What Are You Reading?

[RGC]

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[iatneH]

I used to like Dawkins, but dude's getting way too arrogant. I probably won't be reading The Greatest Show on Earth.

[themachinist]

short stories of f. scott fitzgerald

Yup, I have a spanking new copy of Great Gatsby in the queue.

nice. I only started reading fitzgerald's stuff about a year ago. almost every american kid reads gatsby in high school but my high school english curriculum was different. good book though. i've read it a few times and it's a pleasure every time.

i also liked huxley's brave new world. i'll have to try some of his other books mentioned here.

as for haruki murakami. i enjoyed norwegian wood. then i read kafka by the shore which was alright i guess. then months later i picked up the wind up bird chronicle and quit after about 100 pages. i think i'm just about done with his style.

[Zejiro]

I'm currently reading The Road to Jerusalem, by Jan Guillou. I'm reading the Swedish original, though ofc... (Vägen till Jerusalem)

EDIT:
And after that I will read the other three books in the series... Tempelriddaren, Riket vid vägens slut and Arvet efter Arn.

[lgb]

just remembered I happened to have the Riftwar Saga (Raymond E. Feist) hanging around and I thought I'd read those real quick, seems like a whole lot of puff-puff-pass-em afaic

also retsupurow through (the?) Redwall

[CMoon]

I used to like Dawkins, but dude's getting way too arrogant. I probably won't be reading The Greatest Show on Earth.

The guy really needed to stick to what he does best--popularize biology--and should have stayed clear of the religious ring. Now he plays the role that creationists have been dreaming of: A pissy, pissed-off scientist who got a bone to settle with those kooky God-loving people! That said, I think Dawkins is a great science writer, but he's more of a cartoon character now than a real person.

All that said, I started reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Easy to read, very accessible and highly entertaining. Haven't read much, but it is so great to pick up a book light this and have the thing feel rather light and fluffy.

[Ed Oscuro]

as for haruki murakami. i enjoyed norwegian wood. then i read kafka by the shore which was alright i guess. then months later i picked up the wind up bird chronicle and quit after about 100 pages. i think i'm just about done with his style.

Wind Up Bird Chronicle is a meat grinder later on, has some stupid / unbelievable stuff in it at times (particularly the bit with the computer system lol), but also some interesting historical stuff. He's quite relentless cycling the pressure by the last chapters.

[sjewkestheloon]

I'd say that Wind Up Bird Man is his best book by far. There is just more meat to chew and although the same old Murakami themes reappear they are somewhat hidden due to the strange premise. I found it quite refreshing. I do however realise that I might well be in the minority here. I've recommended it to several people and not many of them have actually finished it.

I recently finished Belano's Savage Detective which was superb. Frustrating though. I think he's my favourite author of recent times. He paints a more convincing and interesting character in two pages than most novelists can manage in two hundred.

Now I'm tackling Olaf Stappledon's Star Maker, a cross between sci-fi and philosophy. I'm glad I read Simon Singh's Big Bang before tackling this one as I understand the theory behind some of the observations made by the narrator, something that may have otherwise been off putting.

Not sure whether I posted about Alasdair Gray's Lanark but I would wholeheartedly recommend reading that if you feel up to a challenge. A realist novel of a child's life in wartime Scotland sandwiched between an absurdist fable taken from the later life of the realist novel's protagonist. You can tell that this monster of a novel had a difficult and lengthy birth.

[elfhentaifan]

- The Lord of the Rings (dont know that stuff really but its ok)
- Common Sense by Glenn Beck
- American Government Brief Ver.

[emphatic]

That latest Dexter book. It's scary how much better the show is...

[ASK]

- Common Sense by Glenn Beck

Uhh...you reading that for any particular reason?

[Skykid]

I just finished the Michael Jackson biography - The Magic and The Madness.

Started reading it while getting my hair cut and couldn't put it down. I didn't even want to read it, my girlfriend bought it for herself. Really readable though, and very interesting - if the incredible clarity of detail is questionable at times.

