what are you reading today?

[mpcec]

[Bislane]

I'm gonna have to disagree on Kraken though. One of the few books I haven't been able to finish in recent times. It just grinds after a couple hundred pages. Mieville has a great imagination but his prose style can be pretty tedious. I'd suggest The City and The City as a much more enjoyable (and shorter) alternative.

The City seems way badass too, but after reading a PKD novel right before mieville, that shit read like stephen king/dan brown. Way more serialized and less esoteric - I do know the exact parts you're talking about but the payoff is there when you get to the 'turn into minions of our lord kraken/nature/streetlamp/star trek' phase of the book.

I creep your selection of books a lot man, that book there looks interesting as was Lies, Inc. from Dick. Currently waiting on Anti-Oedipus to get shipped from b&n (on sale there now, apparently).

[rgray]

I have a copy of Anti-Oedipus and tried getting into it at the start of summer but just couldn't give it the attention it needed. I think I will try again soon.

I just finished reading Jose Saramago's Blindness. Not sure if I will start Seeing or read something completely different. I think I might have a job soon (hopefully) and I will be in school so I won't have as much time.

[Sugar Mountain]

What did you think of Blindness rgray? I finished it last week and found it a powerful read. Saramago is perhaps too heavy-handed with what appears to be a political allusion towards the end of the book but overall the depiction of how quickly man can become dehumanised was impactful.

Now onto:

Great book so far and really making me re-evaluate my earlier impression of Delillo.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

What did you think of Blindness rgray? I finished it last week and found it a powerful read. Saramago is perhaps too heavy-handed with what appears to be a political allusion towards the end of the book but overall the depiction of how quickly man can become dehumanised was impactful.

Now onto:

Great book so far and really making me re-evaluate my earlier impression of Delillo.

^ that was my first DeLillo and i thought it was okay

i love Underworld, though

I took a break from my Jest re-read to burn through the Corrections while I was up north. Really lived up to the hype, but it made Freedom feel almost unnecessary. The themes dealt with are just way too similar (family torn apart by tradition v. progressive mores, political leanings and ideas about what life is about/how it should be lived, etc. etc.).

There's also a possibility that Freedom was better, but it just almost feels like a refined remake now, almost like Evil Dead 2 vs. Evil Dead.

Despite this, both books were really enjoyable reads, almost popcorn reads (rarely do i run through a 600 page book in three days, and this was the case with both). Recommend either, or both, if you want to read something that's quick without being dumb, stimulating without being too much work.

i just finished Freedom and i like it for what it is

popular fiction written by an intellectual that isn't condescending

that's rare, i guess

it didn't blow my doors off but it was tight and well written

i read Corrections when it first came out and i thought it was all right

it is hard to read these books amidst all the hype

but yeah, he's a kind author

i just wish i didn't feel he was pandering or dumbing down too much

but it is a tough audience right now

people just want to be spoonfed pre-digested adolescent vampire romance shit or whatever

so we'll have to take what we can get

and be grateful, you know

[Dead_Wizard]

mashed out Portnoy's Complaint in a day. Possibly the funniest book I've ever read, was laughing out loud the entire time. The part where he busts in his eye getting a sloppy handjob nearly killed me.

picked up

for a few bucks at Borders. Really quick, fun, pulpy novel.

About to start

which a friend lent to me.

[rgray]

To be quite honest (I may have said this at some point) but I haven't read any fiction probably since highschool. I read university related non-fiction for my own leisure just as much as I do for class. Again, to be honest, I feel at a loss to try and explain my feelings about the fiction that I have started reading.

I thought a particularly interesting part was when the size of the group went from that of a family to very quickly being over 200. Nothing was at all manageable and the result was the short lived dictatorship. For me, that spoke a great deal about the falsehood of society. What I mean is that I feel the way we have organized ourselves is very forced and unnatural.

Saramago really did capture the misery and gravity of what mass blindness could 'look' like. There is a lot of obvious information we obtain through the eyes but Blindness also explored the ways in which human interaction functions through the eyes.

