What Are You Reading?

[sozamora]

I'd love to find out that this is the inspiration for the movie 'King Ralph' with John Goodman.

[walto]

It's not as long as that pic makes it look. About 420 pages in my copy. I think there were financial reasons for putting out "Three volume novels" back then.

[drumsolo]

Just finishing Tune In by Mark Lewisohn, volume 1 of a planned 3 part bio of the Beatles The first volume is close to 1000 pages I think (I have a kindle version, so not sure what it is in real book form) and it only goes through 1962!!! Amazingly detailed and researched AND a fun read. 5 Montes.

My problem with biographies is getting through the first part where you have to read about the subject's family before the subject was born. I got the Kindle sample and found myself having to plow through that. Anyway, I might still have to give it a shot and buy the whole book since you and many others seem to like it and I did like the beginning part that captured John and Paul becoming friends.

[stonemonkts]

Just finished Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" re-printed in an Oct '13 New Yorker, not realizing until a few pages in (duh) that the fine movie called "Away From Her" starring Julie Christie is an adaptation of said story. The story is well written, but the film is even better, a rare thing.

[steve(thelil)]

Just finishing Tune In by Mark Lewisohn, volume 1 of a planned 3 part bio of the Beatles The first volume is close to 1000 pages I think (I have a kindle version, so not sure what it is in real book form) and it only goes through 1962!!! Amazingly detailed and researched AND a fun read. 5 Montes.

My problem with biographies is getting through the first part where you have to read about the subject's family before the subject was born. I got the Kindle sample and found myself having to plow through that. Anyway, I might still have to give it a shot and buy the whole book since you and many others seem to like it and I did like the beginning part that captured John and Paul becoming friends.

I hear you . I never hesitate to skip over parts of bios about the subject's family before his/her birth.

This book has so much info on stuff that you thought you knew or never thought anyone could research that it was almost thrilling. It's very long and I loved being able to read it for awhile. I actually felt a little withdrawal when it ended.

[timoleon]

i enjoy postwar-a history of europe since 1945 written by the unfortunately gone early british historian tony judt.
his analysis is deep and at a big amount fair to all the participants in that huge,confused and often bitter salad which the european countries form.

[sozamora]

Tom Reiss - The Black Count: Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

Really good. Very well researched and Reiss' novelistic and often subjective writing style is well suited for the fascinating subject matter. The life of Alex Dumas was just as exciting as his son's novels. And what a badass.

[uli]

Tom Reiss - The Black Count: Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

Really good. Very well researched and Reiss' novelistic and often subjective writing style is well suited for the fascinating subject matter. The life of Alex Dumas was just as exciting as his son's novels. And what a badass.

Just finished this too. Agreed very entertaining read.


now reading



and re reading

[Monte Smith]

Professor Borges. I got myself this book for Christmas. You guys didn't get me anything! It's a transcript of a class that Borges held at the University of Buenos Aires in 1966, after ten years of being on the English and philosophy faculty. I started in at Class #5 on the Vikings while I sat at Books and Books in Coral Gables, Miami. Couldn't put it down. The course is heavy on Anglo-Saxon and jumps right from that to Samuel Johnson, then on to the Romantics. No Shakespeare, no Milton, little Chaucer, little Dickens. He has multiple lectures on Dante Rossetti and William Morris. Two on Robert Louis Stevenson, so it's an unusual selection of authors for such a broad course. His enthusiasm and erudition and civility all impress. This was a good class. I'm ready for the final.

So many fun details. Here's one. In a class devoted to Rossetti, he introduces a poem that has an erotic theme and says that Rossetti liked such things. He says he doesn't know if this kind of stuff is popular for the students now, but Rossetti liked eroticism. I love the fact that Borges could sit in a class full of 1966 coeds and not know if eroticism was "in."

[walto]

Shit! I was going to get you that book!

[Monte Smith]

Ha.

[steve(thelil)]

I actually did get for you. Fuck UPS.



Although i blame Stallone.

[Monte Smith]

I don't know what to say, guys. I'm overwhelmed. My birthday is in July.

[walto]

Nothing ever seems to work out right for me.

[sozamora]

Olaf Stapledon - Last and First Men

An early philosophical science fiction novel. Pretty epic in scope. Perhaps the longest chronology of any book I've read - it expands over thousands of million of years across 18 human species and three planets. Some pretty interesting ideas and conceptions of humanity. Stapledon, being a philosopher, takes a very Hegelian approach to creating the future history of humanity. Unfortunately, Stapledon is only a passable writer of fiction, and it's one of those cases where narrative skill doesn't match up with the ideas.



Michael Cisco - The Divinity Student

This was one was insane. It's a short book, but it's so dense and packs so much imagery. Pretty pointless to focus on the convoluted plot - this one is about conveying a mood an indescribable eerie feeling with more questions than answers. Though very different in intent, plot and style, it reminded me for some reason of Gene Wolfe's cryptic Book of the New Sun

[walto]

Unfortunately, Stapledon is only a passable writer of fiction

Not considered much of a philosopher either, as far as I know.

[Monte Smith]

Last night I read BOXERS, which is one half of a pair of graphic novels set in the era of the Boxer Rebellion in China (turn of the last century). BOXERS looks at the story thru the eyes of the nativist uprising involving the strange tai chi/kung fu cult, the Society of the Harmonious Fists, as they battle against imperialist aggressors. SAINTS looks at the story from the point of view of missionaries and their local congregations. BOXERS is a beautiful fusion of American superhero stories and Chinese opera fantasy. I really enjoyed it.

[sozamora]

Unfortunately, Stapledon is only a passable writer of fiction

Not considered much of a philosopher either, as far as I know.

Probably not, but the book didn't need anything more than mass-consumption pop philosophy. For that, I think he does fine.

[Jazzooo]

11/22/63

I almost wish the author wasn't Stephen King, because I know it will stop some people from reading it. It almost stopped me.

But I can't deny that this is his best book since the stand. And there are 80% fewer annoying Stephen King-isms in this wonderful, imaginative, and thorough novel about time travel.

The protagonist discovers a way to travel back, each time to the exact same date and location in 1958. Guided by his dying friend, he travels back with the idea of first confirming that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and then… Preventing the Kennedy assassination.

Lots of things ensue. A really good book that I couldn't put down.

[walto]

????

Man, you are cryptic, jazzzooo.

[Jazzooo]

Sorry! Posting from my iPhone via dictation when I should be sleeping seems to be a consistent problem. It is fixed now, but the book is 11/22/63.

[Chazro]

Coincidentally, I just read 11/23/63 last month. I also thought it was very good. As I was 10 yrs old back than all his remembrances of the era really resonated (he basically feels it was a better time to exist, I'd agree!). His thoughts of our alternate future were intense, scary, and fun! I think the last book I read by King was Pet Semetary decades ago. When he started releasing books at ridiculously fast clips amidst reports of heavy use of ghost writing I stopped being a fan. Any other must-read King recommendations?

[Monte Smith]

Pet Semetary is probably King's finest work. It and The Stand are also quite good.

You're trying to trap Rita with the grammar of that last sentence. She'll still be able to nail you in that you should italicize titles or something.

[bluenoter]

Pet Semetary is probably King's finest work. It and The Stand are also quite good.

You're trying to trap Rita with the grammar of that last sentence. She'll still be able to nail you in that you should italicize titles or something.

[Jazzooo]

It and The Stand