[elfhentaifan]

- Common Sense by Glenn Beck

Uhh...you reading that for any particular reason?

because im patriotic

[Square King]

Shit got real about 75% in.

[Warp_Rattler]

Oh man, how could I not notice a reading thread?

Finished Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver a week ago and am just finishing up a brief diversion courtesy of Heart of Darkness before tackling The Confusion. I was absolutely blown away by Anathem and have read all of his other works save Zodiac, but a trilogy where each volume is the size of one of his normal novels was always a bit daunting.

Nice to see so many Murakami (Haruki, though Ryu is okay too I suppose) fans here, he's one of my favorite writers. I think to say that he writes the same kind of story (e.g. disappearing girl) is to miss the point, which is how he goes about writing the stories and how each of them work out a bit differently. It's kind of like saying at the end of the day, Ian Fleming always wrote the same story. That said, South of the Border, West of the Sun really did feel like a recycled and much, much weaker version of Norwegian Wood, and I didn't much care for it. The rest of his works though are amazing. I concur that Wind-Up Bird is probably his strongest, but I really love the four books that comprise the only sort of 'series' he's written--Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance Dance Dance. The first two oddly enough never got an English release outside of Japan (having been published in some sort of weird "Let's learn English!" line from Kodansha) and while the first one can be found fairly inexpensively on ebay and such, the second commands asininely high prices and is better read thanks to a university inter-library loan or courtesy of a PDF that may or may not be floating around online.
After Dark, his latest to be translated to English, really marks a bit of a departure from his signature style; it still has all the elements of a Murakami novel, but it just feels a bit more experimental without going as surreal as Kafka or Hard-Boiled Wonderland (which to this day I cannot get into).

A few people mentioned Ryu Murakami; what are his works that you'd recommend? I tried and was quickly turned off by Almost Transparent Blue, but I did find myself really enjoying In the Miso Soup, which gave me a slightly better idea of what his writing was like than the in-your-face, almost art novel sensibilities of my first attempt.

[sjewkestheloon]

I appreciate the fact that Haruki M. is refining his vision but definately don't think that reading all of his novels is necessary unless you are particularly enamoured. I am most interested by the whole series of books business as I really enjoyed Dance Dance Dance and Wild Sheep Chase but always felt that I was missing out on something. You have confirmed this now and I look forward to a possible future translation.

Hard Boiled is pretty good but gets irritatingly vague and metaphysical in the last quarter, as if he's written himself into a corner, similar to the endings for 75% of Stephen King novels. At least the premise is effective until that point.

As for Ryu M., In the Miso Soup is very entertaining as you pointed out and the only other that I've read is Pierced (or Piercing?) which was actually a bit better. There are a few more characters involved but the plot is water tight and fast paced. I read it in one or two sittings and would recommend it. I know that one of his novels was turned into Audition by Tekashi Miike and would love to track that down.

How did you find Heart of Darkness? I have to admit that I found it rather uncomfortably a product of its time. Incredibly racist while trying to promote tollerance. Also I found it needlessly dense, wordiness expressing nothing.

As for mine, I finished Savage Detectives which was usual sublime Bolano, and have started Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, a cross between scientifically focused sci-fi and philosophy.

[Arcatech]

Reading on my psp "The Emperor Wears No Clothes".

http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Wears-Clo ... 546&sr=8-1

It amazes me how far newspaper boss Hearst went to slander cannabis. I think if everyone in America read this book we would have an outraged country on our hands.

[who]

I'm reading Discworld novels.

[Acid King]

The Semisovereign People by EE Schattschneider
The Logic Of Collective Action by Mancur Olson
Who Governs by Robert Dahl

- Common Sense by Glenn Beck

Uhh...you reading that for any particular reason?

Both the left and the right have tried to claim Tom Paine as one of their own. I think it'd be interesting to read just to see how Beck interprets him.

[Jon]

- Common Sense by Glenn Beck

Uhh...you reading that for any particular reason?

because im patriotic

Awesome.

[ASK]

Still don't know if he's trolling.

Trying to decide whether to delve into The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus after finishing off A Brave New World a week or so ago. Might be a little too heavy for commute reading...but it's that or The Illiad

[Ed Oscuro]

I quickly blasted through a rather poorly OCR'd copy of The Hound of Baskervilles, not nearly as good as I was expecting and I find myself severely at odds with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's style. Especially his tendency to let people form perfect sentences with robust adjectives immediately after they've stopped running (at least twice) and have been described as being out of breath, pulled out of a bog, et cetera.

The biggest problems are that Doyle invents introduces too many relevant details later on that we couldn't possibly have known, and telegraphs far too much of the plot (especially nearing the end, there's no suspense and waiting for a big dog to run out of the fog (which Doyle makes clear will happen since the early chapters) isn't cutting it. On the first point, "Stapleton's sister" is described as only having a strange 'lisp,' yet later on we learn she's actually Spanish. Also, there are too many people running around that we aren't even told about until later.

I also have the Hammer version ready to watch, although I'm not sure how far that will go towards blasting out the bad taste, or whether going over the same details again will be a chore. It's got Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing though, so all cannot be lost.

Also, I am reading a bit of "Goals for Americans," a nonpartisan 1960 report commissioned by President Eisenhower and presented in the last weeks of the election season (~November 11 1960). It's a great historical document, and already a very helpful document for the student of American political thought. One of the experts contributing an essay was none other than Thomas J. Watson, Jr., then President of IBM, son of the founder.

[BryanM]

I read Blindsight a couple months ago.

It was okay.

[sjewkestheloon]

I quickly blasted through a rather poorly OCR'd copy of The Hound of Baskervilles, not nearly as good as I was expecting and I find myself severely at odds with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's style. Especially his tendency to let people form perfect sentences with robust adjectives immediately after they've stopped running (at least twice) and have been described as being out of breath, pulled out of a bog, et cetera.

The biggest problems are that Doyle invents introduces too many relevant details later on that we couldn't possibly have known, and telegraphs far too much of the plot (especially nearing the end, there's no suspense and waiting for a big dog to run out of the fog (which Doyle makes clear will happen since the early chapters) isn't cutting it. On the first point, "Stapleton's sister" is described as only having a strange 'lisp,' yet later on we learn she's actually Spanish. Also, there are too many people running around that we aren't even told about until later.

I also have the Hammer version ready to watch, although I'm not sure how far that will go towards blasting out the bad taste, or whether going over the same details again will be a chore. It's got Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing though, so all cannot be lost.

Also, I am reading a bit of "Goals for Americans," a nonpartisan 1960 report commissioned by President Eisenhower and presented in the last weeks of the election season (~November 11 1960). It's a great historical document, and already a very helpful document for the student of American political thought. One of the experts contributing an essay was none other than Thomas J. Watson, Jr., then President of IBM, son of the founder.

I'm a big fan of ACD but can definately understand your points about the solving of the mystery. Many of his stories are like this and it isn't really feasable to solve the mysteries based on the presented facts. I would recommend not trying to solve the mystery but focusing on enjoying the suspence and characters.

[Skykid]

Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe in an ancient volume I found on my folks bookshelf.

The paper smells musty and the print is really small. It's perfect.

[kozo]

I just started reading the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. Started Journey to the West but decided a few chapters in I'd rather go back and read them in chronologically written order, so now I'm a good few chapters into Romance. Looking forward to Water Margin, as I'm a fan of the Suikoden games and am curious how much or how little they pulled from the novel. Also looking forward to the Red Chamber and will probably read Jin Ping Mei since it is regarded as another important book.

[RGC]

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[Ed Oscuro]

I'm a big fan of ACD but can definately understand your points about the solving of the mystery. Many of his stories are like this and it isn't really feasable to solve the mysteries based on the presented facts. I would recommend not trying to solve the mystery but focusing on enjoying the suspence and characters.

