Review A Book

[Scheherazade]

Tell us which book you read last and what you thought of it.

[classic_reader]

I just finished reading "Tolkien: A Biography" by Humphrey Carpenter (who passed away earlier this year). Having read many of Tolkien works I enjoyed ever so much this biography. After reading about his life I am amazed that "The Lord of the Rings" was ever published! The following quote from the book may shed some light on this:

"'If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.'" "But the map in itself was not enough, and he made endless calculations of time and distance, drawing up elaborate charts concerning events in the story, showing dates, the days of the week, the hours, and sometimes even the direction of the wind and the phase of the moon. This was partly his habitual insistence on perfection, partly sheer revelling in the fun of 'subcreation', but most of all a concern to provide a totally convincing picture. Long afterwards he said: 'I wanted people simply to get inside this story and take it (in a sense) as actual history.'"

The preceding quote is precisely why I love Tolkiens writings! :thumbs_up

angela

[Jay]

Last book you read as in finished, right? Not reading.. well, d'oh as there's another thread for that, oook *shuts up*

Jeanette Winterson - Sexing the Cherry
In short... it was very good ;), I like the way Winterson 'plays' with the language, every word is there for a reason. I don't know if there's a special name for it, but I like the way she uses certain expressions/sentences/situations more than once in her books, it's interesting comparing the two (or more in some cases) together and thinking about the differences (if any) in appearences, I mean, once it has one meaning and then you find it somewhere else and the meaning's changed from what it was earlier (or how the story/everything else changes and the 'repetition' still has the same meaning).

[Sancho]

I read Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot last night.

It was a two act play where nothing happens,…twice.

I suppose you have to be in the right mood. I was. I dug it.

I’d like to go and see it. Does anyone know of a good production? This is an aside but rumor has it that (this was in some of the criticism), when Waiting for Godot opened on Broadway, the New York Taxicab drivers would show up in front of the theater during the intermission of the two acts because they knew a lot of people would bail.

[Snukes]

Hehe! I'd believe it... Something very nice about absurdist theatre, but only if you're in the mood (or A mood, as the case may be...)

Last book finished? A Brave New World. First book I've read in its entirity online. Kinda nice.

It's a look at a potential future world where sickness and oldage and parents have been eliminated. Children are manufactured and socially conditioned. Without having given it great depth of thought (yet), it seems to me it's a commentary on the sacrifice of individualism toward the greater "good," and questioning what sort of "good" that must be.

I quite enjoyed it - I love hypotheticals - but like many of this genre, it isn't exactly upbeat and encouraging...

[Razeus]

Just finished "The Catcher In The Rye" in between parts 1 & 2 of Don Quixote.

It was a damn powerful and fine read. Wasn't expecting that ending at all.

[Sancho]

Snukes, you may be onto something there. Reckon I was in A mood.

Razeuz, I dug both those texts; particularly the last one, as my screen name may connote.

[Rechka]

Yay! I finally finished Don Quixote.

[papayahed]

Tell us which book you read last and what you thought of it.

The Seventh Son (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841490210/qid=1113752152/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_0/202-0529588-9887843) by Orson Scott Card.

Although it is an easy flowing, not-so-boring-to-read book, nothing much happens. The story takes places in an alternative historic America, where pioneers consider witchcraft and supernatural happenings as part of life. Till the end, I was hoping 'something' would happen but I was left with a feeling of '...and?' when I finished the book. I am not very enthusiastic about reading the other books in the series but might do just to see if anything will actually happen...

Average - maybe 6/10 KitKats...

I read this also, I agree not much happens, but it was a nice break. I'd give it 8/10, but then again I was thinking I need to adjust my ratiing system as everything seems to be 8.

[EAP]

H. A. Lindsay's Faraway Hill

Chronicles the life-story of a married couple in Australian outback who go on from being farm hands to bee-keepers and finally real-estate owners. Set between the two world wars. Solid prose, I was interested in the historical period (not to mention the intricate details of professional bee-keeping :p), which helped a lot in making the book endearing. If I absolutely had to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10.

For what it is worth, I'll also give the Seventh Son a 6. The end was a big disappointment for me. (though the initial premise was extremely intriguing)

[Jay]

Finished Brave New World 2 days ago. It wasn't as bad as I thought but I certainly won't be putting it on my 'fave books list' (not like I had one anyway :p)

[the devil's own]

The last one I read was The Nonexistent Knight, by Italo Calvino. Really liked it. In addition to the ontology, which came through both hilarious and dazzling (Agilulf the knight does not exist, in spite of actually doing things), the book had great metafiction, which is naturally not strange to postmodern literature - I just really love it (Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is one of my all-time favorites). Of the famous trio of Calvino's allegory novels, this one just went pretty far at times in thematizing and actualising the fictive scenario's textuality. I can recommend it, and it's a really quick read anyway.

Sorry about some terms being wrong (allegory?), I'm not a native speaker.

[Akira]

The last book that I have read was A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. School assignment. I need to seriously get some new books to read. This book is boring the first time that I read it, but also I couldn't understand it. The next one we have to read is 1984 I forget who wrote it.

[the devil's own]

That would be George Orwell. You probably won't be bored.

[Lector]

I just read Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield. It was an amazing book that I was unable to put down, after reading it I wanted to go back in time and fight with the Spartan army.

I also (at the same time) read T. H. White's Once and Future King. It moved kind of slow at times because White often gets carried away in his beautiful discriptions of things, but overall I enjoyed it and felt connected with the characters.

[mono]

All Of Us - a collection of poetry by Raymond Carver, edited and with a foreword by his widowed wife, also a poet, Tess Gallagher.
I have always loved Carver's poetry and short stories, even the little bits that I had read before getting this book, but not until completing reading it did I finally fall utterly in love with his work. :)

[faintingink]

Shanataram
by gregory david roberts

there comes a point, whilst reading, i think, sometimes, that you run out of things to think and start plopping books into mental categories 'ok,' 'good,' 'excellent.' 'would read again' etc. questions like this really allow me to think a bit more about the book.

so i will initially place it in a category: 'excellent, would totally read it again'

and now i shall think....
this was truly one of the best books i've read in a long time. there are parts that move slow, there are parts that read as exagerated battles from kill bill, however, the way roberts portrays an entire country, and his ability as a 'traveler,' as 'the foreigner' is just superb. if you have ever visited another country, somewhere just so entirely different from your own, you must read this book. it captures the essence of being an inside outsider. i find the philosophy rather contrived, but if anything it's made me want to visit India. This man's life....the life he tells about in the book....is :banana: unbelievable. i urge anyone interested in other countries....in the human spirit and in genuinely really good writing....poetic in places....to get your hands on this. it's just an excellent, addictive read!

[papayahed]

Tell us which book you read last and what you thought of it.

The Seventh Son (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841490210/qid=1113752152/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_0/202-0529588-9887843) by Orson Scott Card.

Although it is an easy flowing, not-so-boring-to-read book, nothing much happens. The story takes places in an alternative historic America, where pioneers consider witchcraft and supernatural happenings as part of life. Till the end, I was hoping 'something' would happen but I was left with a feeling of '...and?' when I finished the book. I am not very enthusiastic about reading the other books in the series but might do just to see if anything will actually happen...

Average - maybe 6/10 KitKats...


I just saw the second book in the booksotre and the cover said "Something happens in the book" of course I'm paraphrasing here.......

[Monica]

Today I read Robbe-Grillet's " The House of Assignation" and it was great. Pretty confusing at first but once you get use to his style it just flows. The plot not too intriguing but the narration itself is interesting.

[mono]

Today, on a break before clinicals, having finished much of my paperwork early, I completed reading Jeanette Winterson's Art Objects. Beautifully written non-fiction book with very unique insights and opinions about art, particularly literature, that reflected much of Winterson's past personal experiences and intuitions concerning art, of which I agree much about, but not quite everything.
*edit long entry* - maybe I will just begin a thread, as another forum member perhaps thought it also a good idea.
My rating of the book: 9/10.

[Assyra]

i have just finished reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. it was one of the greatest books i have ever read and everyone should read it. it is not too long and not boring. this book is very successful, makes you addicted to it :).
my rating is of the book is 9.5/10

[mono]

On Saturday, I began and finished Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; I loved it so much, and having a lack of things to do, regardless, I read it in one sitting at my favorite coffeehouse.
Amazing book! All throughout the story, I had to turn my head down to hide my tears, the symbolism seeming so rich, but in such a simple, poetic way.
My rating: 10/10 (easily).
:)

[baddad]

Just finished, 'The MOuntain is Young,' by Han Suyin (she wrote 'A Many Splendored Thing in the late 1940's). The author is very discriptive of Katmandu, Tibet, the approach to life taken by the peoples there, and their approach to love in particular. Interesting as hell for (another) love story. But I had heard so much about his great author I had to read something of hers, and this book miraculously showed up at my door. Its taken me quite a while to read it though, maybe a month, (reading it on and off......have to check posts in "what are you reading right now" to be sure.....) but the book is by no means an easy read (keep a dictionary taped to the back jacket) yet a great read all the same.......

[Scheherazade]

by Han Suyin

When I was a baby, I was given an oriental looking doll. My parents loved the movie Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048316/) (it was a hit when they were teenagers I think) and named the doll after Han Suyin (the leading character in the movie). As I grew older, I accepted that the doll was called 'Hansin' and dragged it around until both of us were too old to carry on doing so... It must be somewhere in my parents' attic now... :)

[baddad]

Sher, that is correct. In real life Suyin was both a doctor (her character in the movie) and an author. She led an incredible life, had a brilliant mind, and was involved in critical areas and times, during her life. I am ashamed to say I had not heard of her until recently........ But I gotta tell ya, she has a friggin complicated vocabulary......and that doll (if it still has arms, legs and a head) is probably worth money on Ebay......

[Scheherazade]

and that doll (if it still has arms, legs and a head) is probably worth money on Ebay......
It is not a 'Han Suyin doll'(i.e., not like the Britney, Spice Girl dolls in the market);just an ordinary doll looking oriental (as I grew up people thought we looked a like! :rolleyes: ). My parents named the doll Han Suyin because they liked the character so much...

I am sure it still has all the body parts attached to it but in a less than perfect condition...

[Scheherazade]

Two for the Dough (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684196387/qid=1116521780/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-8436214-1923019?v=glance&s=books) by Janet Evanovich

Read this one yesterday while recovering from a cold. A crime thriller; adventures of a female bounty hunter (wannabe) told in a flowing, humourous language. Apparently, there are 12 in the Stephanie Plum (main character) collection. I would like to read them all.


Excellent read for lazy, relaxed days. 9/10 KitKats for its entertainment value.

[Rachy]

I just finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, about 3 seconds ago! I'm really sad that I've finished it! I get like that when I finish a good book! Yes I am that sad! I thought this book was great! I know from some posts on here that most people won't agree with me, but I loved it! The love story between Heathcliff and Cathy, although sometimes disturbing, was actually really beautiful, as even after death their love lived on! I couldn't put it down! Strongly Reccomend it!!

[mono]

I finished The Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau today - a beautifully written book that I started recently, but enjoyed so much that I read it continuously. Some of his "confessions" rather surprised me for his era of writing, but I suppose historical people could have seemed as unpredictable as society in present. Having read only little of Rousseau's work in the past, I found the work insightful to see the evolution of those ideas in his head, of which I admire.
Rating: 8.5/10. :)

[Scorpionwingz]

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the last book I read. I'm reading 20,000 Leagues under the sea.

[mono]

Yesterday, I finished The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and, also, from a most generous gift from Psyche, I additionally started and finished one of his popular plays, The Importance In Being Earnest, in one sitting. Both, in comparison, had such different styles - both had such witty, cynical characters, but had entirely different plots - one a dramatic . . . I cannot label it, and another a comedy.
My rating: both get 10/10.

[strategos]

I just finished Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov which I enjoyed much more so than his previous novel Crime and Punishment. I'd give it a 9/10.

Right now, I'm thinking of diving into Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction The Last Kingdom.

[baddad]

Just tonight finished reading, "Gates Of Fire", by Steven Pressfield. The book is a fictional recount of the Battle of Thermopylae (Greece) which took place in 480 B.C.

In this recounted battle, 300 Spartans and their allies battle to the death against a Persian army of 2 million. While the Spartans planned only a delaying action, they fought till all of themselves were dead, but inflicted the same end upon tens of thousands of their enemies. The tale is one of courage, sacrifice, love, devotion. The Spartan King, Leonidas fought alongside his handpicked men, and died with them there.
Today in Greece there remains 2 small monuments to their valour: one is a 2 word quote by King Leonidas when he was asked by the invaders to lay down his and his army's arms; "Monon labe" (Come and get them!). The second monument is ancient, words by the poet Simonides of Sparta, simply carved into rock: "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie."

It is claimed both soldiers, serfs and freepersons fought alongside each other in common effort at preserving their way of life. It is claimed that democracy's birth and its cradle lie in the heart of this tale, and in the heart of Greece.

I give this book a 10 of 10 for shear power of deliverance by its author, as there is little in the way of adornment, and a rapid pace of events.

[Mustardseed]

The last thing I read was actually a reread, Anne Brontë's The Tennant of Wildfell Hall. Loved it, still. It's my favourite Brontë book together with Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights just annoys me, though.

But, that leads me straight into what I'm reading now: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Loving it! It is so much fun...

[Dreamer]

The last book I read two days ago is Arms and the Man , a play by G.B.Show . I really like it . The idea that the great principles we may believe in ( war and higher love in the play) could be a lie made me feel more realistic with a painful feeling of bitterness. However, Show's ironic style with the very funny situations taking place once and another through the three acts of of the play kept me smiling most of the time ( laughing loudly sometimes :D ) . All in all , it was great.

[Jack_Aubrey]

The Phantom of the Opera- Gaston Leroux. Quite good, tragic love story. I recommend it.

[Scheherazade]

All Through the Night by Mary Higgins Clark (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671027123/qid=1118421992/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/002-0475650-4716866)
Picked this one because it was at a library display. It is about an abondoned baby, stolen chalice and forged will, which are somehow related but since you are told the 'secrets' right from the start, there is no mystery element to it and you end up reading the next 150 pages for the sake of it (well, at least that is what I have done!)

It is the first Higgins-Clark book I have read and probably the last one... The story line lacks originality, the technique is ordinary if not boring.

4/10 KitKats!

[Mark F.]

hmmm...the last book I finished (re)reading was J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye I think, but don't trust my memory.

[adilyoussef]

The last book I'v read was "The Family Reunion", a play by T. S. Eliot. It is a very beautiful piece of literature that I like much. It reveals a lot about the strugle between society and individuals. It is a poetic play and enjoyable to read. I'v learned a good lesson from it. Eliot's works are always fasinating.

[mono]

Today, I finished The Complete Plays Of Aristophanes (translated by Moses Hadas), which mostly consisted of comedies. I cannot call Aristophanes my favorite among the Greek playwrights (maybe Euripides or Sophocles), but I enjoyed the collection immensely, especially that most contained elements of philosophy (particularly Sophism).
My rating: 8/10.

[titiana]

I just finished Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I thought it was fascinating following Orlando through the centuries and his transformation to female. I agree with Woolf that both sexes are capable of being fundamentally the same; it's society that puts pressure on us to act and develop according to gender specifics. I also read The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence. It's amazing that Lawrence and Woolf had the guts to write what they did in early 1920's as they helped in the transformation from the Victorian frame of mind.

[lil_fairyjess]

Rachy,
I read Wuthering Heights a while ago and I agree it was really very good. In my literature course we are to be studying it soon.... it will be interesting to see the other students' reactions to it, as I have already been told by someone, they did not care for it at all.
I am not sure about anyone else, but I believe it is rather feministic...

[Zooey]

I last finished Virginia Woolf's last novel, Between the Acts.

I wrote up some thoughts and posted them here (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/journal_view.php?journalid=29715&entryid=204245&view=public).

[adilyoussef]

Few weeks ago I'v finished A Farewell to Arms, a novel by Hemingway; I gess everybody knows it. Intresting novel if it is well analysed. I found intresting themes to be descussed in it. In short, it changes, in a way, my vision of life.

[imthefoolonthehill]

Gump & Co.

Hilarious.

[byquist]

While substitute teaching I came across a book of Mark Twain's short stories. "The Diary of Adam and Eve" was hilarious. Witty beyond belief. I now understand more why Mark Twain is so famous. Actually, Dr. Gray (I think his name is) who wrote "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" was able to turn such psychological and behavioral characteristics into a multi million dollar enterprise. Twain presented the issue long ago.

[Mark F.]

Man's Fate (La condition humaine) by Malraux. Some parts are extremely good and very hard (IE crushing, violent...). Sadly on the whole it's sort of unequal but still the use of multiple main characters gives the naration an interesting twist.

[Mark F.]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I thought the first two chapters were quite slow but then in the third one the momentum really picks up and it's almost too quick. I'll have to read it again though, to really think about it. It's interesting but I still think Apocalypse Now is better. The repetition of the word darkness is a bit overdone.

[chmpman]

Wow. I think Mark F. finished Heart of Darkness in 3 minutes. Very impressive.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I liked this one quite a bit, although I thought the third and final chapter felt a bit off compared to the first two. Just my quirky observation.

[Scheherazade]

Double Act (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440863341/qid=1119594394/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-6687929-6109209) by J. Wilson

Struggles of 10 year old twins Ruby and Garnet as they try to get used to a life without their Mom, their father's new girlfriend and living in a small town while realising that they have to develop separate identities and become individuals.

While reading the book, I realised that I had watched a TV adaptation couple of years ago on BBC.

Girls in Love (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0552551317/qid=1119594740/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-6687929-6109209) by J.Wilson

Growing up pains of 13 years old Ellie and her best friends Magda and Nadine. They feel pressures of being 'cool' and trendy while trying to keep up with the expectations of grown ups: being good students, daughters, sisters...

I enjoyed reading both books. Wilson seems to have develop the perfect style for younger readers to keep them turning pages. She is creative and witty, and seems to have an understanding of how the young girls mind work! I can imagine teens and even some younger readers enjoying these books very much. No wonder they are in BBC Big Read list.

7/10 KitKats for both of them!

[mono]

While substitute teaching I came across a book of Mark Twain's short stories. "The Diary of Adam and Eve" was hilarious. Witty beyond belief. I now understand more why Mark Twain is so famous. Actually, Dr. Gray (I think his name is) who wrote "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" was able to turn such psychological and behavioral characteristics into a multi million dollar enterprise. Twain presented the issue long ago.
I also loved "The Diary of Adam and Eve," finding its dark humor of the utmost satisfaction. I once purchased The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, taking some time to read it, with such a quantity of stories, but found it well worth the read; I highly recommend "The Stranger." :thumbs_up :thumbs_up :thumbs_up

[Mark F.]

Wow. I think Mark F. finished Heart of Darkness in 3 minutes. Very impressive.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I liked this one quite a bit, although I thought the third and final chapter felt a bit off compared to the first two. Just my quirky observation.

He he, I'm a fast reader ;). The Metamorphosis is very good, I'm thinking of reading some more by Kafka, any ideas?

[Jantex]

Well, the last book I`ve read was "Martin Eden" by Jack London.
It`s a kind of an autobiographical novel in about 400 pages. I really liked it as a whole. Although I was very disappointed in the beginning , the end was precious.I think the first 320 pages are rather boring but the other 80 pages are extremely dynamic and meaningful.They told me things I knew but in a kind of a different point of view.
About 7/10 (because the translation was awful)

[chmpman]

I've seen the movie version of The Trial. That's what got me interested in Kafka - it was directed by Orson Welles. It's very eerie but great.

[mono]

Earlier this evening, I finished Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley. It had its "highs" and "lows," where some places I felt entirely involved with the stories, and other parts I felt increasingly lost. Crowley, like Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy, sectioned this novel into three parts, but in a separate order from Dante: Paradiso, Inferno, and Purgatorio, and, as with The Divine Comedy, I would have to call Purgatorio my favorite, written in the first person, but by two people (a married couple, "Peter" and "Lou Pendragon").
As mentioned, the novel lost me in a few areas where, it seemed, Crowley attempted communicating an analogy that went far over my head, but the end summarized everything, and I call Diary of a Drug Fiend an absolutely incredibly inspirational work - one of the most touching I have encountered.
Additionally, I think I will begin a thread of good quotes in the 'Quotes' area of the forum.
My rating: 10/10 (really) :D

[Regan]

Hi, Newbie here.

