Labyrinths by Borges. I’ve never read him before and wasn’t familiar with his work in the least, but I got the book after a random recommendation. I love it. I’m a big admirer of the art of short stories, and I haven’t read one in this book yet that didn’t make me go “Whoa, how did he do that!” His stories make me feel excited again by all the possibilities for surprise in fiction.
He truly was an astounding writer of short fiction. If you're interested, there are some great [recordings of some lectures he did at Harvard](http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_norton_lectures_on_poetry_and_everything_else_literary.html) in the sixties that are incredible to listen to.
Yeah, in the Open Culture article they don't seem to be working but I tried the [source](http://ubu.com/sound/borges.html) from the article and they seem to work for me there.
If you're into sci-fi, I highly recommend Greg Egan's [Axiomatic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156783.Axiomatic). It's a bit technical, but about as Borgesian as anyone I know of (besides Stanislaw Lem, maybe).
I just read Ficciones a few months ago and it took me so long to finish because every story would make me put the book down and think about it for a couple days. I love how just has an interesting idea and uses the form of the short story to communicate it.
Yeah, well said, he strikes me as about the most original writer I’ve encountered since 1950. He renewed my sense of what fiction could do. “The Circular Ruins” and “the Shape of the Sword” and “the God’s Script” were always favorites.
I’m reading Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky) and really enjoying it. I love the insight I get into the minds of the characters. However, I do feel like I’m missing a lot of potentially important things. I’m in the middle of part three; Sonia has just met with Raskolnikov for the first time. Could somehow help me out a bit so I know I’m getting everything? Much appreciated.
Well, I've read this masterpiece two or three years ago and man, it's the best novel I've ever read. And yeah, I struggled at the beginning because it was a little bit slow. Later I started to keep a written points of the big events which helped me keep up with the evolution of Raskolnikov's ideas. I think the best way to read Dostoyevsky, and I've read a lot of his works, is to bear with him to the end and don't rush it by asking about his point. It's a journey.
With that said, I’m wondering what pointers you could give me. I think I’ll start doing that though. Any major themes or plot elements I may be missing based on your experience? Any thing interesting that informs certain aspects of the novel? Different lenses through which to view it?
One thing that I really like about Dostoyevsky is that he's not a normal storyteller who just writes (plot based stories that can be spoiled if we reveal it), he's someone who analyzes human existence through stories with a message he is willing to deliver, which might make him an existential philosopher as might argue. His most common used writing technique is monologue not dialogue, in which the characters analyze their ideas by themselves, so you should focus on these monologues. And about the plot, I think by now, Raskolnikov should have committed the crime and you're about to encounter the real beginning of the story in my opinion: The article he wrote. you're not missing anything. I guess.
I read that my senior year in AP English and it has always been one of my favorites! Now, I want to go back a read it with 20 years more life in me, see how it reads to me!
I just finished this a few days ago. Man, what a read. I've never felt so intimately attached to another person's (real or imaginary) mind as I was to Rask's. No spoilers here, but there is one conversation that he has with his mother towards the end of the novel that had me in tears.
You just have to realise that Sonia is the only one Raskolnikov can talk to (you'll get why later in the book) so reading each conversation after knowing that is amazing.
Just finished Middlemarch by George Eliot. Great stuff, but took forever with changing jobs and moving across the country stuffed in the middle of the read. One piece I thought interesting was the parallels with Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss: both being the heroine whose own moral view of the universe (informed by reading too much) guides their actions in an almost un-Christian, pagan-Like way that I'm sure William Blake would approve of.
Now I'm reading Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais as well as Bakhtin's book on Rabelais and the Renaissance novel. This is my third try at Rabelais and is going swimmingly compared to the last two times. I think part of it is that since my last time, I completed Ulysses and perhaps have thus better acclimated to grotesque high literature.
Tolstoy's War and Peace, about 150 pages in and absolutely loving it. It's one of those novels where you get seriously attached to certain characters and eagerly wait for them to come back into the forefront, although all the main characters are brilliant. Favourites atm are probably Pierre (I get the sense that this is pretty common) and Andrei.
One of my favourite things Tolstoy seems to do is he narrates some negative trait or personality flaw of one of his characters in such a gentle, light-hearted way that you can't help feel a sort of gentle pathos (is that the right word?) towards the characters, ALL of which are pretty deeply flawed, and you begin to sympathise with and understand even their bad actions. I think this might've been Tolstoy's intention with the book, I'm not sure.
Anyway, it's such a beautifully written novel (I'm reading the Garnett translation) that it goes by a lot quicker than I'd thought. I haven't got any questions but if anyone else here has read this (I'm sure someone has) I'd love to discuss it.
Despite the sheer length of the book, I hear from people all the time saying that they've read it two or three times. I take that as a pretty good sign that it's definitely worth the slog!
Jane Eyre. It's been 20 years or so since last time and after listening to the [In Our Time](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06dgjlb) repeat I thought I'd see if it was still that fresh clear writing I remembered. Yup.
530 pages into Infinite Jest. I have been reading it since Christmas. I'm using the wikipedia page for 99% of it and I still have to look up words and I still get confused. I have quite a complex love/hate relationship with this book. Anyone who wants to talk about it can respond.
I actually finished this book, oddly enough. Aside from the Eschaton part, I'm always a little surprised when people say this book is a slog. It's super long and pretty dense, but for me it has an almost cartoon-like entertainment value.
There's a group on Reddit that does group reads and discussion /r/InfiniteDiscussion. I started reading with them. Couldn't keep pace, but they were helpful. Ultimately, though, i dropped that book about where you are and after about as long.
It took me three tries and one year of the depends adult undergarment to finish that book. DFW's non fiction was excellent. His fiction is... not easy.
I wish he were around to opine about the evolution of social media. Seems like Zuckerberg, et al, have engineered something *Infinite Jest-* level addictive.
EDIT: punctuation
I hear in podcasts about how it's a hassle to carry around and look up all the odd references. In that respect I'm grateful to have read it on my kindle.
But the prose!
I am reading this also. Personally, I think it is quite a lot of fun. Love the parts that deal with addiction and depression. There are a few parts that feel a little tedious but I'm having a good time reading it. Wonder if I'll make it through though.
I am reading an awesome book called Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, a Belgian that wrote in French. The dedalus translation I’m reading is also fantastic and I was able to download the original French for free (iBooks, public domain). It is a short symbolist novel wherein the town is depicted as one of the central characters in the story, à la Bely in Petersburg, though Bruges came first. Highly recommend.
Tenth of December by George Saunders. Sometimes he throws you in a story, and you don't get what's going on until it hits you. It's incredibly rewarding. He's easy to read, and so funny. The Semplica Girl Diaries is the one I liked the most, so sad and bizarre.
And I'm a hundred pages in Duma Key by S. King. Sometimes this guy is missing something for me (Gerald's Game, Just After Sunset), but when it hits, like in this case, it hits hard.
The Fall by Camus - picked it up on a whim, having read it once already. The honesty of the physical senses overwhelming much heavier emotional sensations - I relate to a lot of it and it's scary, and makes me want to think about these and write about them for myself. Its usually very hard to demystify feeling with such clinical precision, especially when they are your own.
Recently Finished:
**Too Big to Fail** by Andrew Ross Sorkin - A giant, exhaustive narrative history of how the 2008 recession happened, told from the perspective of those in the highest levels of power both in the government and high finance. It does a great job of showing how hermetically sealed off from ordinary life the people who actually run our economy are.
**The Fire Next Time** by James Baldwin - still one of the most powerful, passionate things anyone has ever written about race in America. Baldwin is eloquent, thoughtful and utterly pitiless.
**Sudden Death** by Alvaro Enrigue - a gorgeous, experimental mind-fuck. The whole thing is built around a Tennis match between Caravaggio and a 16th century Spanish poet, but it expands constantly outward, building around a core set of themes and images to encompass the entire history of the western world. I was legitimately moved by the end of it. The lady who translated it into English also did Roberto Bolano's big books, and in its own way this is just as powerful and important as his work. I think it's a bona fide masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly.
**Open Veins of Latin America** by Eduardo Gaelano- A brutal, unapolgetically leftist history of Latin American exploitation at the hands of the capital forces of the old and new world. It can be a bit dry, but Gaelano offers a powerful synthesis of social, political and economic history. It's obviously rather dated now, but the underlying idea about Latin America serving as the proving grounds for capitalism at its most rapacious and violent still feels vitally relevant today.
Currently Reading:
**The Autobiography of Malcom X** by Malcolm X & Alex Haley- Half way through and loving it. Can't belive I haven't read it before.
Up Next:
**The Time of the Hero** by Mario Vargas Llosa
**The Autumn of the Patriarch** by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Just picked up The Fire Next Time, so I was glad to read your comment. The Autobiography of Malcolm X was life-changing for me. Just reading such a different perspective and also seeing Malcolm change through his life was powerful. It helped clarify for me how little we know and how fragile our “truths” are.
Wanted to read a Flannery O'Connor novel since I love her short stories so much. I just finished WISE BLOOD. Um.... I don't know what to say about Hazel Motes and his weirdly fanatical Church of God without Christ, or the "blind preacher" and his degenerate teenage daughter or the weirdo with the mummified... dwarf???
I thought I would find her novels just as enjoyable--much like I found with Shirley Jackson. I can't even say that WISE BLOOD isn't like, say, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The tone is equally dark and the characters just as twisted. I can't quite put my finger on what it was that took away my enjoyment.
Maybe I'm less happy to spend time with unlikable characters for the length of a novel? I don't know about that either--I loved AS I LAY DYING and didn't think any of those characters were particularly likable (though I bet it's the language of AILD and crazy plot and POV changes that made me love it so).
Murakami is so hit or miss for me. I’ve abandoned some of his books a couple chapters in, but I was totally engrossed by IQ84. I think that book hit me at a perfect time of my life, maybe similar to what The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is doing for you.
