Reading Is Sexy: Books Part III

[loudnoises]

i'm currently reading slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut. its probably the best book i've ever read. ever.

 

[powerhour24]

Slaughterhouse 5 disappointed me having enjoyed some of his other works, I tend to have really high standards for satire, and don't like when they bash you over the head (American Beauty??) if they don't really create their own bizarre world (as Vonnegut did with books like Cat's Cradle) in which to make your point, but that's just me. There's a lot to like about the book, and it'll certainly kindle discussion and thought, I just don't love it so much as a literary achievement. Though this could come out of my tendency to be disappointed by things that get the most attention, and often champion lesser-known works by the same artist .

 

[Carek1230]

I'm reading Bumping Into Geniuses by Danny Goldberg. Another book about the music and behind the scenes showbiz circles. Good summer read

 

[Lemonchick]

So for one of my lit classes we have to read:

1. James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
2. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
3. Kate Chopin, The Awakening
4. E. M. Forster, Howards End
5. Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
6. Sinclair Ross, As For Me and My House
7. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
8. E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel
9. Toni Morrison, Beloved
10. Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow
11. Art Spiegelman, Maus
12. Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

I've only read Lolita and Huckleberry Finn. Anyone familiar with the rest? Any advice on reading them, what to expect, etc.?

 

[LMP]

The Awakening was a frustrating read for me. Just found it to be misguided for a feminist text, and it beats you over the head with most of it the imagery/symbolism.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Maus is incredible. It's a graphic novel about the Holocaust, told from the perspective of Jewish mice. I'm not into graphic novels at all, but this one engrossed me from the start. I think you'll enjoy it, Dani.

 

[martha]

I finished Excellent Women, but had a heck of a time choosing what came next. I wanted more Barbara Pym, or did I? Reading her just makes me want to go back to London, even if it's during rationing and nothing's really going on. Then I thought, maybe more Western history? No, that'll just make me plan some crazy spring break road trip. So, for now, I've settled on The Case of the Perjured Parrot. Perry Mason to the rescue. The story dates from 1939, and the edition I have is from 1947, so it's a little fragile.

 

[No spoken words]

I'm almost done with In Cold Blood.

Pisses me off that I never read it before, but, at least I finally got to it. Excellent stuff.

 

[powerhour24]

Am I the only one around here that's been mesmerized by the power of Stieg Larsson's novels?? Some of the most gripping thrillers coupled with some pretty gutwrenching and literary indictments of Scandinavian society which many view as idyllic from its surface. His life itself is so mysterious and its sad that his trilogy of novels were only published and became international successes after his untimely death... and its disheartening because he'd nearly finished a 4th, plotted out a 5th and 6th and planned for 10 installments. And these are all huge books, and he did this in his spare time. Whoa.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I would like to go on the record, once again, as saying that Virginia Woolf is one of my very favorite writers.

 

[lazarus]

From what I've head, her sister Jean Woolf is even better, a master of fantasy novels.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I'm reading True Compass, Ted Kennedy's book-it came out Monday

 

[onebloodonelife]

I've been reading Marx's Capital Vol. 1 lately for a class. Better than I was expecting, actually. Most of the time when I think of Marx, I assume he'll be dry to read, but that hasn't been the case.

 

[No spoken words]

From what I've head, her sister Jean Woolf is even better, a master of fantasy novels.

You're a dick. And it's your loss.

Finished In Cold Blood. Fantastic.

Moving on to The Complete Robot by Asimov.

 

[u2popmofo]

Finally finished No Country For Old Men. Put a decent amount of time into it on the flights to and from Chicago, and finally got hooked. Being quite familiar with the movie, it was interesting to see how incredibly different some parts played out, and how word for word similar other sections were. There is considerably more character development for the sheriff in the book, to the point where he's probably the main character, and the title and ending take on a complete new light because of it. The more Cormac McCarthy I read, the more I like his writing style. Good stuff.