I just finished reading "Gone with the Wind" a few days ago. The movie has always been one of my favourites, but the book is superb. Loved the characters, and Mitchell's backdrop of the civil war. The 1000+ pages seemed like nothing and the book was over far too quickly.

[Scheherazade]

The Testament by John Grisham (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099245027/qid=1119911299/sr=1-11/ref=sr_1_2_11/026-6687929-6109209)

The second Grisham book I have read (first one was A Painted House, which was very good: 9/10). It is about a will settlement of an eccentric rich man, who commits suicide. As usual, there are greedy, no-use off-springs who want to get their hands on the money however the old man has other plans for his fortune and a recovering alcoholic lawyer reluctantly becomes the person who is to see that things go according to plan.

It is a page-turner like other Grisham books but lacks the originality and strength of his some other stories (A Time to Kill, Rainmaker, The Client, The Firm, Last Juror, The Pelican Brief etc... How is it possible that one man can write so many books which are made into good movies as well?) 6/10 KitKats


HEIDI (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140621911/qid=1119912037/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/026-6687929-6109209) by Johanna Spyri
One of my childhood favorites. I am very glad that it is in BBC's Big Reads so I have had the chance to read it again. It is a feel good story about a little orphan who starts to live with her reclusive grandfather. As a child, I hadn't noticed that the book has many religious references; I have still enjoyed reading it and could not help wondering at the difference between the classic children's books and the modern ones. 9/10 KitKats!

[merrycollie]

I just read To Kill A Mocking Bird, and I loved it. It was an easy read for me. It was othing like I thought it would be. I should have read it years ago in my hayday, but couldn't sit still long enough to read anything good then.

[Vampire Kari]

The last book I read was "Pandora" by Anne Rice and I loved it! Pandora was an amazing character and once again Anne Rice hypnotized me with her work.

[bestseller]

I'm reading my own book right now, A Man Named Beatrice. I want to figure out how I can take depraved comedy to an all new, brave level. I was thinking about dancing ninja disco zombies, and how they could be incorporated into a musical.

[amuse]

okay. i would like to say that War and Peace is the last book that i have read, but was just a little dismayed to find that there is an epilogue to the epilogue, if you will! :EEK: and it's fascinating to peer inside T's head, but it reminds me, aside from the passion of his questionings, of Hugo's horridly overwritten chapter "A Bird's Eye View of Paris" in Notre Dame...

[arabian night]

The recent one i finished is :
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
I think it is one of the greatest novel ever..written to show the suffering of Human beings...I dont know how to express my feelings toward it ..But there is one thing to tell about it...its that when you read it you must cry..:(...i did not know that slaves suffered that much until i read this magnificent novel...i identify with the characters as if i am part of the plot...

[merrycollie]

I think I will read Uncle Tom's Cabin again. I loved it the 1st time, but was too busy with other classes to REALLY enjoy it. That seems to be the way with a lot of books. I get more out of them when I can relax.

[mono]

Earlier this evening, I finished Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant, translated by H.J. Paton - a moral/ethical philosophy book. I had read it once before, by a different translator, and found the book very enlightening, but I desired to read it again, under another recommended translator (Paton). This translator seemed better, as he always contributed a thorough introduction, summary, and analysis. Wonderful content, regardless! I have read a few other works by Kant (Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment), finding all of them incredible, to say the least, along with the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (intimidating title, I know); Kant arranges his writing very logically, short, to-the-point, and reader-friendly.
My rating: 10/10

[ArcherSnake]

The last book I finished was One Hundred Years Of Solitude. A little confusing and complicated, but a beautiful, beautiful book.

[Nightshade]

The House of spirits by Isabel allande
I thought it was boring and a bit plotless for the second, third and fourth chapters ut then it got better .
Actually maybe not plotless but the oppoiset plotful? It jumped around alot was filled with too much sexauality I mean that thing with the dog that was unnessesary!
But in the end it was sort of intresting not earh moving or even schema changing but alright entertaiment for a few hours.

[Scheherazade]

Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0425175464/qid=1120725379/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/102-8670614-5092127?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

Another Hercule Poirot story by Christie. This time the detective investigates the small thefts which lead to a seeming murder at a youth hostel. Unfortunately, Christie is not up to her usual standard in this book. It lacks her usual clever twists and excitement. An average detective story: 5/10 KitKats

[Bix12]

The last book I read was 'Birds Without Wings' by Louis De Bernieres. He's also the author of 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', which I have not read....yet. I just finished 'Birds Without Wings' yesterday, and it was great!

'Birds...' is set in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, i.e., from the late 19th century, through the turn of the 20th century, and that period leading up to & directly preceding World War I. The narrative is laid out using parallel story lines: one setting is intimate, telling of the day to day community life in a small Anatolian villiage, while the other story line is more historically sweeping, encompassing events of a major significance.

An excellent book.

[RococoLocket]

The next one we have to read is 1984 I forget who wrote it.
George Orwell :)

The last book I read was Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

I thought it was really good, the first half better than the second. I feel I need/want to give it a second read though. I get the feeling it's that kind of book, where every time you read it you notice or realise something subtle that you didn't pick up on before; I like that :)

[ArcherSnake]

That was an odd book; it disturbed me a little, but it was pretty good. I was a little confused by the end, though.

[RococoLocket]

That was an odd book; it disturbed me a little, but it was pretty good. I was a little confused by the end, though.

Lolita? Haha, i'd be worried if it hadn't disturbed you a little! And yes, the end was very confusing :|

[amuse]

arms raised in victorious olympic pose:
finished W&P by the pool today!


*forgot, actually, 'til i saw the new posts here. :D

[Capnplank]

Anthony Burgess; A Clockwork Orange

I loved it. The language really helps pull you into Alex's world, and ooh what a world it is.

[adilyoussef]

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. A masterpeice that all I can say. I finished it yesterday.

[scruffy_danny]

Ooh I bought that because I heard it was good, and it was like £1.25 (not bad price). I think I will read it very soon.

I've just finished The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and it was very good. He has a really good style of story-telling and the end is so well put together, leaving you wishing Gatsby didn't ... well I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But something happens that shocked me completely.

Overall it's a nice short, enjoyable read and you all should read it if you havn't yet.

[mono]

Earlier today, I finished reading Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning. A reader can consider it a novel, only written in poetic verse. The plot itself seems somewhat predictable, but Browning discusses a lot on the subject of aesthetics, and the purpose of art (in connection with nature). I found the book astoundingly beautiful, and would recommend it to anyone, as it seems a neglected work of hers, as compared to Sonnets from the Portugeuse.
My rating: 9/10.

[aberration]

just finished "the rum diary" - Hunter S Thompson...brilliant. One of the funniest men alive....it's just too bad he's dead.

Read "a clockwork orange" last week. That is one twisted book, absolutley loved it. Can anyone recommend anything else by Burgess. He's written a ton of books but Clockwork is the only one I know.

[karanae84]

Complications, by Atul Gawande. This book is a very interesting read--not literary in the least, but it delves into many many philosophical questions and answers them the way the science of medicine (specifically surgery) answers or does not answer them. After reading this book, I know more and more that I could never be a surgeon myself, but it was interesting to read to hear a surgeon iterate that perfection does not exist-even in medicine.

[WhiteTiger]

I just finished reading Hamlet a few days ago.

It was a bit harder to follow than things I would read purely for enjoyment but I still enjoyed it.

[annietree]

The last book I read was House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. It was a pretty good read, although I wasn't too crazy about the ending.

[baddad]

The English Patient. A window into a difficult time, witness to man's inhumanity to man, a tragic love, and very well written. Mike O. deserves the accolades this book has garnered.

[MaskedBeauty]

Last week I finished reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I love that book, and I think it's Hugo's masterpiece. It's such a great story, and the narration he uses is purely genius. I definitly reccomend it.

[Scheherazade]

To the Nines by Janet Evanovich (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312265867/qid=1121864213/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-0770963-1394462)

The ninth book in the Stephanie Plum series by Evanovich. In this book, Stephanie is stalked by a serial murderer. It is as funny and cleverly written as other books in the series; however, it is a little far fetched and less "believable". Still very entertaining: 6/10 Kitkats


The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684801221/qid=1121864599/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0770963-1394462?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
Second read after 20 years and enjoyed reading it in English even more. 10/10 KitKats!

[scruffy_danny]

I just read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

It was ok, but not realy my type, there was not much death, no murder, no love affairs... only a garden. I think I would have liked it more if I was 10 years old... and a completely different person.

[fnord]

First post, hurrah.

I just finished reading Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. Amusingly written, satiric in voice, and with a really interesting style. I've read one other by Vonnegut, and I think he's a riot. Not heavy, but there are ideas there. Succinctly, it's about about the end of the world.

Right after, I finished Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's SF, but quite good. I picked up the hardcover for a great price and was pleasantly surprised. It's almost a mystery, about the hunt to find the anonymous makers of strange and beautifully artistic footage that has been circulating the Internet. Gibson's style is somewhat unique as well, so its interesting there too.

[random_hero]

HEY EVERYONE!!!
been about a year+ since i last posted here, but i am back... I think.
The last book I read was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. and it really was both a heartbreaking work and staggering genius.
its an AMAZINGLY good book, and I would reccomend it to literally anyone interested in anything.

[Nightshade]

Ive just read across the nightingale floor and grass for his pillow by sombody Hearn
nice but its getting a bit boring and I have to fininh the last book in the trilogy Brilliance of the moon and give it back to the library tomorrow.

[Vampire Kari]

The last book I read was "Merrick" by Anne Rice. I really loved it! Anne did it again with her magic!

[TotalNutso]

"The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier.. It was really good. I'm now ready to start "Beyond the Chocolate War"

[Bianca Fransen]

I have completed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It left me very, very sad.. which means I think it is written well, I guess. And I could not put it away. But now I wonder whether it would have been better to read this book just before part 7 arrives. I hope for a happy ever after in part 7...

[shortysweetp]

i am sure you can reread it before the 7th one comes out. i havent read any of them maybe i should are they good? :)

[Bianca Fransen]

Ehm, yes, I think they are very good. I really, really enjoy every minute reading them. But it is children's literature (in my opinion - both the 'for children' and the 'literature' part) and that is not everyone's cup of tea. If you like to get to know three teenagers and travel with them on some nicely invented adventures they are wonderful. If you like something easy to read and funny, they are wonderful. If you are looking for something with deep insights, adult conversations and earth-moving ideas - they are not right for you.
:D And I will probably reread this book before part 7 comes out ;).

[mono]

Hurray! Today I finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Just as I expected, before beginning the novel, it seemed difficult to read, trying to remember every one of the numerous characters, and keeping pace with a complex plot that only a brilliant mind like Tolstoy's could compose. The plot, itself, in as few words as possible, amazed me, filled with analogies of free will and fate, infatuation and the discovery of love, the irrationality of human decisions in different situations (such as in war or peace), but how each end somehow results in fair conclusions, the discovery of spirituality over materialism and greed, and the philosophical symbolism behind the self-realization in death (or near-death experience).
Unlike with many writers, I thought War and Peace entirely incomparable to Tolstoy's later incredible novel, Anna Karenina - both had greatly disparate plots, morals, analogies, and characters, each leaving me astounded.
My rating: 10/10.

[booksINC.]

The Five People You meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

thought it was a great book.one of my favorites.

[Sancho]

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

It’s an excellent history of the D-Day invasion, June 6, 1944. Left me drained and exhausted.

[Chava]

Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini

In the words of Isabel Allende "It is so powerful that for a long time after, everything I read seemed bland"

[Zippy]

Metamorphisis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka.

The title story is fantastic, with one of the most intrieging openings of any story I've ever read ("One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into a giant insect.").

The other stories vary in quality, with In The Penal Colony being amongst the best. Kafka's stories are often too redolent with metaphor for my liking, but there's enough to sustain any reader's attention in this collection.

[Aramis]

The last book that I read was Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. While I enjoyed the style of writing, it seemed like the pace dragged a lot. I could understand if this was just the beginning of the book, but it also happened after later action sequences. All in all, I'd give it a 6/10.

[amuse]

West of Kabul, East of New York (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312421516/qid=1123633349/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_ur_2_1/104-6912302-3811100) by Tamim Ansary. not sure how i found the time, but am i glad i did. (was the assigned book for incoming freshman and i was able to get my hands on a copy at work). he will be at temple u. in philly on sept. 8 for discussions and a book signing session. an absolutely heart-warming, heartbreaking, scary, horrifying story written from a very-down to earth point of view. this is the e-mail (http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past_20011001_g.jhtml) that inspired his book. i cried, i loved it, and jumpy and inspired by it. can't recommend it enough.

*:confused: :confused: not sure if this counts as political, but if yes, plz feel free to delete post.

[Glenys]

I must say it is fascinating to read what other people are reading. For myself I have just finished 'Family Linen' Lee Smith. It's too complicated to say why I like Lee Smith. About to begin a book called 'Round Ireland with a fridge' Tony Hawks...Also trying to decipher Romeo & Juliet.



We're seriously concerned

[Sigur Rose]

The book I've just finished is "The Green Mile" by Stephen King and I loved it! I think I cried through the entire part 6.

[America141]

The last book I read was Rama by Arthur C. Clark...I have read it before and it is still as great as the first time. The rest in the series aren't as good though....they change from the "pure' sci-fi into the fantasy, which isn't my thing

[Darlin]

I have completed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It left me very, very sad.. which means I think it is written well, I guess. And I could not put it away. But now I wonder whether it would have been better to read this book just before part 7 arrives. I hope for a happy ever after in part 7...

Now that's definitely food for thought! For some reason, despite getting the book the day it came out like most everyone else, I have yet to read it. I've really enjoyed the series but read them pretty much all in a row to get caught up since I didn't read them until they were recommended to me. Then I had the long wait before the fifth book came out and after I read it I remember how I wished the next book would come out straight away so the long wait for the next one is always a pain. Maybe it would be best to wait.

Oh, last book I read was yesterday, 'The Angry Wife' by Pearl S. Buck. A story about two brothers who fought on different sides during the Civil War. One becomes involved with an ex-slave and the other is repulsed yet fascinated in a strange way by the whole matter. Very good read, quite thoughtful but I'm biased. I think Pearl S. Buck excels at depicting human nature, their trials and tribulations, almost as if that's all she studied in life. Very good. 3 out of 4

[mono]

Last night, I finished reading The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence, one of my favorite authors. I have already read many of his novels (Sons And Lovers probably seeming my favorite), and absolutely loved this one, perhaps calling it my second favorite (or tied with Women In Love). A few parts of the novel seemed slightly predictable, having accustomed myself much to Lawrence's style (and his humorous tendency to make one chapter a mere 10, and another 70 pages), but it had quite an ending!
My rating: 9.5/10.

[Wendigo_49]

I just finished reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. It is one of the most enjoyable books I've had the pleasure of reading. He is a bit tough to read, being published in the mid 18th century, but his narration and postmodernist style is worth the open window to dictionary.com. A must read for anyone who likes a non-conventional novel. My rating is 9.5/10.

[Literal]

I recently finished reading Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. For some time hence this book was recommended to me, but it was a while before I finally entertained the notion of reading the novel. The author creates a world devoid of books and thinking which, in essence, produce stoic, indifferent human beings.
But there is one man who refuses to tolerate such a world. With difficulty he rises against the majority, but will he succeed in this battle? Read the novel to find out.
Rating: 4/4

[Nightshade]

Last night I finished Going Postal by Terry pratchett
Wow that book was almost as good as if not as good as the newspaper book I just have one q though when did Ridd9whatever his name is be come the archdecon I missed that book???

[Taliesin]

Ridcully?
We think that he has been it for quite some time (and there is no book whenhe started)
There are two Ridcully-brothers btw, one of them is a head wizard, the other a leading religious figure.

[Nightshade]

REally? I think I might have my characters mixed up I thought Ridcully was the wizard from the colour of magic??

[mono]

Earlier this evening, I finally finished Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans). This novel seemed, at times, a little difficult to read, as Eliot had a very narrative style with sometimes very verbose descriptions. Regardless, I thought the characters seemed complex and astoundingly well detailed; Eliot achieved her goal well to write something apart from the "stereotypical" women writers of her day.
Though I adore Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, I have always thought Eliot's goal highly admirable and worth praise to corrupt the expectation of writing a classical romance story, as did many female authors of her contemporary day. Silas Marner seemed the same, but incomparable to Middlemarch, reading entirely and surprisingly different.
The plot, itself, seemed to jump around a fair amount, but I somewhat expected this, having seen it in so many other longer novels; towards the middle of the book, however, everything fit together, and Eliot wrote a true masterpiece.
My rating: 9.5/10.

[sonikchic]

The History of Danish Dreams, Peter Hoeg. The book is comparable to 'one hundred years of solitude' It seduces and lulls you. I read it while visiting friends who live on an island and are busy living out their various hippy dreams so it was lovely to delve into the heavey ?danish? atmosphere. Borderliners is my fave Hoeg book tho.

Fnord- Gibson rocks, i loved pattern recognition, but i love all william gibson, mona lisa overdrive is not to be missed, but read them in order

Wendigo - Tristam Shandy is one of the funniest characters ever written, after reading it do you sometimes get the idea that other people copied his ideas more or less blatently.

[Scheherazade]

Sleepovers (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0754063240/qid=1125276009/sr=1-32/ref=sr_1_32/002-6068217-8555207?v=glance&s=books) and Secrets (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/075407854X/qid=1125276009/sr=1-33/ref=sr_1_33/002-6068217-8555207?v=glance&s=books) by J. Wilson

More books by Wilson aimed at young readers (girls). After reading a few of her books, I can see why she is so popular. She is a good story teller and humourous. Also, she is concentrating on different issues in her books, which is something I like about them. In Sleepovers, she deals with disability and Secrets with physical abuse and the difficulties single parent families face. With parent approved moral messages at the end of her stories, she manages to gain the hearts of both children and parents alike.

8/10 KitKats!

[EAP]

Tamsin - Peter S. Beagle (Rating: 10/10)

From Publishers Weekly,

Like his enchanting The Last Unicorn, Beagle's newest fantasy features characters so real they leap off his pages and into readers' souls. Tamsin Willoughby, dead some 300 years, haunts ramshackle old Stourhead Farm in Dorset, England, an ancient 700-acre estate that 13-year-old Jenny's new, English stepfather is restoring. Thoroughly American Jenny, miserable at being transplanted from New York City to rural Britain, finds a suffering kindred spirit in Tamsin, a ghost who is mourning Edric, a love she lost during Dorset's punitive Bloody Assizes under King James II. Tamsin leads Jenny through an engrossing night world inhabited by an array of British spiritsAthe Black Dog, a braggart Boggart, ominous Oakmen, the shapeshifting Pooka and a marvelous mystical army-booted Earth Mother. To save Tamsin and gentle Edric from eternal torment, Jenny faces evil personified: demonic Judge Jeffries, who sentenced hundreds of people to brutal execution during the Assizes.....[/Snip]


It's a beautiful book. Beagle's prose is lyrical, quirky and full of funny little odds and ends that are the hallmark of a truly great author.

The book may be titled Tamsin, and the struggle for her freedom take centre-stage plotwise, but the real heroine will always be Jenny. She is hip, she is awkward and she is the quintessential contra-modern kid who smokes pot, plays at being independent and feels proud of being a rebel. A kid to whom self-awareness has been gifted far earlier than most. But a kid who I felt had a heart of gold.

Things that stood out for me:

The prose. Not a single awkward sentence, misplaced similie, unintelligible metaphor or stilted dialogue. Humor and charm oozes off every single sentence and the flow of the narrative completely sucks you in.

Interaction between the characters, specially Jenny and her step-brothers. The development of Julian's and Jenny's friendship was fuzzily charming and great to read.

Old english manors seem to breathe a life of their own, and the sense of enchantment is doubled when they team up with pusedo-celtic creatures and a good 'ol English wood to setup a brilliant setting.

Tamsin herself was a very interesting ghosts. I don't think I have encountered such a good natured ghost before. It really was a fantastical experience slipping in and out of Tamsin's timeline into Jenny's. Both had their own distinctive feels and the historical touches felt just about right.

This may not be the perfect book for most, but I honestly am having trouble thinking of even a single point that bugged me. Probably Meena's continuous mentions of the exoticness of India became a little annoying after a while, but even there I felt that they were more tongue-in-check than based on the general western wonder of oriental cultures.

[Wendigo_49]

Wendigo - Tristam Shandy is one of the funniest characters ever written, after reading it do you sometimes get the idea that other people copied his ideas more or less blatently.

I think other people have taken ideas from him but not to the extent that Sterne did. Sterne basically took complete passages from other authors. This link can better explain than I can.

Charge of Plagarism (http://www.authorama.com/sterne-13.html)

I do not enjoy his novel any less because of the acts of plagiarism. For all I know he could of read the authors when he was younger and come back to him as an older man who thought it his own idea.

He "took inspiration" from many authors before him and I don't mind the copying of ideas, tristra-pedia and the vagaries of narratives from Rabelais, as much as the complete copying of passages. The copying of ideas is how humanity has learned to pass down knowledge to younger generation. To end this reply I would like to give you a quote my 7th grade English teacher gave me. "To copy from one person is plagarism, but to copy from two or more is research."

[Sarah's_Chanson]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

To sum it up quite simply Wuthering Heights is a story about love, death and revenge. To anyone who wants to think more about the story they can see betrayal, grief, mental illness, obession and passion woven between the main storylines.

It tells the tale of the young orphan Heathcliff as he is brought to the Earnshaw house. His childhood is one mixed with joy and pain brought from his two companions Cathy and Hindley. Cathy is a warm and gentle friend, Hindley is a cruel oppressor when he becomes their guardian. After a betrayal from Cathy though, Heathcliff vanishes.

When he returns a mysteriously rich and handsome gentleman, there is wonder at his change. But although appearances change, the darkness of his heart hasn't been swept away entirely. Through slow and indirect methods he gains his revenge on those he loves and those he hates, until he finds himself in a world of darkness that he longs to escape.

Throughout the book we're introduced to several members of the Earnshaw and Linton families, all who have such different approches to love and hate and revenge, as we journey through Heathcliff's life, told by the partially biased housekeeper and witness, Nelly Dean.

Overall the book is a deep tale of so many aspects of the human mind, that it can be a bit confusing between that and the complex relationships that exist among the characters, but once you grasp the story you're bound to find it one of the most fascinating books of all time.

[Rachy]

I finished The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown . I found this book REALLY good and kept me very interested. I liked the way he included facts throughout, but was also able to make a good story out of it. Almost every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, and it has a very good ending! I literally couldn't put this book down, and for me, what defines a good book is when I read a name and don't think, "Who is that again?" and have to go back.

All in all....AMAZINGLY clever and a fab read!!

9/10!

[strategos]

Several books I've read recently:

Chesapeake by James A. Michener (10/10)

An apt description of Chesapeake, as with most of Michener’s works, is that it is historical fiction of the grandest scale. This sprawling novel traces the genealogy of three families (Steed, Paxmore, and Turlock) who’ve contributed significantly to the culmination of the Chesapeake, the great American bay located on the eastern shore. The reader is guided through four centuries of development starting from the late 1500s when the bay was largely occupied by the Native Americans up to the 1960s when racial tensions were spurring up and the Watergate scandal was just coming into fruition. Michener handles each of these time spans with meticulous care, from the minute details such as the preparation of crab cakes to more exceeding issues such as the African slave trade, thus managing to enlighten the reader yet, simultaneously, written in a fashion that remains utterly captivating as well. Overall, I found this novel to be absolutely engrossing and highly recommend it for anyone interested in American history.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (9/10)

The star attraction of this book doesn’t focus on a deep and gripping plot, which is in itself fairly shallow (i.e. boy finds dead dog, boy investigates the murder), but on a style of writing that so convincingly puts the reader into the perspective of a young autistic boy. I can’t exactly vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the author’s portrayal of this syndrome but the book provides a fascinating look into how a person whose powers of concentration are so narrow and whose thinking processes are so sequential that his outlook of the world more closely mirrors how a computer would intake information. Read it for the perspective more so than the plot.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (9.5/10)

One of the more enjoyable books I’ve so far this year. The story’s about a boy who stumbles upon a rare book by an obscure author. In his endeavor to uncover the mystery behind this author, the young man is gradually embroiled in history that’s more foreboding and sinister than whence he initially assumed. The reliance on a deus ex machina cheapened the climax somewhat and a few of the characters were rather over-the-top, probably intentionally done so, but were imbued with so much flavor and personality that they still remained endearing. A real page turner.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (7.5/10)

A typical courtroom drama novel set in the 1960s on San Pierdro, a fictitious island off the coast of the state of Washington. A murder trial is underway to determine the innocence of a Japanese man convicted of the murder of a German fisherman. My main gripe is that the outcome of the trial is fairly predictable about half-way through the book, particularly when the protagonist, a newspaper reporter, discovers a plot device that conveniently unveils the truth behind the murder. As such, those expecting a brilliant plot-twist near the end will probably be disappointed. A fairly average book overall.

[subterranean]

The Minds of Billy Milligan by David Keyes

"Imagine yourself standing in front of a sink. You're getting a glass of water. And the whole world around you instantaneously changes, and now you're in a park acting like you're getting a glass of water. Out of thin air. And you just lost that time." (Billy Milligan)

I have to say that reading the story of Sybil, the woman with 16 different personalities, was already quite a shocking reading experience, esp. for me. Billy Milligan, a man with 24 different selves (including 'him self'), is the first man who was freed from charges of several crimes (including rapes and armed robberies) due to his multiple personalities (pleaded insanity). It is unbelievable to read how the other 23 selves of Billy developed and each became a distinctive character with his/her own skills and capabilities (even language capabilities); and all of them were the result of Billy's self denial due to mental, physial, and sexual abuses during his childhood. And these other selves, put the 'real' Billy in to 'sleep' because they considered him dangerous for the other selve's existances (most of the times when Billy is himself, he tend to commit suicide). Though Keyes included the background and process of some of the main selves, and their personalities, the book didn't clearly explained how (and why) Billy managed to create up to 23 selves, which some had similiar personalities. Billy spent years in mental hospital, went through many kinds of treatment, even got married (though his wife ran away with his money shortly after the weeding),and finally released in 1988. I think the book is really can open one's mind and rise deep empathy in seeing the impact of child abuse and and the suffering it brings.

[mono]

Earlier this evening, I finished Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain. I always feel strange how long it takes me to read anything by Shlain, his non-fiction work seeming so filled with facts, science, and art, but I managed to read this one relatively quickly; this work, and his two other books, I once created a thread for here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12932), for anyone interested.
Through all of his books, Shlain tends to maintain a fairly skeptical, passive position, stating facts based on credible science, deducting from various arts, and incorporating all (or most) opinions on a controversial issue (such as evolution). No book I have read by Shlain has failed to send me into long episodes of deep thought, as he does well to leave judgments up to a reader, rather than preaching his own ideas. I cannot claim to have enjoyed Sex, Time, and Power as much as his two previous books, but I still loved it.
My rating: 9/10.

[Aurora Ariel]

strategos,
The last two were books I recommened the other week.It's great you have got to read them since!:)I agree that The Shadow of the Wind is a good book, it's one of the best books I've read this year.I read it at the start of the year and still find the characters to be memorable.It's rather a new issue and was in translation.And I find Snow Falling on Cedars to be such an interesting story and I personally enjoyed the film(it's rare though as usually the books are superior)as the cinematography was brilliant, especially the scenes in the snow and running through the cedar trees(I love the part where they take shelter and meet in the one tree and taste the drips of rain) and breathtaking beach(and the war scene) and cold landscape.

[Stewart]

The Da Vinci Code (Brown, Dan)

The success of The Da Vinci Code is certainly a literary anomaly. Both unexpected and unexplainable, the sheer volume of sales is surprising as the book is not, in my opinion, well written, intelligent, or original.

It begins in Le Louvre, Paris, with some of the clumsiest writing I've ever seen. Classics such as describing the eyes and hair colour of a silhouette are par for the course here as a museum curator of considerable renown (and how many curators have you heard of?) is murdered. From there, enter our cardboard hero, Robert Langdon, who will solve the mystery armed only with a similarly cardboard French girl and the author's help. Off he goes solving puzzles you and I solved pages ago (sometimes even chapters) despite us laymen not being schooled in his esoteric field. Throw in a couple of lame baddies, a historical secret, and the 'thrill' of the chase and you have The Da Vinci Code - a children's novel marketed at adults.

The book is fast paced, its 500 plus pages are quickly digested, although this is because the author writes such short chapters that there's a lot of blank space when one chapter ends a few lines into the page. Throughout, it uses one plot device: the cliffhanger. Fair enough, it gets you reading through the book but the author could have used more literary tactics in order to develop his story.

There are a number of places, however, where the book falls down: the writing, the characters, and the history. At times, it seems, Brown has raided a factbook of dubious authenticity and tried to cram as much of its content into his book without even deliberating over its relevance to the story at hand.

Firstly, the writing: It's simple and unemotional. There are many clumsy instances where the author says something which is simply not possible (see the silhouette comments above) or jars i.e. 'Silas prayed for a miracle and little did he know that in two hours he would get one'. You are left wondering if the author is, in parallel to the dubious facts, trying to squeeze in as much content as possible from his Little Book of Bad Cliches.

The characters, despite travelling with them for the duration of the book, never developed. They 'ooh-ed and ah-ed' their way through the startling revelations and that's about it. Their dialogue was intolerable, at times, and there were occasions when you just couldn't believe what was coming out of their mouths: Englishman saying 'soccer', French girl saying 'spring break'. It's Americanism after Americanism with these people despite only one character being American; surely, if you do as much research as Dan Brown claims to have done, you would find out how your characters speak. Another ‘joy’ is the utter shock on one character's face - who has just been told a stream of pseudo-history wher she hardly flinched- as she learns that 'rose' is an anagram of 'Eros'.

It's the facts, however, that really let this book down. It claims from the start that a number of things (such as art, documents, locations) are accurate which, with the author's supposed research, you hope to believe. And then you are inundated with Paris the wrong way around, the wrong police forces running about, French cops commanding the British cops, England being the only country in Europe where they drive on the left (conveniently forgetting Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cyprus, and Malta), and other such nonsense as British knights carrying ID cards which pronounce them above the law.

That's the errors but, as I've said before, there are times when you feel the author is just including stuff to pad the book. Common sentences are 'Robert Langdon was surprised how many people didn't actually know...this or that' or 'Robert Langdon often smiled when he thought about how few people knew...this or that'. Place descriptions don't fare much better, unfortunately, as they are out of the story's context and read like 'copy and pastes' from tourist websites.

All in all, I've found the book to be like marmite; there are those that love it and those that hate it. I proudly place myself in the latter camp.

The pace, I enjoyed. The book, I didn't. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco covered this topic back in the 1980s - it's nothing new. Brown is just recycling the poor 'The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail' as fiction. Bad history meets bad fiction - it's a marriage made in Heaven.

If you want some no-brain beach reading - and haven't read this yet - then give it a try; it's airport tat! Don't, however, believe a word of it, as it is, for the most part, nonsense. If, however, you are looking for a great novel that deals with similar topics, and has a great reread potential, then read the aforementioned Foucault's Pendulum - it's superior in every way.

[Stewart]

Perdido Street Station (Miéville, China)

I’m not one for fantasy, the thought of the genre immediately brings to mind hordes of orcs, objects with magical properties, and characters who are either good or evil with no middle ground; of course, for this, Tolkien has to shoulder some of the blame. So, it was, with much concern that I took on board the recommendation of China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, a fantasy novel that breaks with the stereotypes and thrusts us into a bleak world where science and magic work inharmoniously together, mutants go about their daily lives, and cities are powerful autarchies where even the slightest whisper against the government may lead to you joining the desaparecidos.

It begins with Isaac and Lin, a mixed species couple (he’s human and she’s khepri, an insect hybrid) whose lives change when both receive contracts of work. Isaac is asked by a mysterious visitor to restore his power of flight, while Lin is employed by the local mafia boss to craft his sculpture, an artform in which insect sputum is her medium. As they work at their respective jobs Isaac unwittingly unleashes his research specimens upon the city of New Crobuzon, an event that affects him in a number of ways, and with his friends he sets out to right his wrong.

At 800 pages Perdido Street Station is no breeze, but one can’t help feel that it is drawn out, stuffed with adjectives, and as tedious a read as life in New Crobuzon. It would certainly have benefited from large quantities of editing, but there are some who would argue that it’s a homage to the style of Mervyn Peake. The story, for the first two hundred pages, was nicely taking form, but, when the slake-moths Isaac was researching escape, the novel slides downhill into a depressing chase, which, despite the implied timeframe and urgency, seemed leisurely and unexciting.

It was incredibly drawn out so that small spaces of time were dragged over pages which added nothing to the tension. The story, at the beginning, was shaping up nicely and when the slake-moths escaped the book just went downhill into a really depressing chase which, despite the implied timeframe and the importance, seemed leisurely as the narrative failed to excite.

Miéville shows us that New Crobuzon, a city in the world of Bas-Lag, is a dirty place; grimy windows, littered streets, and scores of nefarious characters. It’s a well realised setting, and not difficult to imagine its soaring towers, its crumbling buildings, the rusted train network, but, by the final two hundred pages, the author still takes many opportunities from the pressing narrative to remind us of the extreme filth and depressive air surrounding the place.

The prose is mediocre, although, having never read Peake, I can’t say whether the tribute is fitting. The author, at times, seems more interested in displaying his extensive vocabulary, but, in an attempt to do so, he finds himself repeating a number of words that actually limits his lexis; ‘extraordinary’, ‘onieric’, and all possibilities of ‘thaumaturgy’ making considerable appearances. And when Miéville wants to describe something as brown then, rather than say it’s brown, he uses the word dun – repeatedly.

The citizens of New Crobuzon are well-crafted and, like the city, utterly loathable. They are also, due to different species, mutations, and immigrants, extremely varied. Aside from the aforementioned humans and khepri, there are winged creatures called garuda, evolved cacti, which I could never visualise without reverting to caricature, and the Remade, those whose bodies have been reconfigured in imaginative ways by the use of controlled magic, are just a few of the types to be found wandering the streets, or, like any society, living ghettoised.

While Perdido Street Station starts well, it devolves into little more than a moth hunt, punctuated with Miéville’s own socialist politics. The climax takes place in the station of the title, the main thoroughfare of New Crobuzon, but it is hard to tell why the book is named after this construction as it only appears in the denouement for approximately fifty pages. All in all, Miéville isn’t a bad writer per se but he is by no means great. Should I wish to read another fantasy novel then I may approach his fiction again, but I will wait until he has a substantial body of work behind him and hope, that with each book, he improves on his craft.

[Stewart]

The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro, Kazuo)

A short monologue (about 250 pages) dictated by Stevens, the Butler of Darlington Hall in the 1950s who, on the recommendation of his new American employer, takes a trip out to the English countryside.

Of course, priding himself on his professionalism, he uses the trip for work purposes in the hope of recruiting a former worker back to Darlington Hall after he had convinced himself that, from her letter, she wanted to return.

So off he goes and all the while he recalls the major events of Darlington Hall during the 1930s as his employer, Lord Darlington, dabbles in politics and demonstrates Nazi sympathies - a man more influenced by others than someone to aspire to. All the while, of course, Stevens is the consummate professional and his attitude to his master is one of love and respect, a man whom he would obey without question.

The prose is sweet. Stevens’ voice is smooth, well constructed, and so utterly natural, and his musings over trying to come to terms with the world via such minor quibbles as perfecting the art of bantering demonstrate a wonderful character. Polite the whole way through his language only falters when it almost seems his emotions are about to better him and tears are ready to gush.

Written in the late 1980s this Booker Prize winner from Ishiguro is an interesting look at professionalism and I think, at least to me, it demonstrates how we need to find a balance between achieving our goals and being true to ourselves.

[Stewart]

The Kite Runner (Hosseini, Khaled)

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

Thus begins The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel; a tale spanning Afghanistan in the seventies to its part in the Twin Towers passing the Soviet invasion and Taliban rule along the way. The story involves the narrator, Amir, trying to gain his father’s respect by attempting a triumph in the local kite fighting competition. Hassan, his friend and servant, helps him but a life-changing event, for which Amir blames himself, occurs which sees their lives take different paths. When the Soviets attack Amir and his father flee to America via Pakistan where they begin a new life. Amir grows up, graduates, marries, but the thought of his guilt sees him return to Afghanistan, now under Taliban rule, in order to trace Hassan and to right the wrongs of that day in 1975.

Despite the first chapter, a page at most that could be cut, the book begins nicely and sets the stage. Kids play, Islam encourages regular prayer, and the village teems with life. The story continues and we learn about the Hazara, the lowly Afghans used as servants, and how Amir’s playmate, the hare-lipped Hassan, is of this caste. Hassan represents everything the narrator wishes he could be: brave, honourable, and willing to stand up for himself. When Amir needs something, Hassan provides, when Amir is in trouble, Hassan takes the blame, and when Amir is bullied Hassan takes the beating.

It is during this time that Hosseini is at his strongest which, in my opinion, is still rather weak. His characters are alive in their own environment, the play between them is realistic, and the dialogue is nicely garnished with a sprinkle of Farsi. We are also invited to sample Afghani culture as we tour houses and schools, sample the food, visit the cinema, and smile during the kite fighting competition. The only problem here is that the description is so matter of fact that it seems the narrator is listing what he remembers without commenting on any emotional impact it may have caused.

In much the same way that the Soviet attacks caused a downhill surge in the quality of life, the book takes a tumble. Amir’s life in America is a section of approximately seventy pages which, thinking back, seems tagged on. It was as if it were written once the novel was complete and tucked in the centre simply to lengthen the text. Nothing that happens here bears any relation to the rest of the story with the exception of the characters and where the ending is located. I wonder, perhaps, if this part were added to make it not so completely foreign to the mainstream American market.

After the American section the novel doesn’t improve. Amir returns to Afghanistan to right his wrongs and the story becomes more of a catalogue of Taliban atrocities than the emotional narrative it could have been. Eventually, after a series of ridiculous coincidences, the story returns to America where it, thankfully, concludes.

I found the narrator to be too perfect in his recollection of times gone by. Every detail is rendered with incredible certainty, including dreams where he’s not quite coherent, and the descriptions are without sentiment. Nostalgia has never been so dry. Cliché is used prolifically within the narrative although the middle aged Amir does make light of this. He doesn’t, however, seem to realise that his own life story has graced so many movies and books already that, despite being the only Afghan protagonist I know, he is already hackneyed.

The Kite Runner is not a book that I can recommend and I disagree with the critics that are quoted as saying the book was “emotional” when it was so cold that it would take more than a poppy field ablaze to melt its boring heart.

[Stewart]

The Alchemist (Coelho, Paulo)

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is billed as a modern classic, yet I find it difficult to discern why. It has the feel of a fable; from a time as hazy as the desert in which it is set, and carries the lessons on life one would expect from such a parable. The feelings of distant memory that it creates, however, fashion a gap between the book and the reader.

It begins with Santiago, a shepherd boy, who gives up his customs to follow a dream he has, a vision of treasure found at the Egyptian pyramids. Along the way he meets a king, a crystal merchant, an Englishman, and an alchemist; all of whom, with their passing involvement, provide him with a piece of the spiritual jigsaw that is his life. Finally, when he arrives at the Egyptian pyramids, he learns a lesson in life that brings him happiness.

The novel is short, and, while it gets its message across, a number of other things suffer. The characterisation is lean; everyone is faceless, ageless, and speaks with the same voice, a voice of implied wisdom. Most characters are also nameless; even Santiago, the protagonist, is simply referred to as ‘the boy’ throughout. Setting, also, is a casualty of the book; while we follow Santiago through the desert, we never truly get the feeling of being there. We don’t feel the heat, thirst for water, or shiver when night falls.