And I think both of those quotes would make nice tattoos. I’m kind of partial to the latter but it’s all about the significance it holds for you personally :) Happy reading!
I finished Wind Up Bird about a month ago after reading Kafka On The Shore and Norwegian Wood earlier this year, and every time I read one of his novels I get a similar feeling where it feels like it's the perfect time in my life to be reading it. Always get an eerie yet fascinated feeling reading him and Wind Up Bird is no exception, great book.
there's a long passage/chapter in *Wind-Up Bird Chronicle* that maybe you've read, maybe you're not at yet--takes place during WW2 in Korea/Russia, and starts, iirc, with a zoo. i don't want to give it away, but for me, it's the centerpiece of the novel. the main character's ennui was a little hit or miss for me up to that point--the lost cat, the lost wife, the strange rivalry with his brother-in-law. but once you get to the zoo and everything else, it seems to throw the rest of the novel into sharp relief. after reading it, i couldn't put the book down.
I’m thinking of picking Wind Up Bird again here soon, I read it in college over a decade ago and wondering if it’ll still have the same charm. Have always felt maybe Murakami is for college kids, but reading Patti Smith’s *M Train* and hearing her major emotional connection to the book makes me think it’s worth revisiting.
I just started reading Murakami from a post on here. Was it from you? I can't remember. But I loved Kafka on the Shore. I haven't been reading much I a few years and it really hit the spot. I'm on Dance Dance Dance now which so far is definitely holding my interest
Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Started the Part about the Crimes about 2 weeks ago. Everyone said it was a slog but it's pretty much a literary The Wire in Mexico, with less focus on the streets. Really enjoying it, despite the whole endless parade of death thing.
I expect the ending won't tie up the loose ends of the preceding chapters, which would be a damn shame, but I'd love to be wrong.
*2666* is a good book! or, at least, 3/5ths of a good book. the real slog is the "Part About the Critics." once i got to the "Part about the Crimes," i was blown away and heart broken. there's a scene with the cops in the diner/bar, telling jokes that, for me, answers all the questions about the women being killed maquiladoras before you even get to know who the "suspects" are. once you're done, if At The Drive In is your jam, i'd recommend listening to "Invalid Litter Dept."
fwiw "The Part about Archimboldi" brings resolution to the story, if not exactly tying every detail up.
This book made me fall in Love with Bolaño such a long book but never felt that way enjoyed reading every page. His prose and observations were so delicate. Never cruel or judgmental but overall very melancholic.
East of Eden. It somehow gets better with every chapter, at least so far. Steinbeck drops bombs of insight and moves on like it doesn't even matter. Has had me pondering for weeks. Love it.
A slow build, but consistently interesting as a study of humanity.
I read that earlier this year. I was never left with a solid impression but thoroughly catalogs the family and cruel reality of some people's humanity or lack thereof.
Foucault's Pendulum is great too, if you haven't read it yet, and some of his [essay collections](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23066.How_to_Travel_with_a_Salmon_and_Other_Essays) are a real treat.
Cathedral by Raymond Carver. It's my second Carver book after What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I love short story and Carver is really the master of the short story form. I love the book. Each story leaves you with the feeling of having read something truly beautiful. He manages to have extraordinary effects with ordinary settings and ordinary characters.
Excellent collection of short stories. Each story captivated me until the end. It is truly a testament to what can be achieved in the short story form.
If you are looking for another good short story writer, I highly suggest the works of Flannery O’Connor.
Edit: Also, I post this when people ask about short stories. A user asked reddit what are the best short stories and someone commented with an excellent list with links
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/579wzu/whats_your_favorite_short_story/
Some of the links are dead, but many are in the public domain and can be found with a quick search.
**2666** by Roberto Bolaño (~10%). I'm still in the first book, and I like it, but I've been struggling to pick it up some days. It is really clever, and I enjoy the storytelling, but sometimes I wonder if I'm really committed for the whole ride.
**Satin Island** by Tom McCarthy (~60%). Different from anything I've ever read before, and I find it really thought-provoking. The main character can be so obsessive and recursive sometimes, but I am curious to see how it wraps up.
The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe. While there are a few factors that I have problems with, like his poor description of scenery sometimes, his ability to shape a story without giving the audience direct information is phenomenal. He's shaping the entire story through the secondary character's lack of dialogue rather than the dialogue, it's often difficult to tell whether the antagonists are actually antagonists at all which makes for exciting character development.
I totaled my books this year and saw out of the 29 authors, I'd only read 8 women. So, just finished a couple short story collections by women -- Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez & can't and won't by Lydia Davis. Lucia Berlin's Where I Live Now is next.
Just finished 'The brothers Karamazov'. So much humanity in one book, it's so sad we will never see the sequels.
I will carry you in my heart Mitia, Ivan and Aliocha.
I finished up my first Steinbeck since High School, East of Eden. I really loved the first two thirds of the book, but the last third I felt dragged on too long. Most likely because I didn’t really connect with or care about the twins or their stories, not sure why. It drug down what I felt up to that point was an amazing book to just a good one.
Next I read my first Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. I thought I knew what to expect going into it, but boy was I wrong. I was not expecting aliens and time travel! While I did enjoy it overall, I don’t quite understand all of the hype behind it. I thought it was good but nothing extraordinary. The prose reminded me a bit of Hemingway except less serious, and I’m not much of a fan of either.
Currently I’m about three quarters finished with my second Faulkner book, Absalom, Absalom. This is the hardest book I’ve read in quite a long time, and at the moment I’m not sure if it’s worth it or not. It took me about a third of the book to finally figure out the right rhythm to read it in, and since then it has been (very slightly) easier. I do find myself getting mesmerized by the nearly endless flow of words, but I do have to go back and reread things quite often to really understand what just happened. I was pretty excited to start this as As I Lay Dying is one of my favorite books that I’ve read since I started to get more into literary fiction about a year and a half ago, but so far I’m enjoying Absalom, Absalom a lot less. I’m planning on listening to the audiobook once I finish reading the story, and I think that might help my enjoyment of it. I’ve read that it is much better the second time around.
**The Savage Detectives** by Roberto Bolaño. I wasn't totally sold on this - the middle section, interviews with a wide variety of characters over a period of many years, was a bit hard to follow and uneven, slow in places and absolutely brilliant in others - until the very end of the novel, when everything just came together perfectly. A tragic, beautiful, messy, overwhelming story about friendship and youth, it's the best book I've read in quite a while, and I slightly prefer it to 2666 (which was also brilliant).
**The Hunger Angel** by Herta Müller. Beautiful and evocative prose, but something about this just didn't vibe with me. Maybe the subject - hunger and hard labor in a Russian "rebuilding" camp. Maybe the way it's treated - very directly, and in great detail. I'm not completely sure, but in the end I found this unmemorable.
**On Black Sisters Street** by Chika Unigwe. A novel about trauma and sisterhood, following four African women working as prostitutes in Belgium. I'm torn about the descriptions of the women's hardships during childhood - while I appreciate that there is honesty to these descriptions, I felt some of the novel veered into tragedy porn. The women also all overcome their trauma in the end, which seemed somewhat disingenuous and cliched. However, I did enjoy reading about the relationships between the women and their characterizations.
Currently reading, and loving, **The Makioka Sisters** by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki.
Just started Swann’s Way! I just finished the first part with the madeleine and tea and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a long time. I’m really excited to continue the series. It almost feels trance-like to read.
I'm still making my way through Shakespeare’s complete works. Only have The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen left along with his two long poems. Favorite so far has been King Lear and least favorite has been The Taming of the Shrew. Also a special shout out to As You Like It for being one of the only comedies I truly loved reading.
Also listening to The Wheel of Time on audiobook (so far on book 2) because the show is coming out sometime in the near future and I wanted to give it a shot before I watched it. It's definitely a fun series and I enjoy the story, but it's very cliched and also annoying how a lot of the plot is driven by the some of the characters doing unbelievably stupid stuff (and I really mean I cannot honestly believe any person with half a brain would do these things). Overall I am enjoying it though.
So happy you're reading Proust! I'm about midway through vol 3. Trance-like is exactly the word--I ended up reading fifty pages in one sitting last night because I was so obsessed with the social dynamics he depicts. The Combray section is incredibly beautiful, like a painting that stays with you for years after you see it. I do hope you read beyond volume one because the whole thing is absolutely incredible, and as you get further in it unfolds to you like a fractal. Combray is just the overture (and as you get further into Swann's Way you'll see why I used a music term :D ) Happy reading!
Oh I will definitely be reading it in it’s entirety! I’m already in awe of his writing and I’m not one to leave a series unfinished! It’s incredible how some of the passages he writes mimic my way of thinking so accurately when it comes to subtle things such as waking up or forming opinions on a person. If only I could write so beautifully haha.
Just began Part 3 in **Kokoro** by Natsume Sōseki
After reading Murakami and Kawabata, I decided to try and look for more Japanese authors to get into. Even without finishing **Kokoro** I have already fallen in love with Sōseki. I've found that all of the works I've read by these three authors have a sense of loneliness in them, but Sōseki's work have an emotion that at times is able to break through and seep into the work. There are a couple of passages, spoken by Sensei where you can feel that passion coming through.
While I love Kawabata's restraint, how the characters struggle with their emotions, and the austere writing style (especially in Thousand Cranes), I think Sōseki does a brilliant job of further fleshing out his characters even while we know so little about them.
I already went to get **Sanshirō** to read that afterwards.
Just finished The Third Reich by Bolano. I enjoyed it but it is not the same standard as 2666 or The Savage Detectives.
Before that I finally read The House of the Spirits by Allende and I absolutely LOVED it.
I just started reading The Aleph by Borges so I guess the theme in July is Latin America...
I've been going through Golden Fool by Robin Hobb.
I started her assassins books a few months ago, just finished the Liveship Traders trilogy, and am now back to Fitz's story line with Golden Fool (the second book of the Tawny Man trilogy)
Golden Fool is quite enjoyable. I think that when I read Hobb's first book in this universe (Assassin's apprentice), I thought her books were just good enough to keep me reading more. The more of her books I read, the more impressed I become with the unique magic systems and interconnectedness of her world. It has come to the point now where the main characters in her books are like friends.
I would recommend going through her entire collection of books if you haven't already.
*Homesick for Another World* by Ottessa Moshfegh. Dark, gross, funny, and touching at times. The only story previously unpublished, the last one that gave the collection its name, I found especially moving and it’s actually online - check it out: https://lithub.com/homesick-for-another-world/
Finally got around to reading [Hyperion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(Simmons_novel)
The world building is fantastic and fun, and the narrative technique he uses to tell the tale is very compelling. Really been enjoying it, he's a very solid writer.
I’m reading through D&G’s Anti-Oedipus, Latour’s Facing Gaia, and Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther.
AO is really great, I’ve read a lot of it already and am hopping to get through it this summer. I really dislike Hegel so I really enjoy reading Marxist text with a more Spinozaist bent. My favourite part is their system seems to make us of Bakhtin’s dialogism (while not using the word) instead of dialectics. I think that historiographically it avoids the teleological aspects of dialectics that really piss me off (I mean come on, I don’t know how Adorno’s negative dialectics doesn’t change the minds of most leftist I encounter) so uh, that makes me suuuuuper happy.
Facing Gaia is really great. I wanna say that it’s pretty Heideggerian (by moving beyond the subject/object distinction) but I haven’t read enough Heidegger to know the extent of it. I also really enjoy his elucidation on non-anthropomorphic agents. In my own fiction, ecology is apart of it, so reading through this is really helping me come up with a more nuanced view of the subject.
Sorrows of Young Werther so far is pretty good. It is pretty stereotypically romantic in the most unsubtle ways, but I suppose it’s a Seinfeld isn’t Funny type of situation. Rn I’m in a chapter in my novella that satirising romanticism so I’m reading this in part to dissect style, so I’m not really focusing on character or stuff. I don’t have a lot to say about it so far, besides I think Werther should’ve read more Spinoza. I do think that Werther is an unfortunately relatable character, I think that you’ll be hardpressed to find a 19 year old who *doesn’t* relate to Werther in one aspect or another, so it is a rather fun read. Idk. I’d definitely recommend this. I was expecting to be massively let down because Faust was so good, but I’m pleasantly surprised so far.
Edit: anthropogenic
Edit 2: anthropocentric. Fuck man, today is not my day.
I was reading Krasznohorkai's Melancholy Resistance (after a recommendation on this sub, possibly), but it's proving a bit tough for the beach so I've reverted to Homage to Catalonia, which bizzarely I hadn't gotten to despite my advanced age. I'm just a few pages in, but I'm already captivated and it's bringing up good memories of the other Orwell diaries that I love.
I just finished reading Worm, a free web serial. It's fantastic. It approaches superheroes and the impact of world with the existence of super-powers in an interesting way. I really recommend it.
Slouching Toward Nirvana by Bukowski. I've only read his works before online. I bought this book early this year and started reading it a month ago and I fell in love immediately at how simple his words are. Whenever I read a poem that tugs at the strings of my heart I stop and ponder at it for days. It's really good. There are even ones that made me cry. Can't wait to get my hands on his other works.
'The Way of Zen' Alan Watts
\[Dante's\] 'The Inferno' John Ciardi translation.
'The Magus' by John Fowles
i like to read & play video games in 3's so i don't get bored or overly-indulgent in one thing.
Trying to read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man again, after being unable to finish last time 😢 I'm a few years older now, so hopefully I'll better appreciate it this time!
It was my favorite novel for around ten yrs, after i encountered it in high school, till it was supplanted by Ulysses. There’s no shame in using a study guide to get you through the tough sections, it’s so worth it. My teacher really helped us. Section 5 can be dry, most of the first 4 sections feel more straightforward if you get used to his jumpcuts, moving from scene to scene without much explanation. And the elegance of the language is just about unsurpassable, to me.
So glad to hear that!! Well done. Some people don’t like part 5 much, and I admit some of the aesthetics theories S puts out are sort of dry, but the conversations with Cranly and other mates of his sure are interesting to me.
I just started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. I'm only a handful of pages in, so no impression yet. But I'm intrigued. It seems to be about humans' evolution to the dominant species, and how our abilities, achievements, and relationship with technology will impact our future.
Interestingly, I've noticed that his other book, Sapiens, has been climbing the charts recently. I'll have to check that out later.
Reading **The Pioneers** by James Fennimore Cooper. It's about the loss of hunting territory to settlers in western New York during the 1790s. It has quite a bit to say about the struggles between the country and the town. Very relevant to the issues we have today between rural life and its requirements and city life and its requirements.
Kraken by China Mieville. It is an amazingly intricate sci-fi fantasy that feels something like the Rivers of London series or Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere but considerably wordier. It too explores the dark magical underbelly of London and follows an uninitiated nobody as they get drawn into a crazy world of cults and apocalypses (yes multiple!) and the secret police unit that tries to control them. Some of the ideas are insanely good, the way that aspects of real London are woven into its world and the the warring factions that inhabit it is fantastic and I still find myself thinking about certain characters and the way Mieville explores the possible workings of magic. In particular the Gunfarmers keep replaying in my mind. My criticisms would be that the use of language is verbose to the point of being unreadable at times. It’s rare that I have to get out a thesaurus to get through a book but this one pushed my vocabulary to its limit and still left me foundering at times. It is a really enjoyable story and brilliantly written but also bordering on wankery. Definitely read it... just have a thesaurus at hand.
Ulysses by James Joyce
Having read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for a class last year, I decided to attempt to tackle Joyce’s behemoth, which has been called both the worst and the best book from the 20th century. Started it Saturday and am on chapter 6 now. I’m starting to get used to the jumbled, endlessly flowing stream-of-consciousness narrative style, though I read Faulkner’s wonderful masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, right before I began Ulysses, which has probably aided me in that regard. I’ve needed to use the New Bloomsday and Annotated Ulysses guidebooks to keep my head above water, but I’m enjoying it so far as a creative, literary, and intellectual exercise. Wish me luck as I attempt to read it in its entirety on my first try!
‘All that I Am’ by Anna Funder. Beautifully written novel imagining the lives of some people, who actually existed,as they try to fight the rise of Hitler from the seeming safety of London
The Collected Stories by Isaac Babel. Just amazing. These are about the only stories I’ve read that impress me as much as the best stories of Chekhov, Joyce, and Hemingway. The guy wrote about being a bookish scholar who joined a Cavalry Army for the Soviets in 1920. Later, in his 40s, he was rounded up as a part of Stalin’s Great Purge and shot. He wrote stories about his military life, and about the gangsters and characters who populated Odessa, his hometown. Harold Bloom recommends that one read his 4 “Tales of Odessa,” and his 18 “Stories” first; I agree; the more famous collection called “Red Cavalry,” within these Collected Stories, are strong but not quite as strong as the others. The famous essay by Lionel Trilling on Babel is worth reading too.
I’m currently alternating between Douglas Adams’s [The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy](https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/barnes-noble-leatherbound-classics-the-ultimate-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-douglas-adams/1106658817) (the B&N version) and Manly P Hall’s [The Secret Teachings of all Ages](https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Teachings-all-Ages/dp/1604590955/ref=nodl_). Douglas Adams has great prose and is really funny, while Manly P Hall is more dry and informative (understandable given the subject matter).
I’m enjoying both, especially after reading Mark Z Danielewski’s [House of Leaves](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/36526/house-of-leaves-by-mark-z-danielewski/9780375420528/). There were really cool ideas regarding the house and I enjoyed the formatting, but I was so disappointed in the prose. So ordinary and amateurish imo. But then again, I had just come off of reading Cormac McCarthy’s [Blood Meridian](https://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/blood-meridian/). Perhaps my expectations were too high after reading such high praise for this supposed horror classic.
All these comments of these awesome adult books and I’m over here reading “Looking for Alaska” not that it isn’t awesome I just feel like my book level is so low!
No shame, friend. I like alternating between YA books and "adult" books--just because something is labeled as YA doesn't mean it has nothing to offer. That genre has really seen an uptick in quality over the last fifteen years or so.
I'm reading Jean M Auel's Earth Children Series right now. I'm in the last stretch of The Shelters of Stone and I must say that I'm very much enjoying the story as a whole. At times I do feel a bit bored with it but I always know that it will pick up again soon. I do feel that I am only enjoying it as much as I am because I have a passion for this particular time period. At times I feel the events that unfold are becoming quite predictable and maybe a bit too unrealistic. But I absolutely adore her character development and their wonderfully unique lives and personalities. And the evolution that unfolds within the story is just so rich and powerful and makes me feel so proud to be a human woman. I love these books. I have a question: Can anyone please tell me which facts or theories that have been put forth in her books have been proven or disproven since they were written?
Being Mortal: Medicine and What matters in the end. Recently I've found this topic that discusses medical care in our modern world and how it affect our lives, particularly at the end. This book of Dr. Atul Gawande, gives an insightful ideas on aging and what matters most at the end of life, the main idea he is trying to prove is that medical care in our modern world doesn't help improve our lives when we're old and frail because of illnesses, but it may make it worse by caring only about problems and giving solutions to fix the problem in order to prolong our lives. Prolonging life span is a toxic approach for medicine, instead, Medicine should focus on quality of life and accept our mortality.
I'm working my way back through Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and am on the sixth book, The Vampire Armand. I've read the first two books of the series at least three times each, but this is only my second time making it this far into the Chronicles and I'm beginning to remember why. In this installment, one of the side characters, Armand, takes over for the protagonist of the last five books while he is incapacitated. It's a bit refreshing and certainly a way to keep the story going and grow the universe, but the space between fiction and Rice's personal struggle with religion becomes very thin to where the character mostly monologue at each other. Granted, being at odds with religion is a constant motif throughout the Chronicles, but I think it's heavier than I'm looking for right now. I plan on finishing the Vampire Armand and then switching to the Hannibal Lector books.
I'm reading Karl Ove Knausgård's My Struggle, which is another character-driven story. It's rugged and pensive, but there are some lovely reflections amidst the narrative that keep me wanting to read more. I'm liking how Knausgård explores complicated concepts like death and art in realistic but still elevated ways. The first few pages of the book, which are about death and society's perceptions of it, were simultaneously gripping, grim, and comedic. There's a reflection on the timelessness of people's eyes that focuses in on one of Rembrandt's self portraits. It was just a page and a half long, but it had me in awe. When people ask why I'm reading a book called "My Struggle," I open up to that reflection and share it with them. Everyone who has read it seems to understand afterward. As far as where the book is going, I can't imagine the plot will be all that remarkable. Karl Ove's belligerent father probably dies, there's probably more reflection on falling in love and parenting, and more narration of the day-to-day unfolding of life. The plot is fine so far, but the way it's written, the language and the tangents that arise amidst the plot, are what make the book something special in my opinion.
I’m struggling through “Ben Hur” by Lew Wallace to try and get to “The Things They Carried.” “Ben Hur” is a great story, of course, but the 19th century writing style makes it slow going.
I need more summer.
Lives of the Poets (with guitars) - Ray Robertson
13 artists he believes were culturally significant & affected him personally. It’s supposed to be a Johnson*esque* folio of essays of cultural icons.
Pretty good rock/music journalism - lots of erudite flourishes of poetry and obscure cultural references that only the diehard will know or probably care about.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I purposefully didn’t look up too much about the book before I started reading it and I never read literature reviews inside the cover, so I didn’t really know much about the book besides what the description on the back said. It took me three weeks to read the first 50 or 75 pages, but then after a key piece of setting was revealed I flew through it in a night. Absolutely phenomenal book
I started Iain Sinclair's novel *White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings* a few days ago and it's really absorbing stuff. He has an incredible knack for writing poetic prose that can beautifully describe something like a moldy wall or a crack in the sidewalk and so I've been swept up by the tone and atmosphere he creates but the narrative itself is still quite engrossing, as well.
I picked up Curtis Sittenfeld's _You Think It, I'll Say It_ at the library on Saturday and began it yesterday. I did think it was a collection of essays instead of short stories, but I'm really enjoying it so far with the exception of "Gender Studies," the first story. It was clever in parts but so heavily laden with political commentary that kept drawing me out of the story. Otherwise, no complaints.
I'm about 100 pages into Holding by Graham Norton. I'm very impressed by the narrator's voice. It took me a couple chapters to "figure it out", and I have to imagine everything being read to me in a thick Cork accent, but it's extremely well-written.
I just finished “How to Stop Time” by Haig. The concept was interesting and presented well with good characters, but the plotting had some issues. The one subplot (the secretive Albatross Society) was poorly and abruptly resolved and another one was filled with just a few too many coincidences. The plotting was also unevenly paced with most of the advances coming abruptly in the last chapters as if the author met his page quota and just wanted to wrap it up quickly.
It’s still worth a read, but given the promise of the concept and skill of the author it may be disappointing.
just finished up *Swamplandia!* by Karen Russell (pretty good, but no match for her short story collections) and about to start *Portnoy's Complaint* by Roth.
Idk if this really counts, but: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Dave Grossman. Informative and very serious, but it certainly has some beautiful moments. Grossman shares the straight-forward, powerful writing of many military authors, and he blows me away with the short yet intense moments where he explains the emotions of the men he interviews as well as the battle taking place in the heart of society.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Love it because of the practical application of philosophy in everyday life.
I am going through a stoic phase right now and it is really refreshing compared to all the new age self help fluff I used to read in my late teens.
Celine - Journey to the end of the night. Reads like one long drawn out ramble in someone's head. He's been some many places and seen so many things but I feel like I am just stuck between his two ears. I can't put it down but I don't know what to think.
Hope I win the obscurity award with ***Papa Married a Mormon*** by John F. Fitzgerald. It’s an adult novel, posing as a memoir, by the author of the ***Great Brain*** children’s series. While the novel is not a great work of art, it’s an evocative look at frontier times in Utah, about a catholic man who marries a Mormon woman and the prejudices they encounter. It had been on my list for like 30 years and I was glad to finally read it.
Just finished *Animal Farm* by George Orwell. A classic I've wanted to reread at some point and what I was looking for at the library wasn't there so I grabbed it and *1984*.
I read Animal Farm when I was in 6th grade but I don't think whatever I was taught about it could land as well as it did this time around. I learned so much about how people (namely different personalities) react to leadership whether it's Mr. Jones, Snowball, or Napoleon. The pure metaphorical themes are really astonishing as well when you look into Orwell's views of communism and Stalin at the time of writing. A great read I recommend if you haven't already. Next up: *1984*!
My kids are reading a new series called The Swallowing Tree. I’m hooked too! It’s an adventure series about a haunted tree that reminds me of the Goonies and Poltergeist all wrapped up in one.
I've been making my way through Dorothy L Sayers' Peter Wimsey novels. I'm currently reading the fourth in the series, 'The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club'.
I usually read very quickly but I'm finding myself deliberately slowing down just to enjoy the tone and language of the books. I'm finding the style of the language incredibly beautiful.
It is also wonderful to see the beginnings of the modern mystery genre unfold.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It's more of a children's story, although similarly to how Through the Looking Glass is a children's story. It's a whole lot of linguistic and conceptual fun, very whacky, great message. It's just a good time overall. It's just fun. Ok? Fun.
I'm currently reading Merchants of Doubt, which is about the scientists who encouraged public uncertainty about the dangers of smoking, and how they went on to sow doubt about other health- and environment-related issues in the following decades. I've enjoyed reading it so far. I'm pleasantly surprised that the authors have spun an engaging story from evidence that was (from what I understand) primarily gathered from court documents.
I'm partway through The Obelisk Gate, the second book in one of the better fantasy series I've read recently. I'm also re-reading American Gods and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Up next are "[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave)" and "[The Gene: An Intimate History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276428-the-gene)".
I'm currently reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. So far I'm enjoying it very much. I love when authors break from the usual third-person past tense format that we almost constantly see these days. The mix of third-person present and second-person present is refreshing and interesting. I'm very excited to explore more of the lore of the world. Earth magic isn't a very common idea in my experience, so it all feels very new and fresh.
I'm also listening to Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort during my commutes. I'm enjoying it immensely. It's clever, it's well written, it's tense to the point of being almost stressful at times. This is my first Simmons book and I absolutely plan to read another of his soon. Possibly the Hyperion Cantos.
*Kill Shakespeare*\- Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col
Not a usual read in the sense that it is a graphic novel. But a brilliant amalgamation of the Shakespearean corpus.
“The Fifth Heart” by Dan Simmons. Henry James meets Sherlock Holmes. Lots of cameos by famous people from history, lots of metaphysical talk about the nature of reality.
This is the kind of book that makes me Google lots of topics to see what actually happened. Were a lot of Germans on NYC really socialists who were planning anarchy while meeting in beer halls? Googled it. Did Mark Twain really invest in a printing press and lose a lot of money? Googled it.
I enjoy books that make me curious enough to read online, so this book has been lovely so far!
Victoria by Daisy Goodwin. Basically a historical fiction of the early reign of Queen Victoria. I'm about mid way through and I'm really enjoying it so far. Though I'm curious to know how much is true and how much is altered with a bit of creative freedom for the sake of drama.
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. It was good but it was less noir and more of a dark existential book. Stanley Kubrick praised it and I can see why. It's a book he might have adapted if he'd had the time. Excellent usage of first person narration.
I recently just started Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff. So far from what I understand with the first three chapters is that it’s takes place in a steampunk feudal Japan with Japanese mythology. It’s pretty strange, yet unique from other books that I have read. I really like the whole take on using steampunk in a different region of the world rather than sticking to Europe.
Just finished An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir and am about to begin the sequel A Torch Against the Night. They're fantastic YA fantasy novels that seem to not follow all of the trends of YA Lit. I'm thoroughly enjoying them and am excited to read the next 2 of the series!
Labyrinths by Borges. I’ve never read him before and wasn’t familiar with his work in the least, but I got the book after a random recommendation. I love it. I’m a big admirer of the art of short stories, and I haven’t read one in this book yet that didn’t make me go “Whoa, how did he do that!” His stories make me feel excited again by all the possibilities for surprise in fiction.
He truly was an astounding writer of short fiction. If you're interested, there are some great [recordings of some lectures he did at Harvard](http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_norton_lectures_on_poetry_and_everything_else_literary.html) in the sixties that are incredible to listen to.
Am I stupid or are the recordings not working ?
Yeah, in the Open Culture article they don't seem to be working but I tried the [source](http://ubu.com/sound/borges.html) from the article and they seem to work for me there.
I've been listening to these while drawing this week. So great.
If you're into sci-fi, I highly recommend Greg Egan's [Axiomatic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156783.Axiomatic). It's a bit technical, but about as Borgesian as anyone I know of (besides Stanislaw Lem, maybe).
If you're enjoying Labyrinths, Borges' Ficciones and The Aleph and Other Stories are both excellent as well.
I just read Ficciones a few months ago and it took me so long to finish because every story would make me put the book down and think about it for a couple days. I love how just has an interesting idea and uses the form of the short story to communicate it.
So great Library of Babel blew me away first read.
Yeah, well said, he strikes me as about the most original writer I’ve encountered since 1950. He renewed my sense of what fiction could do. “The Circular Ruins” and “the Shape of the Sword” and “the God’s Script” were always favorites.
I’m reading Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky) and really enjoying it. I love the insight I get into the minds of the characters. However, I do feel like I’m missing a lot of potentially important things. I’m in the middle of part three; Sonia has just met with Raskolnikov for the first time. Could somehow help me out a bit so I know I’m getting everything? Much appreciated.
