What Are You Reading 2014 - Page 48
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kushm4sta
United States8878 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21242 Posts
On July 18 2014 13:45 kushm4sta wrote: so you don't like him but you are somehow the world's number 1 junot diaz expert? Your jimmies sound rustled. | ||
ZenithM
France15952 Posts
It was good and I recommend it, although (don't read the spoiler if you don't want to be spoiled, it's spoiling alright ;D) + Show Spoiler + I found some of the characters quite bland. Vin and Sazed were very likeable, but Elend, essentially a lesser Kelsier was just boring. | ||
Wesso
Netherlands1245 Posts
On July 18 2014 22:44 ZenithM wrote: Just finished the Mistborn trilogy, from Brandon Sanderson. Don't forget to read Mistborn: The Alloy of Law, it might be the best in the Mistborn world. | ||
ComaDose
Canada10343 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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farvacola
United States18768 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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ForTehDarkseid
8139 Posts
Not his greatest work, somewhat uneven storytelling, slowly developing plot, repetitive narrative and cooking descriptions included, but full of quirky and funny dialogues, non-trivial methaphores, interesting character stereotypes, and most important detail of all - it was written in less than 6 months, that's bloody impressive if you ask me. I recommend this book if you aren't a snob and same slowpoke as me. Half-way through Didn't watch the Oscar-awarded film yet, but the book is fucking masterpiece. If the schools were any kind of decent, this novel would be included in compulsory reading list - the character work is amazing, the narrative is witty and gripping, and the story itself could be interpreted in a several, totally different ways - I monstrously dig that kind of approach in fiction. Anyone knows any similar stories (about living in a close commune of people who are considered socially abnormal) ? | ||
IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
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babylon
8765 Posts
Now if only she could work on her pacing. >.< | ||
corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On July 26 2014 15:42 dmnum wrote: Proust really knocked it out of the park in Intermittences of the Heart. So beautifully sad, tears rose to my eyes when Françoise spoke about the hero's grandmother. And the apple trees in bloom...so good. Wow, you're going pretty fast ! You should have finished by the end of summer Finally finished Essay 2. Was a breeze once through that Raymond Sebond stuff. Montaigne is a nice guy out of his dogmatism suck so let's be catholic ideas, which Pascal did a lot better anyway after. Jacques le fatalist was simply excellent, very funny and entertaining, a pity Diderot kinda finished his story :p Finished The Tartar Steppes. Was suprised by how well Buzzati wrote this one, quite a good book, a bit too transparent in its intent sometimes, certainly enjoyable but not quite as good as The Opposing Shore. Also finished Three Tales (Flaubert). Quite a good book too, short to read, A Simple Heart is really nice. Started Bouvard et Pécuchet, We and The World as Will and Representation. Holidays <3 | ||
Yurie
11533 Posts
I just finished up the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. The book was mostly well written but I find myself only partially liking the mindset it tries to capture. More Winnie the Pooh is always good, a blast of the past. | ||
dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On July 28 2014 06:43 corumjhaelen wrote: Wow, you're going pretty fast ! You should have finished by the end of summer World Cup and TI4 slowed me down too much. Now that I'm at home with nothing to do all day I believe I'll finish it by next week. It's such a deep and nice book, I expect to take even more out of it on my second read. | ||
corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On July 29 2014 04:59 dmnum wrote: World Cup and TI4 slowed me down too much. Now that I'm at home with nothing to do all day I believe I'll finish it by next week. It's such a deep and nice book, I expect to take even more out of it on my second read. A fast reader, you are ! I loved Du côté des chez Swann more when I read it after having finished the whole novel, so I think you're probably right about that second reading^^ I'll have to start A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs once again one of these days... I'm really happy you enjoy it, my constant comments about Proust might have helped somehow. PS : best character is obviously Charlus ! | ||
packrat386
