This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

TedB · 18-07-2009 3:03pm

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

No not finished yet but I reckon it'll be done by the end of the weekend. I'll let you know.

The one gripe I have is that he seems to be making a huge deal about people's supposed fear of the second coming linked to the year 1000 without actually providing any evidence (like saying "X's rampaging would surely have put people in mind of the Revelation of St john"), like as if his editor said he needed to have a point to looking at that period in history.

While there certainly was a persistent fear that a second coming was going to happen in 1000 A.D., I get the feeling that Holland tries to put himself in the mind of a medieval peasant and imagine what it 'must have been like'... Which is all rather disconcerting.

Quality · 18-07-2009 9:39pm

I are reading

Purfume by patrick Suskind!!

Very enjoyable!

TedB · 18-07-2009 11:11pm

Quality wrote: »

I are reading

Purfume by patrick Suskind!!

Very enjoyable!

Are you OK?

Quality · 18-07-2009 11:27pm

TedB wrote: »

Are you OK?

Have American Psycho lined up next...

Its a phase!!

IvyTheTerrible · 20-07-2009 10:04am

Quality wrote: »

I are reading

Purfume by patrick Suskind!!

Very enjoyable!

I really liked that book! I loved the imagery, I found it really easy to picture the smells and sights. Great (if a little gruesome at times). And MUCH better than the film.

LightningBolt · 20-07-2009 11:57am

Crime and Punishment at the moment.

bluto63 · 22-07-2009 1:55pm

Halfway through Jack Kerouac - On The Road. Loving it so far

JamesTaylorfan · 23-07-2009 8:37pm

I have to say I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany....I liked it's edgeiness if there's such a word.

JamesTaylorfan · 23-07-2009 8:41pm

I'm halfway through The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins........really thought provoking.

JamesTaylorfan · 23-07-2009 8:43pm

I often wondered if it would be kinda dated by now.Maybe I'll give it a go so.

fisgon · 24-07-2009 10:07am

Mink wrote: »

Over 1/2 way through The Brief & Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

It's absolutely brilliant. Very funny, heartwarming but also harrowing.
Anyone who is/was a bit of nerdy geek would love this. It's such a mixed bag as you follow different characters in the US & in Dominican Republic over different time periods. There's tons of references to Lord of The Rings as a symbol of the oppression Dominican Republic people went through under their dictator Trujillio. There's a lot of Spanish threaded through & I don't have a clue what some of it means but it fits & adds to the atmosphere.
I'm really enjoying it. Highly recommended

I'm not sure if we're supposed to comment on what people are reading in this thread, but here goes, anyway.....
Was really disappointed in this, (Oscar Wao), was expecting more. The voice he uses is funny, but the humour doesn't last, and the whole thing is quite depressing, there is a sense of inevitable doom about the whole novel. There really is a lot of Spanish in it, untranslated, and I can actually read Spanish fairly well, but for someone who can't I imagine it would detract from the flow, seems to be aimed at an American Latino reader. It has its moments, but a better treatment of the Trujillo regime is in Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, stunning book.

To follow the thread, I'm reading Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, another disappointment. I think he's stopped writing books about real things, he just gets lost in his fantastical little literary world, playing games and messing around with magical realism without writing characters you could actually care about.

Wow, sorry for the negativity, must come back with something i actually liked later...

Ann22 · 26-07-2009 1:10am

Quality wrote: »

I are reading

Purfume by patrick Suskind!!

Very enjoyable!

Isn't that the film 'Perfume-the story of a murderer' came from? I really enjoyed that film. Far fetched I know but I was glued to it. I'm reading 'Dracula' at the moment for the 3rd time. Just finished 'To see you again' by Betty Schimmel...a Holocaust survivor's story, very good.

ocianain · 26-07-2009 1:33am

The Celts - A History by, Peter Berresford Ellis (of Sister Fidelma fame). Great book by a great scholar. PBE demolishes some current myths (there were no such thing as Celts) and some old ones (the Celts were illiterate) is the opening pages of the book, it only gets better from there. Well worth a red for anyone interested in such history.

