Chaos Reading discussion
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What are you reading right now?
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Ouch, this was on my TBR, now maybe not so much. If it hadn't apparently managed to push all your Australia buttons, do you think you still would have given it one star, or would it have mustered maybe two?
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Ouch, this was o..."
If I hadn't known just how much of the "factual" information was spurious, I may not have hated it quite as much, but it's hard to look past a deliberate slight on someone else's culture (the "Black Boy" thing) when the author knows it's offensive.
The other thing that bothered me about the Australian stuff was that it was presented as a series of facts, rather than Australia simply being the setting for the story. In the story, whoever is controlling the game provides the players with gameboys that give them background to the place for survival purposes in a lesson format: there's a Wildlife Lesson, Hunting Lesson, Introduction to the "Myths of the Aborigines" etc. If you're going to list "facts" you should probably at least google them!
At my most generous and ignorant though, this book would never rate more than a 1. The stupidity of the protagonist alone would ensure that. For example: When you see two people in the bush covered head-to-toe in camouflage paint & wielding weapons, and when one punches the other to the ground, your first thought probably shouldn't be, "I'm sure they're just irritable from hunger."
Yes, that's an actual quote.
Mod
That's a great title."
It's a gorgeous cover too:
I am currently reading Eden by David Holleyand I must say that I am loving this book. It's not too long and the pace is really fast. The characters are well defined and the plot keeps me wanting to know what is going to happen. I am not sure how this is going to end.
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It probably won't be me, since I've still got
The Soft Machine on the shelf to read (not to mention Junky and Naked Lunch....!)
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I was crazy about WSB when I was in high school, and I read everything he wrote; some, like Naked Lunch, multiple times. As an adult, I never really got back into his books. I read a comment from Joe Lansdale several years ago saying the main virtue of Burroughs was getting 15 year olds excited about language, a comment which was pretty accurate in my case.
For anyone wanting to experience WSB for the first time, I would recommend either Naked Lunch, since it's the ground-breaking work that started it all, or Cities of the Red Night, which a lot of people think is his best. And I still think Cronenberg's film 'Naked Lunch' is great.
I've only read Naked Lunch and was mostly indifferent towards it. I mean, I get that it was groundbreaking and all, but I kind of got over the whole shocking-for-shock's-sake thing when I was about 16. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it at that age. It just didn't engage me that much.I'll have to try Cities of the Red Night on your recommendation, though.
I literally just started Dead Until Dark. Its something light and easy to read (for me) until I can find something beefier and more significant. I have a ton of books on my Kindle but nothing has really sparked my interest. I may try and start The Pillars of the Earth since I rather enjoy Ken Follett for some reason.
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I got this in softcover, which was incredibly disappointing becuse they got rid of the best book cover ever and used what might be the worst book cover ever.
Finished Palimpsest. Still wading through Perdido Street Station. While this is more accessible than 'Embassytown', I still getting side railed by all the various weird inventions, strange associations etc. I know this is spec fiction at what may be its most inventive but I am beginning to think I am just not ready for this totally immersed in the unknowable process.. Also reading Me Before You which is very good and moving right along.
When a friend has read one of your favorite books, then gives you one of their favorite books and says it gets better by the 6th one, am I obligated to read the other books? I have started Storm Front. Its not terrible. Its most readable.Just not sure if I want to commit to a 25 book series. (I really don't know how many books there are) Terry Goodkind could have wrapped everything up by book 5...I gave up on that series !
Whitney wrote: I got this in softcover, which was incredibly disappointing becuse they got rid of the best book cover ever and used what might be the worst book cover ever. That is crappy cover art, especially compared to the cool graphics of the other one! But the book is great, I loved it.
I'm just finishing
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families It's gut-wrenching, there's no way around it. I'll need some levity after that, so I'll have to sandwich in some light fiction before starting Gone Girl which I just downloaded.
