It's August already and I am reading...
I've just started Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
What's everyone else reading?
The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller. It was on one of LitReactor's new release lists. At first I wasn't that impressed but I'm starting to enjoy it a lot more as it goes on!
I'm very slowly reading A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. It's good, but I'm always too tired to read lately.
Wow it is August already.
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. I had an idea that it was going to be a bit silly but it's actually really good.
It's a great book! Just don't ever read Son of Rosemary because it was a terrible, terrible sequel that should have never been written.
The Boys From Brazil and The Stepford Wives are also good Ira Levin novels.
autobiography of a face - lucy grealy
.I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
It's a great book! Just don't ever read Son of Rosemary because it was a terrible, terrible sequel that should have never been written.
The Boys From Brazil and The Stepford Wives are also good Ira Levin novels.
I didn't know there was a sequel. I've just bought The Stepford Wives based on the first half of Rosemary's Baby.
Keynes: The Return of the Master by Robert Skidelsky. Bought it on an impulse, but it looks like a promising read.
Because there is nothing over the rainbow… - http://theunsunnyvalley.wordpress.com
The Girl With A Thousand Wrinkles by Nora Iuga, Romanian writer.
The Abbey by Chris Culver.
I'm reading a self help book to become more charismatic. It's helping.
Secret Societies And Subversive Movements - Nesta H. Webster, 1924.
Apparently, The Jews worried her a bit.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Finished 'Gadfly', quite disappointed with it. Felt like characters were always making very strange and unbelievable decisions and that the great build ups fell to anti-climax. It was written in alternating chapters from 2 first person narrators and one third person narrator, which seems like bad storytelling to me; a slapdash approach to avoid difficulties of plot and stuff. However, at times I had a lot of fun reading it, even if I was often let down.
Now, a million years after everyone else, I'm finally reading Columbine by Dave Cullen. It's really interesting already.
Is it me or do the main characters die more often in 3rd person narratives?
I found Columbine to be incredibly fascinating and one of the best non-fiction books out there.
I'm looking for some new thriller type novels, but I'm not coming up with much at the moment.
Ha! That's a criticism some people have of first-person, that it eliminates some of the suspense, because no matter how dire a situation seems, the reader knows the character ultimately survives to tell the tale. Unless they're narrating from the afterlife.
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (Luc Sante)
A fitting folow-up to Gangs of New York.
It's a great book! Just don't ever read Son of Rosemary because it was a terrible, terrible sequel that should have never been written.
The Boys From Brazil and The Stepford Wives are also good Ira Levin novels.
I didn't know there was a sequel. I've just bought The Stepford Wives based on the first half of Rosemary's Baby.
Yeah, it was pretty bad.
I started Ape and Essence by Huxley since it is one of the shorter ones I picked up today and I thought I might have time to actually get through it in between the chaos in the next few days, three pages in I decided it is pretty awesome. Hope That continues.
I've also been reading The Secret life of Pronouns-What Our Words Say About Us, by James W. Pennebaker. All it has been doing so far is making me paranoid and self conscious about what everything I write down might mean about my personality. Interesting, anyway.
A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne. Slowly compiling my to-read list for my beach holiday next week.
Unless it's in present tense too, but the number of pages left in the book may take away the surprise a little. Books like this should have a whole lot of blank pages at the end so it's more of a surprise.
Then you'd notice all the blank pages!
I don't presume anything based on the perspective of the narrator because I don't feel like I can. I almost never read books where I wonder if a character will die at the end. I used to be so disappointed if a book wasn't written in first person but now it's the opposite!
Columbine is really difficult to put down and so scary and sad. I'm already surprised by all the misconceptions I had about the two gunmen. It makes even less sense knowing they weren't loners or bullied.
Unaccustomed Mercy, stories by D.B. Cox. It's quite dark thus far, men at the ends of their ropes without much to live for, an inch from pulling the trigger.
After that it will be F*ckload of Shorts, stories by Jed Ayres (of Noir at the Bar).
Just reread The Hunger Games trilogy.
"I'm glad I live in the GPS era. In a different century, I would've set off to visit the other side of the village and wandered off into the mountains and been eaten by a carnivorous plant. Or discovered the Americas."