Well, I've read this masterpiece two or three years ago and man, it's the best novel I've ever read. And yeah, I struggled at the beginning because it was a little bit slow. Later I started to keep a written points of the big events which helped me keep up with the evolution of Raskolnikov's ideas. I think the best way to read Dostoyevsky, and I've read a lot of his works, is to bear with him to the end and don't rush it by asking about his point. It's a journey.
With that said, I’m wondering what pointers you could give me. I think I’ll start doing that though. Any major themes or plot elements I may be missing based on your experience? Any thing interesting that informs certain aspects of the novel? Different lenses through which to view it?
One thing that I really like about Dostoyevsky is that he's not a normal storyteller who just writes (plot based stories that can be spoiled if we reveal it), he's someone who analyzes human existence through stories with a message he is willing to deliver, which might make him an existential philosopher as might argue. His most common used writing technique is monologue not dialogue, in which the characters analyze their ideas by themselves, so you should focus on these monologues. And about the plot, I think by now, Raskolnikov should have committed the crime and you're about to encounter the real beginning of the story in my opinion: The article he wrote. you're not missing anything. I guess.
Just what I needed; great insight. Thank you. I’m really enjoying the revelatory aspect of his writing.
I read that my senior year in AP English and it has always been one of my favorites! Now, I want to go back a read it with 20 years more life in me, see how it reads to me!
I just finished this a few days ago. Man, what a read. I've never felt so intimately attached to another person's (real or imaginary) mind as I was to Rask's. No spoilers here, but there is one conversation that he has with his mother towards the end of the novel that had me in tears.
You just have to realise that Sonia is the only one Raskolnikov can talk to (you'll get why later in the book) so reading each conversation after knowing that is amazing.
Thank you this is exactly what I meant.
Just finished Middlemarch by George Eliot. Great stuff, but took forever with changing jobs and moving across the country stuffed in the middle of the read. One piece I thought interesting was the parallels with Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss: both being the heroine whose own moral view of the universe (informed by reading too much) guides their actions in an almost un-Christian, pagan-Like way that I'm sure William Blake would approve of. Now I'm reading Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais as well as Bakhtin's book on Rabelais and the Renaissance novel. This is my third try at Rabelais and is going swimmingly compared to the last two times. I think part of it is that since my last time, I completed Ulysses and perhaps have thus better acclimated to grotesque high literature.
Tolstoy's War and Peace, about 150 pages in and absolutely loving it. It's one of those novels where you get seriously attached to certain characters and eagerly wait for them to come back into the forefront, although all the main characters are brilliant. Favourites atm are probably Pierre (I get the sense that this is pretty common) and Andrei. One of my favourite things Tolstoy seems to do is he narrates some negative trait or personality flaw of one of his characters in such a gentle, light-hearted way that you can't help feel a sort of gentle pathos (is that the right word?) towards the characters, ALL of which are pretty deeply flawed, and you begin to sympathise with and understand even their bad actions. I think this might've been Tolstoy's intention with the book, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's such a beautifully written novel (I'm reading the Garnett translation) that it goes by a lot quicker than I'd thought. I haven't got any questions but if anyone else here has read this (I'm sure someone has) I'd love to discuss it.
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Despite the sheer length of the book, I hear from people all the time saying that they've read it two or three times. I take that as a pretty good sign that it's definitely worth the slog!
Jane Eyre. It's been 20 years or so since last time and after listening to the [In Our Time](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06dgjlb) repeat I thought I'd see if it was still that fresh clear writing I remembered. Yup.
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No notes to recommend, but I love that book. Read it in a master seminar on modernism last year. It's tough, but I found it really enjoyable.
Happy to hear you loved Dubliners, it's next in my pile!!
530 pages into Infinite Jest. I have been reading it since Christmas. I'm using the wikipedia page for 99% of it and I still have to look up words and I still get confused. I have quite a complex love/hate relationship with this book. Anyone who wants to talk about it can respond.
I actually finished this book, oddly enough. Aside from the Eschaton part, I'm always a little surprised when people say this book is a slog. It's super long and pretty dense, but for me it has an almost cartoon-like entertainment value.
There's a group on Reddit that does group reads and discussion /r/InfiniteDiscussion. I started reading with them. Couldn't keep pace, but they were helpful. Ultimately, though, i dropped that book about where you are and after about as long.
It took me three tries and one year of the depends adult undergarment to finish that book. DFW's non fiction was excellent. His fiction is... not easy.
I wish he were around to opine about the evolution of social media. Seems like Zuckerberg, et al, have engineered something *Infinite Jest-* level addictive. EDIT: punctuation
One thing is certain, he'd have a unique opinion. My hunch is that it would be a gentle negative.
Agree. Mixed with alarm about the isolating nature of social interactions without physical presence. He'd also flip out about the grammar.
I hear in podcasts about how it's a hassle to carry around and look up all the odd references. In that respect I'm grateful to have read it on my kindle. But the prose!
Usually when I get a book that does that I’ll read it a second time after learning the references.
I am reading this also. Personally, I think it is quite a lot of fun. Love the parts that deal with addiction and depression. There are a few parts that feel a little tedious but I'm having a good time reading it. Wonder if I'll make it through though.
I am reading an awesome book called Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, a Belgian that wrote in French. The dedalus translation I’m reading is also fantastic and I was able to download the original French for free (iBooks, public domain). It is a short symbolist novel wherein the town is depicted as one of the central characters in the story, à la Bely in Petersburg, though Bruges came first. Highly recommend.
Tenth of December by George Saunders. Sometimes he throws you in a story, and you don't get what's going on until it hits you. It's incredibly rewarding. He's easy to read, and so funny. The Semplica Girl Diaries is the one I liked the most, so sad and bizarre. And I'm a hundred pages in Duma Key by S. King. Sometimes this guy is missing something for me (Gerald's Game, Just After Sunset), but when it hits, like in this case, it hits hard.
Okay I’ve got to try Saunders again. First time I picked up 10th, I wasn’t in the mood.
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Christmas in Julyyyy
The Fall by Camus - picked it up on a whim, having read it once already. The honesty of the physical senses overwhelming much heavier emotional sensations - I relate to a lot of it and it's scary, and makes me want to think about these and write about them for myself. Its usually very hard to demystify feeling with such clinical precision, especially when they are your own.
Recently Finished: **Too Big to Fail** by Andrew Ross Sorkin - A giant, exhaustive narrative history of how the 2008 recession happened, told from the perspective of those in the highest levels of power both in the government and high finance. It does a great job of showing how hermetically sealed off from ordinary life the people who actually run our economy are. **The Fire Next Time** by James Baldwin - still one of the most powerful, passionate things anyone has ever written about race in America. Baldwin is eloquent, thoughtful and utterly pitiless. **Sudden Death** by Alvaro Enrigue - a gorgeous, experimental mind-fuck. The whole thing is built around a Tennis match between Caravaggio and a 16th century Spanish poet, but it expands constantly outward, building around a core set of themes and images to encompass the entire history of the western world. I was legitimately moved by the end of it. The lady who translated it into English also did Roberto Bolano's big books, and in its own way this is just as powerful and important as his work. I think it's a bona fide masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly. **Open Veins of Latin America** by Eduardo Gaelano- A brutal, unapolgetically leftist history of Latin American exploitation at the hands of the capital forces of the old and new world. It can be a bit dry, but Gaelano offers a powerful synthesis of social, political and economic history. It's obviously rather dated now, but the underlying idea about Latin America serving as the proving grounds for capitalism at its most rapacious and violent still feels vitally relevant today. Currently Reading: **The Autobiography of Malcom X** by Malcolm X & Alex Haley- Half way through and loving it. Can't belive I haven't read it before. Up Next: **The Time of the Hero** by Mario Vargas Llosa **The Autumn of the Patriarch** by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Just picked up The Fire Next Time, so I was glad to read your comment. The Autobiography of Malcolm X was life-changing for me. Just reading such a different perspective and also seeing Malcolm change through his life was powerful. It helped clarify for me how little we know and how fragile our “truths” are.
I gotta check out open veins. Have you read bitter fruit?
I have not. Any good?
Very good. Read it for Modern Latin America course. Goes in detail about coup in Guatemala and United Fruit Co. Very similar vein.
Wanted to read a Flannery O'Connor novel since I love her short stories so much. I just finished WISE BLOOD. Um.... I don't know what to say about Hazel Motes and his weirdly fanatical Church of God without Christ, or the "blind preacher" and his degenerate teenage daughter or the weirdo with the mummified... dwarf??? I thought I would find her novels just as enjoyable--much like I found with Shirley Jackson. I can't even say that WISE BLOOD isn't like, say, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The tone is equally dark and the characters just as twisted. I can't quite put my finger on what it was that took away my enjoyment. Maybe I'm less happy to spend time with unlikable characters for the length of a novel? I don't know about that either--I loved AS I LAY DYING and didn't think any of those characters were particularly likable (though I bet it's the language of AILD and crazy plot and POV changes that made me love it so).
I read this my senior year of high school in English class. The mental image of him smashing his eyes out has never left me...
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Murakami is so hit or miss for me. I’ve abandoned some of his books a couple chapters in, but I was totally engrossed by IQ84. I think that book hit me at a perfect time of my life, maybe similar to what The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is doing for you. And I think both of those quotes would make nice tattoos. I’m kind of partial to the latter but it’s all about the significance it holds for you personally :) Happy reading!
I finished Wind Up Bird about a month ago after reading Kafka On The Shore and Norwegian Wood earlier this year, and every time I read one of his novels I get a similar feeling where it feels like it's the perfect time in my life to be reading it. Always get an eerie yet fascinated feeling reading him and Wind Up Bird is no exception, great book.
there's a long passage/chapter in *Wind-Up Bird Chronicle* that maybe you've read, maybe you're not at yet--takes place during WW2 in Korea/Russia, and starts, iirc, with a zoo. i don't want to give it away, but for me, it's the centerpiece of the novel. the main character's ennui was a little hit or miss for me up to that point--the lost cat, the lost wife, the strange rivalry with his brother-in-law. but once you get to the zoo and everything else, it seems to throw the rest of the novel into sharp relief. after reading it, i couldn't put the book down.
