On Paths Unknown discussion
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I've been curious about "Like Water for Chocolate" for some time. I'd be willing to give it a go, for what it's worth. Besides Neverwhere I don't really have anything on my plate, so I'm easy.
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Derek, I've started that one a few times, and I've never managed to actually get 'into' it. But then, I had started Neverwhere twice before, with the same result, but now I'm really loving it. Have you read The Blind Assassin already?
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Oh cool, in that case, I'll make a thread for it. When would suit you? Btw, so aren't you going to do In the Night Garden with us?
In fact, I am going to read Night Garden. I, uh, meant besides that. :PI've read Oryx and Crake, and it's a lovely work. Completely worth reading. It was, for me, my first introduction to Atwood, and one of the better examples of the "decaying society" subgenre.
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Puddin, I'll open a thread for Like Water. Maybe we'll be lucky and pick up followers for it.
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Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "No, I haven't read The Blind Assassin, so I don't care which (except that I have Oryx and Crake."I've read Oryx and Crake and its two sequels and would be happy to discuss it/them.
However, The Blind Assassin is quite near the top of my TBR...
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It's all good and well that we decide to read something between just 2 or 3 of us, but as for myself, i really don't mind exactly which Margaret Atwood i need next - except that i have been wanting to read The Blind Assasin for the longest time, plus I own Oryx and Crake, and been wondering about them too... so.
The nice thing about polls on GR is that you can make comments at the bottom of the poll, and your comments could possibly sway other people's voting, so there's indeed a form of feedback available there that goes deeper than just casting a vote.
I've also been realizing that we need to do a proper discussion schedule thread, like we had at Mievillians - sorry, it's just that, eventually at Mievillians, we eventually had gazillions of thread to wade through, and I'd really like us to do things a bit more economically this time... so i thought we could wait and only start threads as the need for them becomes apparent. But of course, we do need a schedule, so I'll make it shortly.....
I recently re-read Oryx and Crake so I could remember it enough to enjoy the rest of the trilogy (The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam). The second and third books carry forward with many of the same characters, and they subverted a lot of what the first book left me thinking about them. I guess for that reason I'd vote for Blind Assassin, or alternatively, to read all three Maddadams (not too ridiculous--they go by fast).
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Noted, Poingu, thanks! Will include all of those. Hmm, ... you say it's good to read the 3 MaddAddam's close together? The thing is to get a taste of an author to see if you like them first.... but of course, we could always do the first one, and then members can decide if they want to do the rest as well. Something like that...
The thing is to get a taste of an author to see if you like them first.... That makes sense. I'm biased because I loved the second and third books much more than Oryx and Crake, but Oryx and Crake also stands on its own. The stories of the main characters wind through all three books so I definitely found it helpful to refresh my memory of the first book before going forward with the others.
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I hadn't even known a secong sequel was published. I still have my hardcover copy of The Year of the Flood, and I do remember it leaving the story somewhat unfinished. It's funny, because I have read other Atwood since. Well! Now I know!
I think that while you can skip Oryx and Crake, you do miss something if you haven't read it. It's fairly typical for its genre, but it's a particularly well-written example.
Traveller wrote: "..so I wonder if we can be naughty and skip Oryx and Crake... :P"It could be done. Books 1 and 2 cover the same temporal ground from different points of view. It might break a rule though. It also might make Book 2 totally incomprehensible, which might be fun in its own way. It's hard to say. I remember reading a philosopher who argued that people should open books at random and begin right there, but I don't remember who it was who wrote that, and I've only tried that strategy, myself, on books I don't want to read all the way through to begin with.
Poingu wrote: "I'm biased because I loved the second and third books much more than Oryx and Crake, but Oryx and Crake also stands on its own."Just to be contrary, I loved the first two (Oryx and Crake, then Year of the Flood), but not the third (MaddAddam).
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Ok, I've got in my library the MaddAdam trilogy and The Blind Assassin so whichever book/s win I would be able to join in.
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Okay, I was thinking of inviting Bibi Netanyahu to read Dune with me. Dune, some may gasp? No, I have never read such. Maybe I should rethink my plan. I still wish to read Dune.
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Heh, yeah, I wouldn't exactly have associated you with Dune... ;)
Well, Jonfaith, please feel welcome to create a thread in the same folder as Water for Chocolate is. (In other words, the folder that this thread is in.)
Jonfaith wrote: "Okay, I was thinking of inviting Bibi Netanyahu to read Dune with me. Dune, some may gasp? No, I have never read such. Maybe I should rethink my plan. I still wish to read Dune."You absolutely should read Dune. Everybody should have read Dune by now.
I'm long overdue for a reread of Dune, and wouldn't mind a push...
Jonfaith wrote: "Okay, I was thinking of inviting Bibi Netanyahu to read Dune with me. Dune, some may gasp? No, I have never read such. Maybe I should rethink my plan. I still wish to read Dune."Have you been reading Manny's review?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show......"
Aha! So that's where it suddenly comes from - I was wondering from whence the sudden Dune revival. Could have guessed rabble-rousing Manny was at the bottom of it! LOL. If he manages to fire up enough people, then we're going to have to host a Dune event, Charlie Brown...
It's an old review (but, I see, recently updated), but mention of Netanyahu reminded me of Manny's oil/middle-east related review.
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I can't provide any middle-eastern context (other than from Manny's review), but it is a book I want to read at some stage.
I'd like to point out that at least one person on Manny's review points out that it was written during Vietnam. The Fremen are not Arabs, not Muslim. They're "Zensunni", which is essentially to say "everybody with an axe to grind".
Weeping Jesus caught in flagrante delicto with my local Iman and at Passover, for the sake of March of Dimes. I larded my proposal because of the unseemly nature of diplomacy. I love Manny's review. I think it was one of the reasons I bought the novel a year ago.I need rest, a holiday -- maybe some time listening to Lester Young and some actual warm weather.
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Just the first book or the first three! But I still have my original copy of Dune. I don't think the Middle Eastern context holds up, just from memory. But I'd have to revisit the book to be sure. Somehow that just doesn't fit what I remember of it.
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Oh, would you like to revisit it? :P If there is even the teeniest possibility that you might, then please add thyself posthaste, to this thread, Melinda Jane, to relieve poor Jonfaith's despair that anybody will ever join him... https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
What I'm hoping for is not a geo-political approach to Dune but one larded equally with medieval and philosophical filigree.And as Traveler noted, I am hoping to ease my despair.
Melinda Jane wrote: "Just the first book or the first three! But I still have my original copy of Dune. I don't think the Middle Eastern context holds up, just from memory. But I'd have to revisit the book to be sure..."I didn't see it either during my many readings as a young adult. But much later while my wife was reading it, she kept saying, "This is all Turkish vocabulary!"
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You've convinced me with that to try and advertise more vigorously for this. Certainly if we couch it in those terms, well -then- it really starts to sound like an On Paths book. Right, so shall we set if for March 20? Everybody okay with that?
On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
The Year of the Flood (other topics)MaddAddam (other topics)
The Year of the Flood (other topics)
MaddAddam (other topics)
The Blind Assassin (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Laura Esquivel (other topics)Melania G. Mazzucco (other topics)
Max Frisch (other topics)
I will do an example. I would like to do a re-read of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel soon, but I'm not sure if it would be main discussion material. Would anybody be interested in reading that with me?
Other books I have lined up that it would be nice to have company with, are Vita by Melania G. Mazzucco and Andorra, a play by Max Frisch