United States5077 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + And my first book for this year, Love and Math: This was a birthday gift from my parents and I’m halfway in. It’s partly a biography of a young mathematician overcoming discrimination and finding his passion in soviet Russia. The other part is a sort of an explanation as to why he enjoys math so much. I find the biographical element really interesting, but so far the math has not been terribly engaging. I understand that he’s trying to avoid the kind of nitty gritty detail that makes people hate math in school, but it often leaves me feeling like it hasn’t really been explained. We’ll see how the rest goes. Happy New Year Folks! Finished: Love and Math This book could have been 2 books, one of which I would gladly read, and one of which I would gladly leave on the shelf. The far more interesting part of this book was the biography of the author, who beat the odds and anti-semitism of his home country (soviet russia) to become a mathemetician. His story of working on mathematical discoveries as a side job and sneaking into the best university to read papers and attend lectures, was compelling and interesting. On the other had his presentation of mathematics was largely boring. I get what feels like a real sense of the passion that he has for math, but I find that his descriptions are too general for me to feel like they've been really explained. Part of my distaste may also stem from the fact that I don't find discussion of these sorts of concepts that interesting to begin with, so it would take a lot for the author to win me over. I would recommend the book to someone who really enjoys abstract math, but otherwise just get a good biography instead. Next I'm going to read The Stranger Since a lot of people on here seem to like it (I'm looking at you corumjhaelen). Should be good! Finished: The Stranger Excellent book. I had read a little bit of existentialism before this, so I wasn't unprepared for the content. That said the presentation was great. I really loved the descriptions of the protagonist just experiencing life in the moment. I don't think I need to give a detailed review of this book since half of the people here seem to have read it but, 5/5 would binge read again. I ditched sixty stories because it didn't look very good in the library (sorry sam). Instead I picked up This Side of Paradise I've heard from some that it is actually better than gatsby. Should be good. Finished: This Side of Paradise Quite a good book. My major criticism is that the plot doesn't move very well, but otherwise the writing is excellent. The portrait of a lost young man hits close to home. decided to pick up the screenplay, The Seventh Seal I've always wanted to see the movie, but never have. My uncle gave me the book. Should be good! Finished: The Seventh Seal Pretty short, but also pretty good. Really left me wanting to see the movie. I also enjoyed the mildly existential overtones. Not a whole lot to say about this other than that the imagery was amazing and the story itself was the good kind of heavy. On the topic of existential overtones, I picked up except in its The Fall because I'm reading the English version (even I'm not that pompous). Should be good! Finished: The Fall Another excellent book. I'm genuinely sorry that I didn't start reading Camus' work earlier after having read this. I found the narrative style really cool (always being talked to about the past, makes it seem like an oral history). I also enjoyed the wholehearted endorsement of brothels in this book, all of my friends enjoyed hearing about the feeling of satisfaction that comes from lying drunk between 2 sleeping prostitutes. Great book. I picked up Across the River and Into the Trees because I'm on a quest to read everything that hemingway ever wrote. Should be good! Finished: Across the River and Into the Trees This book was quite good. The standard stiff drinks, beautiful women, and maimed soldiers that I've come to expect from Hemingway. I think this book was interesting because of the extent to which his warriors were removed from their war. It reminded me a lot of some of the Nick Adams stories in that the colonel finds that he can never really escape his profession. A good read if you want a more hipstery selection of Hemingway's work. Speaking of hipstery, I've picked for my next book The Torrents of Spring. Its Hemingway's first piece of published fiction, and that last of Hemingway's non-posthumous novels that I haven't read. Should be good. Forgot to update, but a few days ago I Finished: The Torrents of Spring This book was sort of weird. To me it seemed that Hemingway was poking fun at some of the tropes of "lost generation" writing. His characters make numerous references to Paris although they have been there only briefly and many have a massive admiration for continental culture that they don't actually understand. They also tend to heavily overvalue "authentic living" (one his characters prasies pump making factories for about a page and a half), and Hemingway includes numerous asides about his current position in the world of professional writing. It was enjoyable, but a bit strange since it was written before a lot of the works that it seems to mock, and many of the tropes that it pokes fun at are employed in his later works. Anyway, for something new and interesting, I picked up a 110 year old copy of The Count of Montecristo. Should be good. Finished: The Count of Monte Cristo (Vol 1) Holy shit, there are 2 volumes O_o That said, this book as been really fun, I like the adventure feeling and the verbal smack-downs from the count. Its kind of interesting as well to see what the attitudes were toward things like medicine and race at the time. The second volume is supposed to be rife with vegeance, so I can't wait to pick that up, but first an interlude. I picked up Moonraker Its one of the Bond books that I haven't yet read since it wasn't in the anthology that I had. Can't wait to get my spy novel fix! Finished: Moonraker The book was pretty good. I was super busy this last week so it took me a while to read, but I really did enjoy it. I thought it was kind of interesting in this book to see how little the Bond of the book is like Bond in the movies + Show Spoiler + I've written about this before, but there is very little shooting and fighting. Mostly Bond plays cards, snoops around, and hits on any woman in the vicinity. I don't think he even fires his gun in this moive Picked up Count of Monte Cristo: Part 2 Should be good. Finished: The Count of Monte Cristo Finally. Exams and projects really killed my free time these last few weeks. This book was pretty awesome. I really liked all of the focus on honor and the intricacies of parisian society. I also kind of enjoyed the way that Dantes was like a 19th century batman. Really fun read, I highly recommend it to anyone with a lot of time. Picked up Snow Falling on Cedars My dad really liked this book and I need something to read at baseball games. Should be good! Finished: Snow Falling on Cedars This book was really good. It had all the classic elements of a book about war and the toll it takes on people, plus the detective/crime novel thing going on. It was a really fun read, and definitely a page turner. Since I'm on books my dad liked, I picked up Pillars of the Earth which I think should be quite nice. A brief note on the topic of lit, its true that this thread can get a bit over the top sometimes, but I think most people are reading these books because they genuinely like them, and not to fulfill some sort of quota. As for showing off, the point of the thread is to let other people know what you're reading, so there will always kind of be that element here. edit: Always the formatting Finished: Pillars of the Earth I really enjoyed reading this book. Definitely a page turner with all kinds of political conflicts and such, but it also seemed very realistic. I particularly like the way the author handled the passage of time, and didn't feel the need to comment on every singly year of the characters lives (the book was long enough without it). I also particularly enjoy the idea of historical fiction in that the characters interact with real events at the time, but don't go so far as to influence/cause these things to happen. Travel Bonus: Animal Farm Picked this up from a friend and read it on the plane. It was pretty mediocre in my opinion. The general message of "Totalitarianism is bad" was obvious and bluntly presented. Don't really get the hype about this book. Picked up: Cien Anos de Soledad I loved it in english, now I'm attempting it in the original spanish. Wish me luck. Still Reading Cien Anos de Soledad, but when it gets a bit heavy I have to have something else to turn to Finished: The Face of Battle This book was a really interesting look at the way that military history is written, as well as an investigation of several battles. I really liked the way that the author tried to use the narratives of particular soldiers to see the battle from a particular point of view. It was interesting to set aside the rest of a large battle like Waterloo, and think for a minute about only those things that one officer or soldier could have seen. I also found the discussion of evolving trends of battle to be quite interesting. Finished: When We Were Orphans This book was sort of an interesting twist on the classic detective novel. I found it interesting that the author chose to write in the style of journal entries, as it made the book seem as though it was much less of a contemporary work than it is (It was written in the 21st century, but it reads almost like Frankenstein). Despite the strange style, it was quite the page turner. I highly recommend it. I picked up another book by Ishiguro, Nocturnes As well as Bram Stoker's Dracula To hold me over on my vacation. Should be good! | ||
corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
have any of you ever read stuff by a literary critic that you LIKED and thought was worth reading? What, and what about? If you were to read an essay about literature, what would you hope to get out of it? One year of grad school has mostly just made me more confused about what the point of what we are doing was supposed to be in the first place. I'm quite sure my professors don't know either. Curious what y'all think about this issue. | ||
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