of the absolute fluff I read, I thought it was in a completely different world compared to that stuff.

 

[Dalton]

There's a minister here in my town that is somewhat of a celebrity. Anyways, he wrote a book recently called SexGod that everyone has been talking about (in your classic midwestern, small town way).

So, I finally read it this last week while I was sick. Its actually spectacular. It is probably one of the most insightful books I've read in 10 years.

Very, very good. :shrugs:

 

[Dalton]

BTW - which one of you told me that I needed to read Stephen King's Dark Tower Series?

I'm 3/4 of the way through book 1 and I simply do not care. I don't love it. I don't hate it. I don't care at all.

Not good.

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

There's a minister here in my town that is somewhat of a celebrity. Anyways, he wrote a book recently called SexGod that everyone has been talking about (in your classic midwestern, small town way).

So, I finally read it this last week while I was sick. Its actually spectacular. It is probably one of the most insightful books I've read in 10 years.

Very, very good. :shrugs:

Is this by Rob Bell? I´m looking for it in Amazon and I´m not sure if this is the same book.

 

[Dalton]

Yeah. Rob Bell is his name. Ugliest damn book I've ever bought.

 

[VintagePunk]

BTW - which one of you told me that I needed to read Stephen King's Dark Tower Series?

I'm 3/4 of the way through book 1 and I simply do not care. I don't love it. I don't hate it. I don't care at all.

Not good.

The series has been discussed at length in the TB thread? I remember feeling that way sort of through the first book. I didn't really get into it until the second. Doesn't sound like you'll have the patience for that, though.


Speaking of which, it pains me to say this, but I just finished King's The Cell, and what a clunker. It saddens me when he recycles from previous books. This one was definitely on the lower echelon of his books, for me.

 

[Dalton]

Well, I read a lot, so I'll try to finish it. How far into the 2nd book does it take to pic up?

He just got nailed by the succubus in the first book. That's where I'm at.

 

[VintagePunk]

Well, I read a lot, so I'll try to finish it. How far into the 2nd book does it take to pic up?

He just got nailed by the succubus in the first book. That's where I'm at.

I don't know that you could pick a specific moment in the book where it picks up, but I just know it did for me. Honestly, I forget a lot of details of the individual books, it's been so long since I read them, especially the earlier ones. And, a lot of people didn't like the 4th book as much, because it contains a lot of backstory, but I really enjoyed that one.

I should start from the beginning and reread the series back to back.

 

[anitram]

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

One of those strange books which you can't put down while you're reading it, but seems less impressive after you had some time to digest it.

I felt the same way. Later on I thought it was very cloying and maudlin. Further, it was as if I'd read this book before, but it was called something else, written by someone else.

Didn't make me want to pick up his new book, that's for sure.

 

[Pearl]

I just finished "Kabul Beauty School" by Deborah Rodriguez. It was OK. I found the parts where she discussed the beauty school and the salon more interesting than her life in Afghanistan. Maybe it was because of how out of place she was due to her Western ways.

ETA: You do learn a lot of interesting customs of Afghanistan. Such as how they drink a lot of tea, and when they get married, both the bride and groom remove all body hair - except for their eyebrows and the hair on their head!

Now, I am reading "Boom!" by Tom Brokaw, about the 60s. Should be an interesting read. But as I go through the introductory part, I wonder if I should read "The Greatest Generation" first so I can get an idea of what the baby boomers were rebelling against.

 

[lazarus]

I don't know if anyone's familiar with Italo Calvino, but I'd heard about him for a while, compared to Borges and Philip K. Dick, and finally picked up one of his books, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller.

This thing is FUCKED UP. It begins with the author writing in the second person how You're so excited to buy this new book and take it home, and he ruminates on the pleasures of buying and reading books, etc. Then the story begins, and is interrupted when the author breaks in saying how You realize that the pages have been misprinted, and You have to take it back to the bookstore to get a new copy.

Anyway, the whole rest of this book is this wild goose chase to find the rest of the first story, and is divided into two types of chapters: the stories You, the reader, are reading (each has its own title), and the sequentially numbered sections where Calvino is describing Your attempt to hunt down what's missing, including meeting a fellow reader who helps You on Your search.

Each time You think you've found the continuation, and start reading again, it turns out to be some other story that has nothing to do with the one before it, and then at a climactic moment you're interrupted by Calvino again.

I don't know if I've done this any justice, but I'm over halfway through the thing and it's quite a ride. It's frustrating at first because some of the stories are cool and you want to read more, but it's kind of funny and becomes a bit of a game.

There's a link on Calvino's Wiki page that has the beginning of the book, if you want to get a little taste:

http://www.italo-calvino.com/ifon.htm

Has anyone heard of this guy or read any of his stuff?

 

[susanp6]

Finished Gordon Ramsay's Humble pie, am three quarters through Russell Brand My Booky Wook plus i also just started reading Atonement

Thinking of re-reading Harry Potter soon and also going back over Great Expectations too

 

[Dalton]

Wow. Phillip K. Dick doesn't deserve to be in the same chapter as Calvino or Borges.

