anybody reading anything good? (1 Viewer)

[MDR]

Just finished bad Dirt by Annie proulx. Not her best bunch of short stories- she's turning into the Wyoming John B Keane. Still and all, a pleasant way to pass the time.

Read 'Tuesdays with Morrie' on sunday in two sittings. It's an easy read - very touching in a wise smelly old man way.

 

[Wilbert]

mmmricharddawkinsmmm.
he's my steven pinker for my twenties. reading 'a devil's chaplain' at the moment, it's only the brilliant.

If you haven't read it already, I recommend River Out Of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable and Unweaving The Rainbow.

Also, The Blind Watchmaker.

So, what I'm basically saying, is that all his books are brilliant.

 

[One of us]

Reading the autobiography by Gabriel Garcia Marquez- I think it's called "Living to tell the tale".

So far it's deadly, all about his extended fambly and their shabby genteel life in this crumbling Columbian ghost town. If you like his stuff, you know the territory.

 

[krystal]

reading saturday by ian mcewan, really good so far.

 

[brianoak]

just finished motorcycle diaries.twas alright but not half as good as everybody said.

 

[MDR]

I've just started To Kill a Mocking Bird in the expectation that it will become one of my top 5 books.

Incidentally, my current fave top 5 - in no particular order - are (this is a 'favourite' list not a claim to be the best books of all time as there are many great books I've not read):

Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck)
The Plague (Camus)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
Ham on Rye (Buckowski)

Having typed that list, I'm not sure how representative it is, as it's mostly books I've read over the last coupla years.

(Note: This is a tacit invitation to submit your own top 5)

 

[ci]

Just finished Stone Junction by Jim Dodge- great book, slightly fucked up at times but hey. At the moment I'm trying to read three books at once: The Illumintas Trilogy, 924 Gilman, and the book that I carry with me at all times (I've read it too many times) -The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Everyone should read this book.

 

[Wilbert]

Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck)
The Plague (Camus)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
Ham on Rye (Buckowski)

All of these books are available on www.booksivepretendedtohavereadbutactuallyhavent.com



My top 5 would be;
The World According To Garp (John Irving)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
Snow Falling On Cedars (David Guterson)
To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
The Palace Thief (Ethan Canin)

These 5 would more than likely be different if I did this list tomorrow.

I wanted to put in The Watchmen and From Hell by Alan Moore but kept it to regular novels.

 

[krystal]

yeah it's fantastic. Have you read the magus by john fowles? Similar themes.

-The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Everyone should read this book.

 

[Wilbert]

I should have put The Collector by John Fowles in there too. Thats a great book.

 

[ci]

Nopes, thanks for the tip though. Also, you should try Paul Auster: Leviathan- same kinda mood....

 

[Super Dexta]

If you haven't read it already, I recommend River Out Of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable and Unweaving The Rainbow.

Also, The Blind Watchmaker.

So, what I'm basically saying, is that all his books are brilliant.

yeah, I definitely intend to read more of his stuff as soon as i can get around to it. Read The Blind Watchmaker last summer and loved it. mmmm evolution. mmmm.

Here, can somebody (or better yet, the lot of ye) explain why they like The Secret History? I read it because everyone, even my ma, was saying how great it was, and all I got out of it was that students do silly things. Yeah I enjoyed reading it, but in the same kind of throwaway way that I enjoy reading Marian Keyes.

 

[Wilbert]

Here, can somebody (or better yet, the lot of ye) explain why they like The Secret History? I read it because everyone, even my ma, was saying how great it was, and all I got out of it was that students do silly things. Yeah I enjoyed reading it, but in the same kind of throwaway way that I enjoy reading Marian Keyes.

I imagine it is a better written book than anything Keyes has written. Can't say for sure because (not being a burd) I've never read her books.

I really liked The Secret History because Donna Tartt made no effort to make the characters in any way likeable. I liked the setting and I loved the way it was a really tragic and (in places) scary story.

But thats me.

What do I know?

 

[snakybus]

I thought you only read X-Men and the Onion, Wil

 

[Wilbert]

I thought you only read X-Men and the Onion, Wil

I don't read X-Men or the like at all and I have one book of onion stuff. Y'know Mike, sometimes I think you don't know me at all.
But then I realise that you know too much!
Then I realise you are a notorious gossip!
Then I go to sleep. !zed
Where I'm a ninja. !ninjaaaa

 

[snakybus]

neeh, watchmen, X men, same thing

why let the truth get in the way of a good slag, I say

 

[MDR]

(not being a burd)

So I guess all my affections have been wasted on you.

 

[Wilbert]

So I guess all my affections have been wasted on you.

I wouldn't say that.

 

[Jimmy Magee]

I be currently reading Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The Ripley novels (on the basis of The Talented Mr Ripley and the first half of this) are ripping yarns altogether, but nicely written and with good psychology and most of all a delightfully entertaining psychopath at the core. Everyone should read them.

 

[ci]

I've just started a HG Wells anthology that my friend got me for my bithday many moons ago.. five books in one so it's one of those impossible to carry around fuckers. It's great though.