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July 23
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Brian
added:
A Lesson Before Dying (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Ernest J. Gaines
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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July 21
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Brian
gave
to:
Peace (Hardcover)
by Richard Bausch
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
Brian said:
"First thing of his I've ever read. Think I'm going to read some more. I saw this in the bookstore (The Regulator, in Durham, which is the greatest bookstore EVER!). Read the first few pages and knew I had to buy it. The language and style are very si...more
First thing of his I've ever read. Think I'm going to read some more. I saw this in the bookstore (The Regulator, in Durham, which is the greatest bookstore EVER!). Read the first few pages and knew I had to buy it. The language and style are very simple and straightforward, and that is something I do, indeed, love. The story is a good one and a classic one. I grew close to all of the characters, which is something I rarely do, and so when the end of this short little novel came - it's only 170+ pages - I had a knot in my stomach over the turn of events. I did not know how it would turn out, but I knew that the choice facing the narrator was a tough one, and either way was neither win nor lose. Or was it? ...less
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Brian
is currently reading:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Hardcover)
by David Sedaris
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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June 24
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Brian
is currently reading:
Pyres (Hardcover)
by Derek Nikitas (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Brian said:
"Went to grad school with Derek. Even then, his short stories were head and shoulders above what the rest of us were writing. Best of luck to you, Derek. You publishing a novel doesn't at all surprise any of us that knew you. :)
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May 29
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Brian
gave
to:
The Road (Hardcover)
by Cormac McCarthy
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Brian said:
"Eviscerated infants roasting over a fire. Club-wielding cannibals reeking of their own impending death. A landscape of absolute ash and cinder. Is there anything in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road that makes it appealing?
Absolutely. And I’m not su...more
Eviscerated infants roasting over a fire. Club-wielding cannibals reeking of their own impending death. A landscape of absolute ash and cinder. Is there anything in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road that makes it appealing?
Absolutely. And I’m not sure what it is. But it’s there.
Several years have passed since an unnamed cataclysmic event left the world an “ashen scabland” that is “barren, silent, godless” in nature. The Man and his young son born into this new dead world are moving toward the coast for it is there they think they will survive. All along the way is more of the same – death, destruction, desolation. It is winter. At night it is cold. By day “the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.” The world is now nearly deserted with only a few desperate bad guys roaming about, and even fewer good guys.
While the world they inhabit is not appealing, there are still moments of beautiful tenderness between the father and the son. The landscape, though ravaged by a fire that burnt so hot it melted glass, is in its own stark way beautiful, too. Exposed. Stripped. Nothing and nowhere to hide.
At times you will be repulsed. At times you will be fearful. At times you will be tearful. Regardless of the negative emotions, you will still be drawn in. You can’t help but follow this pair along, just so you can watch them suffer, thankful that you, hopefully, will never have to suffer like them.
On occasion, McCarthy comes close to falling over the edge into the abyss of sci-fi horror, but at the last moment he steps back, drawn away from the edge by a moment of dark reality that is so real and so possible that you wish you could escape into the fantasy of sci-fi.
But it is real. Or it could be real. One day. Let’s hope not. The Road is a book that you will like a lot but not enjoy, a book you will be a long-time in forgetting, a book that you will read once with the conviction and energy of the fast-moving fire that consumed the world, but will never, ever want to read a second time. In The Road, you’ve experienced that miserable world once and you survived it. Will The Man and his son?
...less
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May 22
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Brian
added:
Ulysses (Modern Library)
by James Joyce
bookshelves:
tried-to-read-but-failed
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended for: Someone more ambitious than me.
read in May, 2008
Brian said:
"Ten pages a day. Wish me luck. . . .
UPDATE!!! I'm now forty-five pages in and find myself asking if this is something I really, really want to do. Because let me tell you, I aint digging it. Maybe I'm not intelligent, but reading this book seems ...more
Ten pages a day. Wish me luck. . . .