-LaJessica
Well, only if you skip to the end before you finish.
Doesn't everyone do that though? There's usually an author bio or ads for more books at the end. How am I supposed to know who the author wants to thank?!
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by K Dick.
I don't presume anything based on the perspective of the narrator because I don't feel like I can. I almost never read books where I wonder if a character will die at the end. I used to be so disappointed if a book wasn't written in first person but now it's the opposite!
Columbine is really difficult to put down and so scary and sad. I'm already surprised by all the misconceptions I had about the two gunmen. It makes even less sense knowing they weren't loners or bullied.
This is one of the few books i couldn't stop reading. I was finished with it in a couple of days. It definitely stuck with me too, it's a very sad book. I've always found the Columbine shooting to be interesting, i think it's because i was in high school when it happened. I don't know. I think it's an important part of modern American history.
I am reading the controversial Chinese-American parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. It's so good, I'm finding it so very hard to put it down!
Ha! That's a criticism some people have of first-person, that it eliminates some of the suspense, because no matter how dire a situation seems, the reader knows the character ultimately survives to tell the tale. Unless they're narrating from the afterlife.
Sunset Blvd. did it well. I'm sure there are others.
This is why we can't have nice things.
I'm back to Twain and Sketches Old and New.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Eating Smoke: One Man's Descent into Drug Psychosis in Hong Kong's Triad Heartland by Chris Thrall. It's okay. A bit slow paced, maybe.
I'm rereading The Hobbit.
"I'm glad I live in the GPS era. In a different century, I would've set off to visit the other side of the village and wandered off into the mountains and been eaten by a carnivorous plant. Or discovered the Americas."
-LaJessica
A Fuckload of Scotch Tape, short stories by Jedidiah Ayres. Oops, I just saw that I already mentioned this above... Anyway, if you've seen the film, this is even better. I'm only partway through, but Jed really nails that first-person noir voice. So, so good. Favorite line thus far (when the narrator is describing his precarious relations with a stripper): "Danger hung off me like ten inches."
I want to get that book, but I want to get it for nook.
James Hayman- The Cutting.
Oranges are not the only fruit - Jeanette Winterson
Quite depressing but a great read so far.
Savages, by Don Winslow. It was terrible and dumb.
Was this the same as the movie? I just googled...yeah I can't imagine the book being any better than the movie. It was lacking in so many areas. The movie even tried to have a narrator.
Yeah, it's the same. I heard the ending was different, though.
Quite depressing but a great read so far.
Loved it, like most of her novels. Sexing the Cherry wasn't that impressive, though. But Oranges hit the nail right on the head for me. Also, Written on the Body is one of my two favourite books of all time.
I finished Do Androids.. at the seaside, then spent 3 days reading a bullshit Romanian novel that was supposed to be brilliant but I hated it with a passion, too pretentious and slangy in a suburb kind of way, no storyline, just crammed words and paragraph-long "stories" that made no sense. Also read a short erotica novel on the beach one day, First Taste by Paisley Smith, and started We Need To Talk About Kevin. It's one of the few times I can't tell which is better - the book or the movie. I love them both equally.
[Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors - Mark Twain (published anonymously in 1880)
Mark Twain does "porn".
This is why we can't have nice things.
Starting Broken Piano For President.
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. Man, some messed up shit goes on in that town.
Read Where The Wild Things Are because I don't want We Need To Talk About Kevin to end.
How long can you stretch out 11 words? War And Peace would be a better selection.
This is why we can't have nice things.
No more long novels this year. I've yet to read Gravity's Rainbow and Living To Tell The Tale as pending, and they're both long. After In Search Of The Lost Time, I am done for the year. Although I should read The Hunger Games some time. Had them for over a year and I can't believe now they're so popular. I hadn't ever heard of them when I got them.
And it's a whole 40 pages! I looked at all the pictures, okay?
finished "autobiography of a face"
now HST "hells angels"
.I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
We Need To Talk About Kevin was very very good.
I haven't read at all the last 2 weeks. I've been so busy and everything's chaotic in my head, so I just haven't felt like it.
Reading A Very Minor Prophet by James Bernard Frost. I'm really digging the 'zine excerpts throughout. It works. It took me a minute to get into it, but I'm really enjoying it.