General Book Thread

[Daft]

I was kind of intrigued by Carl Sagan's book Contact book. The film wasn't great but I can imagine the book is actually coherent.

 

I'm about half way through Einstein's Dream by Alan Lightman (Was 99p on the Kindle Store yesterday). Anyone else read it? I'm really enjoying it. It's kind of a whole bunch of stories that explain relativity...but it isn't and it is. It's great.

[Daft]

Okay, so this month I've managed to read seven books. In celebration I thought I'd do a quick round-up. Apologies to peeps like Jay who already heard me blurt about most of this.

 

So, in order, I present...

 

Childhood's End - Arthur C Clarke - 4 out of 5

 

Easy to read. Not dated badly at all. It was really enticing and the ending was pretty beautiful and melancholic.

 

 

The Forever War - Joe Halderman - 3.5 out of 5

 

I was a bit meh about this until about a third into it. The actual war bits I found to be really uninteresting. Kind of read like generic sci-fi. It's only after that is over and Mandella has to deal returning to a world that has left him behind that it gets interesting. Yeah, it's all a massive metaphor for Vietnam but I feel it works for the most part - except with regards to stuff like sexuality which is jarringly outdated. Still, it's a book that grows as it goes and by the end I felt it was a pretty involving book.

 

 

Of Mice and Men - John Steinback - More than 5 out of 5

 

 

My thoughts on this are a couple pages back.

 

 

Robopcalypse - Daniel H. Wilson - 3 out of 5

 

Good and entertaining.

 

 

Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsey - 3.5 out of 5

 

I enjoyed. Similar to the first season of the TV series so I smashed through it pretty quickly. I look forward to a less than familiar follow up as soon as the publisher sorts their shit out and puts a non-duffed up version up on the Kindle Store.

 

 

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse - 3.5 out of 5

 

If you like philosophical musings you'll like this although it seemed pretty basic to me. Still, at a little over 100 pages it's worth a few hours.

 

 

Einstein's Dream - Alan Lightman - 4 out of 5

 

Ouch. Where the shit did this come from? I loved it. It was about time in all its forms and un-forms and yeah, I'm still mulling over it. It's hard to describe so here's the Amazon buff;

 

As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over.

 

In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

 

Good stuff.

 

 

So there we are. If that inspires anyone to check out any of those, I'll be pleased. Any question, just shoot. Any recommendations based off that list will be appreciated, too.

 

I've started reading The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.

[Daft]

Just finished The Virgin Suicides (Yeah, this thread looks like I'm talking to myself but whatevs). Not too sure what to make of it. Anyone else read it? Or seen the film actually, because it's meant to be as close to a perfect adaptation as you can get (I saw it years ago and can only remember that Kirsten Dunst is in it). I'd like to hear people's thoughts.

 

Anyone read any other Jeffrey Eugenides? I hear Middlesex is highly recommended.

[bob]

Read this yesterday

 

 

It's only a short novella, so only like 80 pages or so. But it's a really interesting idea, i'd love for him to write a full novel about the concept.

[Cube]

I'm still reading Micro by Michael Crichton - it's taking me ages because I never set time for reading - and it's brilliant so far. I've currently finished "book 2" (Is there a name for large sections in a book made up of multiple chapters?) out of three, and it simply stunned me. I've never encountered anything so surprising in a book before.

[MoogleViper]

(Is there a name for large sections in a book made up of multiple chapters?)

 

Volume? 10

[bob]

Testament?

[jayseven]

Canto? :P

 

Srslytho: I'd say the most generalisable term would just be act, but usually the author specifies it in the novel itself. If there's uncertainty then referring to "the first section" would work fine.

[Daft]

So in the past week or so I read Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman. Really wasn't a fan. It was fine and there were some nice parts but it just felt weak.

 

The I read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway which I enjoyed to a point and was bored to another point. Actually I think I might have hated it.

 

And I just finished Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I need to meditate on this. I did enjoy it.

 

So there are the three worst unhelpful reviews ever.