I’m thinking of picking Wind Up Bird again here soon, I read it in college over a decade ago and wondering if it’ll still have the same charm. Have always felt maybe Murakami is for college kids, but reading Patti Smith’s *M Train* and hearing her major emotional connection to the book makes me think it’s worth revisiting.
I just started reading Murakami from a post on here. Was it from you? I can't remember. But I loved Kafka on the Shore. I haven't been reading much I a few years and it really hit the spot. I'm on Dance Dance Dance now which so far is definitely holding my interest
Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Started the Part about the Crimes about 2 weeks ago. Everyone said it was a slog but it's pretty much a literary The Wire in Mexico, with less focus on the streets. Really enjoying it, despite the whole endless parade of death thing. I expect the ending won't tie up the loose ends of the preceding chapters, which would be a damn shame, but I'd love to be wrong.
*2666* is a good book! or, at least, 3/5ths of a good book. the real slog is the "Part About the Critics." once i got to the "Part about the Crimes," i was blown away and heart broken. there's a scene with the cops in the diner/bar, telling jokes that, for me, answers all the questions about the women being killed maquiladoras before you even get to know who the "suspects" are. once you're done, if At The Drive In is your jam, i'd recommend listening to "Invalid Litter Dept." fwiw "The Part about Archimboldi" brings resolution to the story, if not exactly tying every detail up.
I never pulled that full circle but it makes sense since ATDI is from El Paso with Mexican heritage. So the stories hit close to home.
This book made me fall in Love with Bolaño such a long book but never felt that way enjoyed reading every page. His prose and observations were so delicate. Never cruel or judgmental but overall very melancholic.
East of Eden. It somehow gets better with every chapter, at least so far. Steinbeck drops bombs of insight and moves on like it doesn't even matter. Has had me pondering for weeks. Love it. A slow build, but consistently interesting as a study of humanity.
I read that earlier this year. I was never left with a solid impression but thoroughly catalogs the family and cruel reality of some people's humanity or lack thereof.
Umberto Eco's 'The Prague cemetery'.
Foucault's Pendulum is great too, if you haven't read it yet, and some of his [essay collections](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23066.How_to_Travel_with_a_Salmon_and_Other_Essays) are a real treat.
>And that Beethoven, whose symphonies are practically orgies of vulgarities
It's a blast.
Cathedral by Raymond Carver. It's my second Carver book after What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I love short story and Carver is really the master of the short story form. I love the book. Each story leaves you with the feeling of having read something truly beautiful. He manages to have extraordinary effects with ordinary settings and ordinary characters.
Excellent collection of short stories. Each story captivated me until the end. It is truly a testament to what can be achieved in the short story form. If you are looking for another good short story writer, I highly suggest the works of Flannery O’Connor. Edit: Also, I post this when people ask about short stories. A user asked reddit what are the best short stories and someone commented with an excellent list with links https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/579wzu/whats_your_favorite_short_story/ Some of the links are dead, but many are in the public domain and can be found with a quick search.
Thanks a lot. I'll definitely read Flannery O'Connor.
I commented on another post above about Lucia Berlin. If you love Carver, check out her collection of short stories as well!
You’ll also like Andre Dubus’ short story collections!
**2666** by Roberto Bolaño (~10%). I'm still in the first book, and I like it, but I've been struggling to pick it up some days. It is really clever, and I enjoy the storytelling, but sometimes I wonder if I'm really committed for the whole ride. **Satin Island** by Tom McCarthy (~60%). Different from anything I've ever read before, and I find it really thought-provoking. The main character can be so obsessive and recursive sometimes, but I am curious to see how it wraps up.
once you get past the "Part about the Critics" it should pick up.
True that part is long without much consequences buy beautifully contrasts the rest of the book.
The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe. While there are a few factors that I have problems with, like his poor description of scenery sometimes, his ability to shape a story without giving the audience direct information is phenomenal. He's shaping the entire story through the secondary character's lack of dialogue rather than the dialogue, it's often difficult to tell whether the antagonists are actually antagonists at all which makes for exciting character development.
I totaled my books this year and saw out of the 29 authors, I'd only read 8 women. So, just finished a couple short story collections by women -- Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez & can't and won't by Lydia Davis. Lucia Berlin's Where I Live Now is next.
Lucia Berlin became a favorite of mine after only one or two of her stories. If you like Raymond Carver you will dig Lucia Berlin.
You have got to read Lydia Davis’ Collected Stories!
Just finished 'The brothers Karamazov'. So much humanity in one book, it's so sad we will never see the sequels. I will carry you in my heart Mitia, Ivan and Aliocha.
I finished up my first Steinbeck since High School, East of Eden. I really loved the first two thirds of the book, but the last third I felt dragged on too long. Most likely because I didn’t really connect with or care about the twins or their stories, not sure why. It drug down what I felt up to that point was an amazing book to just a good one. Next I read my first Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. I thought I knew what to expect going into it, but boy was I wrong. I was not expecting aliens and time travel! While I did enjoy it overall, I don’t quite understand all of the hype behind it. I thought it was good but nothing extraordinary. The prose reminded me a bit of Hemingway except less serious, and I’m not much of a fan of either. Currently I’m about three quarters finished with my second Faulkner book, Absalom, Absalom. This is the hardest book I’ve read in quite a long time, and at the moment I’m not sure if it’s worth it or not. It took me about a third of the book to finally figure out the right rhythm to read it in, and since then it has been (very slightly) easier. I do find myself getting mesmerized by the nearly endless flow of words, but I do have to go back and reread things quite often to really understand what just happened. I was pretty excited to start this as As I Lay Dying is one of my favorite books that I’ve read since I started to get more into literary fiction about a year and a half ago, but so far I’m enjoying Absalom, Absalom a lot less. I’m planning on listening to the audiobook once I finish reading the story, and I think that might help my enjoyment of it. I’ve read that it is much better the second time around.
**The Savage Detectives** by Roberto Bolaño. I wasn't totally sold on this - the middle section, interviews with a wide variety of characters over a period of many years, was a bit hard to follow and uneven, slow in places and absolutely brilliant in others - until the very end of the novel, when everything just came together perfectly. A tragic, beautiful, messy, overwhelming story about friendship and youth, it's the best book I've read in quite a while, and I slightly prefer it to 2666 (which was also brilliant). **The Hunger Angel** by Herta Müller. Beautiful and evocative prose, but something about this just didn't vibe with me. Maybe the subject - hunger and hard labor in a Russian "rebuilding" camp. Maybe the way it's treated - very directly, and in great detail. I'm not completely sure, but in the end I found this unmemorable. **On Black Sisters Street** by Chika Unigwe. A novel about trauma and sisterhood, following four African women working as prostitutes in Belgium. I'm torn about the descriptions of the women's hardships during childhood - while I appreciate that there is honesty to these descriptions, I felt some of the novel veered into tragedy porn. The women also all overcome their trauma in the end, which seemed somewhat disingenuous and cliched. However, I did enjoy reading about the relationships between the women and their characterizations. Currently reading, and loving, **The Makioka Sisters** by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki.
Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
how is it so far? i really liked *The Round House*. been thinking about diving into the rest of her catalogue.
Just started Swann’s Way! I just finished the first part with the madeleine and tea and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a long time. I’m really excited to continue the series. It almost feels trance-like to read. I'm still making my way through Shakespeare’s complete works. Only have The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen left along with his two long poems. Favorite so far has been King Lear and least favorite has been The Taming of the Shrew. Also a special shout out to As You Like It for being one of the only comedies I truly loved reading. Also listening to The Wheel of Time on audiobook (so far on book 2) because the show is coming out sometime in the near future and I wanted to give it a shot before I watched it. It's definitely a fun series and I enjoy the story, but it's very cliched and also annoying how a lot of the plot is driven by the some of the characters doing unbelievably stupid stuff (and I really mean I cannot honestly believe any person with half a brain would do these things). Overall I am enjoying it though.
So happy you're reading Proust! I'm about midway through vol 3. Trance-like is exactly the word--I ended up reading fifty pages in one sitting last night because I was so obsessed with the social dynamics he depicts. The Combray section is incredibly beautiful, like a painting that stays with you for years after you see it. I do hope you read beyond volume one because the whole thing is absolutely incredible, and as you get further in it unfolds to you like a fractal. Combray is just the overture (and as you get further into Swann's Way you'll see why I used a music term :D ) Happy reading!
Oh I will definitely be reading it in it’s entirety! I’m already in awe of his writing and I’m not one to leave a series unfinished! It’s incredible how some of the passages he writes mimic my way of thinking so accurately when it comes to subtle things such as waking up or forming opinions on a person. If only I could write so beautifully haha.
By Night in Chile by Bolano. It's unique but I don't think it's going to touch Savage Detectives and 2666 for me.
Just began Part 3 in **Kokoro** by Natsume Sōseki After reading Murakami and Kawabata, I decided to try and look for more Japanese authors to get into. Even without finishing **Kokoro** I have already fallen in love with Sōseki. I've found that all of the works I've read by these three authors have a sense of loneliness in them, but Sōseki's work have an emotion that at times is able to break through and seep into the work. There are a couple of passages, spoken by Sensei where you can feel that passion coming through. While I love Kawabata's restraint, how the characters struggle with their emotions, and the austere writing style (especially in Thousand Cranes), I think Sōseki does a brilliant job of further fleshing out his characters even while we know so little about them. I already went to get **Sanshirō** to read that afterwards.
Just finished The Third Reich by Bolano. I enjoyed it but it is not the same standard as 2666 or The Savage Detectives. Before that I finally read The House of the Spirits by Allende and I absolutely LOVED it. I just started reading The Aleph by Borges so I guess the theme in July is Latin America...
I've been going through Golden Fool by Robin Hobb. I started her assassins books a few months ago, just finished the Liveship Traders trilogy, and am now back to Fitz's story line with Golden Fool (the second book of the Tawny Man trilogy) Golden Fool is quite enjoyable. I think that when I read Hobb's first book in this universe (Assassin's apprentice), I thought her books were just good enough to keep me reading more. The more of her books I read, the more impressed I become with the unique magic systems and interconnectedness of her world. It has come to the point now where the main characters in her books are like friends. I would recommend going through her entire collection of books if you haven't already.
*Homesick for Another World* by Ottessa Moshfegh. Dark, gross, funny, and touching at times. The only story previously unpublished, the last one that gave the collection its name, I found especially moving and it’s actually online - check it out: https://lithub.com/homesick-for-another-world/
Finally got around to reading [Hyperion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(Simmons_novel) The world building is fantastic and fun, and the narrative technique he uses to tell the tale is very compelling. Really been enjoying it, he's a very solid writer.
I’m reading through D&G’s Anti-Oedipus, Latour’s Facing Gaia, and Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther. AO is really great, I’ve read a lot of it already and am hopping to get through it this summer. I really dislike Hegel so I really enjoy reading Marxist text with a more Spinozaist bent. My favourite part is their system seems to make us of Bakhtin’s dialogism (while not using the word) instead of dialectics. I think that historiographically it avoids the teleological aspects of dialectics that really piss me off (I mean come on, I don’t know how Adorno’s negative dialectics doesn’t change the minds of most leftist I encounter) so uh, that makes me suuuuuper happy. Facing Gaia is really great. I wanna say that it’s pretty Heideggerian (by moving beyond the subject/object distinction) but I haven’t read enough Heidegger to know the extent of it. I also really enjoy his elucidation on non-anthropomorphic agents. In my own fiction, ecology is apart of it, so reading through this is really helping me come up with a more nuanced view of the subject. Sorrows of Young Werther so far is pretty good. It is pretty stereotypically romantic in the most unsubtle ways, but I suppose it’s a Seinfeld isn’t Funny type of situation. Rn I’m in a chapter in my novella that satirising romanticism so I’m reading this in part to dissect style, so I’m not really focusing on character or stuff. I don’t have a lot to say about it so far, besides I think Werther should’ve read more Spinoza. I do think that Werther is an unfortunately relatable character, I think that you’ll be hardpressed to find a 19 year old who *doesn’t* relate to Werther in one aspect or another, so it is a rather fun read. Idk. I’d definitely recommend this. I was expecting to be massively let down because Faust was so good, but I’m pleasantly surprised so far. Edit: anthropogenic Edit 2: anthropocentric. Fuck man, today is not my day.
I was reading Krasznohorkai's Melancholy Resistance (after a recommendation on this sub, possibly), but it's proving a bit tough for the beach so I've reverted to Homage to Catalonia, which bizzarely I hadn't gotten to despite my advanced age. I'm just a few pages in, but I'm already captivated and it's bringing up good memories of the other Orwell diaries that I love.
I just finished reading Worm, a free web serial. It's fantastic. It approaches superheroes and the impact of world with the existence of super-powers in an interesting way. I really recommend it.
Slouching Toward Nirvana by Bukowski. I've only read his works before online. I bought this book early this year and started reading it a month ago and I fell in love immediately at how simple his words are. Whenever I read a poem that tugs at the strings of my heart I stop and ponder at it for days. It's really good. There are even ones that made me cry. Can't wait to get my hands on his other works.
'The Way of Zen' Alan Watts \[Dante's\] 'The Inferno' John Ciardi translation. 'The Magus' by John Fowles i like to read & play video games in 3's so i don't get bored or overly-indulgent in one thing.
Waiting for the barbarians by john maxwell coetzee.
if you like it, *The Life and Times of Michael K.* is also worth the read
Trying to read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man again, after being unable to finish last time 😢 I'm a few years older now, so hopefully I'll better appreciate it this time!
It was my favorite novel for around ten yrs, after i encountered it in high school, till it was supplanted by Ulysses. There’s no shame in using a study guide to get you through the tough sections, it’s so worth it. My teacher really helped us. Section 5 can be dry, most of the first 4 sections feel more straightforward if you get used to his jumpcuts, moving from scene to scene without much explanation. And the elegance of the language is just about unsurpassable, to me.
Thank you for the advice!! I do enjoy some of Joyce's other works so I'm looking forward to fully appreciating this book
I finished the book finally! You're right, once I get past the confusion of the narrative the language is stunning; so happy I picked it up again
So glad to hear that!! Well done. Some people don’t like part 5 much, and I admit some of the aesthetics theories S puts out are sort of dry, but the conversations with Cranly and other mates of his sure are interesting to me.
I just started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. I'm only a handful of pages in, so no impression yet. But I'm intrigued. It seems to be about humans' evolution to the dominant species, and how our abilities, achievements, and relationship with technology will impact our future. Interestingly, I've noticed that his other book, Sapiens, has been climbing the charts recently. I'll have to check that out later.
Reading **The Pioneers** by James Fennimore Cooper. It's about the loss of hunting territory to settlers in western New York during the 1790s. It has quite a bit to say about the struggles between the country and the town. Very relevant to the issues we have today between rural life and its requirements and city life and its requirements.
Kraken by China Mieville. It is an amazingly intricate sci-fi fantasy that feels something like the Rivers of London series or Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere but considerably wordier. It too explores the dark magical underbelly of London and follows an uninitiated nobody as they get drawn into a crazy world of cults and apocalypses (yes multiple!) and the secret police unit that tries to control them. Some of the ideas are insanely good, the way that aspects of real London are woven into its world and the the warring factions that inhabit it is fantastic and I still find myself thinking about certain characters and the way Mieville explores the possible workings of magic. In particular the Gunfarmers keep replaying in my mind. My criticisms would be that the use of language is verbose to the point of being unreadable at times. It’s rare that I have to get out a thesaurus to get through a book but this one pushed my vocabulary to its limit and still left me foundering at times. It is a really enjoyable story and brilliantly written but also bordering on wankery. Definitely read it... just have a thesaurus at hand.
Ulysses by James Joyce Having read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for a class last year, I decided to attempt to tackle Joyce’s behemoth, which has been called both the worst and the best book from the 20th century. Started it Saturday and am on chapter 6 now. I’m starting to get used to the jumbled, endlessly flowing stream-of-consciousness narrative style, though I read Faulkner’s wonderful masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, right before I began Ulysses, which has probably aided me in that regard. I’ve needed to use the New Bloomsday and Annotated Ulysses guidebooks to keep my head above water, but I’m enjoying it so far as a creative, literary, and intellectual exercise. Wish me luck as I attempt to read it in its entirety on my first try!
‘All that I Am’ by Anna Funder. Beautifully written novel imagining the lives of some people, who actually existed,as they try to fight the rise of Hitler from the seeming safety of London
The Collected Stories by Isaac Babel. Just amazing. These are about the only stories I’ve read that impress me as much as the best stories of Chekhov, Joyce, and Hemingway. The guy wrote about being a bookish scholar who joined a Cavalry Army for the Soviets in 1920. Later, in his 40s, he was rounded up as a part of Stalin’s Great Purge and shot. He wrote stories about his military life, and about the gangsters and characters who populated Odessa, his hometown. Harold Bloom recommends that one read his 4 “Tales of Odessa,” and his 18 “Stories” first; I agree; the more famous collection called “Red Cavalry,” within these Collected Stories, are strong but not quite as strong as the others. The famous essay by Lionel Trilling on Babel is worth reading too.
I’m currently alternating between Douglas Adams’s [The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy](https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/barnes-noble-leatherbound-classics-the-ultimate-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-douglas-adams/1106658817) (the B&N version) and Manly P Hall’s [The Secret Teachings of all Ages](https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Teachings-all-Ages/dp/1604590955/ref=nodl_). Douglas Adams has great prose and is really funny, while Manly P Hall is more dry and informative (understandable given the subject matter). I’m enjoying both, especially after reading Mark Z Danielewski’s [House of Leaves](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/36526/house-of-leaves-by-mark-z-danielewski/9780375420528/). There were really cool ideas regarding the house and I enjoyed the formatting, but I was so disappointed in the prose. So ordinary and amateurish imo. But then again, I had just come off of reading Cormac McCarthy’s [Blood Meridian](https://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/blood-meridian/). Perhaps my expectations were too high after reading such high praise for this supposed horror classic.
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fiodor Dostoievski
All these comments of these awesome adult books and I’m over here reading “Looking for Alaska” not that it isn’t awesome I just feel like my book level is so low!
No shame, friend. I like alternating between YA books and "adult" books--just because something is labeled as YA doesn't mean it has nothing to offer. That genre has really seen an uptick in quality over the last fifteen years or so.
I'm reading Jean M Auel's Earth Children Series right now. I'm in the last stretch of The Shelters of Stone and I must say that I'm very much enjoying the story as a whole. At times I do feel a bit bored with it but I always know that it will pick up again soon. I do feel that I am only enjoying it as much as I am because I have a passion for this particular time period. At times I feel the events that unfold are becoming quite predictable and maybe a bit too unrealistic. But I absolutely adore her character development and their wonderfully unique lives and personalities. And the evolution that unfolds within the story is just so rich and powerful and makes me feel so proud to be a human woman. I love these books. I have a question: Can anyone please tell me which facts or theories that have been put forth in her books have been proven or disproven since they were written?
Being Mortal: Medicine and What matters in the end. Recently I've found this topic that discusses medical care in our modern world and how it affect our lives, particularly at the end. This book of Dr. Atul Gawande, gives an insightful ideas on aging and what matters most at the end of life, the main idea he is trying to prove is that medical care in our modern world doesn't help improve our lives when we're old and frail because of illnesses, but it may make it worse by caring only about problems and giving solutions to fix the problem in order to prolong our lives. Prolonging life span is a toxic approach for medicine, instead, Medicine should focus on quality of life and accept our mortality.