The book was narrated in a very calm, matter-of-fact way, even when terrible things were taking place. This seems to help the reader focus on the meaning or symbolism of what is taking place rather than strictly the real events. If the book was written in another style - focusing on the suspense and misery in themselves - it could be very easy to lose the deeper meaning.

I quickly skimmed over the wiki page for Seeing and it 'appears' that there is a lot more focus on politics. Even though I try to avoid the violence and misery in my studies, it really isn't easy and I am drawn to dystopian literature.

[Baeyer-Drewson]

Going to see this woman speak at a bookstore later tonight.

[broneck]

I just picked up a copy of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls from NYU's bookstore. It was $3.50 brand new, which I thought was somewhat nuts.

Really excited to dive in.

[SquidSemenSupreme]

he's so good

[SquidSemenSupreme]

Now onto:

Great book so far and really making me re-evaluate my earlier impression of Delillo.

what did you read before WN that tainted your opinion of his work?

Underworld is awesome, Americana is hilarious, Mao II was meh, Point Omega was meh, Cosmopolis was okay Body Artist sucked, WN was my first, so maybe my favorite...

[Baeyer-Drewson]

Yeah, White Noise was my first too. Have Underworld on the shelf. Mao II was pretty average I felt. Great themes, terrible execution.

[Ol_Dirty_Btard]

[Sugar Mountain]

I wish I had read White Noise first. Finished it yesterday and was seriously impressed. For a 326 page novel, it is incredibly rich in ideas with so much to take away from it and dwell on. Loved the characters and the dialogue throughout.

Now starting on Underworld given the recommendation by DDML (Delillo Destroyed My Life?). Quite clearly a book I need to commit to - it's added about 2kg in weight to my work bag!

SSS - my first Delillo was Falling Man, his post-9/11 novel. Sometimes with books it can really be a case of "it's not you, it's me" so I try to never write an author off completely but that novel just did not work for me and I was left wondering what the fuss about Delillo was. Will return to it at some point. I lent it to my dad and he thought it was excellent.

[broneck]

one of my clients just read "the princess bride" by William Goldman and said it was a great read.

any merit to this recommendation?

[BRICK DOM]

Every time I read a Bukowski book, I always picture Henry Chinaski looking like the Dude:

idk if this counts as a miscellaneous musing

[denimdestroyedmylife]

on the delillo tip, LIBRA was so good

JFK/Oswald shit - if you have even a mild interest in the topic, read this

yeah, and Cosmopolis was really kinda ok (in the worst possible sense) and not memorable (iirc)

one of my clients just read "the princess bride" by William Goldman and said it was a great read.

any merit to this recommendation?

oh yeah, it is particularly good if it is read to you aloud by your fourth grade teacher while you sit indian-style on cold tiles

[Grim Ryan]

[Dead_Wizard]

I really want to buy this

http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=574

[SquidSemenSupreme]

god, I think I've read everything Don DeLillo has ever written

just started reading Twelfth Night to reignite my academic mind

[Baeyer-Drewson]

Fun book, shitty coffee.

[broneck]

just started this

[xpaulinabearx]

hardball by chris matthews

kind of funny, somewhat interesting

[IsaakM]

Starting this:

[spudeey]

[ke1]

Taking longer than necessary to finish The Fountainhead

[Baeyer-Drewson]

^Yeah Ayn Rand is a bit of a slug. Anthem was pretty enjoyable, but The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged just looks like torture. Feel free to correct me if I'm misinformed.

I kinda feel the same way about Infinite Jest, ie, like I will never finish it. It's certainly a lot of fun though.

[zerofuture]

[abrupt stop]

[ke1]

^Yeah Ayn Rand is a bit of a slug. Anthem was pretty enjoyable, but The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged just looks like torture. Feel free to correct me if I'm misinformed.

I kinda feel the same way about Infinite Jest, ie, like I will never finish it. It's certainly a lot of fun though.

It's quite peculiar, in that I don't mind the amount of time it's taking to finish, because I enjoy the interesting albeit slow progression of each character.

Infinite Jest is actually the next book in line (opted to leapfrog Gravity's Rainbow). I actually have a decent understanding of what's to come in Foster's novel, so I'm not too worried about lengthiness with that one.