The prose in the book is extremely simple, giving The Alchemist the feel of a children’s book. Adjectives, especially when necessary, are rare, so that most things are described as ‘the desert’, ‘a horse’, or ‘some wine’. The desert has no texture, the horse no character, and the wine no flavour. Repetition, also, lengthens the book so that, once wisdom has been spoken, it echoes through the narrative so that each action can be credited.

The Alchemist is a quick read, but it’s not a good read. It has the feeling of a bonding session in the workplace where you discuss the implications of pseudo-situations, only moved from the office to the desert. It’s a self-help book disguised as a novel, the “secrets” of life, though hardly life-changing, are listed as stages in one boy’s discovery. I hope you discover this review before the novel.

[Stewart]

Lamb (Mac Laverty, Bernard)

Lamb, by Bernard Mac Laverty, is, at 150 pages, a short read, but its brevity serves only to provide a perfectly told story without padding or exposition. It follows the story of a young priest, Michael Lamb (or Brother Sebastian), who runs away from the Irish Borstal that he works in, takes a deprived boy named Owen Kane with him. But, as his money dwindles, news of the kidnapping closes in on them, and Lamb finds himself running out of ideas on how to save the boy’s life, leading to a dark climax borne of both necessity and love.

Beginning in the Borstal, aptly referred as “a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor” by its head, Brother Benedict, Lamb observes this to be an accurate statement as he believes it finishes their lives, providing them with little hope for the future. Upon inheriting money from his father’s death Lamb resolves to rescue Owen, a misunderstood - and epileptic - boy, often made an example of due his stubborn nature, and give him the life he deserves. They break for London, and spend their time exploring the city and discovering each other, until the time comes when they have so few options that Lamb is required to make the decision that will affect their lives, but he believes to be right.

The characters, throughout, are developed sufficiently to create your own impression of them; although Owen’s character could have done with further expansion with regards to his life before Borstal. Lamb, especially, as you would expect a title character, is well conceived and his decisions, at all times, appear believable. Brother Benedict, a sadist at heart, claims that he “was belted black and blue myself what harm did it do me?” without realising that it turned him into the one now administering beatings. Even the fringe characters: conmen, housekeepers, and perverts have enough splashes of colour to make them plausible.

The writing, while not being flowery, is engaging enough to spin the narrative on, making it a book you are not likely to put down until completion. It’s a thrill to read as the escapes bond with each other, but watching as their world of opportunity caves in around them. The underlying meanings and symbols that make the book special, the many inferences of the book’s title, for example, raise the scope of the novel, adding further richness to it.

Lamb, for its length, covers a number of topics, but the theme that stands out, for me, is love; that, and the things you would do for it. Sometimes, you don’t even know you are doing it, Lamb discovers while trying to understand the fugues of Owen’s epilepsy. But it’s the grim denouement of the novel that questions how far one would really go, and it’s this that adds the pièce de résistance to a wonderful and haunting tale.

[Stewart]

The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst, Alan)

Alan Hollinghurst’s fourth novel, The Line of Beauty, follows the story of Nick Guest, a lodger of the wealthy Fedden family, through the landslide years of the Conservative government in the 1980s. A bildungsroman, split into three sections, it observes Nick over four years as he climbs the social ladder, led by his dreams of wealth, status, and beauty, which ultimately lead to his downfall.

Nick has engineered his rise by befriending, at university, the son of minor MP Gerald Fedden, Toby, to whom he is attracted. Post-Oxford, he has moved into the home of the Feddens, an invite from Toby. The tale follows Nick’s first romance with Leo, a black social worker, and then moves on to his relationship with a beautiful millionaire, before dwelling on his eventual downfall. Throughout these events, which make up the aforementioned sections, the author examines the 1980s socially, politically, and beautifully.

First, the language; The Line of Beauty’s prose is a homage to Henry James, and Hollinghurst has it perfect, his contemporary take allowing less ambiguity with description. And it’s the description that exemplifies this novel; long, sweeping sentences, realistic action, and colourful observations, of the players’ thoughts and expressions, all punctuated with enough dialogue to complete, without being indulgent, every scene. With such detail on display, the novel takes its time, but the gradually developing arena Hollinghurst is showing us becomes a world in its own right.

Throughout the narrative, running at an unhurried pace, the characters are exemplary. The aesthete Nick Guest, so aptly named, searches for beauty in everything around him while being less than perfect himself. The Fedden patriarch, Gerald, an MP and philistine, chases his ambitions of having the Prime Minister, referred to as ‘the Lady’, to his house, and having his likeness realised by satirical puppet show, Spitting Image. Nick’s lovers (Leo, comic; the millionaire, hedonistic) draw empathy, while all the others in his life, having their positives and negatives traits, walk confidently off the page. Even Toby’s sister, Catriona, fittingly nicknamed ‘the Cat’, being the black sheep of the family, is perfectly realised, from her early neurosis, passing her chemically induced crests and troughs, to her rebellion from the family and unerring desire to tell the truth.

And the 1980s, as a setting, provides a reflection on a depressing period in British history: unemployment is on the rise, the rich are getting richer, and AIDS is a grim shadow waiting to kill those who aren’t careful. Moving in closer, to the London locations, the novel is rife with upper class dwellings, in which airy rooms are decorated with striking aesthetics despite the ignorance, Nick being the exception, of the occupants. The art, vases, paintings, and furniture, in the Feddens’ house serves only to demonstrate status, something Gerald is always striving to improve.

When Hollinghurst won the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty, it became the first piece of gay fiction to take receipt of the award. There are, as you may expect in such a book, some scenes of homosexual sex, but the author, with great skill, doesn’t delve too deeply into being graphic, ensuring a comfortable read, and, in doing so, reveals facets of gay life that, to many readers, may have been unknown before.

The Line of Beauty is a triumph for literature; its characters are complex and engaging, its setting real without being nostalgic, and its themes thoroughly explored. It takes no moral stance, allowing the reader to decide as to the motivations of its characters and to their comeuppance. Its set pieces are incredibly wrought, the scene with Nick, high on cocaine, dancing with Margaret Thatcher, when Feddens achieves one of his dreams, being of particular merit. The humour also, for it is incredibly witty, shines out from the events and the dialogue, and it gives that little bit of light to what is, in essence, a tragic novel. At just over five hundred pages, it is a long book, but taking the time to read it proves that each page is worth it; in fact, it’s a book of beauty.

[Themis]

The book I read last was Agatha Christie's "By the pricking of my thumbs".

The plot was quite nice. There were many traps (and of course, I managed to fall in about half of them), all leading in different (probable) directions.
On the whole, though, I didn't like it much. It was funny at times but also illogical. Some things just didn't add up. Furthermore, I had the impression that sometimes the characters knew what Christie knew (being the author of the whole thing) and not what they could possibly know from what had been said so far.

[Stewart]

Ignorance (Kundera, Milan)

Ignorance, by Milan Kundera, is a small novel but big on ideas. Playing like a watered down Odyssey, two Czech émigrés return to post-communist Prague after twenty years. A chance meeting in the airport stirs memories of long ago that leads to an interesting study of our memory, its limits and unreliability, and how, in our ignorance, we can take it for granted and trust it too much.

Irena fled to France during the Russian invasion; Josef to Denmark. Both have built new lives, made new friends, and forgotten who they were. After the fall of European communism in 1989, they return to their city only to find that it’s no longer theirs; it’s full of tourists, whores, and restaurants the Czechs can’t afford. A chance sighting in the airport causes Irena to engage Josef in conversation; she remembers him from a conversation twenty years ago. They agree to meet, and, as the novel builds up to their rendezvous, they go about their homecomings - meeting parents, friends, and, ultimately, themselves - to discover that Prague is no longer home.

Stylistically, the book is a dream. Although little happens in the novel - a conversation here, a wander there – it is the narrator’s asides that gels the experience, wandering off into philosophical mode, or giving atypical history lessons - all the time, maintaining a poetic tone. The prose is terse, but just right to create the surreal atmosphere it needs to succeed. It wanders effortlessly between the different characters and the lessons learned from their actions.

The characters are well drawn, although their focus is completely on their homecoming, their memory, and doubts about their patriotism. Their actions are believable; their conversations intelligent. Prague, as a character, is underdone – little of the city is given, and, after twenty years, it would have been nice to know the visible changes that time has wrought.

Overall, Kundera has provided an appealing novel, doubtless inspired by his own circumstances as a Czech émigré. While it may not be to the tastes of all (i.e. those seeking action) it does endow us with food for thought, something to consider about our memories. And, at least for me, the true thrill was watching how the philosophical and historical asides came together to complete the novel, and reinforce the characters’ feelings.

[tames]

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin - Book club book for Sept. - commented in the Book Club Forum


Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

This book is about David Balfour. It takes place in Scotland in 1751. David's father dies and he the sets out on an incredible journey through Scotland (initiated by his greedy uncle) during the time that the English had taken over the land. The English were starting to "lay down the law", and the clans did not like it much. This is the first scottish book that I have read, and introduced me to the family clans. I found it very fascinating. I was looking up maps of Scotland to see where David was travelling. I definitely want to read more about Scotland. I also just got a copy of David Balfour also known as Catriona which is a sequel to Kidnapped .

--Tim

[Stewart]

Saturday (McEwan, Ian)

Ian McEwan’s Saturday is the story of Henry Perowne, a London based neurosurgeon, as he reflects on his life via the events that happen during his day off. Mixing organised chores with random incidents, the novel provides a great character study, one of a man coming to terms with his advancing years, although the book is low on action.

One morning, Perowne wakes early to witness an aviation accident, which troubles him throughout the day. As the day progresses he makes love to his wife, gets involved in a traffic accident, gets beat at squash, buys fish, visits his sick mother, listens to his son’s band perform, argues politics with his poetess daughter, and settles down for a family meal in the evening. While all this happens, the London march against the impending war in Iraq gathers momentum.

The characters are extremely well done with the exception, perhaps, of Daisy, Perowne’s daughter, who simply argues her anti-war stance and hides her own little secret. Daisy and Theo, his son, are, unlike their father, creative souls, and at the age where they are ready to flee the nest. Baxter, the novel’s main antagonist, is a young man rendered emotionally unstable by a degenerative brain disease, embarrassed by his condition yet unable to prevent its detriment to his life. And Perowne, through all this, meditates on everything, no matter how seemingly insignificant, and the author presents him as emotionally ambivalent man; a man slow to take sides, but always willing to consider the wider picture.

The plot is small but the emotional and philosophical conclusions drawn from each observation or incident serves to complete the picture of Henry Perowne’s day. In the evening, Baxter returns to cause havoc with the surgeon’s family, a scaled down metaphor for the impending invasion of Iraq being an example of how one event, no matter how minimal, can lead to big changes in one’s life.

Overall, McEwan has crafted a novel worthy of praise, but its meditative assault can be overwhelming at times; the use of neurosurgical terms is difficult for the layman, but our protagonist is a neurosurgeon so it’s more than appropriate. It’s certainly relevant to the current political climate, and probably serves as a slightly autobiographical account of McEwan’s feelings as his own family grows up and becomes independent. Saturday is worth the read, for an interesting study of making sense of the world, and of growing old; or, as Perowne says, Saturday will become Sunday.

[rachel]

I just finished The Hobbit for the second time. The first time I read it quickly as time was very limited and I missed a great deal.
Having done a lot of research on J.R.R. Tolkien, Edith and the family and having read a book of letters by him to his publishers and children I decided to read the Hobbit to see if I could detect anything of Tolkien the man and of Edith and the children within the pages and the read was far more absorbing and magical than I thought.
I was fascinated by the way Bilbo Baggins of the Shire went from being a stuffy but respectable Hobbit to a creature who had to live by his wits and pull forth courage he never dreamed he had or could have. He became just as Mithrandir said he would.
It showed me that when the crunch comes we truly can do the impossible if we set our minds to it.
Because Tolkien figured out even how much the average person could walk each day in a forced march I could feel mile after weary mile and was mentally exhausted at the end of each day in the story and felt their cold and their hunger. Brilliant.
J.R.R. once said that to him the story of the Gospel and how we all related to it, the story of the Fall and of Redemption was the greatest Faerie story of all.
So thumbs up for the Hobbit, really ten out of ten.

"Prgress should mean we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision." G.K. Chesterton

[Scheherazade]

Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich

The lovely bounty hunter Stephanie Plum ends up annoying some gang members, which is followed by their trying to take revenge.

This is the fourth Stephanie Plum book I have read. As usual it is funny, clever and entertaining! Good lazy day read.

8/10 KitKats!

[tames]

The Italian by Anne Radcliffe

This is my first gothic novel. Written in 1758, these novels where popular at the time that Jane Austin wrote Northanger Abbey which is where I found the inspiration to read it. Much to my surprise, this was a fun read. This book has a good mix of narrative and dialog. It is set in Naples, Italy around 1764. It is the story of a Marchese and Marchesa's son (Vivaldi) who falls in love with a girl that is not of their high society and of course is rejected by the parents. The story gets underway when a monk bypasses Vivaldi on a dark night and warns him to stay away from the girl. The monk shows up mysteriously a few times like this and you get the idea that it may be a spirit. The plot starts twisting and turning when more mysterious things happen. The story deals much with what must be Anne's opinion of the power of the Catholic church at the time. The Inquisition is still a power in Italy and the last part of the book deals with this horrible and judgemental time of the church through the imprisonment of Vivaldi.

Anne always has a poem at the beginning of the chapter to set the tone. I really enjoyed that.

I say you just gotta read it for yourself. I definitely want to read much of Anne Radcliffe's works.

--Tim

[mono]

Last night, I finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
I felt somewhat upset of how long it took me to read the novel, seeming so busy with school, and the like, this week, but this story definitely proved worth the commitment and devotion of reading it.
The Brothers Karamazov tells a tale of murder, love, deceit, insanity, and forgiveness; its characters I must renown as some of the most distinguished and unique characters I have encountered in any other fiction book, full of surprises, independence, and confusion. Dostoevsky, though much thought and careful psychology, obviously pieced each fictional character together very specifically, like shaping each puzzle piece to construct a large, beautiful jigsaw puzzle.
Of all of the characters, Alyosha probably interested me the most - the youngest Karamazov brother, but much of the mediator, peace-maker, and wisest of them all. The novel tells of much chaos, and Alyosha seems the only character seeking true justice and good morals, which places much tension on him, but, in result, he turns out as a very warm, loving, faithful, and admirable character.
Though I still regard Dostoevsky's previous novel, Crime and Punishment, as one of the best novels I have read, The Brothers Karamazov dominates it.
My rating: 10/10.

[Darlin]

Last night, I finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
I felt somewhat upset of how long it took me to read the novel, seeming so busy with school, and the like, this week, but this story definitely proved worth the commitment and devotion of reading it.
The Brothers Karamazov tells a tale of murder, love, deceit, insanity, and forgiveness; its characters I must renown as some of the most distinguished and unique characters I have encountered in any other fiction book, full of surprises, independence, and confusion. Dostoevsky, though much thought and careful psychology, obviously pieced each fictional character together very specifically, like shaping each puzzle piece to construct a large, beautiful jigsaw puzzle.
Of all of the characters, Alyosha probably interested me the most - the youngest Karamazov brother, but much of the mediator, peace-maker, and wisest of them all. The novel tells of much chaos, and Alyosha seems the only character seeking true justice and good morals, which places much tension on him, but, in result, he turns out as a very warm, loving, faithful, and admirable character.
Though I still regard Dostoevsky's previous novel, Crime and Punishment, as one of the best novels I have read, The Brothers Karamazov dominates it.
My rating: 10/10.

Mono, thanks for the review of this book. It's been on my to read list for a good decade or more and your wonderful rating of it has inspired me to make it a must read for 2006.

[Wendigo_49]

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

I finished the story a couple of days ago. I decided to read the novel since it was so widely popular on the forum and I wanted to see why. I am glad I decided to take everybody's recommendation. The story is one of the best I have ever read and is up in my top 10 of all time favorites.
The story is about three editors, Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi, who after reading manuscripts on the occult and hearing a story from a colonel decide to make up a story to go in their employers' collection on all of the occult and secret societies. The novel is basically all back-story on Casaubon's life from meeting Belbo at a local tavern to him hiding in a museum waiting for something they thought they made up to happen, in between you see a South American ritual where he meets a very interesting character, the formation of the plan from trying to just make a profit on it to the “plan” consuming all three editors in different ways.
The book was well written and flowed nicely in the big chapters but it seemed he could have grouped some of the two page chapters into the next chapter and not lost anything.
The “plan” is the star of the whole book. It is basically an amalgam of esoteric groups and theories, from the Templar knights, Comte de Saint-Germain, Illuminati, to Hitler and the hollow-earth theory, all tied into together by the three editors. The “plan” will grab you like nothing else has and you’ll start seeing associations with the “plan” in everything you read or watch. It has such a stranglehold until you come to chapters with Lia in them.
A couple of months ago we had a post on most/least favorite character. I would have to put her in both categories. After reading her synthesis on why numerology isn’t that special, I put her in these categories. She made me feel like I was back in grade school and you went up to do a math problem and after finishing and you look at the teacher for confirmation and he/she has that look like he/she is thinking: How did he get that answer. After reading her chapters and went to the next, my heart wanted back the “plan” but a small piece of your brain knows that this is all a story, but no character I have ever read has made me do such a complete flip in my thinking and feelings of the book while reading the book.
All in all this is one of the best books you could ever read and everybody should. Whew, that was a long post. I give it a 9.9/10

[Darlin]

The Feleen Brand by Will Henry. I don’t know how many lovers of good Westerns there are on this site but I LOVE westerns whether they’re books, movies, TV shows or comic books and Will Henry is my second favorite author of the genre. He also wrote as Clay Fisher in his earlier days but when he wrote as Will Henry those books seem to be more historically based. Perhaps my favorite book by him is No Survivors which is a haunting, fascinating read. The Feleen Brand is not quite in that caliber but it was definitely an intriguing read.

It’s a story about a young man, the ‘hero’ Hushton (Hush) Feleen, and mind you I use that word very lightly. He leaves his family to fend for himself in the Wild West, taking up with an elderly Spanish man who has strong morals and a good work ethic which he attempts to teach to Hush. This is something Hush struggles with throughout the book which makes for a very different type of hero and western. At one point I was quite disgusted with him and considered Hush to be the stupidest man that ever lived or invented.

One usually expects the hero to live up to the reputation of all good heroes more or less but our so called hero doesn’t quite attain that status in his many trials and tribulations. Although he starts out as a good enough sort and even likeable he has a mishap after mishap and instead of it making him stronger and learning from his mistakes he continues to drown himself so to speak. It’s an incredibly unexpected way to write a western I think because I kept expecting him to get wiser but it’s the struggle to reach that point that’s so compelling. It’s almost like watching a train wreck. You can’t believe something so awful is happening right in front of you, you hope there’re survivors, you want to shout, scream, do something, but all you can do is watch or in this case continue reading.

Getting to the end is worth the ride as to me it was the most fascinating part for we run into Charles Goodnight, Tom Horn, Bat Matterson, Wyatt Earp and a few other legendary men of the wild and wooly west. That added to my enjoyment as I think it would for anyone who loves western lore, in fact that alone made it score higher for me. I’ve just never read a western where the ‘hero’ isn’t really a hero at all and in fact has almost no redemptive qualities about him in the slightest so without the bonus real life characters I would have scored this much lower. I hope I haven’t given too much away because I think knowing too much about a book sometimes spoils it. Suffice it to say that the life and times of Hush is riveting and unbelievably real, a good read but so not the typical western which could be a good or a bad thing. I will say the ending came full circle in an almost funny, sad and not at all predictable way. 8/10

[mono]

Last night I finished reading The Sardonic Humor Of Ambrose Bierce, edited by George Barkin, a relatively short anthology of Bierce's poetry, essays, and strange fables.
Having read all of Bierce's short stories, and his famous The Devil's Dictionary, I found this work especially entertaining and mind-bending, as he ranges much from serious metaphysical and mystical work, to darkly humorous political allegories, to the oddest fables one could think. One such fable I will type:

The Crimson Candle
A Man lying at the point of death called his wife to his bedside and said:
"I am about to leave you forever; give me, therefore, one last proof of your affection and fidelity. In my desk you will find a crimson candle, which has been blessed by the High Priest and has a peculiar mystical significance. Swear to me that while it is in existence you will not remarry."
The Woman swore and the Man died. At the funeral the Woman stood at the head of the bier, holding a lighted crimson candle till it was wasted entirely away.
Not exactly like Æsop's fables, eh? :brow:
My rating: 8/10 (not long enough, as Bierce wrote so much in comparison).

[subterranean]

What is it about western which make it different with other genres? I do like some western movies or series, Lonesome Dove is one of them. I think the adventures and cowoboys' lives are the most interesting part. Is it the same with the book?


The Feleen Brand by Will Henry. I don’t know how many lovers of good Westerns there are on this site but I LOVE westerns whether they’re books, movies, TV shows or comic books and Will Henry is my second favorite author of the genre. [/B]

[Darlin]

What is it about western which make it different with other genres? I do like some western movies or series, Lonesome Dove is one of them. I think the adventures and cowoboys' lives are the most interesting part. Is it the same with the book?

I think the books are actually the best way to learn about the west without having to go there and visit museums and old cities like Virginia City – though if you can I highly recommend it. You really get a feel of how it must have been like in that era. If you have the right author the books will usually be more realistic and less romantic filled with exciting and fascinating adventures. The era if full of legendary people who performed legendary feats. The heroes are almost all rough, never too handsome, solid and honorable men. They may be poor and simple or struggling cowboys but they always overcome their problems as well as the bad guys in the end, it’s just a given.

In other genres it’s not so cut and dry as that. But when I read the Feleen Brand that really threw me! Maybe it was too realistic for me. Poor Hush was just so stupid he couldn't win and he certainly couldn't be a hero. And that’s why the Western genre’s usually different. The Hush’s are few and very far between what you’ll read about in good westerns. It’s almost always clear cut who the good guys are and who the baddies are that they have to defeat. In a good western you're always rooting for them and always expecting them to win gosh darn it because they’re supposed to! :)

I agree that Lonesome Dove is an excellent series - I loved it and anytime I see Chris Cooper in a film or on TV I always think of him as Blue. And best of all they had real Native American Indians who weren’t stereotyped. Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones were wonderful in it, Angelica Huston and Danny Glover as well. By the way Danny Glover is in another favorite western of mine – Silverado. Now that’s a good western! We’re entertained thoroughly through out, it never lags, you have the shoot outs and set backs but we always, always know our rugged heroes are going to win! Now that’s a Western! I highly recommend it!

[imaditzyreader]

I recently finished Margaret Atgood's book "The Handmaid's Tale."

It was a great read that truely made the reader think about where our society is heading, in the same genre as "1984" "Brave New World" and "Darkness at Noon." While it could not quite stand up to these greats, it was still a great book.

It was a story about the US government taking over the counrty and reverting it to a man controlled society, with the women simply belonging to the men. there were a few different classes of women, for that is who it focused on, in the novel. First there were the wives, who were aloud to do pretty much as they pleased, as long as they followed the rules to some extent. Secondly there were the Handmaids, whos sole purpose in society was for reproduction, and who led stirctly regemented lives. They under go a ceremony once a month in which their commander tried to fertilise them. Also there are lesser ranks of women called the Martas and others that play minor roles, such as cleaning the commanders' houses and such.

As Offred's life is explained in greater detail, both through what she explains around her and in her many flash backs, the reader comes to know and appreciate how she and other women like her feel. It is a great book that looks at present humans through one of thier possable futures.

10/10

[hamadoriental]

I Would Like To Know About The Pros And Cons Of A Book I Am Reading Now,orientalism.

[Shira]

I just finished reading an ARC of Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and I can't believe this is Anne Rice.

I always considered her a brilliant writer...capable of writing deeply and mysteriously and profoundly, yet succintly and meaningfully. Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt is horrible. The plot is thin, the story wanders around and never quite says anything, the syntax and grammar is appalling.

I really hoped Anne Rice would use her gift to glorify God and her notoriety to draw people to Christ. This book is going to do neither of those things.

[subterranean]

Hi,

What excatly the title? Is it Orientalism? Who's the author?



I Would Like To Know About The Pros And Cons Of A Book I Am Reading Now,orientalism.

[Scheherazade]

Bad Girls by J. Wilson

Yet another teen book from Wilson. This time the bullying is the theme. As usual, the author manages to write a page turner for the teen girls; something for them to identify with and it ends with a nice lesson for them to ponder.

A good read for young readers: 7/10 KitKats!

[Epiphany]

The last book I read was "Las 20 grandes conspiraciones de la historia" (The 20 greatest conspiracies of history).
It's a nonficition book, and it pretty much covers 20 different conspiracy theories regarding different subjects.
I must say, the prologue is the most awesome passage I've read in my life.
The first conspiracy you read is about the Catholic Church, and how Jesus Christ never really existed in flesh and bone, and it stated that He was only a symbol. It quoted the Bible several times, proving that several of its passages contradicted each other.
Then they talk about the relationship between Islam's suicide bombers and Abdul-Al-Khabba's fanatic soldiers a thousand years ago.
It, of course, talks about the world-famous "We never really stepped foot on the moon" theory, and Hitler's liking for Occultism and how it influenced WWII.
And a whole bunch more.
The whole book is a true page-turner for readers of any age. Anyone who can read should have a copy of this book on their bookshelf. 92/100

[Yulaichen]

The last book that I have read was A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. School assignment. I need to seriously get some new books to read. This book is boring the first time that I read it, but also I couldn't understand it. The next one we have to read is 1984 I forget who wrote it.
Actually I Have read this books for two times("A Tale of Two Cities"),it is such wonderful book i ever read!! The story of Sydeny is so touching!!I think it is the best in Charles Dickens'books!

[hamadoriental]

I Wouldlike To Knowabout The Intellectual And Political Aspects Of Edward Said`s Book ''orientalism"

[Martha Q]

last book Tina Modotti written by Cacucci.....tells the life of tina modotti and her struggle in a revolutionary mexico, an oppressing soviet union and a confused spain.........along the way we meet her circle of intellectuals from diego rivera to frida..........great book 8and 3 quarters /10
last book reread..well not book play.....Richard III fantastic and always will be...the last sentence...a horse a horse, my kingdom for a horse.....fantastic...10/10

[EAP]

Bloodtide - Melvin Burgess (9/10)

Based on the first part of the ancient Icelandic Volsunga Saga, It is set for the most part in a futuristic London that is ruled by armed ganglords fighting for control over the city and the surrounding areas. Hundreds of years of war has crippled the human civilization and given birth to unnatural horrors that walk the earth and prey on unsuspecting human souls.

Val Volson owns half the London and has his eyes set on the other half. Father of four children, three sons and a daughter, he also wants to expand outwards, pushing back the hordes of halfmen that shut out any sort of communication with other similarly besieged human bastions. But to do that he has to make peace with the Lord of the rest of the London - Conor. Deciding to offer the hand of his fourteen year old daughter Signy to validate a peace treaty, Val is startled when on the eve of the marriage banquet, a strange being thought by many to be Odin, delivers an imperious prophecy and bestows a special gift of a wooden knife on Val's youngest son, Signy's Twin, Siggy.

Conor is not happy with this interruption in the normal order.

Signy might force herself to come to love Conor, once their most hated enemy, who seems reasonable and caring and Val might forget all his fears in face of the imminent peace, but not all hearts are satisfied - and it is a troubled Siggy that watches Signy's wedding procession disappear into Conor's land.

Things might not turn out as most want them to be for the Gods are restless and Odin is lurking in the corners...

What follows is an exciting tale of jam-packed action, full of clever twists, witty dialogue and scenes that surpass real life in the spontaneity of their occurance whilst bombarding the reader's mind with a plethora of conflicting emotions.

It may seem as If I am positively gushing - and yes, for a moment spit did appear on my lips - but the fact is, this book stands out among a multitude of others for its exemplary pacing and brilliant characterization.

The story by its very nature is extremely spoilerish. To continue with a fuller summation is likely to be more damaging than otherwise, so I'll stop here with only one suggestion, those of you who are interested in modern reinterpretations of classical saga's should definitely give this one a shot - chances are you will come out of it as awed as I was.

Note: Whilst It is marketed as young-adult, I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone below the age of 12. The book surpasses any Anne Rice novel with its scenes of spine-tingling brutality and in typical Burgess fashion depicts acts of a sexual nature without any reservation.

That doesn't mean that those elements are gratuitous though, or present only for the sake of titillation. In the larger scheme of things, they are perfectly fitting.

[Stewart]

The People's Act of Love (Meek, James)

It was the intention of James Meek that his third novel, The People’s Act of Love, should be written in the manner of the great Russian novels. While I have little to no experience in this branch of literature there were enough idiosyncrasies within the book to believe that he has, at least, achieved this. And, having spent eight years living in Russia whilst following his career in journalism, Meek may be better qualified than most to write a modern take on the Russian novel .

Set in Yazyk, a remote village in the Siberian wilderness, the novel investigates the actions of a small group of people. There is Balashov, the leader of a bizarre Christian sect; Mutz, a Jewish soldier from Prague, who is one of a number of Czech soldiers on the losing side of the Russian Revolution; Anna Petrovna, a young war widow, who lives in the town with her son, Alyosha; and Samarin, an enigmatic escapee from a Siberian prison camp, who is just passing through, being followed, so he says, by another prisoner named the Mohican.

The People’s Act of Love is high on drama, and, as the action unfolds the death of a local shaman brings suspicion to Yazyk. Samarin, being the stranger with an unverifiable story, becomes the prime suspect and is imprisoned. When he tells his story to a makeshift court, a long painful narrative about life in a hellhole called the White Garden, he garners sympathy and, at the request of the undersexed Anna Petrovna, goes to stay under her watchful eye.

As the events happen in Yazyk, further tension is added to the fears of the closeknit community by the knowledge that the Reds, winners of the Russian Revolution, are coming. A priority for them is to eliminate the Czech soldiers, men desperate to return home, and claim the town for the People. The leader of the Czech’s, a man named Matula, led his men in the massacre at Staraya Krepost for which the Reds want to exercise their own brand of justice.

Meek’s prose is wonderful, as fresh and crisp as the snow falling upon the land. In fact, the harsh temperatures of Siberia inform the prose: the description makes use of evocative words suggesting a locale lost in the emptiness of northern Asia. Characters trudge over ‘papery snow’, they wear two jackets, and even the trees are known to shudder.

Throughout the novel there are a number of scenes which are brutal but handled in such a way as to seem unimportant. A man is castrated; another is butchered and the separate parts of his body hung from a tree so that they may dry; while others are sentenced to death for no reason other than the Bolshevik ideal. Matula, also, shows his anti-Semite opinions in the way he talks to Mutz, always referring to him as ‘Yid’ and making light of his religion. It’s testament to Meek’s ability that he shows us such inhumanities without preaching and leaves it open to the reader to form their opinion on his characters.

Despite how bleak The People’s Act of Love gets, it is shot through with an underlying humour that serves some warmth to the frozen landscape. And while the jokes are old, or you know them in some incarnation, they are always spoken by the soldiers who, with their circumstances, can be forgiven as they try to maintain morale.

Another interesting slant, is the book’s passing regard to religious fundamentalism. The sect living in Yazyk are Christian but their methods and doctrines are far from standard Christianity. They are castrated to be more like angels and live without sin; a practice bewildering to some of the others living in the town. Not least of all, to Anna Petrovna, whose husband is Balashov, a soldier so devout that he gave up his wife, son, and member to be closer to God.

The main themes, however, are love and sacrifice. Anna Petrovna gives up her normal life to be with Balashov, a man she loves but can never love her again; Balashov’s love of God that he would forfeit his sexuality to be with Him; and Samarin, embodiment of the People, who would sacrifice parts of his nature so as to better prepare for the world ahead. In fact, the act of love referred to in the book’s title, comes from a conversation with him and Petrovna where he talks about eating a comrade for the greater good, beating off starvation to be able to change the world. Essentially, since the book is shot through with cannibalism references, Meek is asking if there is a right time to eat another human being.

The People’s Act of Love was longlisted for the Booker 2005 and, while I’ve not read all the books that made the eventual shortlist, I wonder if Meek may have missed out on a chance to become more of a public interest. His style is certainly enjoyable, his plotting tight, and his characters tinged with much humanity. I believe Meek’s earlier two novels were somewhat different to this book and, based on the change in direction he appears to have taken, we can look forward to an interesting voice for the future.

[subterranean]

Always enjoys reading your review, Stewart
Thanks

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/happy/1055.gif

[Taliesin]

"Tšapajev and Pustota by Viktor Pelevin

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) or 10/10 Kitkats

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Book.

We are not certain whether it is postmodernism or zen-buddhism, but it is certainly great, full of food for thought.

The protagonist, Pjotr Pustota, is... well, we already have problems here. It depends on from where you look. Sometimes he is in Soviet Russia, a year after the October Revolution, sometimes in a 1990s in a sanitarium.
The novel is too deep, complex, and negating to be taken together with a few words.

So we'll do a not-very-accurate-and-translated-besides quote from discussion of two stoned drug-addicts (we are not doing drug-propaganda, and neither is Pelevin, but it is just an example), starting with the problem where the kef comes from(did a dictionary search in english, and it was the only word that came up, means the pleasure coming from drugs, We think):


-Inside us is the kef of the whole world. When you eat something or consume something, then you release a part of it. There is no kef in drugs, it is just powder or mushrooms. It is like the key to a safe. Understand?
-a small pause
-"listen", started Shurik now, but is there a lot of kef in there
-"infinitely much", said Volodin authoritatively, "Infinetely and unimagenably much, and there is that kind that you couldn't taste in your life"
-"Oh... so you have a safe inside and in that safe there is kef?"
-"Basically yes"
-"But if i could get that safe and open it?"
-"Why not?"
-"But how?"
-"You need to dedicate your whole life to it. Why do you think people go to monastery and live all their life there? Think that they just beat their heads against the floor? They really get some awesome kef there and like that, like what you cannot get in a thousand pounds. And always, do you understand? Morning, noon, evening. Some even in sleep"
-But from what do they get that kef? How is it called?
-In many ways. Basically, you could call it compassion. Or love.
-"Whose love?"
-"Just love. When you feel it, then you won't think of where it comes from or why. You won't think at all.

/We are cutting some text out of here, because we don't want to type that much/


"Listen, Volodin, are you speaking seriously about it?"
"About what?"
"Well, about that that you can have kef for your whole life. So that you would always be stoned?
"I didn't say that for life. There are other terms"
"You yourself said that there is kef all the time.
"I haven't said that neither"
"What did you say then"
"I didn't say "all the time", said Volodin " I said, "forever". Keep your ears open."
"But what is the difference?"
"The difference is that, that where the kef begins, there is no time."
"What is there, then?"
"Compassion"
"And what else"
"Nothing"
"I don't get it," said Shurik, "Does it, like, hang in emptyness, that compassion?"
"There is no emptyness either"
"What is there, then?"
"I said it before, compassion."
"Again i don't get it"
"Don't worry," said Volodin, "When you could understand that so easily, half the Moscow would kef for free"

On the same subject again:


"You need to understand the main thing," said Volodin "And i don't know how to explain... Do you remember, we spoke about the inner prosecutor?"
"I remember. He's the guy who stops you when you go too far. Like Raskolnikov, who killed the old lady. The guy thought that his inner lawyer will talk him out of it but it went the other way.
"Exactly. But who do you think the inner prosecutor is?"
Shurik started thinking
"Don't know.. Well, it is me. A part if me. Who else?"
"But the inner lawyer who will talk you out of it?"
"Again me, i guess. Though it seems quite strange - that i will open a case for myself and talk myself out of it"
"There is nothing strange about it. That's how it always is. Now imagine that your inner prosecutor has confined you, all your inner lawyers have failed and you are sitting in your own inner prison. Now imagine that there is someone fourth, who won't confine anyone, who cannot be called neither prosecutor, lawyer, nor for the guy for whom the lawyer works for. Who had never ever any case on him - i mean he is not a criminal nor an ordinary guy nor copper."
"OK. I imagined."
"Well, the fourth person is the one, for whom is the forever kef. And he needs nothing to be explained to him about it, do you understand?"
"And who is the fourth?"
"Noone"
"Can one see him anyhow?"
"No"
"Well, perhaps he can't be seen, but can he be felt?"
"No"
"Well, then he doesn't exist at all"
"Actually, if you want to know," said Volodin, "those prosecutors and lawyers do not exist. And even you don't. If there is anyone at all, then it is him"

[Kiwi Shelf]

I read The Colour Purple over the summer and had the same knowledge going in to it as well. I really enjoyed it too. They are making a broadway play of it, I wish I lived in Chicago. :( I can't even find the movie to see if it is any good.

Memoirs of a Geisha
I really liked this book! I said it elsewhere that I did. I never posted in this thread before, but I felt I had to. I was surprised at how well-written this book was. I suggest that many people read it, you will be glad that you did. :)

9/10 - Something about the ending bothered me and made me annoyed, I think it slowed down too much or something. I don't know, but other than that it was great!

[Scheherazade]

I read The Colour Purple over the summer and had the same knowledge going in to it as well. I really enjoyed it too. They are making a broadway play of it, I wish I lived in Chicago. :( I can't even find the movie to see if it is any good.

Memoirs of a Geisha
I really liked this book! I said it elsewhere that I did. I never posted in this thread before, but I felt I had to. I was surprised at how well-written this book was. I suggest that many people read it, you will be glad that you did. :)

9/10 - Something about the ending bothered me and made me annoyed, I think it slowed down too much or something. I don't know, but other than that it was great!Just discovered that my local has a copy of The Colour Purple, the movie! I will borrow it as soon as it is available! :D

I had written my thoughts on Memoirs of a Geisha somewhere in this thread as well :)

[Wendigo_49]

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon

A long and very challenging novel with the main plot being about a young U.S. Army Lieutenant named Tyrone Slothrop who travels through war-torn Europe trying to get away from authorities which want to experiment on him. They want to experiment on him because of his precognition of V-2 buzz bombings which come to him as erections. This response was conditioned in the infant Tyrone by a chemist named Laszlo Jamf which paid Tyrone's father a tidy sum and also invented a rocket insulation used in V-2 bombs and the silently infamous Rocket 0000 which a whole cast of characters are after including Slothrop.
This novel has to many characters to mention any by name. If you want to read this without the companion, you might want to go back to elementary school and keep notes on each character so that way you don't have to flip back and forth for the character's info.
I will not go into all the reasons this book was difficult to read ,but I think this will suffice. If you have masochistic tendencies than read this book without the companion book.

6 out of 10

[Kiwi Shelf]

Just discovered that my local has a copy of The Colour Purple, the movie! I will borrow it as soon as it is available! :D

I had written my thoughts on Memoirs of a Geisha somewhere in this thread as well :)

The DVD? Because I am hoping with the opening of the broadway play they will release it on DVD next year. Unless it has all ready, but if it has, it is a scarce movie!

And, I saw your mention of Memoirs of a Geisha. I wish I knew why the end bothered me so much. It just seemed so slow!

[Scheherazade]

It is a video of the movie made in 1985 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/). I am hoping to get it tomorrow! :)

[Logos]

It is a video of the movie made in 1985 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/). I am hoping to get it tomorrow! :)

It's an excellent movie :) though I haven't read the book so don't know how faithful the adaptation is.

[Kiwi Shelf]

So, no DVD of it yet. :( It is supposed to be good, let me know how well it follows the book for the time in eternity when I can actually get it. I don't want to buy it on VHS and then have it come on DVD.

[applepie]

The last book I've read was the Wind in the Willows. I've been reading it to my 2 year old son and we just finished it. I love having a little kid, it gives me an excuse to pick up and read all the things I haven't read in a while. My advice, if you want to read an entertaining little book pick it up. Don't wait on kids so you have the excuse.
Meg

[subterranean]

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Holden H. Caulfield, a young rebellious man, with the hunting hat as the sign of his uniqueness. In a way, I see Holden as a teenage with high self-esteem, and he kept calling other people as phonies, which is a strong mark of his self confidence and a sign that he considered himself better than most people in general. Perhaps these self-esteem and pride were the main reasons why he got kicked out of schools several times. Yet, in another way, I think that his rebelliousness has something to do with his effort of protecting himself, not wanting to be like everyone else (the phonies), afraid that his surroundings might change his principles. So, he somewhat isolated himself. He called people without intention only to prove his independency and that no one controlled him other than himself. Deep down, he's actually an insecure young fellow.

