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.Quote:
Originally Posted by rhei_27
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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.Quote:
Originally Posted by rhei_27
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by rachel
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:Quote:
Originally Posted by rachel
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...)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!
Yesterday I read Two of us Brendan Halpin. ah its also called Donorboy (thats why I couldnt find it on amazon)
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.
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."
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".
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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:Quote:
Originally Posted by scoooter5
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.
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.
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, and would love anyone else's input and interpretations.
My rating of this book: 9/10.
I am hoping to read:Quote:
Originally Posted by scoooter5
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/for...splay.php?f=15
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".
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.
By the sound of it, it seems really nice. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Themis
Themis, have you read "Memoirs Of Geisha"? I liked it a lot. I wonder if "Geisha, A Life" is better...
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.
Malcolm Gladwell. I once read another of his earlier books, The Tipping Point. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shannanigan
Quote:
Originally Posted by mono
From what I understood, The Tipping Point was better...haven't read it though.
some excellent reviews here :) makes me want to read them
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pensive
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.
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.
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.
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.