I have to say, I loved the cover art for The Sisters Brothers much more than I liked the actual book. I seem to be the only one among my friends who was bored by it, though.Jennifer- I've heard so many good things about the Dresden Files series (including that it gets better with each book), so I keep meaning to try Storm Front. I have to finish some other series before I start a new one, though! Looks like the series is up to 14 books. Not tooooo bad...
![[Name Redacted] | 139 comments](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1347082397p1/287915.jpg)
Finished The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (the takeaway for me was that prohibition could have been an excellent excuse for a massive eugenic purge, because people were willing to drink things they KNEW were deadly and the govt. repeatedly poisoned the alcohol supply, but thankfully the pro-eugenics folks were all pro-booze), Black Sun Rising (which is so full of great ideas but so lacking on execution), Power Girl (an interesting retrospective), 52, Vol. 1 and 52, Vol. 2 (which made up for the horrible Infinite Crisis that preceded it).
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I've started Gone Girl for the group read and am about to try and select something as Kindle reading. Hmmm....
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sure, I know it's been proven a fraud; it's just that my parents had some friends who were really into this book in the 19..."
I have some serious doubts that anyone who wasn't there at the time could even remotely comprehend what anyone saw in these books. I read it in the early 80's when the debunking was going on, and had encountered enough of the 'easily digested spiritualism and if it's native it must be profound' crowd to understand (and be disgusted by) the appeal.
Finished Storm Front. Was not bad. I did write a short review. Now onto Dead of Night I loved Jonathan Maberry Heath Ledger books, they were a fun read. Lets see how this one is.
Mod
I'll put a spoiler warning on this excerpt, but it's not part of the actual narrative. Just an illustrative fable. But it does give a really good sense of the style and type of subject matter. And should appeal to anyone who loves robot stories:
(view spoiler)
Whitney wrote: (of Carlos Castaneda) "I have some serious doubts that anyone who wasn't there at the time could even remotely comprehend what anyone saw in these books. I read it in the early 80's when the debunking was going on, and had encountered enough of the 'easily digested spiritualism and if it's native it must be profound' crowd to understand (and be disgusted by) the appeal. "I read them in the 70s. At the time I wasn't hearing "fraud", but I was never into psychedelic drugs and I always considered them just wonderful fantasy (though my wife still won't let me put them on the Fantasy bookshelf).
@Ruby Silently and Very Fast looked interesting, and in searching for it, I came across:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valen...
Oh, wow. Audio & text versions available online.
Currently reading The Dogs of Riga. Why do I let my wife talk me into these depressing Scandinavian mysteries... ? Wallander is nothing without Brannagh! Can't wait to get back to my purely escapist rereading of Andre Norton's entire Witch World series, though I might throw Silently and Very Fast in there first.
A. wrote: I've now started Oryx and Crake and although I'm only on page 38, I can tell I'm going to like it.That was my second Margaret Atwood; I read it years ago and I still have some scenes from it in my head. (That's a good thing!)
Just finished We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families : Stories from Rwanda. Very impressed with the incisive journalism; I was planning to read one ofJean Hatzfeld's books to compare, but i can't bear to just now, so I picked up Riven Rock for a necessary change of venue.
And I still have Selected Poems and Letters on the nightstand; I am reading it in tiny increments. I think I love about 60% of the poems, dislike about 20%, and don't understand the rest.;~}
Derek wrote: "Whitney wrote: (of Carlos Castaneda) "I have some serious doubts that anyone who wasn't there at the time could even remotely comprehend what anyone saw in these books. I read it in the early 80's ..."I'm thinking of reading Carlos Casteneda..missed him back in the day. Dreams intrigue me, in general, and I want to keep open about all the possibilities of the writer's intentions.
In the 70s, I called it Fantasy. Now I think I'd call it Magical Realism, though I'm not entirely sure the Magical Realists would agree.
Ruby wrote: "Kindle read selected. It's a short one, but another intriguing sci-fi. With lots of dream imagery. And a sentient house-god/robot. Yeah, THAT old chestnut: Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. V..."I've heard good things. I might give that a shot!
Mod
I've heard good things. I might give that a shot! ..."
Totally. It's really lovely, although I've only been reading snippets between reading the group read book.