 

[Tiger Edge]

Can't remember the last time I posted in here, and I'm too lazy to look for it but I finished In Cold Blood a while back. Most recently my little online book club (we read books that we should have read in school, but didn't for one reason or another) read Fahrenheit 451 and we're going to start Dracula later this week.

 

[Saracene]

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I thought the book was fine when she just wrote about the countries she visited and people she met, but it got a tad cringeworthy whenever she started to go on about her spiritual experiences. It's not that I'm not interested in the topic, but I really can't swallow the gushy-mushy tone.

 

[corianderstem]

Happy Birthday or Whatever by Annie Choi

Mildly amusing memoir about the author's Korean family.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity and Roc the Mic Right. The first is an attempt to develop a type of music theory around rap music. Very enthralling so far and mostly spot-on. The second is doing the same thing, but with linguistics of the raps themselves. Very good so far as well.

My major rules.

Oh, and also started up Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. The dreams section is cool, but he makes some drastic jumps to conclusions sometimes. I've never been a huge fan of Freud, and this book certainly isn't going to change that too much.

 

[martha]

I finished The Case of the Perjured Parrot last Sunday. I figured out who the killer was, but Perry made it all make sense.

Now it's The Wetherills of the Mesa Verde; the Autobiography of Benjamin Alfred Wetherill. It's a little chatty, but I just love the history of that area of the country, especially when it's told by the people who made that history.

 

[onebloodonelife]

II figured out who the killer was, but Perry made it all make sense.

I also started Can't Stop, Won't Stop by Jeff Chang last night. It's a history of the hip-hop generation. Massive, meticulously researched, and beautifully written. Honestly, if anyone were to read just one book about hip-hop, this would be an excellent choice.

 

[corianderstem]

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Nonfiction account of a family's experience during and after Hurricane Katrina, as Zeitoun stays behind and ends up paddling around in his tiny canoe and helping people.

What happens next is just a horrifying, rage-inducing tale of societal breakdown and EPIC PHAIL of every level of authority.

Terrifying. (But really, really good, I swear!)

 

[Angela Harlem]

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is next on my list. The book club on 702AM has me too intrigued to not track it down. If anyone has read it, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it. It seems the kind of book which brings out a really diverse range of opinions.
It's a novel of the same title as an ancient historian's, named Procopius, who wrote about Justinian I. So anyway, it's about these 6 students who accidentally kill this guy during an imitation of the Greek ritual called Bacchanal. The book looks at their fight with moral superiority and removing themselves from what they did. One of the students doesn't cope well at all with their killing of this other dude, so they kill him too. As you do. It's set in a modern American college, but is supposedly carried on with typical Greek tragedy. The students begin all this because of their participation in a classical Greek class at the college. Sounds pretty interesting anyway. I'm finishing 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs at the moment and I can't honestly recall if I've actually read this, or she has become like so many authors who churn them out, that it's just a formulaic plot rehashed with new twists. Definitely time for something new and different.

 

[corianderstem]

I really liked that book!

 

[Carek1230]

Re-reading Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers. Inspiring.

 

[adamswildhoney]

Currently reading: Craig Ferguson's American on Purpose!

 

[Saracene]

I'm in a mood for history books so I've finished A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich. It was very readable for the book of its kind, and the last pages detailing the fall of Constantinople were very moving. It left me wishing to learn more about Byzantine history; in fact I got so inspired that I'm now planning to go to Istanbul again on my trip to Europe next year.

 

[corianderstem]

Love Will Tear Us Apart by Tara McCarthy

Mostly entertaining fluff about a writer doing a biography on pop sensations who happen to be conjoined twins.

Wanted more about the twins, less about the seriously annoying narrator.

 

[martha]

The Wetherills of the Mesa Verde; the Autobiography of Benjamin Alfred Wetherill.

I finished this this morning, and now I need more. I also needed something small and portable for the next few days, so it's The Hopi Villages: The Ancient Province of Tusayan by Major J. W. Powell. He visited the Hopi towns in 1875, and this is his account of that visit.

 

[Carek1230]

David Sheff's Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction