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Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:19 pm
by Okri
Recently finished....
Nobody Movie, by Denis Johnson
Quick read. It ries to ape old style pulp and mostly succeeds. Johnson's prose alternates between the lacerating and the oblique. Needs more punch in the end and comes off as minor Elmore Leonard.
The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larson
Fantastic work with a bad ending. Every brilliant work of "children's literature" I read will simply be a sledgehammer against the Harry Potter phenomena. Artful, fascinating, discursive. The ending doesn't quite have the punch the book needs (Larson includes one element nearing the end that doesn't work and throws the whole thing askew) so it won't rank with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.
Edited By Okri on 1249777382
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:57 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
Good call on the Mandanipour, Okri. The cover caught my eye a few weeks back, and I'm in the middle of it now. A terrific read.
The Man Booker announced its longlist for the year and it seems to be a good list. They seemed to go for a mix of new talent and established greybeards. Four of the books are currently available here in Canada and I've read three of them (the underwhelming, perhaps not entirely deserving Toibin and Waters). Based on the Lessing Nobel, I would cynically pick William Trevor to win, simply because he is 81 and is already a five-time shortlisted writer, but we shall see.
Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:51 pm
by Okri
Read Brooklyn a while ago. Was very disappointed with it (and moreso because I had to pay overdue fines)
I much prefer The Little Stranger to Night Watch. I liked how she married the idea of Victorian Gothic to this very trenchant class study.
I only read a few pages of Man Gone Down when it came out a few years ago. I've been meaning to return to it.... eventually.
My favourite books so far from 2009 are Brothers by Yu Hua (winner of the Man Asian Literary Award) and Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour.
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 12:12 am
by Franz Ferdinand
He won't show up on the site with the other recently deceased, but I wanted to offer condolences for the loss of Frank McCourt, the author of "Angela's Ashes". He passed away at 78.
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:57 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
Funny you should mention it, I am actually in the middle of it. I took it on a flight with me and I devoured 300 pages of it, it is good but it's missing something "The Night Watch" had. Maybe I'll know when I finish it, but it is a good read. Also in the middle of Iain Pears' "Stone's Fall", I definitely want to get around to "An Instance of the Fingerpost", it is waiting on my shelf.
Recently for Booker potentials, I've also read Colm Toibin's "Brooklyn" earlier (hard to follow "The Master" for sure), Samantha Harvey's "The Wilderness", "Samantha Hunt's "The Invention of Everything Else", Patrick McCabe's "The Holy City", and Kamila Shamsie's "Burnt Shadows".
Have you read Michael Thomas's "Man Gone Down", the winner of the IMPAC Dublin Award? It is a fantastic read, not sure if it is empty rhetorical posturing or a work of immense lyrical genius, but it's one of the most powerful and gripping books I've read recently.
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:16 pm
by Okri
I'll wager on The Little Stranger making the shortlist. It's very good.
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:47 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
Still slogging through Infinite Jest, possibly slightly behind the 75-pages-per-week pace, still going from the laugh out loud funny to the befuddled "huh?" throughout.
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is finished. Wow. It's about all I can offer to add on this novel right now, it is a complex and fascinating read.
Booker season is almost upon us and I am looking forward to the slate this year, I hope it is better than last's!
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:25 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
I've read every single other Murakami, I guess I was letting my anticipation for Wind-Up Bird simmer for a while to get more out of it. It is just great so far. I also can't wait for his new novel to be translated and released here, it sounds fantastic.
Infinite Jest is about what I expected. I will just try to plow through it the first time, let myself get immersed without worrying about understanding it too much of it. So far I've found that a lot of the 200+ footnotes might be about pills, although the filmography of James O. Incandenza is just hilarious. There is a lot of comedy that I can appreciate, and his flights of rhetorical fancy aren't too out there. I am looking forward to being enriched by having read it ???
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:06 pm
by FilmFan720
flipp525 wrote:Franz Ferdinand wrote:I am also in the middle of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"; you can imagine the intellectual pounding my brain is getting right now!
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of the best books I've ever read. It's almost life-changing.
I just started it...it is great so far
Edited By FilmFan720 on 1245881203
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:47 am
by Damien
The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher. Some of the most beautiful, most evocative prose ever written.
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:09 am
by cam
I have been doing a lot of reading--some political commentary, so biographies--but mainly during all this I am reading detective novels: Henning Mankells' Kurt Wallander; Peter Robinson's Alan Banks; Robert Crais' Elvis Cole. I have read a number of each author and character.
For summer reading, every character above is memorable. There is nothing more enjoyable than an afternoon nap preceded by a hunk of one of these.
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:40 pm
by flipp525
Franz Ferdinand wrote:I am also in the middle of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"; you can imagine the intellectual pounding my brain is getting right now!
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of the best books I've ever read. It's almost life-changing.
How is Infinite Jest? I own it, too, just never got around to reading it.
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:32 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
http://infinitesummer.org
A quest to read and finish the late David Foster Wallace's behemoth "Infinite Jest" over a three month period. I had no idea about this when I planned my year's reading list (reading that entire thing over May? Pure folly!), but it gave me an excuse (and a fairly firm time period) to get around the book in earnest and attempt to scale it.
Since his new book was recently published in Japan, with no date for a translation set for N. America, I have decided to tackle my final unread Murakami. So along with "Infinite Jest", I am also in the middle of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"; you can imagine the intellectual pounding my brain is getting right now!
Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 10:38 pm
by Franz Ferdinand
I've been reading Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" and have found it an idiosyncratic and densely-packed historical tome, but altogether enjoyable. My yearly reading list took a bit of a hit this past month as I have been unable to finish Dante's "Divine Comedy" and am due to start "Ulysses" tomorrow. We shall see! Also picked up "The Grapes of Wrath" and plan to read it sometime.
Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 10:15 pm
by Penelope
Well, I finished Jane Eyre and loved it; easy to see how it was an influence on Daphne de Maurier's Rebecca. Also just finished Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, which I enjoyed, though not as much as his The Mayor of Casterbridge. I've put both the 1944 version of Jane Eyre (dir Robert Stevenson, starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles) and the 1967 version of Madding Crowd (dir John Schlesinger, starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Peter Finch and Terence Stamp) at the top of my Netflix queue.
Just started reading Liberators: South America's Savage Wars of Freedom 1810-1830 (2000) by Robert Harvey--only 50 pages in and I already find it to be a marvelous, fascinating read.