Overall, I really like the book. In fact, due to the big fuss I heard/read about this book, made me put aside other books which already queuing in my "to read list". And I kept saying "and he's only 16", every time he did something. The narrative is good, as well as the dialogues. A friend said that maybe someone would appreciate the book more if she/he were younger. Personally, I'm kind of agreeing with him, in regards to the theme, of course. And I'm re-reading Franny and Zooey again, to see whether there are some similarities between these two Salinger's works.

[Wendigo_49]

Valis by Phillip K. Dick

A somewhat autobiographical novel about a man named Horselover Fat and his experience with a omnipotent pink laser. Horselover is basically a burnout who wants to help anybody he can. He ends up in a downward spiral after a friend commits suicide until a pink laser hits him, and he decides to save humanity with his friends David, Kevin, Sherri, and a science fiction writer named Phillip K. Dick.

The book is 3/5's a philosophical tractate on what Fat thinks the pink laser is and what the laser or beings behind the laser wants with him. The other 2/5's of the book is basically a short story on their actual attempt to find out what the entities want from Fat and his friends with a little less of the philosphical discussions.The language in the book is straight forward and flows nicely which will let you read it in about three days. The first three-fifths of the book sounds like it would be boring but it isn't. Dick puts just enough of a plot in it to keep the story going but not enough to take your attention away from Fat's 70 or so explantions of what he thinks about God, our origins, and time. The other part of the book starts after the friends see a movie named Valis(Vast Active Living Intelligence System) which sends them on a wild ride to the home of three self-proclaimed religious figures who protect a child who the friends think is the entity behind the pink laser.

I partically enjoyed the the psychological questions behind Fat's behavior and the theological questions raised in the book were worth thinking about, but my favorite part in the whole book was when Kevin goes back to ask the child why his cat died and the child says because the cat was stupid. This was totally different than what I and most people expect a messiah to say on those occasions which usually sounds a lot like what your mom says to you when your pet dies when your young.

I like the story, but I did not think it one of the best stories ever.
Overall 7/10

[Kiwi Shelf]

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.
I just finished this book yesterday, and I have to admit I didn't think it would be that good, but it was. An easy read I may add, but worth it. I have given a lot of thought to the title. It could mean several things in reference to the novel. I am curious if anyone else has read it? Just wondering what the title meant to you. Anyways, there are a lot of elements to this novel: family, friendship, adoption, and rights for foreigners. It was pretty complicated for such a little book. The author appeared to be trying to cover many problems that not only people think are gone today, but are predominate in many cultures. Anyways, anyone that has never read Kingsolver before, this is a good intro. I have two other books by her, have to dig them out.

I would say 8/10. Not that it was terrible, I just can't put it on the same scale as some of the other really good books that I have read.

[Nightshade]

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380789019/103-7201896-1582247?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance)

Hummmm I cant explain it so if you want to know what its about hit the link^^:D
(my copy has a nicer cover:nod: )
I loved it! Didnt realise till Id finished that Id already read somthing by thisman before, well co-written by him ( Good Omens withTerry Pratchett) cant xplain it I just loved it. BIzarre charcters magic real people and the real world all mixed up! :D

Ok what I wanted to do in the first place was put my favourite line down which is really why I decided to post!

'Rubbish!' screamed a fat, elderly woman, in Richard's ear as he passed her malodorous stall, 'Junk!' she continued ' Garbage! Trash! Offal! Debris! Come and get it! Nothing whole or undamaged! Crap, tripe and useless piles of s**t. You know you want it.'

Sorry about the swearingnot that it is swearing I think the woman means it quite literally! :eek: ;) :lol:

8.5/10 (have yet to find a book that is 10/10)
But lack of slep may be a reason I loved it so much not sure- hope not :D

[Kiwi Shelf]

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
I wanted to read this book because it won a big award in Canada, The Governor General's award. I am a Canadian, so I am big on supporting the writers of my country, and this book was one of the better pieces of fiction I have read from here. It is about a Mennonite community in Ontario (province in Canada, I know not everyone is a pro at geography). Anyways, they are very religious and primitive, but the children are starting to break the mould so to speak. This book follows Nomi through her 12th year of high school, with flashbacks to the life that she lived before. I really enjoyed it!

9/10

[mono]

Earlier today, I finally finished Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcìa Márquez.
To state the fact bluntly, which I liked, but others may not, the author's rhetorical style reminded me much of a more modern Charles Dickens, written in Spanish; I think it builds beautiful imagery, and gives characters lots of depth, but the style tends to sometimes 'rub some people the wrong way.'
The plot, however, seemed very unique - very few characters, yet with much depth, sometimes predictable, yet still touching. The word 'sentimental' describes best the theme and mood of the novel, I think, placing the greatest emphasis on love devoid of marriage, children, and certain seemingly superficial stances. In the end, I thought the book beautiful!
My rating: 10/10

[starrwriter]

"One" (1989) by Richard Bach.

In the preface Bach describes a sort of epiphany he experienced when he found an obscure book on theoretical physics in a little bookshop. The subject of the book was the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics and its bizarre implications.

Bach asks the questions:
*What if we could meet the people we are destined to be in twenty years? *What if we could confront the people we were in the past, and those we are right now in parallel worlds?
*I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?

In the novel Bach and his wife Leslie are catapulted into an alternate world in which they exist simultaneously in many different incarnations.

''One'' presents a number of provocative speculations...To appreciate the spirit of this book, you must think metaphorically. Just as a television has many channels, everyone has many lifetimes that are going on simultaneously -- Joyce Cohen, New York Times

I won't divulge the conclusion the Bachs come to, even though it should be obvious from the title. I enjoyed this strange novel about unknown possibilities and I give it an 8 on a scale of 10.

(Bach's masterpiece was "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," a 10 for sure.)

[Kiwi Shelf]

Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
I had heard of this book before, not sure where from, but when I saw it the other day I decided that I had to see what the book was like. It was actually quite good. It tells the story of a mother and daughter living in a small town. They both go through changes during the novel, and find out that even when they think they are the farthest apart from each other, they are not as different as they may think. The only thing that bothers you is how they act in situations, you know that this is likely how things would be played out in a real life setting, but at the same time I kept wanting to tell them to get a clue!!! The book sucks you in.

8/10

[Kiwi Shelf]

So, finished Light on Snow by Anita Shreve today as well. It was an easy read. A surprising novel from her, all the others I have read are really very romancy, it is in there somewhere. This one had none as a prominent feature, so it was strange. I kept waiting for something to happen, but any relationships in the novel were underplayed. Anita Shreve has to be a good author though because she writes romancy novels generally, and I don't read romance all that often. I can't give it a perfect grade, though, because it was not better than her novel "Fortune's Rock". So, 8/10 again. :)

Because posting a new one would make 3 posts in a row...
Finished "A Little Stranger" today. I thought it came out in 2005, but it was actually 2004. I missed it, I guess. It was really good, I think. Quite different than the other book I read by her, "Weird Sister", but a good different. It is about a woman that grew up in a dysfunctional family, gets married and then one day just leaves. She needs to find herself in order to be a wife and mother, and her husband needs to hear her, something that he has been unable to do while she was living with him. It is by Kate Pullinger

9/10... Weird Sister was better...

A Redbird Chirstmas by Fannie Flagg
My friend lent me this novel, and a book club I know of is reading it, so it all worked out. It was really good for such a little read. I always try to read a Christmas novel at this time of year, and I think that this was a good choice. It is about a man living the last days of his life where he learns that it is never too late to start something new in life. He is in the last half of his life, but he finds that if you want something bad enough it can happen. The "miracle" at the end is pretty impressive as well.

9/10

Saints of Big Harbour by Lynn Coady
I can't say that I didn't like this book, but it was a bit of a strange one. There is this girl in it that I think goes a little crazy and the book starts to revolve around this strange story that she made up about a guy that does not exist and a guy that does exist but really has no contact with the story. There is one character in the book that baffled me, though, the brother of the girl that makes up the story. He goes through all this stuff in the book, becomes one of the main characters, but it never explains why he dropped out of college and came back home and himself went a little crazy. I thought that was something central because it is one of the questions that many of the people in the novel have, so you would think it would get answered one of these days.

8/10

[Stewart]

Brave New World (Huxley, Aldous)

Reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was inspired by realising that I hadn’t read any of a recent list stating the top twenty geek novels. Given that my impressions of geek literature being hardcore science fiction and adventures in elfworld it was pleasant to discover that this novel, over seventy years after its publication, is still fresh. I would tend to think, however, that its endurance is due to its satirical tone rather than any sort of geeky idolisation as, despite its futuristic setting, it deals more with its characters rather than the world around them.

Set in a dystopian society in 2540AD or, as the book calls it, AF632 (AF meaning After Ford) the novel presents an almost perfect society where war and poverty has been eliminated at the cost of family, culture, and religion. The whole world is considered to be a single state and the central tenets are those, as you would expect, of the industrialist Henry Ford. Fordism is the semi-religious doctrine that permeates this society: his sayings are gospel, his name is said in vain, the cross has been replaced by the ‘T’; indeed, in a motion similar to crossing oneself, the citizens make the sign of the ‘T’. An interesting idea, perhaps, but the incessant expletives (“for Ford’s sake!”, “oh my Ford!”, etc.) do lose some of their humour and power.

It begins, with little narrative, in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, a place where human beings are raised are ‘bottled’ (raised in test tubes) and then conditioned via radiation and Pavlovian techniques to become one of the five social castes of society (the independent Alphas through to the half-retarded Epsilons). Once fit for society the citizens are then ‘decanted’. The Director of this centre is giving a tour to a group and shows them the bottled embryos passing along a conveyor belt as they are treated with chemicals to determine the future intelligence and physical attributes of the embryo. He then shows them the nursery where some children are being conditioned to loathe, of all things, books and flowers.

Then, moving on, we meet one of the world’s controllers, a man named Mustapha Mond. He tells the touring children about the World State and the benefits that attempts to quash peoples’ emotions and relationships has made on society. Indeed, in this world, there is no marriage, grief, or joy – promiscuous sex is actively encouraged, death is no big deal, and games only serve to further the economy.

More characters, from here, are introduced into the narrative as Huxley’s world escapes the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre and goes further afield. The self-conscious Bernard Marx gets permission from the Director to visit a savage reservation in New Mexico; Lenina Crowne, attracted to him, accepts his offer to join him. Helmholm Watson, a hypnopaedia writer (slogans that are repeated and learnt whilst citizens sleep) shows discontent at his job feeling, as an Alpha, that he is capable of much more. And, in New Mexico, they meet John and his mother Linda, a pair of savages discontent with their world. Returning to London attempts are made to integrate John into society but, his world is shaped by Shakespeare (he found a copy of his complete works) and he disagrees with the dystopian World State, arguing with Mond until each character goes their own way (John to exile; Marx exiled.) and the final denouement.

Brave New World could have been better, there’s no doubt about that. The obvious hindrance was a narrative that never really centered on one character: one minute we were touring the hatchery, the next we’re following Bernard who, in turn, slinked into the shadows when John was introduced. Huxley has ideas, though, and amidst his obvious taste for neologisms (centrifugal Bumble-puppy!) gets his ideas across fairly well although this can be at the cost of the narrative as the climactic argument between John and Mond goes back and forward with neither being right. The World Controller argues that society is better off when nobody reflects on the past, when people aren’t given any time to themselves, and when there is nothing to be emotional about and that eliminated studies (history, religion, science) are wrongs that require control while John, in his misunderstanding of the World State, believes that people should have freedom of thought and be allowed to suffer emotions to make them human. Of course, in a world where people are made to order, made on Ford’s assembly line, he has little chance of ever making a point.

The writing in Brave New World is fine, if a tad verbose at times or scientific at others (dolichocephalic!) with, as previously mentioned, a world of neologistic commodities (pneumatic armchairs, for example). Dialogue is alright and serves to paint a more accurate picture of the characters but it is not entirely realistic and sometimes serves as device for infodumps. The characters, however, are hard to follow as they feature for little periods and, while you get an idea of what drives them, you don’t get a complete sense of their role within the story, especially as to their reactions by the novel’s close.

While I liked Brave New World one of the hardest things for me to do was imagine Huxley’s vision as it would be incarnate. When I think of future societies I am given to thoughts of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis but, when least expected, Huxley would throw in the countryside, savage reservations, and, unexpectedly, a lighthouse. I understand that these elements demonstrate a world that strives to be perfect but suffers from underlying problems (the people are kept happy by use of recreational drugs rather than any utopian positivity) that mean it is still a burgeoning dystopia rather than fully realised with its wheels completely greased. Overall, it’s an attractive novel, full of ideas, but one that suffers from a lack of organisation with them.

[starrwriter]

Reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was inspired by realising that I hadn’t read any of a recent list stating the top twenty geek novels. Given that my impressions of geek literature being hardcore science fiction and adventures in elfworld it was pleasant to discover that this novel, over seventy years after its publication, is still fresh. I would tend to think, however, that its endurance is due to its satirical tone rather than any sort of geeky idolisation as, despite its futuristic setting, it deals more with its characters rather than the world around them.
Top twenty geek novels? Adventures in elfdom? Geeky idolisation? I get the distinct impression you don't like pencil-necked wonks who live in a dream world.

[Stewart]

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (Mishima, Yukio)

Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea is a short novel but, due to its tight plot, brevity is not an issue. Published in 1963, seven years before he committed ritual suicide, the novel explores motivation and the factors that can cause someone to abandon their passions and resume their life embracing the dreams of another.

Noboru Kuroda, a thirteen year old on the cusp of an adult world, is part of a savage gang whose members, despite their exemplary grades at school, have rebelled against the adult world they deem hypocritical. Under the tutelage of Noboru’s friend, also thirteen, they condition themselves against sentimental feelings – a goal they call ‘objectivity’ - by killing stray cats.

Ryuji Tsukazaki, a merchant seaman, has been granted two days’ shore leave and has spent the time romancing Noboru’s widowed mother, Fusako. Noboru likes the sailor at first, his commitment to the sea and all the manly stories he has to tell. But, as Ryuji falls for Fusako, Noboru feels betrayed by the man’s burgeoning romanticism and, with the help of his gang, feels that action should be taken against the man who has replaced his father.

The first thing I noticed while reading this novel was that the characters are rich with life and history. Noboru, at thirteen, has strong feelings for his mother that manifest through voyeuristic sessions at night when, peeking into her room through a spy-hole, he watches her undress, entertain, and sleep. Ryuji, the sailor, knows he has some purpose at sea and continues his life off the land in the hope that one day he will learn his place in life. And Fusako, five years widowed, displays certain strength as she runs her own business, mixes with a richer class of citizen, while trying to raise he son as best she can.

The way the characters develop from this introduction is fast yet believable – the book, in fact, is split into two sections, Summer and Winter, to show that enough time has passed to be plausible. Noboru’s respect for Ryuji wanes as he becomes the worst thing, based on his gang’s beliefs, a man can be in this world: a father. Ryuji’s abandonment of his life’s passion is, of course, the main thread of the novel and it is a tragic decision he makes to give up the destiny waiting for him at sea in order to embrace the world of Fusako and the new direction she has planned for him.

The best thing about this novel is the language. The translator, John Nathan, has done a wonderful job and not a page passes without hitting you with a warm wash of sea-spray. Metaphors and similes are drenched with watery goodness as they add to the novel’s appeal. The prose is warm during the Summer section but as the book turns to Winter the turns of phrase become icier and tend to sting more. The dialogue is nice and realistic and doesn’t smart of stereotypical Japanese honour; the way the characters interact completely plausible.

I hadn’t heard of Mishima until I picked up this novel and, given that he had three Nobel nominations in his lifetime, I will certainly look out for more of his work. His concise prose, realistic characters, and the way his voice carries the sea makes him a rare find. If books were shells, I would hope to hear Mishima in every one.

[Scheherazade]

Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson

Yet another Wilson book to cross off from my BBC list. As usual, Wilson picks up a problematic issue and concentrates on it hard and nicely: this time on guilt and bereavement. Jade's best friend Vicky dies and she feels guilty about the incident. On her own, she struggles to come to terms with this unexpected death.

It is a good read for a (younger) teen. I like the fact that Wilson deals with various issues, without getting stuck in the 'working' scenarios.

7/10 KitKats!

[Pensive]

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

The opening line of this book will be one of those I will never forget.

Middlesex is the story of Cal, a hermaphrodite, and his Greek-origined family, beginning with his grandparents' escape from Turkey to settle down in the USA at the end of the WWI. Cal tells the events leading to his birth - sharing some family secrets along the way- in a very intimate manner, which makes the reader feel like they are listening to a friend during a late night chat over a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

Intertwined with the social history of the 20th century US, Cal's story makes a compelling read, making us question family values, sexual identities, cultural differences and, most importantly, the age old question of 'nature vs nurture'.

10/10 KitKats!

I have just completed it. A very good book, really good indeed. One can't forget a read like this one. Even the story of Cal's grandparents was very touching.
I will also give it 10/10.

[Pensive]

I have just completed "Twins" by Caroline Cooney.

I will say that it is written for young-adults basically but people of every age can enjoy it. Personally, I liked it very much.

Those who like the sound of being a twin might start to dread having a twin after reading this novel and those who have always wished for a twin might start to think that they are better without a twin.

I will give it 9/10.

[beer good]

"Lighthousekeeping" by Jeanette Winterson had me absolutely spellbound. It's intertextual, which I always like, mixing in themes and images from both "Tristan And Isolde", "The Origin Of Species" (!!), "Dr Jekyll & Mister Hyde", "Treasure Island" (the main characters are Silver, DogJim and Blind Pew... though very different from Stevenson's characters; oh, and Stevenson himself turns up as well) etc... It's a story about storytelling, after all, and what a story is, and what stories and the people who tell them mean to us and our own stories. (That sounds pretentious, yeah, but I hate answering the question "So what's it about?" with "Well, it's about an orphan who goes to live in a lighthouse until it's automated and she has to find her own way in life." Because that simply doesn't come close to describing the book, any more than "Well, it's 234 pages and printed in Great Britain and has a horrible cover.")

Above all, Winterson has a fabulous ear for language, writing in this... almost singing voice, full of images and an almost extatic sensualism - which does not, for most of the time, mean it's necessarily sexy, just... sensual. That might sound girly, but I'm secure enough in my manhood to say that when I read this book, I saw it, I heard it, I tasted it, I smelled it. A pure joy to read, the way she makes the English language dance. It's one of those books where you're never sure exactly whose story is being told, the narrative is non-linear, taking place in several different times around several different people (who themselves might be several different people), and pulls it off seemlessly... Absolutely beautiful. The kind of book where I'm not sure if I should re-read it immediately or lend it out to everyone I know.

So I'm rambling. Blame the scotch, and blame Jeanette Winterson. I'm going to have to read something very dry now.

[samercury]

I have just completed "Twins" by Caroline Cooney.

I will say that it is written for young-adults basically but people of every age can enjoy it. Personally, I liked it very much.

Those who like the sound of being a twin might start to dread having a twin after reading this novel and those who have always wished for a twin might start to think that they are better without a twin.

I will give it 9/10.

I read that a couple of months ago :eek:

[englshfrk]

Just finished The Awakening by Chopin liked it pretty well but was disappointed Edna and Robert didn't get together. Also finally finished The Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd. Excellent fairly accurate historical fiction.

[subterranean]

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seirstad

This book does not tell a common story about Afghanistan and its people during and after the fall of Taliban power. This book tells about the life of Sultan Khan, an Afghan businessman, who lived the life that many other people in Afghanistan could only have in dreams: money in hand, sufficient food to eat, and decent clothes to wear and place to live. With his several bookstores, managed by his family members, Sultan dreamed to build his own emporium in book trade and publications.

Asne Seirstad, the author, wrote every detail of her several months’ stay with the family. Most of the events were recorded during daily activities; visits to the market, marriage preparation, wedding ceremonies, Sultan’s business travels (where Asne was fortunate enough to be allowed to join), even a punishment of a thief. All pieces were gathered from every mouth of Sultan’s family members. No special moments were spared for interviews. This method and the use of third person point of view are probably the main reason why the story reads like a fiction.