I recently did a course on Modernist writing, and we went into Poe first and then Sir Doyle's The Man With the Twisted Lip, which was perfect in mirroring the sensibilities of the time, but also in being a tightly-woven, enjoyable story that you could follow and try to guess the outcome of - while still being surprised. Yes, once again there were new things brought in, but it wasn't springing surprises like "there was actually a guy we never saw [doing X important thing]" on us. I thought that one very well-written. Out of the depths of my memory, I'd like to say that the Three (?) Orange Pips, the Napoleons, and the one with the snake were also good stories, but it's been so long I couldn't say for sure.

I ought to look at Murders in the Rue Morgue, I don't think I actually finished it I did read Poe's The Gold-Bug (at least that's what it was about) and I think Poe's writing to be generally higher quality than Doyle's Baskervilles - although Poe does get shrill sounding and his works seem more like single-set plays or chamber pieces to Doyle's often more expansive settings. It's fine by me anyway.

[Warp_Rattler]

I appreciate the fact that Haruki M. is refining his vision but definately don't think that reading all of his novels is necessary unless you are particularly enamoured. I am most interested by the whole series of books business as I really enjoyed Dance Dance Dance and Wild Sheep Chase but always felt that I was missing out on something. You have confirmed this now and I look forward to a possible future translation.

Unfortunately, I doubt a re-translation will be possible without Murakami's approval--I could dig up the source given a bit of time, but basically he wasn't two happy with the way those two novels turned out (as they were his first efforts) and would rather not have anything more to do with the. Unfortunately, this means that Pinball, 1973 will probably always be ridiculous unless he has a Stephenson-esque change of heart and allows a reprint just to keep people from charging insane prices.
An interesting note on Murakami re: the various talented people who have done his translations--the version of Norwegian Wood published in English in Japan was done by early Murakami translator Alfred Birnbaum, whereas the English release in the west was done by Jay Rubin. If you can track the latter down, it's interesting comparing their translating styles; I definitely prefer Rubin's more concrete way of writing (relative to the author, that is).

As for Ryu M., In the Miso Soup is very entertaining as you pointed out and the only other that I've read is Pierced (or Piercing?) which was actually a bit better. There are a few more characters involved but the plot is water tight and fast paced. I read it in one or two sittings and would recommend it. I know that one of his novels was turned into Audition by Tekashi Miike and would love to track that down.

I can tentatively say I enjoy Miike's work on his films that I've seen (this coming before seeing Ichi the Killer or Visitor Q), but Audition was definitely disturbing to say the least. I was pretty curious about the original novel, but could find little to no information on it save the general impression that it had not ever been translated into English. Amazon indicates that a translation is coming in the middle of next year; should give me time to catch up on his other work by then.

How did you find Heart of Darkness? I have to admit that I found it rather uncomfortably a product of its time. Incredibly racist while trying to promote tollerance. Also I found it needlessly dense, wordiness expressing nothing.

For me, it was one of those classics that I can say that I've at least read it. A lot of people have a hard time with Conrad's racial epithets, but that's never the part that really bugged me (explaining this is always a tricky thing to do). Yeah, he's certainly racist by today's standards, but he is--as you said--a product of his time, and I just can't really hold him to the sort of scrutiny we would give a modern day author who wrote in the same manner. This does not at all excuse him from it, but I think it gives him a bit of a better portrayal as just someone too complacent or ignorant to really question the convention of the day, rather than the honorary Klansman he's often made out to be.
What did bug me was the writing itself--as you say, it was dense, wordy, and a lot of things were never really explained to my satisfaction. I still don't know what it was that made Kurtz such a formidable, larger-than-life figure. I've got a sneaking suspicion that this lack of detail may have been intentional so as to only give the reader an idea of Marlowe's impression of a great man he couldn't accurately describe; if this is correct then it's pretty disingenuous. H.P. Lovecraft does a great job of using vague hints to accurately portray a feeling or concept; Joseph Conrad not so much.

Wordy blathering aside, I'm now well on my way into Vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle.

[Engineer]

Just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Interesting to see all of the many variations between the book and Blade Runner. Have to say I prefer the movie by far.