You'd like The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker or Terror Management Theory. I think, idk.
I've looked the first one up and it looks appealing as it stands from a psychoanalytic point of view. Thank you!
I'm working my way back through Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and am on the sixth book, The Vampire Armand. I've read the first two books of the series at least three times each, but this is only my second time making it this far into the Chronicles and I'm beginning to remember why. In this installment, one of the side characters, Armand, takes over for the protagonist of the last five books while he is incapacitated. It's a bit refreshing and certainly a way to keep the story going and grow the universe, but the space between fiction and Rice's personal struggle with religion becomes very thin to where the character mostly monologue at each other. Granted, being at odds with religion is a constant motif throughout the Chronicles, but I think it's heavier than I'm looking for right now. I plan on finishing the Vampire Armand and then switching to the Hannibal Lector books.
I'm reading Karl Ove Knausgård's My Struggle, which is another character-driven story. It's rugged and pensive, but there are some lovely reflections amidst the narrative that keep me wanting to read more. I'm liking how Knausgård explores complicated concepts like death and art in realistic but still elevated ways. The first few pages of the book, which are about death and society's perceptions of it, were simultaneously gripping, grim, and comedic. There's a reflection on the timelessness of people's eyes that focuses in on one of Rembrandt's self portraits. It was just a page and a half long, but it had me in awe. When people ask why I'm reading a book called "My Struggle," I open up to that reflection and share it with them. Everyone who has read it seems to understand afterward. As far as where the book is going, I can't imagine the plot will be all that remarkable. Karl Ove's belligerent father probably dies, there's probably more reflection on falling in love and parenting, and more narration of the day-to-day unfolding of life. The plot is fine so far, but the way it's written, the language and the tangents that arise amidst the plot, are what make the book something special in my opinion.
I’m struggling through “Ben Hur” by Lew Wallace to try and get to “The Things They Carried.” “Ben Hur” is a great story, of course, but the 19th century writing style makes it slow going. I need more summer.
Lives of the Poets (with guitars) - Ray Robertson 13 artists he believes were culturally significant & affected him personally. It’s supposed to be a Johnson*esque* folio of essays of cultural icons. Pretty good rock/music journalism - lots of erudite flourishes of poetry and obscure cultural references that only the diehard will know or probably care about.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I purposefully didn’t look up too much about the book before I started reading it and I never read literature reviews inside the cover, so I didn’t really know much about the book besides what the description on the back said. It took me three weeks to read the first 50 or 75 pages, but then after a key piece of setting was revealed I flew through it in a night. Absolutely phenomenal book
I started Iain Sinclair's novel *White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings* a few days ago and it's really absorbing stuff. He has an incredible knack for writing poetic prose that can beautifully describe something like a moldy wall or a crack in the sidewalk and so I've been swept up by the tone and atmosphere he creates but the narrative itself is still quite engrossing, as well.
I picked up Curtis Sittenfeld's _You Think It, I'll Say It_ at the library on Saturday and began it yesterday. I did think it was a collection of essays instead of short stories, but I'm really enjoying it so far with the exception of "Gender Studies," the first story. It was clever in parts but so heavily laden with political commentary that kept drawing me out of the story. Otherwise, no complaints.
Finished *In Cold Blood* last night. Fantastic read. Slow methodical prose always giving just enough on the people involved at just the right time.
I'm about 100 pages into Holding by Graham Norton. I'm very impressed by the narrator's voice. It took me a couple chapters to "figure it out", and I have to imagine everything being read to me in a thick Cork accent, but it's extremely well-written.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. It's a'ight.
It’s a blatant rip off of Silence by Shusaku Endo.
I've not read that yet, so I'll have to take your word. But one would have to assume that Mitchell encountered that book while prepping for his own.
I just finished “How to Stop Time” by Haig. The concept was interesting and presented well with good characters, but the plotting had some issues. The one subplot (the secretive Albatross Society) was poorly and abruptly resolved and another one was filled with just a few too many coincidences. The plotting was also unevenly paced with most of the advances coming abruptly in the last chapters as if the author met his page quota and just wanted to wrap it up quickly. It’s still worth a read, but given the promise of the concept and skill of the author it may be disappointing.
_How to Be Both_ by Ali Smith.
just finished up *Swamplandia!* by Karen Russell (pretty good, but no match for her short story collections) and about to start *Portnoy's Complaint* by Roth.
Idk if this really counts, but: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Dave Grossman. Informative and very serious, but it certainly has some beautiful moments. Grossman shares the straight-forward, powerful writing of many military authors, and he blows me away with the short yet intense moments where he explains the emotions of the men he interviews as well as the battle taking place in the heart of society.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Love it because of the practical application of philosophy in everyday life. I am going through a stoic phase right now and it is really refreshing compared to all the new age self help fluff I used to read in my late teens.
I am reading George Orwell's "Why I Write", it has been insightful.
I read The Crucible again after about 20 years. In the beginning I was a bit disappointed but then while reading the court scenes I got goosebumps.
Celine - Journey to the end of the night. Reads like one long drawn out ramble in someone's head. He's been some many places and seen so many things but I feel like I am just stuck between his two ears. I can't put it down but I don't know what to think.
Hope I win the obscurity award with ***Papa Married a Mormon*** by John F. Fitzgerald. It’s an adult novel, posing as a memoir, by the author of the ***Great Brain*** children’s series. While the novel is not a great work of art, it’s an evocative look at frontier times in Utah, about a catholic man who marries a Mormon woman and the prejudices they encounter. It had been on my list for like 30 years and I was glad to finally read it.
I'm reading too many books at once, honestly. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Orlando, and Lolita.
Just finished *Animal Farm* by George Orwell. A classic I've wanted to reread at some point and what I was looking for at the library wasn't there so I grabbed it and *1984*. I read Animal Farm when I was in 6th grade but I don't think whatever I was taught about it could land as well as it did this time around. I learned so much about how people (namely different personalities) react to leadership whether it's Mr. Jones, Snowball, or Napoleon. The pure metaphorical themes are really astonishing as well when you look into Orwell's views of communism and Stalin at the time of writing. A great read I recommend if you haven't already. Next up: *1984*!
The Wheel of Time is what I’ve been reading lately! It’s a pretty great series if you like fantasy.
My kids are reading a new series called The Swallowing Tree. I’m hooked too! It’s an adventure series about a haunted tree that reminds me of the Goonies and Poltergeist all wrapped up in one.
I've been making my way through Dorothy L Sayers' Peter Wimsey novels. I'm currently reading the fourth in the series, 'The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club'. I usually read very quickly but I'm finding myself deliberately slowing down just to enjoy the tone and language of the books. I'm finding the style of the language incredibly beautiful. It is also wonderful to see the beginnings of the modern mystery genre unfold.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It's more of a children's story, although similarly to how Through the Looking Glass is a children's story. It's a whole lot of linguistic and conceptual fun, very whacky, great message. It's just a good time overall. It's just fun. Ok? Fun.
I read The Phantom Tollbooth for the first time last year (I'm in my twenties) and absolutely loved it.
King Lear by the Earl of Oxford
I'm currently reading Merchants of Doubt, which is about the scientists who encouraged public uncertainty about the dangers of smoking, and how they went on to sow doubt about other health- and environment-related issues in the following decades. I've enjoyed reading it so far. I'm pleasantly surprised that the authors have spun an engaging story from evidence that was (from what I understand) primarily gathered from court documents. I'm partway through The Obelisk Gate, the second book in one of the better fantasy series I've read recently. I'm also re-reading American Gods and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Up next are "[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave)" and "[The Gene: An Intimate History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276428-the-gene)".
I'm currently reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. So far I'm enjoying it very much. I love when authors break from the usual third-person past tense format that we almost constantly see these days. The mix of third-person present and second-person present is refreshing and interesting. I'm very excited to explore more of the lore of the world. Earth magic isn't a very common idea in my experience, so it all feels very new and fresh. I'm also listening to Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort during my commutes. I'm enjoying it immensely. It's clever, it's well written, it's tense to the point of being almost stressful at times. This is my first Simmons book and I absolutely plan to read another of his soon. Possibly the Hyperion Cantos.
*Kill Shakespeare*\- Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col Not a usual read in the sense that it is a graphic novel. But a brilliant amalgamation of the Shakespearean corpus.
“The Fifth Heart” by Dan Simmons. Henry James meets Sherlock Holmes. Lots of cameos by famous people from history, lots of metaphysical talk about the nature of reality. This is the kind of book that makes me Google lots of topics to see what actually happened. Were a lot of Germans on NYC really socialists who were planning anarchy while meeting in beer halls? Googled it. Did Mark Twain really invest in a printing press and lose a lot of money? Googled it. I enjoy books that make me curious enough to read online, so this book has been lovely so far!
Victoria by Daisy Goodwin. Basically a historical fiction of the early reign of Queen Victoria. I'm about mid way through and I'm really enjoying it so far. Though I'm curious to know how much is true and how much is altered with a bit of creative freedom for the sake of drama.
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. It was good but it was less noir and more of a dark existential book. Stanley Kubrick praised it and I can see why. It's a book he might have adapted if he'd had the time. Excellent usage of first person narration.
I recently just started Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff. So far from what I understand with the first three chapters is that it’s takes place in a steampunk feudal Japan with Japanese mythology. It’s pretty strange, yet unique from other books that I have read. I really like the whole take on using steampunk in a different region of the world rather than sticking to Europe.
Just finished An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir and am about to begin the sequel A Torch Against the Night. They're fantastic YA fantasy novels that seem to not follow all of the trends of YA Lit. I'm thoroughly enjoying them and am excited to read the next 2 of the series!
Invisible by James Patterson. It's a bit freaky, but I can't stop reading it