I really dug If On A Winter's Night a Traveler (especially the vertigo sequence). Its probably his best work, but I also enjoy The Castle of Crossed Destinies

 

[No spoken words]

I don't know if anyone's familiar with Italo Calvino, but I'd heard about him for a while, compared to Borges and Philip K. Dick, and finally picked up one of his books, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller.

This thing is FUCKED UP. It begins with the author writing in the second person how You're so excited to buy this new book and take it home, and he ruminates on the pleasures of buying and reading books, etc. Then the story begins, and is interrupted when the author breaks in saying how You realize that the pages have been misprinted, and You have to take it back to the bookstore to get a new copy.

Anyway, the whole rest of this book is this wild goose chase to find the rest of the first story, and is divided into two types of chapters: the stories You, the reader, are reading (each has its own title), and the sequentially numbered sections where Calvino is describing Your attempt to hunt down what's missing, including meeting a fellow reader who helps You on Your search.

Each time You think you've found the continuation, and start reading again, it turns out to be some other story that has nothing to do with the one before it, and then at a climactic moment you're interrupted by Calvino again.

I don't know if I've done this any justice, but I'm over halfway through the thing and it's quite a ride. It's frustrating at first because some of the stories are cool and you want to read more, but it's kind of funny and becomes a bit of a game.

There's a link on Calvino's Wiki page that has the beginning of the book, if you want to get a little taste:

http://www.italo-calvino.com/ifon.htm

Has anyone heard of this guy or read any of his stuff?

I've read Invisible Cities.

 

[lazarus]

Dalton: Philip K Dick wasn't nearly as refined a writer, but his ability to intertwine these mindbending ideas with some real heartbreaking human portraits is still impressive. I think the comparison to the other two was more from a "meta" standpoint than any other stylistic similarity.

NSW: Any comment on Invisible Cities? I think I was looking at that one too.

 

[No spoken words]

Laz, I loved it. It's not at all about plot or character development, which of course we all appreciate in books....but instead is just about the author's, or, the fictional Polo's imagination. Very rich, very vivd descriptions of all these wonderous cities.

As for Philip K Dick, I'm a huge fan. I came to him late, after reading Sci-Fi from many different authors, and came away impressed. Not my favorite, but, in my top 5 for that genre, for sure...

 

[corianderstem]

#7 Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

I heard about this book in the Oprah magazine, in an article talking about how it was this classic. Never heard of it! So I picked it up.

Oh, it was so good. It takes place in the early 1900s, and a teenaged Boston girl with pleurisy is sent to live with her cousin in the wilds of Canada. There, she meets Sargeant Mike, a dreamboat Mountie. They marry and leave for his post even further into the wilds of Canada.

They experience all sorts of things: lots of little bits of joy, but bad stuff like wild fires, bear attacks and the inevitable illnesses like diphtheria and the flu.

I'm glad I heard about the book and read it.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

I picked up Sarah Gruen's Water For Elephants while I was away for the holidays because I realized I'd forgotten to bring The Satanic Verses. I'm over 100 pages into it and I still can't decide if I like it. It's really well researched and authentic, but I can't say I really like the protagonist, and the writing isn't as strong as I was expecting it to be considering all the fuss I've heard about the book.

I finished this last night, my first book of '08. I'd give it 3/5 stars. As I said, the book is very well researched, but the research doesn't make up for Gruen's faulty craft in places. It's a plot-driven book moreso than a character-driven one, and while many of the minor chracters are developed well, some of the relationships between the main characters feel forced and rushed. The dialogue is unbelievable or contrived in places, and there are more cliches than I can believe an editor in a major publishing house would allow. All in all not a bad book, but the flaws were a distraction.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

#7 Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

I read that book about a zillion times when I was 12/13 years old. It's a classic. Very adventurous and romantic. I feel the need to find a copy and reread it after some 15 years away from it.

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, that's the thing that struck me in the Oprah article. All these people talking about how many times they read it all those years ago ... and here I'd never even heard of it.

Did you read the sequel? They had a few pages from it at the end of the book, and I don't know that I was all that interested, to be honest. It's from the POV of one of the kids.

 

[Dalton]

I'm gonna write a book that uses a flower as the predominant metaphor for the healing of a woman who's ear was molested by her retarded cousin when she was a child.

Oprah will eat that shit up!

 

[LMP]

Had to read Girl with a Pearl Earring for school... that's a big pile of meh. It's well-written, has a strong narrative, and all of the symbols/devices/etc... are done extremely well, but I didn't care about any of it.

It was a frustrating read - probably the Anti-Catcher in the Rye.

Ethan Coen's Gates of Eden is now my next read.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

Yeah, that's the thing that struck me in the Oprah article. All these people talking about how many times they read it all those years ago ... and here I'd never even heard of it.

Did you read the sequel? They had a few pages from it at the end of the book, and I don't know that I was all that interested, to be honest. It's from the POV of one of the kids.

No, I didn't even know there was a sequel. I doubt I would read it though...I kinda want to remember the characters as they were. Honestly, I think it would make a great mini-series.

 

[Lemonchick]

-Finished Children of Men this week...was actually quite good, very different from the movie, but I enjoyed it.

-just started You Know You Love Me (the second Gossip Girl book...all right, I do have a thing for teen lit )

 

[LMP]

How different is Children of Men from the movie? It's one of my all-time favorites.