This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

paddyh117

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I've started The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Bit daunting given the size of it, I think I could literally kill someone with it, if I wanted to. Very early days but so far so good.

One of the advantages of the Kindle is you don't get overwhelmed by the physical size of a book!

Enjoy - it's a great read

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

paddyh117 wrote: »

One of the advantages of the Kindle is you don't get overwhelmed by the physical size of a book!

Enjoy - it's a great read

But you also get no sense of achievement when you see your bookmark slowly making it's way further and further into the book

Callan57

paddyh117 wrote: »

One of the advantages of the Kindle is you don't get overwhelmed by the physical size of a book!

Enjoy - it's a great read

.. and you don't get big muscles carrying it around

paddyh117

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

But you also get no sense of achievement when you see your bookmark slowly making it's way further and further into the book

ah you do - the % rises (very slowly) as you progress!

paddyh117

Callan57 wrote: »

.. and you don't get big muscles carrying it around

True - but i like to read on the bus to/from work, and after Stephen King's 201163, i know it was time for a Kindle!

IvyTheTerrible

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

But you also get no sense of achievement when you see your bookmark slowly making it's way further and further into the book

If you click the menu icon, it tells you how many "pages" you've read! I always check!

RossMerle

Itis very funny

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

If you click the menu icon, it tells you how many "pages" you've read! I always check!

Ah but I don't have to click anything to see my bookmark

vepyewwo

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

Reading "Child 44,,. Remarkable piece of writing, 2008, by a chap who was

barely 30 yrs of age yet writes of 1950s Soviet times as though he had lived

through that era. Ridley Scott has considered basing a film on it.

I stayed up until 3 am finishing this, so tired now but really enjoyed it. There are two more books in the series - The Secret Speech and Agent 6.
It has already been made into a film starring Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace, think it's due out later this year.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014763/

thejaguar

I've just finished To Kill a Mocking Bird. Couldn't put it down, it was absolutely excellent. Who knew....?

Dibble

This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann.

Wyldwood

Finished The Old Man and the Sea. It was an easy read, didn't excite me too much. Not sure what all the hype was about it.

I sometimes wonder if we read too much into the works of the "literary greats". Did they really mean to write simple stories or were we supposed to read them as metaphors for life or whatever interpretation is put on them by those that followed?

OldRio

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks.

Belle E. Flops

Wyldwood wrote: »

Finished The Old Man and the Sea. It was an easy read, didn't excite me too much. Not sure what all the hype was about it.

I sometimes wonder if we read too much into the works of the "literary greats". Did they really mean to write simple stories or were we supposed to read them as metaphors for life or whatever interpretation is put on them by those that followed?

I have to say The Old Man and the Sea, for all the hype around it was the most painful book I have ever read, although Madame Bovary is a very close second.

Aenaes

Belle E. Flops wrote: »

I have to say The Old Man and the Sea, for all the hype around it was the most painful book I have ever read, although Madame Bovary is a very close second.

Really? I thought painful would be the adjective least used to describe the book. I can kind of understand Wyldwood's point of view but struggling to accept "painful".
I admit there might be some mundane descriptive passages (like when the old man decides to eat a meal) but I felt they just made me connect with the guy even more. I pitied him during the start, I was rallying for him during his titanic struggle and I

cursed those damn sharks.

This is by no means an attack on your opinion, I just really liked the story.

I'm still reading The Portrait Of A Lady and finding it a tough slog. I'm restricting myself to just reading one or two chapters a night which I rarely do.

Callan57

Finished The Umbrella Tree by Mary Stanley - it was OK but not the brilliant read I'd been recommended.

Next off the pile is Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (love all his books so far so optomistic for Marina)

Ipso

Belle E. Flops wrote: »

I have to say The Old Man and the Sea, for all the hype around it was the most painful book I have ever read, although Madame Bovary is a very close second.

Really? I read it when I was fairly young and loved it (after seeing the Anthony Quinn film), I'm from a fishing area andclike angling so that may have atteacted me. Needless to say the themes of masculinity and aging escaped me.

Belle E. Flops

It has been a few years since I read The Old Man and the Sea but I do remember that even though it's a very short book I thought I'd never get to the end of it. I just found it so boring and if it had been a longer book I'm pretty sure I would have just given up on it, which I very rarely do. I know people love it but I just did not enjoy it at all.

ankles

Liked the Old Man and the Sea, and Madame Bovary. On a history binge. Have finished the causes of the Great Crash 1929, by JK Galbraith. Everyone should read it. Now reading the Pursuit of Glory Europe 1648-1815. Very interesting. Already found out where the term "spinster" came from.

Rothko

I'm currently re-reading American Psycho. I'm liking it even more this time for some reason.

Belle E. Flops

Finished The Lord of the Flies last night. It is a good story but I didn't particularly like it.

Going to start The Lies of Locke Lamora tonight.

Wyldwood

Rereading The Diary of Anne Frank as I'm off to Amsterdam again shortly.

Rothko

Belle E. Flops wrote: »

Finished The Lord of the Flies last night. It is a good story but I didn't particularly like it.

Going to start The Lies of Locke Lamora tonight.

Yeah, I felt the same. I was a bit disappointed after I read it.

SarahBM

Belle E. Flops wrote: »

Finished The Lord of the Flies last night. It is a good story but I didn't particularly like it.

Hated that book took me AGES to read, simply because I dreaded picking it up. I made my self read it , but it was torture!

Im not reading at the moment. carrying Roll of Thunder round in my hand bag, praying I'll get a few mins to get started on it, but alas, Masters is taking over my life.

Im hoping I will get to read a chunk of it this wknd on the train home. I will probably end up having to read for college though

a0ifee

Belle E. Flops wrote: »

Finished The Lord of the Flies last night. It is a good story but I didn't particularly like it.

Going to start The Lies of Locke Lamora tonight.

i was really disappointed by the lord of the flies. Thought the premise was excellent but the story itself was disappointing..especially the ending. Some parts were quite good though. Not a favourite.

Busi_Girl08

Finished Doctor Sleep last night. Enjoyed it. It was a decent follow-on from the Shining but would still work ok as a standalone.

Started The Girl With All The Gifts this morning. Liking it so far.

Callan57

Finished Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - superb gothic story set in Barcelona, loved it.

Now it's How's the Pain by Pascal Garnier

bnt

Just started The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. It's the first of his L.A. Quartet set in the late 1940s. All I know about that world is from the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential (the 3rd in the Quartet, one of my favourite films), but I'm already getting hooked. Not much action so far, but a heck of a lot of foreboding, the feeling that things are going to get horribly complicated at some point.

The narrator, a former boxer, is ambitious to move up in the L.A. police force, but he's been tainted by his German father's membership of the German American Bund during the war. So he's had to do some unsavory things to get anywhere, such as snitching on some Japanese friends (who were interned), and agreeing to fight another (bigger) officer who was also a boxer. If you've seen the film, you'll have some idea of how corrosive the environment was - the turf wars, in-fighting (political or not), casual institutional racism, and so on.

ancapailldorcha

Working my way through Memories of Ice at the moment but I've put it down in favour of the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment as I'm heading to St. Petersburg and Moscow in April for a bit. Shame they've left the street names blank but I've only just started it and the language flows very nicely IMO.

minnow

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I've started The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Bit daunting given the size of it, I think I could literally kill someone with it, if I wanted to. Very early days but so far so good.

Just 100 pages in myself and really enjoying it much as I did The Secret History and The Little Friend. Wonderful style of writing...