UPDATE!!! I'm now forty-five pages in and find myself asking if this is something I really, really want to do. Because let me tell you, I aint digging it. Maybe I'm not intelligent, but reading this book seems like traveling cross-country - at night - solely through the tops of trees. It's damn hard and ridiculous work, with nothing to gain from it other than the satisfaction of having done it.
I'm going to try and hang in there, but honestly, people, I'm not feeling very confident.
2nd UPDATE! I'm now 120 pages in. Surprised myself, fo' sho! For those of you that have been tracking my progress (I think there are maybe, like, two of you), the math will indicate that I haven't maintained my goal of ten pages a day. Probably averages out to maybe nine. Or eight. Or maybe it's seven. But I'm reading the thing still and, well, I've figured out the secret to reading it. Here it is: just read it. Don't try to figure anything out or understand anything anymore than you try to understand the million random thoughts that occur to you every day. The book is just like that, so accept it as I have had to do and then roll with it. Now that I've engaged the book a bit, I can say this - though I'm still not enjoying it like, say, I enjoy seven p.m. on a summer Saturday, I can see Joyce's genius. Don't understand that genius (for it takes one to understand one), but I recognize it all the same.
One thing I have found interesting in my reading is that the previous owner (I bought a used copy) has made notes throughout. Quite fun - and funny - to see them trying to grasp it all. Tellingly, the notes stop abruptly on page 169, with a red mark under the line "Hungry man is an angry man."
By the way, I read in a Goodreads review that someone had read Ulysses 20 times. I hope they are okay.
Think I'll have some chocolate milk now.
3rd UPDATE!!! I quit not long after the 2nd update. I tried. I really tried. But it just isn't for me just yet. Maybe in, oh, another 10 or 20 years I'll give it another shot. For all of you who have been so eagerly following my progress and awaiting good news (all, like, zero of you), I am sorry if I have disappointed you. :)...less
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Brian
added:
Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (Hardcover)
by Alex von Tunzelmann
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in May, 2008
Brian said:
"Am reading because I liked the colors on the dustjacket, am fascinated by the idea of India, sounds like an intriguing story, and I think Indian women are hot.
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March 02
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Brian
gave
to:
Blue Highways: A Journey into America (Paperback)
by William Least Heat Moon
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in January, 2007
Brian said:
"Whew. I finally finished it. Reading Blue Highways is, much like the circular trip Heat-Moon undertook around America, an involved, sometimes tiring, but ultimately satisfying, endeavor. Heat-Moon isn’t content to ride the roads, casually noting an...more
Whew. I finally finished it. Reading Blue Highways is, much like the circular trip Heat-Moon undertook around America, an involved, sometimes tiring, but ultimately satisfying, endeavor. Heat-Moon isn’t content to ride the roads, casually noting an occasional detail here and there. Nope. He gives you the obscure details and forgotten history of every little town he comes across, towns you and I have never heard of. Along the way he waxes poetic on that for which he is searching. And what is that, exactly? Well, he’s not sure. But discovering what it is is as much a part of his trip as is the search for it.
Clearly, much of the history of places he visited was compiled post-trip. Still, you get the feeling as you read that Heat-Moon must have made the entire trip at no more than six miles an hour with some magical book of knowledge on his dash that told him everything about everything he saw. At times, I felt like I was moving along at that speed as well. And though it grew tedious and tiresome and excessive at various times, I found each evening as Heat-Moon retired to the bunk in his van, “Ghost Dancing”, and I to my bed, that I was happy to have traveled those miles with him.
When reading this one, do as Heat-Moon did - give yourself plenty of time. You’ll reach the end when you reach the end.
...less
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February 20
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Brian
added:
The Notebook (Paperback)
by Nicholas Sparks
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Brian said:
"Yes, I read it. Whatever. So will you go away now?
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Brian
added:
The Knockout Artist (Paperback)
by Harry Crews
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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