Alan wrote: "Ficciones by Borges: "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." The resistible opening sentence of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
I don't know what you just said.
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Ruby Wrote: "I d..."
I still don't know what you just said :)
Totally coincidentally, I "read" my first short story by Borges today - Shakespeare's Memory - via a New Yorker podcast. Review and link here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I happened upon it after reading an old CR post about this podcast, which I listened to first: Ben Marcus reading A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro. I really liked it: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Ruby wrote: "I still don't know what you just said :)""Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a story in Ficciones, and "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." is apparently its (ir)resistible opening sentence. Personally, I can usually resist that sort of sentence. It sounds Poe-etic.
I guess my mind's just too literal - I assumed it involves the actual reflection of mirror-text from an encyclopedia.
After about some time off reading (culprit: new guitar) I picked up Herzog again after a while. I also gave an audio book a go last week. The God Delusion. I discovered I prefer reading for myself!
Finished Me Before You and really enjoyed this book. For once, the hype was true. Now finishing Perdido Street Station and Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand the later is light reading kind of like an afternoon snack. Also reskimming Gone Girl in preparation for the group discusion..
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This was one of my favorite NY Books podcasts, for all the reasons you said! (Although I never thought about it enough to articulate so well). My other favorite is Salman Rushdie reading Barthelme's 'The Bodyguard'. Too lazy to find the link right now, but worth a search.
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Ooh - I saw that one and very nearly listened to it. I wish I'd clicked that link instead of Borges! I'm pretty sure it was an old post of yours that led me to the Ben Marcus link too :)
FYI ALL - I've seen a couple of posts lately about books that aren't on GR. You can actually add the book entries into GR yourself if they're not already there.
Finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (meh), 52, Vol. 3 (neat!), M Is for Magic (which had "The Price", which ameliorates the fact that the book contains stories previously published in other books), and Batman: The Killing Joke (better than I remembered!).Halfway through The Twelfth Imam and The Hero of Ages.
A. wrote I've read two of Jean Hatzfeld's books. Both of them were equally depressing but for different reasons. Alan wrote:Have you read Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda written by Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire,...
Thanks for the suggestions. Dallaire is mentioned and quoted in Gourevitch's book, and I've read several interviews with him in the French press. He has much to say, as a first-hand witness and is rightfully bitter about the lack of response to his alerts. I'll get around to both authors, and i also plan on reading a couple accounts by Tutsi survivors. But...not...just...yet! I do follow the very very slow progress of the Tribunal.
Right now, I'm reading Riven Rock and thoroughly enjoying it. Love T.C. Boyle!
I ended up in the hospital with an unidentifiable virus that was doing me in. Since I have COPD and am not all that well it took afew days to sort things out and in the meantime I got the ecopy of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief and this book is giving me a whole new picture of the 'Golden' age of Sci Fi. It seems that a large segment of the Sci Fi community was quite taken with Hubbards beliefs, histories etc. taken to the point where they believed him. I am hooked on this book. Ruby, if you read this, I am just now home and going over the Floating World discussion.
Finished The Twelfth Imam, which turned out to be an Evangelical Christian story. Who knew? I honestly feel it was too well-written, too well-paced, filled with too many interesting ideas and observations on US/Middle Eastern relations, to be what it actually turned out to be. If he hadn't shoehorned in some ham-fisted and flat depictions of Christianity, it could have been something pretty special.Also finished The Four Loves, which I had never before read and which is probably the best series of meditations on love and friendship since Late Antiquity.
Reading Thirteen here. 1/2 way through. I really like it thus far. Lets hope he keeps up the momentum.
Finished The Willows by Algernon Blackwood and Inkheart by Cornelia FunkeNow reading:Cover Her Face by PD James and The Lost World by A C Doyle
Mark wrote: "Finished Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman."How was that? It sounds interesting.
I just started "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. great so far!
Mod
Also hoping to finish off one of my half-read paper books that have been accumulating: Wool Omnibus, Fragile Things, Le potentiel érotique de ma femme.
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That's a great title.