Quality · 26-07-2009 5:13pm

Ann22 wrote: »

Isn't that the film 'Perfume-the story of a murderer' came from? I really enjoyed that film. Far fetched I know but I was glued to it. I'm reading 'Dracula' at the moment for the 3rd time. Just finished 'To see you again' by Betty Schimmel...a Holocaust survivor's story, very good.

Yes it is a film.

I haven't seen the film, but I really enjoyed the book!

Linguo · 27-07-2009 9:25am

Reading The Strain at the moment by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, it's good!Pity it's a trilogy and I have to wait for the next one though!

Jako8 · 28-07-2009 12:06am

I am reading, "The Judas Strain" by James Rollins.

IvyTheTerrible · 28-07-2009 9:07am

I'm reading "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol, for the book club. Love it so far, very funny.

bullpost · 28-07-2009 2:36pm

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole.

willy wonka · 28-07-2009 10:04pm

Reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - really love the way she sees things.
Saw that they are making this into a film - I would hope it would be a lovely little quirky indie flick, but that's not gonna happen! :rolleyes:

Takk · 29-07-2009 9:33pm

willy wonka wrote: »

Reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - really love the way she sees things.
Saw that they are making this into a film - I would hope it would be a lovely little quirky indie flick, but that's not gonna happen! :rolleyes:

I just started reading this too. Liking it so far. The film could be pretty good; Saoirse Ronan as Susie, Peter Jackson directing.

Also reading Dead Souls and Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness.

willy wonka · 30-07-2009 12:54am

Takk wrote: »

I just started reading this too. Liking it so far. The film could be pretty good; Saoirse Ronan as Susie, Peter Jackson directing.

Just finished tonight - really loved it. Looking forward to seeing the film. Yeah with Peter Jackson behind it, might not be bad at all. The character Hal isn't in it, but usually characters get chopped from books. Really like the grandma character - Susan Sarandon is playing her

rosboy · 30-07-2009 12:38pm

willy wonka wrote: »

Just finished tonight - really loved it. Looking forward to seeing the film. Yeah with Peter Jackson behind it, might not be bad at all. The character Hal isn't in it, but usually characters get chopped from books. Really like the grandma character - Susan Sarandon is playing her

Just finished it last night too;)

Great book. Didn't like particularly like one part of the ending (

the bit at the sink hole/garage where Susie comes inhabits Ruths body

), but it really was a brilliant book.

Started "Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Sallinger now

willy wonka · 30-07-2009 5:19pm

rosboy wrote: »

Just finished it last night too;)

Great book. Didn't like particularly like one part of the ending,--- but it really was a brilliant book.

Started "Catcher In The Rye" by J.D. Sallinger now

When I was getting near the end I kind of thought I knew how it would end and that didnt bother me, because I liked the journey moreso than the destination, but then Wham! that bit happened and I was surprised but I did like it, if only that it brought a kind of salvation for Susie (and probably for the author herself if you know her history)

re Catcher in the Rye - excellent book. A masterpiece! One of my favourites.

Panda Bear · 31-07-2009 11:30pm

Have just finished Shantaram
Australian author who has lived in the slums of Bombay, and you almost expect to be enriched by some sort of karmic philosophy. Philosophy and spiritual journey or not, this certainly is no karma in a bottle. The story of Shantaram is a story of adventure and daring, a fictionalized account of the life of author Gregory David Roberts who escaped an Australian prison and moved to Bombay to spend almost a decade of his life in the slums and underworld of this city.

Richly recommend this but not to be taken too seriously I wondered if some of the pieces are the author ruuning riot from films he has seen.:P

TedB · 31-07-2009 11:42pm

In the past week I have read Baudolino by Umberto Eco and Death and the Penguin for the book club. Currently half way through the (hilarious) 1889 novel, 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome.