What Are You Reading

[russa11]

I just started "American Creation" Joseph Ellis

 

[la vie en rose]

Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Grey'. His way with words is incredible!

 

[anon`]

Recently under the inspiration of what I would consider a slightly different Golden Era, I've started reading "Beowulf" again.

Sooner or later I'll get back to Dr Sacks, I swear!

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Since I'm getting near the end of Martin Chuzzlewit (300 pages to go, but with Dickens that is near the end), I thought I'd start a bunch more novels all at once:

James Blish, They Shall Have Stars (first in the Cities in Flight quartet; classic science fiction from the 1950s)

Dorothy B. Hughes, The Blackbirder (World War II spy thriller re-published in the "Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp" series from The Feminist Press at The City University of New York)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

(one of my favorite photographs of all time, BTW)

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (acclaimed 2007 novel about office layoffs, and undoubtedly one of the very few novels ever written in the first person singular)

 

[old yazoo]

Another Ellroy fan here--parts of The Black Dahlia scared me so much I went to check the door was locked! Great writing style, psychological depth the the characters, real page turners but, boy, he's dark, dark dark! Cue up a Deanna Durbin film or the like to bring you out of it!

I've seen interviews with him and he seems as strange as his books, but who knows how much of that is for publicity. His autobiographical piece My Dark Places was really well done too.

Somebody on the Lounge said they were doing a tour of LA hosted by Ellroy--I wonder how that went?

Oh good, Black Dahlia is next on my list! I love a good thrill.

The last book I read that I keep talking about is The Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse - wow. This one really goes out with a bang.

 

[Harp]

The New York Times Book Review of A Treatise of Civil Power,
by Geoffrey Hill; Yale University Press.

Hill is a cipher-of-sorts poet whose soul perches upon a 16th Century scaffold.

 

[sweetfrancaise]

I'm reading Gone With the Wind again. Haven't read it since high school, but enjoying it just the same! Does anyone have any interesting links about this book, information on symbols, history and such?

 

[pgoat]

Just finished Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. It wasn't grabbing me at first but man , did it pour on the juice about halfway through. By the last 100 pages I was obsessed....that's a good read imo. Great book. I liked it way more than One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Just started David Copperfield. 900 pages.....Part of my weightlifting program on the train.

 

[Samsa]

My better half and I have taken to reading aloud most nights. Right now it's Le Petit Prince. After that it's on to Sherlock Holmes.

 

[Natty Bumpo]

Just finished ...

Confederacy of Dunces, the only fiction I've read in years.
My Grandfather's Son by Justice Thomas.
Now on America Alone by the brilliant Mark Steyn.

Highly recommend all.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Just started David Copperfield. 900 pages.....Part of my weightlifting program on the train.

I love entering those Dickens "worlds" -- I'm nearing the end of Martin Chuzzlewit, as I've mentioned.

 

[pgoat]

Yeah, I re-read Great Expectations a few years ago and it really sucks you in; I read Crime and Punishment before that. Kinda cool in an anachronstic sort of way - I usually do my book reading on a subway train.

The wife has been raiding my pile o' Dickens - she's on Tale of Two Cities now and just finished Hard Times.

That's a wonderful idea about reading to each other. I love reading in bed in the morning if I can get up early enough. I tried it after reading an interview with Patrick Stewart where he said his daily ritual began with a cup of tea ("Earl Grey - hottt!") and straight back to bed with cup in one hand and Dickens in the other, for a solid hour or so. A fairly civil way to begin the day, I must say.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Yeah, I re-read Great Expectations a few years ago and it really sucks you in; I read Crime and Punishment before that. Kinda cool in an anachronstic sort of way - I usually do my book reading on a subway train.

The wife has been raiding my pile o' Dickens - she's on Tale of Two Cities now and just finished Hard Times.

My most recent Dickens reads before Martin Chuzzlewit have been Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times, and Our Mutual Friend -- all from the second half of his career, all masterpieces in their way. I also read all five "Christmas books": A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man.

I need to return to some of the famous Dickens titles I read many years ago in my youth: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities.

I also need to explore the first five Dickens novels which I've never read: The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, and The Old Curiosity Shop.

That leaves the last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and the novel I will probably tackle next, Dombey and Son. Plenty of Dickens to go! (I do read other authors, too. )

 

[contentmentfarm]

If you haven't read it, you must read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It's an amazing WWII story based on his Mother's experience and stories.

Also, Water for Elephants. I think those are my two favorite books at the moment.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I was reading Martin Chuzzlewit with my morning coffee at the Atlanta Bread Company, and came to a passage that stopped me dead in my tracks. Martin Chuzzlewit and his servant Mark Tapley have traveled to America from England to make their fortune, and have gotten to the mid-section of the country only to find themselves stuck in a failed, pestilential settlement. Their fortunes get worse and worse:

Rain, heat, foul slime, and noxious vapour, with all the ills and filthy things they bred, prevailed. The earth, the air, the vegetation, and the water that they drank, all teemed with deadly properties. Their fellow-passenger had lost two children long before; and buried now her last. Such things are much too common to be widely known or cared for. Smart citizens grow rich, and friendless victims smart and die, and are forgotten. That is all.

That is breathtaking as writing, devastating as human truth, and a perfect example of Dickens's greatness.

 

[pgoat]

word

and that is the type of passage that is strangely NOT incongruous with my surroundings whilst reading on the 8th ave subway!lol lol lol

the more things change.....

 

[b17sam@hotmail.]

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[jayem]

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

Meant to read it for some time, and I'm just finally getting around to it.

Oh geez, Dicken's bores the nonsense out of me. Too much detail!

 

[KY Gentleman]

My brother in law and I enjoy discussing the latest books we've read and we decided to read a Hemmingway book each to review for each other. I chose "The Sun Also Rises" and I gotta tell you. I cannot get into it at all but I HAVE to read it!

 

[carebear]

The New York Times Book Review of A Treatise of Civil Power,
by Geoffrey Hill; Yale University Press.

Hill is a cipher-of-sorts poet whose soul perches upon a 16th Century scaffold.

That was an interesting review.