Other than the man’s dream, the book also reveals the passions and conflicts among Sultan’s family members. Some actually depicts the passions and struggles of Afghan people in general, women in particular.

The heartache and sorrows of Sultan’s first wife were deeply told in several chapters in this book. These pains were the result of Sultan’s decision to take another wife (a women child), mixed with hopes and struggle to build a non-conflicting (if not harmonious) life with the new wife, in order to keep the family in one piece. On the other hand, the new wife also possessed her own fear as a boy had not been delivered from her womb. It would be a disgrace for her if she couldn’t give a son for his husband.

The oppressed dreams and passions experienced by the children are also well conveyed in this book. The son was not allowed to continue his school and his father commanded him to take care of the store everyday. “You’d take over everything I owned one day, and running the store is the best way to learn to be a good businessman,” that’s, more or less, what Sultan’s said to his son. The frustrated son then, expressed his sorrow and anger by treating the female members in the family as slaves, even his own mother. Then, there’s a daughter who struggled to leave the house for a better life. Sadly, luck didn’t stand on her side and she was forced to accept her destiny. All these stories are somewhat ironic as Sultan was very well read and strongly familiar with breakthrough ideas.

Other stories in the book would give the readers a further understanding about the common life, norms, and culture in Afghanistan. A story of a woman who was murdered by her own brother for her affair behind her (rich) fiancée’s back, gives another sad picture of women’s value and economic ambition for better life. Forced marriages, rape, insults, violence, and no speaking right in the family, are just additional gloomy realities that need to be faced by Afghan women. The situation may be worst for other Afghan women, as in general most of them belong to the poverty stricken families.

It seems like a hopeless and desperate situation there in Afghanistan, particularly for women. Yet, with the collapse of Taliban regime and the set up of somewhat reformed government, these women may have a little hope for a better tomorrow.

[Pensive]

The Bookseller of the Kabul seems like a good book. I really wanted to read it but I was unable to find it anywhere.

[beer good]

Just finished Torgny Lindgren's Hash (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585676519/104-3022533-5945542) (Pölsan in its original Swedish) and I was curious if anyone else has read it? I absolutely loved it, but I don't know how much sense it would make to someone from outside Sweden... or indeed if it's possible to translate, since so much of it is about Lindgren's very concise and almost biblically precise language.

It's effectively a story about storytelling; a journalist in the wilderness of Northern Sweden gets fired by his editor when it becomes clear that every story he's ever written is invented from beginning to end; the villages he writes about don't exist, and neither do the people who live and die in them. The problem is that once he stops writing his stories, the lives of these people still continue somewhere, and 53 years later when the editor dies the 107 year old journalist starts writing again, and as long as he has a story to tell he doesn't age... and at the same time that we follow his attempt to write down everything he wasn't allowed to write in all that time, we follow the story he tells, which may or may not be completely made up. It's meta as hell, but also very beautiful and meaningful... not completely unlike a Scandinavian García Márquez, I'd say.

[Pensive]

I started The Posession by Jaid Black and I did not have the nerves to complete it though. After reading half of the book, I just read the ending.

Till where I read it, I found it bitter, complicated and strange.

The first impression of the book on me was that I found it quite worthless. It consisted of strange characters. I like different sort of characters but in "The Posession" characters were really very strange. They did not seem like human beings.
I think that I wasted my time on reading it. So I would give it 3 points out of ten. First point is for the headache the author had to bear to write the story,second point is for the grammer of the author, it was quite good and the third point is for its "suspense"
It was quite suspenseful in the start.

[malwethien]

The last book I read was Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated.

It was not bad. There are lots of funny parts, but as a whole, the book wasn't that great. I was a little disappointed.

[Sami]

I really enjoyed this book for lots of reasons. Why did you find it disappointing? Was it because of the humour of the early part of the book faded away as the story unfolded?

Didn’t you think some of those grammar/vocab. mistakes were hilarious? (I especially loved “my Mother is spleening me”). They also sounded very authentic. I thought this was pretty impressive - I would imagine it’s quite hard for someone who is fluent in English to write the part of a character for whom it’s a second language without it just sounding phony.

[malwethien]

I really enjoyed this book for lots of reasons. Why did you find it disappointing? Was it because of the humour of the early part of the book faded away as the story unfolded?

Didn’t you think some of those grammar/vocab. mistakes were hilarious?

Yes, I think the parts "written" by Alex were the best. It was hilarious without sounding phoney or forced. What I especially liked about this book was how it was telling the reader about the past, present and future all at once (thru Alex's 'novel', Jonathan's 'novel' and the correspondence between the two).

The reason I said I was disappointed was because before reading it, a friend of mine told me that it was like the "greatest book of all time" - so I set out to read the book with that in mind. I didn't think it was the 'greatest book of all time' but I did enjoy it. So that's why I was disappointed. :lol:

[Sami]

What I especially liked about this book was how it was telling the reader about the past, present and future all at once (thru Alex's 'novel', Jonathan's 'novel' and the correspondence between the two).

Yes! I thought that the theme of memory and history/time was brilliantly handled in this book. I liked the idea of writing as a time capsule that protects memory and identity against violence, in this case the holocaust - hence “we are writing, we are writing…”.

[malwethien]

Yes! I thought that the theme of memory and history/time was brilliantly handled in this book. I liked the idea of writing as a time capsule that protects memory and identity against violence, in this case the holocaust - hence “we are writing, we are writing…”.

Have you seen the movie? I saw it recently and I really liked it. It was as funny as the book. Although the details in the novel was somewhat altered and it didn't include the story of Jonathan's ancestors, it was still pretty entertaining. The movie just focused on Jonathan's trip and some flashbacks from Alex's grandfather's memory.

[rhei_27]

I just finished reading "Memoirs of a Geisha". Eversince, I am fascinated of Geishas and japanese culture. I really like this book. I cried in the part when Sakamoto Chiyo,Nitta Sayuri's name before being a Geisha, found out that her parents died and her sister eloped. Actually,it's a shallow reason to cried at but I just can't help but to cry on that part.

Why don't you try to read this book? Perhaps you'll like it.

[malwethien]

I just finished reading "Memoirs of a Geisha".

Why don't you try to read this book? Perhaps you'll like it.

Yes, I've read it. I liked it, it gives a very good description of Geisha life (but hey, what do I know...I'm not a Geisha :D). Have you seen the movie?

[rhei_27]

Have you seen the movie?

Nope. I haven't seen the movie. I'll try to watch it this weekend if I'm not that busy. Have you seen it?

[Sarah's_Chanson]

I've just finished 'Educating Rita' by Willy Russell. This play has only two characters throughout the book, although others are mentioned, we only get to know Frank and Rita.

Frank is an alcoholic open university professor in Literature. He has a failed marriage, and a career as a poet which failed because, as he says, he tried to make his poetry literature.

Rita is a young hairdresser, who feels her life has no meaning, that people around her don't talk about what "matters" and that she wants to broaden her knowledge. Under pressure from her husband and family, she ends up turning to literature as an escape. Giving up her marriage, and changing her views, voice and look to fit in with the "educated" people she once felt inferior too.

The play discusses Rita's development as art and literature starts to crowd out her real life, and Frank's determination to try and stop this "breathe of fresh air" in his office from becoming the kind of person she thinks is really happy. It also shows the relationship between Rita and her tutor, one where gradually she starts to pull herself away from his opinions.

The book is a good read, a mixture of comedy, development and growth. Even if you don't like the book, from the many passages of teaching in it, you're sure to learn something about literature and life in general.

[Sami]

Have you seen the movie? I saw it recently and I really liked it. It was as funny as the book. Although the details in the novel was somewhat altered and it didn't include the story of Jonathan's ancestors, it was still pretty entertaining. The movie just focused on Jonathan's trip and some flashbacks from Alex's grandfather's memory.
No, I haven’t seen the movie. I am surprised that the film left out the parts about Jonathan’s grandfather – that’s a HUGE part of the book to cut out. Didn’t you feel that this did a lot of damage to the theme of history/heritage in the story? Surely the events that occur in the present are only one side to what the book is about?

[beer good]

I'm also disappointed to hear that about the "Everything is Illuminated" movie. Though not surprised. Sounds to me like yet another filmatization that cuts out half the story to fit it into an easy format, à la "Name Of The Rose", and ends up missing the point completely. Too bad, I was looking forward to that movie, but not so much anymore...

[rachel]

I just finished reading "Memoirs of a Geisha". Eversince, I am fascinated of Geishas and japanese culture. I really like this book. I cried in the part when Sakamoto Chiyo,Nitta Sayuri's name before being a Geisha, found out that her parents died and her sister eloped. Actually,it's a shallow reason to cried at but I just can't help but to cry on that part.

Why don't you try to read this book? Perhaps you'll like it.

have you ever read The Teahouse of the August Moon? It is very charming and funny. About the American govt sending in troops to a small village to teach them to be like the Americans and have a democratic govt.etc.But all the materials for a schoolhouse are used to build a Japanese teahouse and all is supervised by a darling little geisha called Lotus Blossom. When the military brass show up they are enraged to see the guy they appt'd in a bath robe having tea. It really shows the life of the geisha and is loaded with beautiful imagery and humour. :D

[Scheherazade]

I just finished reading "Memoirs of a Geisha". Eversince, I am fascinated of Geishas and japanese culture. I really like this book. I cried in the part when Sakamoto Chiyo,Nitta Sayuri's name before being a Geisha, found out that her parents died and her sister eloped. Actually,it's a shallow reason to cried at but I just can't help but to cry on that part.

Why don't you try to read this book? Perhaps you'll like it.Hi Rhei,

I read Memoirs of a Geisha last summer and enjoyed it very much. I agree with you that geisha culture is very interesting and the book does an excellent job of introducing it without overwhelming the reader. The story was really touching at times as well. What I liked most about it is that Nitta was not shown as this impossible angelic herion. She had her shortcomings and she was honest about those and she tried her best to do the right things.

I haven't seen the movie yet. A friend of mine has been insisting that we should but I am not so sure (she has actually seen it already but wants to see it for a second time!). I am worried that it will be another disappointing books-to-movies experiences.

Welcome to the Forum! :)

[malwethien]

No, I haven’t seen the movie. I am surprised that the film left out the parts about Jonathan’s grandfather – that’s a HUGE part of the book to cut out. Didn’t you feel that this did a lot of damage to the theme of history/heritage in the story? Surely the events that occur in the present are only one side to what the book is about?

Actually the weird thing it is that, although it really is a story about Jonathan looking for Trachimbrod and for his past, I think the movie put more emphasis on Alex's grandfather's experience. I don't want to give anything away, but like I said earlier, there were some changes to the movie that I think affected the story a lot. The flashbacks that they shown were all from the perspective of Alex's grandfather and none (or maybe just one or two) about Jonathan's ancestors.

But I think it's still worth watching. The movie is sort of an "indie" film and is only an hour and a half long. I'm sure they could have squeezed in stories of Trachimbrod if they wanted.

[beer good]

I was a huge Stephen King fan as a kid, and his novels are largely responsible for making me the bookreader I am today. Although my taste has since moved on, I still appreciate him for what he is - a pretty good meat-and-potatoes sort of writer who doesn't even take himself as seriously as some of his fans seem to. Over the years, I've come to read just about everything he's published. It's something of a guilty pleasure, though I certainly consider him head and shoulders over complete hacks like Dan Brown. I like Stephen King in the same way I like AC/DC: it's good clean gory fun.

His latest novel, "Cell", however is very far from good. It's basically a cover of Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" with some of George Romero's "Dawn Of The Dead" thrown in for good measure. (And just so no one misses that, the book is dedicated to Matheson and Romero ferchrissakes!) Anything of his own invention in the story is recycled from the far superior "The Stand" (and the even worse "Tommyknockers"). For some reason he tries to make it a technothriller, and only comes off as what he is: a 50-something guy whose entire knowledge of computers is gleaned from a segment on viruses he saw on CNN three years ago. Talky, slow-moving, illogical and thoroughly unengaging. King will never be a great writer, but he used to at least be better than this...

[rachel]

beer,
I couldn't help but think as I read your post that over time you have gleaned such incredible knowledge and a feeling for this gender that , well perhaps you should now take a crack at writing one. I am quite certain it will be a nonstop page thriller.
I read what a fellow editor once said about writing"if you want to be good, really good at writing in a particular gendre, read, read, read, the very best of it, and chances are if you can write, you will be."
A man who is dead now began in the sixties collecting a book here, and a book there about space which was becoming his great passion after work eacg at his white collar job. He did that for about twenty years and read every syllable and could converse with anyone in the space program with the greatest of ease.
When he died his wife offered the collection to some branch of the space program and they were so impressed they built a building to house it.
Go Beer go, go Beer go!

[malwethien]

Nope. I haven't seen the movie. I'll try to watch it this weekend if I'm not that busy. Have you seen it?

Yes I have. I thought it was pretty good. Of course a lot shorter than the movie with less details, but that's to be expected in a movie adaptation, I guess.

[beer good]

beer,
I couldn't help but think as I read your post that over time you have gleaned such incredible knowledge and a feeling for this gender that , well perhaps you should now take a crack at writing one. I am quite certain it will be a nonstop page thriller.
Hehe, thanks! I'll try sometime. I have a feeling it wouldn't work though - I'm usually too bored with plots to write a successful thriller.


I read what a fellow editor once said about writing"if you want to be good, really good at writing in a particular gendre, read, read, read, the very best of it, and chances are if you can write, you will be."
I've heard that too. You'd think it was obvious, but apparently it isn't. I've talked to more than one writer who have told the story of how young people always come up to them and the following conversation takes place:
Fan: Being a writer seems sooo cool! Can I be a writer too?
Writer: I don't know, probably.
Fan: So what do I do?
Writer: Well, for starters, what do you like to read?
Fan: I dunno, I don't really read much...
:confused:
It seems almost all of my... idols, for lack of a better word, in both literature, film and music are themselves unabashed fans of other people. Heck, half of Bob Dylan's autobiography consists of him gushing over other musicians. No one can create in a vacuum, we all need influences. (Of course, King's problem in "Cell" is that he shows too much influence and not enough creation...)

[rachel]

Beer,
you just get over that bored thing, you have a brilliant mind and I am putting aside some shekels as I write this-just to buy your first book. Like you told me once, what else is there to do in all that cold and dark. You can do it and you know it.

[hera-on-earth]

well, i just finished reading "Oroonoko" by Aphra Behn! quite a good book only if my professor wouldnt spoil it for me! great reading.......gives u an insight into lot of stuff that happened in certain colonies. i guess i find it better when i give it a postcolonial reading. i kinda like postcolonial literature.

[genoveva]

The last book I read was Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. It was the first Morrison book I've read, and absolutely love it!! Cried at the end, then re-read the beginning.

[Vedrana]

The last book I read was the play by Ibsen, A Doll's House, and I have to say I really liked it. It's a good examination of how deceiving appearances can be, and the way women were looked at as inferiors. I was really impressed, because I thought it was going to be fairly dull, but I was pleasantly surprised, especially at the end. Definitely worth reading. Now I just want to see it performed.

[kmwmn]

Schindler's list. - Thomas Keneally. I liked it. I saw the movie years ago and was impressed that I liked it better than the book, which for me is not usually the case. For beingin fiction based on a real life it was very well written.

[JiaXiong]

I just finished reading Persuasion. I loved it, it was outstanding. does anyone know if Austen's other books are as good as that?

I am about to begin reading Emma, guess we'll see just how comparable it is!!

[Nightshade]

Yesterday I read Two of us Brendan Halpin. ah its also called Donorboy (thats why I couldnt find it on amazon) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400062772/qid=1141631293/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-0828560-5777561?s=books&v=glance&n=283155)
I loved it and it isnt anything like the sort of thing I would usually even consider reading ( not being fond of weepies) but it was good Sad but it wasnt that sad. t was about a 14 year old whose 2 mothers were killed in a car accident and how shes sent to her biologcal father who shes never met and how they cope. I knwow though if it was made into a film Id have cried my eyes out as well as laughed.

[Wendigo_49]

I just finished reading The Immoralist by Andre Gide. It is probably the best book I've read so far this year surpassing Brave New World. It is an introspective tale about a man named Michel who contracts Tuberculosis shortly after getting married and the way he changes, after the illness abates, into a hedonistic person eventually calling his friends to a house in northern Africa to relate his narrative and "drag him away from there."

[hera-on-earth]

I just finished reading "Princess" by Jean P. Sasson. its surely been an experience....to be able to understand the psyche of women from these male dominated countries. its just widened my outlook to a certain extent.

i was always aware of these situations which women face in Saudi Arabia through my relations who lived there once. but this was from the viewpoint of the sufferer. so it was different. i loved the book. will definitely read "Daughters of Arabia".

[Vedrana]

Well, JiaXiong, I would recommend Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice, since both of them have a lot of comedy, especially Northanger Abbey. But I'm sure you'll like all of Austen's work.

[Helga]

I just finished reading 'The Kite Runner' by (I hope I spell it right) Khaled Hosseini. It is so good, ugly and true. It is about the life of a man named Amir and his relationships with the people who are close to him and his country Afganistan. So ugly and beautiful. This is Khaleds first novel and I hope not his last one...

[beer good]

I just finished "Dead Until Dark", the first novel in Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" series. It's an intriguing (though not completely original) take on the whole vampire myth, with vampires having come "out of the coffin" and trying to live among humans. Putting it in rural Louisiana obviously gives Harris some possibilities to use racism as a metaphor (no, I'm not saying all Louisianans are KKK'ers) and it's a welcome shift away from New Orleans, at least. Harris has some great ideas, and occasionally the book gets real funny, almost Rice meets Pratchett... however, as a writer she's not really up to scratch. The whole book is written in the first person, and considering all that happens to her, our narrator really does seem a bit too... objective. She describes her bust size on the first page, that's character development for ya.

This will supposedly be made into an HBO series by Alan Ball, the guy who made "6 Feet Under" and "American Beauty". I can't help but think this may well be one of those few cases where the film (or TV series) is better than the book.

[Dark Lady]

I just finnished reading 'Practical Ethics (2nd ed)' by Peter Singer. Very interesting - if somewhat controversial - and I agreed with many points although I definately would not call myself a utilitarian. I have a feeling that the next book I have to read for Philosophy will be a little harder to get through - Hobbes' 'Leviathan'. I'm guessing interesting but heavy going.

[Charles Darnay]

I enjoyed Leviathan. I had to read it and Locke's Two Treatises on Government at the same time - Hobbs work was much easier to get through in comparison - however, not the easiest thing I have ever read.

[beer good]

Sergei Lukyanenko's "Night Watch" was a fun read. Sort of a mix between Neil Gaiman and "Master And Margarita", if you can imagine that; a post-communist Russian realist fantasy novel. With vampires. And Ritchie Blackmore songs. About as good as the movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/), which is to say really good but a bit too caught up in its own mythology - the story suffers at times under all the magical proficiency levels and other stuff that I really can't give a rat's posterior about. But I like the whole theme of good vs evil getting mixed up in grey areas and trying to figure out exactly who is who and exactly what it was you paved the road to hell with again... give it a 4/5.

[WaxDoll]

The last book I read, which was about a week ago, was Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. It’s the tragic story of a woman whose one big mistake in the life haunts her until her death. The story can get too coincidental at times, but I think it adds to the effect that Tess cannot escape her past. Thomas Hardy describes the scenery beautifully, and it helps to set the mood to this heartbreaking tale. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a beautiful and touching story, a must-read. All I suggest is you have lots of tissues on hand. 9/10

Right now, I’m trying to read The Romance in the Forest, but schoolwork is getting in the way. I have 18 mini essays for Les Miserables due this Thursday, and I’ve only written four. I’m so screwed right now, but I guess that’s what happens to procrastinators… damn it.

[underground]

um, just a suggestion. maybe a mod could make an alphabetical index of books and authors on the first post. i don't know if linking to each message would be too much hassle or what, but maybe some of us have a lot of spare time after all.

ahem.

