This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

Busi_Girl08

1Q84 Book 3 was really disappointing. Very anticlimactic with a lot of loose ends that just got ignored for the sake of a fairly contrived ending.

Started Fight Club the other day, and can't put it down. Love the writing style.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I gave up on trying to read On Beauty and moved on to NW, also by Zadie Smith. Can't get into it either. It's much easier to read though so I'll probably manage to finish it but I have to say I'm struggling to see what the fuss is with this lady.

EoghanIRL

Alfred Hitchcock and the three investigators : the fiery eye . Really enjoyed it .

Finished the fault in our stars . Don't see what's so great about it .

Next up is animal farm .

Rothko

Just over halfway though A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce.

I'm enjoying it but I prefer Dubliners and Ulysses.

Daisy78

Siddartha by Hermann Hesse.

iwantmydinner

Life of Pi, just started. Already like the style.

Callan57

About to start reading The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osborne

EoghanIRL

I'm almost finished the diary of Anne Frank . Don't know what to read next .

Callan57

Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk ... finding it v difficult to get into - maybe it's the translation

Huzzah!

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Kundera. Only on the first story but enjoying it so far. It's not as heavy as I was expecting.

Aenaes

I started The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick last night. It's started off promising giving pretty in-depth and seemingly knowledgeable background information of events before the famous battle.

It's one of a number of topics I would like to know more about so I'm excited to be learning about it. I've already learned that Little Bighorn is, in fact, a river.

La_Gordy

Busi_Girl08 wrote: »

1Q84 Book 3 was really disappointing. Very anticlimactic with a lot of loose ends that just got ignored for the sake of a fairly contrived ending.

IQ84 is one of the worst books I've ever read and Murakami is one of my favourite authors.

Ahm reading Ripley's Game - book 3 in the Ripliad by Patricia Highsmith.

minnow

Struggling through The Trial by Kafka, not enjoying it but will force myself to finish as it is rather short.

Next up is Stoner by John Williams. Read the first 10 pages and really like his writing style.

Tom Joad

minnow wrote: »

Next up is Stoner by John Williams. Read the first 10 pages and really like his writing style.

You are in for a real treat with Stoner.

SarahBM

I finished reading Longbourn by Jo Baker at the wknd, I thought it was very good. As a big Kane Austen fan I was a bit unsure of it at first, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. It's a bit darker than pride and prejudice, very much the "Downstairs" point of view.

I was going to read Tuesday's With Morrie, but I decided to go for something a bit lighter. Started the Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. I loved the 100 year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared. I hope this is as good.

Merkin

Reading The Catcher in the Rye and loving it

Callan57

Lichtenberg & The Little Flower Girl by Gert Hofmann

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I've been reading The Famine Plot by Tim Pat Coogan. Only a few chapters in but it's pretty interesting so far.

a0ifee

Merkin wrote: »

Reading The Catcher in the Rye and loving it

all i ever see is negative comments about that book but I really did love it as well

Huzzah!

Merkin wrote: »

Reading The Catcher in the Rye and loving it

This throws my theory that you have to read it as an angsty teen to not find Holden annoying out of the window!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Huzzah! wrote: »

This throws my theory that you have to read it as an angsty teen to not find Holden annoying out of the window!

I found him annoying when I read it a few years ago as an "adult" but still enjoyed the book overall.

ivytwine

Just finished Great Britain's Great War by Jeremy Paxman. Always very readable, and he's not as anti-war as I was expecting, he's pretty fair. However I can't help but come to the conclusion that it was all a scandalous waste.

Onto the Cuckoo's Calling by "Robert Galbraith". Dunno how JK makes things so unputdownable!

Gamayun

In the last few months I haven't read for enjoyment at all.

I've been making my way through various computing books and technical manuals, for work and upcoming exams, and just didn't feel like reading in the evenings.

Back on track now though and I've just finished two books by Kōbō Abe in the last week or so:

The Woman in the Dunes from 1962 (trans. E. Dale Saunders). Very Kafkaesque and very good. A surreal allegorical existentialist page turner.

The Ark Sakura from 1984 (trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter). I found this a bit disappointing, especially after The Woman.... The pacing is all over the shop, with long lulls followed by rapid, unbelievable bursts of character development. There's also some misogyny and boorish treatment of a female character which I assume is supposed to be some kind of social commentary, but to me it just comes across as sexist and crass.

Just started Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. It's an account of the 1972 chess world championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Good so far.

Callan57

Longbourne by Jo Baker and picked up A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride at lunchtime ... I'll be pivoting between the two for the weekend

a0ifee

Callan57 wrote: »

Longbourne by Jo Baker and picked up A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride at lunchtime ... I'll be pivoting between the two for the weekend

Bought A Girl is a Half Formed Thing during the week as well, I'm looking forward to it!

psychoniamh

Currently reading the 100 year old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. I saw the trailer for the film in the cinema at present and later stumbled on the book in Easons. Want to read it first before going to see the film. I'm about half-way through, it's quite entertaining.

shazzerman

Rereading Catch 22 and La Guin's The Dispossessed. Two of my favourites as a teenager.

MagicMarker

Finished Book 2 of Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, 'Words of Radiance', yesterday, which was superb.

Started on Stoner by John Edward Williams, which I'm really enjoying.

minnow

Tom Joad wrote: »

The quiet American (Graham Greene): I really like Greene's work and this has all best bits of his style - sarcastic and cynical but at the same time delivers a strong message. There are a lot of anti war and anti colonialism novels out there but this is different from the run of the mill ones and gives a good sense of what 1950s Vietnam must have been like. Very short novel too - finished it in a day.

Great recommendation. I had a false impression of what Graham Greene's writing would be like. Halfway through and really enjoying it.

IvyTheTerrible

The Death of Bees.
Excellent, quite harrowing novel about two neglected children in a Glasgow estate.