[malwethien]

I just finished reading The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. I was a bit disappointed because the story had potential...but the author took a slightly different approach to writing it. It was a bit corny too, since the main characters were Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, JT Fields and James Lowell. It was kinda like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...

I think Pearl put too much emphasis on the lives of the poets and not enough on the killings and on the Inferno text.

It wasn't too bad...but I think it could have been way better than it is now.

[beer good]

Hmmmm. Having read Daniel Wallace's "Big Fish", I find myself in the not-too-common position of actually preferring the movie. Not just because I thought the movie was more coherent whereas the novel(ette) was a bit too episodic at times, or because the general schmaltz-porn of the story works better with Tim Burton's sense of humour added, but also because there's a pretty significant perspective shift; in the book, the son re-tells all the tall tales, but in the movie we hear the father tell them. I'm inclined to think that's a change for the better - it certainly works better with the ending.

But the book is still pretty good, a quick and often quite moving read. 3/5.

[malwethien]

I've just finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE. At first glance it is reminiscent of Foer's first book, Everything Is Illuminated and of Mark Haddon's A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time because it is partly narrated by a boy (Oskar) of 8 (years old) out on a quest to solve a mystery...the mystery of a key. The other "narrators" of the story are Oskar's grandmother and grandfather, each telling their story in their own style. Oskar's father dies tragically during the 9-11 bombing of the World Trade Center in NY City, which ultimately leads him to the doors of strangers in hopes of finding answers to his questions. However as the story progresses, the novel takes on it's own unique identity - a sad but optimistic story of death, acceptance and letting go. Of knowing when to move on and when to hold on. It is a very very good book...It's one hundred dollars! Have a box of tissue ready while reading this!

[beer good]

OK, so I finished Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" last night. And I'm really not sure what I thought of it. She's an excellent writer and the novel is occasionally hilarious, but I can't help but wonder if there isn't supposed to be more to it. Much of the book is a really sharp satire on hipocrisy, both in thought and deed, a world in which people are so hung up on their ideas of life that they completely miss out on life itself. The main character is an academic so into deconstruction and theories on art and society that he is unable to say "this painting is beautiful", celebrate Christmas (because of the whole religious/cultural oppression thing - don't ask) or tell his wife of 30 years how he feels about her. His youngest son has grown up in a rich middle-class home yet tries to style himself a gangsta from the backstreets. His daughter crusades against discrimination but doesn't really notice that all the dirty work at her fine college is being done by blacks. Etc etc etc.

Problem is - I think the trick of the book is it lures you into asking the very same questions Smith satirizes - refusing to just say "this is beautiful" (because it is) or "this is funny" (because it is) but rather asking what her point is, what her agenda is, where she's going with it. None of the characters (except maybe the two fathers involved) is truly appalling, yet none of them are really appealing either. This is either a really funny and moving indictment of all sides arguing the future of our Western world, or a brilliantly written piece of fluff that goes nowhere. Problem is, I'm not sure which.

[scoooter5]

Finished "East of Eden". I think I'm slowly being converted to a Steinbeck fan. As a youngster I was forced to read "The Grapes of Wrath" and disliked it enormously. I think I rebelled against what I felt were overt political commentary. However, a few years ago, I re-read it and found that the political and social commentary, while still present, didn't bother me so much and I was able to see what a fabulous story was being told. Now, with "Eden", I'm becoming an actual Steinbeck supporter. After recently reading Faulkner and McCarthy novels, I found the Steinbeck prose to be a very pleasant change of pace. The story, which essentially is an examination of good and evil through the lens of the Cain and Abel story retold, was almost a page turner, you might say.

[Scheherazade]

Finished "East of Eden".This is one of the books I will be reading this summer. I read some other Steinbeck books before and he is one of favorite authors - if not 'the'. I keep postponing this one because it seems so long! :goof:

[Bysshe]

Just finished re-reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. This is probably extremely biased, seeing as I've always adored it, but here's a brief review, anyway:

Brideshead Revisited tells the story of Charles Ryder, a lonely student at Oxford in the early 1920s. He meets the eccentric, charsimatic Lord Sebastian Flyte and they quickly become close friends. As they grow closer, Charles becomes acquainted with Sebastian's upper-class Catholic family, who live in a large country mansion, Brideshead. As Charles becomes closer to Sebastian's family, especially his sister Julia, the two friends drift apart and Sebastian sinks deep into alcoholism. The rest of the book concentrates on the relationship between Charles and Julia, and the issue of religion. Charles's atheism is challenged and through his relationship with Sebastian's family he gradually begins to understand Catholicism, and his perception of the world is changed.

For me, Brideshead Revisited is the perfect book - it's witty, entertaining and has a few characters that could have been borrowed from his earlier novels (one of Sebastian's friends at Oxford, the eccentric Anthony Blanche is quite similar to Miles Malpractice from Waugh's 'Vile Bodies)'. But as well as being funny, it's also very serious and desperately sad in parts.

If you've read anything thing else by Waugh, I'll guarantee that you'll love Brideshead Revisited. If you're new to Waugh, Brideshead is the perfect place to start. And once you've read the book, I highly recommend the excellent television series, starring Jeremy Irons as Charles and Anthony Andrews as Sebastian.

[scoooter5]

Scheherazade,

I think you will find that "East of Eden" reads quickly; at least it did for me. What else to you have on deck for your summer reading? I'm always curious to know what similarly minded folks are reading.

[mono]

Days ago, I finished reading The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and enjoyed it very much - rich with symbolism, darkness, depression - my kind of literature! :D
Having never read anything by Kafka, I felt a little unsure of what to expect, yet I think this has inspired me to read some of his other novels; I have heard wonderful comments especially of The Castle.
For anyone interested in discussing The Metamorphosis, I began my solo discussion here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=201375#post201375), and would love anyone else's input and interpretations.
My rating of this book: 9/10.

[Scheherazade]

Scheherazade,

I think you will find that "East of Eden" reads quickly; at least it did for me. What else to you have on deck for your summer reading? I'm always curious to know what similarly minded folks are reading.I am hoping to read:

Brideshead Revisited
Shipping News
American Psycho
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

And of coursethere are the Book Club books we will be reading as well. If you are interested, have a look: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15

[Themis]

Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki

The book is a mix between specialised book and novel. It recounts the life of a Geisha (namely Mineko Iwasaki) and also gives information about the duties and customs of geishas.
I liked a lot how it was written because it seemed different to what I'm used to. It's nothing out of the ordinary, regarding the writing style, actually I would say that it is nothing more than average. What the main character felt when she experienced loss and love is not written about very much, the author seems to be detached from that part of her life. I don't know what exactly intrigued me about it, maybe just that it was different.
Besides, the information Mrs. Iwasaki gives is really interesting. I read the book within two days and wouldn't mind to read it again.

6/10 - Because it's a good read but the author clearly is no "knight of the pen".

[beer good]

I finished Jonathan Lethem's and Carter Scholz's Kafka Americana the other day. It's an interesting idea; five short stories (2 each plus 1 co-written by both writers) dragging poor Franz K kicking, screaming and mostly moping into the post-modern 20th century; using both his stories and the whole myth about Kafka as set-ups. Though I find myself wishing I'd brushed up on Kafka beforehand - it's been years since I read him, and I have a feeling I'm missing out on some stuff. But anyway, Lethem is still one of the best new-ish writers I've read, I want to read more by Scholz, and the idea of Kafka working in Hollywood and writing the script for "It's a Wonderful Life" (and ruining poor Capra's career in the process) had me laughing out loud on the subway.

[Pensive]

Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki

The book is a mix between specialised book and novel. It recounts the life of a Geisha (namely Mineko Iwasaki) and also gives information about the duties and customs of geishas.
I liked a lot how it was written because it seemed different to what I'm used to. It's nothing out of the ordinary, regarding the writing style, actually I would say that it is nothing more than average. What the main character felt when she experienced loss and love is not written about very much, the author seems to be detached from that part of her life. I don't know what exactly intrigued me about it, maybe just that it was different.
Besides, the information Mrs. Iwasaki gives is really interesting. I read the book within two days and wouldn't mind to read it again.

6/10 - Because it's a good read but the author clearly is no "knight of the pen".

By the sound of it, it seems really nice. :)

Themis, have you read "Memoirs Of Geisha"? I liked it a lot. I wonder if "Geisha, A Life" is better...

[Shannanigan]

I mentioned in another thread that I was reading the book "Blink" by someone with the last name Gladwell, I believe. It sounded cooler than it was, in my opinion. It had a lot of great information about how our minds make split-second decisions, and a lot of examples of how some decisions made this way have totally altered people's lives, but at the end, I didn't feel like as if the author had accomplished anything...I didn't walk away with any more knowledge about the actual process our minds go through...I just have a bunch of stories that act as examples. I'm a little more knowledgable about hidden prejudices and how dangerous and inaccurate snap judgement can be, but otherwise I feel like as if the book didn't prove a point...it was more "textbooky" and objective.

Now I'm reading "True Notebooks" by Mark Salzman, which is a recounting of true events the author had while teaching in Juvenile Hall, and it is totally awesome so far.

[mono]

I mentioned in another thread that I was reading the book "Blink" by someone with the last name Gladwell, I believe. It sounded cooler than it was, in my opinion.
Malcolm Gladwell. I once read another of his earlier books, The Tipping Point. ;)

[Shannanigan]

Malcolm Gladwell. I once read another of his earlier books, The Tipping Point. ;)


From what I understood, The Tipping Point was better...haven't read it though.

[marapets]

some excellent reviews here :) makes me want to read them

[Themis]

Themis, have you read "Memoirs Of Geisha"? I liked it a lot. I wonder if "Geisha, A Life" is better...

Yes, I read the "Memoirs of a Geisha". As I mentioned in another thread I didn't really like it. It was far too 'romantic' for my liking and the ending too - silly. Sorry. It read just like fiction to me, like something some screenwriter in Hollywood might invent.

You could always try it, Pensive. ;) In certain aspects it's better and I think it's far more likely to have happened than what Arthur Golden wrote. But as I said before, it wasn't written by a professional writer and that shows.

[Shannanigan]

I finished "True Notebooks" by Mark Salzman yesterday...and I had to blink back a tear in the end. It's a nice feel-good nonfiction story about when Salzman taught a writing class in Juvenile Hall. Very revealing, very invovling...you can't help but feel for these kids who now realize that their bad choices are going to cost them their entire lives. It's realistic as well; the author goes to some of the students' sentancings and is forced to acknowledge that the kids he cares for and teaches are murderers, and he sees the pain in the victims' families...but the book reveals both sides and the potential these kids have. A really recommend it.

[scoooter5]

Finished "Madame Bovary". I'd read it once before, but so long ago that I scarcely recalled any of it. I enjoyed it. It wasn't exactly a page turner. Flaubert's prose is a little more descriptive than I like, I guess. But I liked the story of Emma Bovary's gradual descent into oblivion. It felt almost like peeping to watch as she searches for some fulfillment, almost desperately, and always comes up empty. I especially like how Flaubert lays some of the blame for Emma's disillusionment on novels (I think Walter Scott novels are mentioned several times). She craves the world she's read and can't accept the mundane world in which she actually lives. I'm glad I read it again.

[beer good]

Ryu Murakami's "In The Miso Soup" was an interesting book. It's been compared to "American Psycho", and I certainly see why. The narrator has something of the same detached, misanthropic view of the world, it occasionally explodes into VERY graphic violence, yet at the same time it does seem to want to say something more than just "yuck". I actually found myself thinking of his namesake Haruki Murakami's "Underground", which of course might be silly considering they're two very different authors telling two very different stories - but the connecting factor is: both are about the inability of the Japanese society to handle the extraordinary. In a society built upon politeness, keeping your emotions in check and doing what's expected of you, there is no way to deal with extreme situations either practically or mentally - whether it's the real-world catastrophe of the terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway in "Underground" or the fictional serial killer and the metaphorical influence of American culture in "In The Miso Soup". The book hits where it hurts in more than one way. True, it's a bit talky at times despite its short length, and the American character is a bit too metaphorical to be taken seriously, but... I liked it, if not quite as much as "American Psycho". 4/5.

[mono]

Yesterday, I completed One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez, and surely, to say it most simply, fell in love. I mainly decided to read this novel, having read Love In The Time Of Cholera by the same author; and, though One Hundred Years Of Solitude does not quite dominate the latter, I still found the tale amazing!
Based partially on the author's own life, the story tells of a small town struggling through generations with superstition and gypsy-like magic, and eventually leading to the revolutions that all nations endure - madness, war, domination of political groups, etc. Few authors, however, write with the passion that Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez writes in - saturated with emotion.
For anyone interested in the author, I would highly recommend both One Hundred Years Of Solitude and Love In The Time Of Cholera.
My rating: 10/10.

[Pensive]

The day before yesterday, I completed Mind of my mind by Octavia E. Butler

The story revolves around Doro and Mary. Doro, who crossed time effortlessly slipping in and out of host bodies and pausing only to breed, hoping always to father an empire and with his daughter, Mary, the empire was born and Mary became the magnetic mistress of human destiny.

The novel is suspenseful and interesting but it's only draw back is that it is not written very well, I mean use of language is not very good but it contains a very good plot.

I like this book very much and it has gotten me into Science-Fiction. I am looking forward to read other works by Butler.

[Erna]

I just read Blindness by Jose Saramago. The punctuation in the book is sometimes confusing, the use of commas instead of periods, but that makes the book read fast. Also the story is good, a realistic view on what happens when a disease will struck a country. It's worked out in a way which is suprising, I didn't expect the things that were happening and on the other side, the things that happen are realisitic and you could wait for it. After all, it's a very good read, sometimes that good written that you can imagine what happens (the most disgusting parts).
Rating: 9/10

[Pensive]

I completed Constant Friends by Angela Doherty last night. I believe that it is a very good read. It is mainly about love, hatred, war, abortion, Catholic believes in Ireland from 1940-1965 and poverty. In the start, it was quite an enjoyable read. In the middle, it seemed even more interesting but in the end, it got poignant, sick and complex mainly because of wars and killings but still I liked it quite a lot.

I will rate it 8/10. Everyone who is interested in Irish Literature should read it.

[beer good]

"Owen Noone And The Marauder" by Douglas Cowie wants to be a rock'n'roll novel, thinks it says something about the role of rock music in society, "Hope I die before I get old" and yada yada yada.

It's actually "Wayne's World - The Novel", except without the jokes, without the babes, and without anyone even as remotely rock'n'roll as Alice Cooper.

So clichéd I can't even hate it. 2/5.

[superunknown]

I read Of Mice and Men last weend, and I thought it was a very good read. Quick and easy to read, as well as having a great story and a powerful message. The one criticism that I had, however, was that the majority of the characters, particularly Lennie and Curley, were far too 2-dimensional. Lennie is just an absolutely pure, innocent, simple being who has no flaws whatsoever: he is eternally well-meaning and simple and does not have the capability to be anything else other than well-meaning and simple. Even with the greatest heroes like Odysseus they still have that one flaw (Odysseus' flaw being the fact that he's a pompous, self-obsessed twat), so that we can believe that he is stronger and smarter than everyone else and all-around godlike because he still has that flaw that gives him a touch of humanity. Lennie, however, has nothing of that and as a result you don't really feel that he's a human at all, just some weird freak creature. Maybe you could argue that he's not so much a human as a symbol, but still...

(Spoilers)
And I wasn't really sure whether it was fair enough to sympathize with him in the end. He definitely didn't deserve to get killed, but really, he was a very dangerous person, well-meaning or not, and I certainly would not like to hang around him. I mean, he killed someone, for God's sake. And in the end it was better that George did it, mercifully and together with him at the last moment, than Curley, who would have probably lynched and tortured Lennie.

[SpecteR]

I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye // Sharon Kay Penman: Dragon's Lair // Mark Twain: The Prince and the Pauper. I enjoyed reading all of them, most so The Catcher in the Rye. If you haven't read it, do so.

[Quoth-the-Raven]

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Many of you will be familiar with this book. I had heard of the title, and a fortnight ago, I saw it in a second-hand bookshop. I found that it hadn't been reviewed in this thread, and since I'm going to have an English exam in a couple of weeks featuring a "write a review"-assignment, I thought I'd give it a go! :)

The book begins with an Author's Note, wherein Martel tells us how he was inspired to write this story, and how he met and interviewed the protagonist, Piscine Patel. The Note is reminiscent of the preface of a 19th century novel that informs you about the curious circumstances under which the author came into possession of the 'manuscript', and assures you of the authenticity of the events and characters. Even though Martel's preface might be tongue-in-cheek, it adds an interesting additional layer to the narrative, and the art of storytelling is a key concern in this book.

The rest of the story -- comprising exactly 100 chapters on 400 pages -- is narrated from the point of view of Pi (and occasionaly interrupted by the voice of the author describing his meeting with Pi and his family). Pi is one of two sons of an Indian family; the father is a zookeeper in Pondecherry, a former French colony in the South of India. In the first part of the book, we learn about the two great passions of Pi: zoology and theology. As a young boy, Pi becomes fascinated with and devoted to Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Unbeknownst to his spiritual guides and his family, Pi worships at the Christian church, the Mosque and the Hindu temple. Pi's musings on the three religions and zoology (and the combination of the two) are beautifully written in a settled, yet passionate voice, and deliver much food for thought. They also set the tone for the spiritual (and zoological) journey Pi is about to embark on.

In the second part of the story, we are told how Pi's father was forced to shut down the zoo, planning to travel to Canada and sell his animals. The family -- Pi is only a teenager -- travels on a Japanese cargo ship. Then, tragedy strikes: a storm sinks the boat. Nobody survives except Pi, who manages to pull himself unto a rescue boat. Soon, he realises he is not alone: to his horror, he discovers that underneath the tarpaulin lurks Richard Parker -- the zoo's Bengal tiger. Pi's journey on the sea lasts for more than 200 days. He tells us how he managed to survive and, most importantly, how he managed to stay alive in the face of the tiger. Pi does not kill it (he considers it, but the plan strikes him as too risky); instead, he decides to subdue the tiger, to mark his territory and assert his role as the dominant animal. The story thrives on many strange encounters: a school of flying fish and other sea creatures, a mysterious island, another ship, and the enduring struggle to keep Richard Parker under control. At last, the boat arrives safely on a beach; Richard Parker trots into the jungle, never to be seen again. The epilogue tells us about an interview between Pi and a Japanese insurance company inquiring into the circumstances of the disaster. Martel adds an interesting twist to Pi's account of the events, which I won't give away, of course -- suffice it to say that this book is full of choices (not the least of which are the choices of the reader) :)

The theme of the book is an intruigingly crafted, and seriously playful mixture of the spirit of animals, the spirit of faith and the spirit of literature and narrative. It is at once a good piece of sailor's yarn and an allegory; readers are immersed in and sympathise with Pi's fate, but might still detect a more sinister, and more profound outlook on his thoughts. There is an ambiguity in Martel's story which reminded me instantly of the most famous tiger-piece in English literature, "The Tyger" by William Blake:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

If The Life of Pi does not, as promised in the preface, "make you believe in God", at least it will make you believe in the power of storytelling! :)

Regards,

Raven.

[mono]

Yesterday, I just finished reading Dubliners by James Joyce, a collection of numerous short stories, though I had to read them very slowly, unfortunately, keeping quite busy with final exams in school.
Despite the challenge of reading a lot of Irish slang, I still found some of the short stories slightly difficult to read without placing a lot of thought and meditation into his writing; James Joyce, of all writers, seems very psychological, always deep in thought, and whimsical. Of the short stories, I would probably consider A Little Cloud, Grace, and A Painful Case.
My rating: 9/10.

[Taime]

'Redemption' by Wayne Sharrocks

'Redemption' is a no-holds-barred psychological thriller that captivates from the start.
This absorbing tale is a tasty confection of love lost, betrayal and vendettas. The author exhibits a unique blend of dark horror, sharp wit and flawless storytelling. It's truly a sublime read-an appealing mixure of dark psychology and sensual gothic prose.
Betrayal, intrigue and menace lie within every page to create an amazing tale. It's compulsively readable-a strikingly original work with dazzling scenes, vivid personalities
and a well crafted plot. With twists and turns galore this dark tale kept me hooked until the very last page.