[Daft]

I finished Ender's Game last week. It was really enjoyable. Kind of Hunger Games-ish.

 

I'm reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I've read the first couple chapters, are they meant to be amusing because they've made me smile. Or should I be worried.

[Jimbob]

Just started reading "Game of Thrones". So far, so good. First proper book i've read in a long time.

[Jonnas]

This thread reminded me I should retake my reading. Haven't done much since finishing Gog. I'll try to start Letters from the Earth during the next week.

[Retro_Link]

Finished reading Cloud Atlas last night. Fantastic book that I'd definately recommend, really enjoyed it!

 

The intro doesn't make it a particularly easy book to get into, I found the 19th Century language and fictional names made the first 15-20 pages an effort, but then there's a setting change and the opening section becomes easier to get into. From then onwards it was brilliant!

 

Perfect book to have gotten me back into reading. Great stories and characters, and I think importantly plenty of diversity throughout and an interesting, engaging (if a little bit complicated) structure.

 

 

 

Think I'm gonna go for Life of Pi next (it's only £2.99 on Amazon!), but would also really like some suggestions or recommendations. Maybe if anyone can recommend me anything having enjoyed Cloud Atlas.

[jayseven]

Start off with David Mitchell's other works. Structure- and narrative-wise, Cloud Atlas is reasonably individual (of course it'd be foolish to say completely individual) but the scope of imagination and depth of subject material is prevalent throughout his work. Even if you disapproved of his 1800s, his book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a great read (set in 1700s), though I do recommend turning your reading glasses to number9dream and Ghostwritten first (personally I've not even been able to finish Black Swan Green yet.

 

Otherwise perhaps look at Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (I read that and Cloud Atlas in a close timeframe and found both addictive, though SC end-story isn't perfect) - technically cyberpunk rather than the pop-philosophy pseudo-life-is-art category that CA (and Life of Pi) fall into.

 

Shorty once recommended to me Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland, and I'd highly recommend that. A Secret History by Donna Tartt is another must-read (again I read most of these books in a similar window).

[Daft]

Pointless update but I'm half way through The Bell Jar. It's really weird, it makes me laugh at points but it's hard to read, too. It's veiled in this hopeless miasma but it's brilliant. Still, hard to read.

[Retro_Link]

Has anybody read Before I Go To Sleep?

 

I'm quite tempted to give The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet a go... but is it quite hardgoing Jay?... very much in the same style as 18th Century Cloud Atlas?

 

Ghostwritten sounds a bit to similar to me. Snow Crash/Number9Dream sound interesting.

 

 

Edit: Not sure whether or not this is common knowledge, but I found a trailer for the new Cloud Atlas film:

 

 

My feelings are kind of split after a brief watch - some things seem to be well-realized, but I hope the Hollywoody feel of the trailer is reduced in the actual film. And please say they didn't cut Timothy Cavendish!

 

Edit 2: Oh wait, he's quite transparently in it. All the more reason for me to go to bed now.

 

 

It's funny!... I thought this trailer looked incredible and it inspired me to read the book.

But having now read the book, I can't help but think it looks a bit rubbish! :p

 

[Always bound to be the case I know but] The depiction of the characters looks terrible, and nor are any of them how I imagined them; especially Luisa Rey who I'm sure was white skinned and blonde in the book (not that they can't change the film however they like). Acting looks a bit dodgy too tbh! And just from the trailer there already seem to have been many changes to the narrative to make it work on screen.

 

And the way they've recast the same actors in every single one of the stories!

When reading the book it was only the central character that I envisaged carrying over, and even then I hadn't pictured them to bare any resemblance to one another (largely because it goes between both Male and Female I'd imagine).

Edited November 8, 2012 by Retro_Link

[jayseven]

I'm quite tempted to give The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet a go... but is it quite hardgoing Jay?... very much in the same style as 18th Century Cloud Atlas?

 

Ghostwritten sounds a bit to similar to me. Snow Crash/Number9Dream sound interesting.

I approached the book thinking it'd be incomprehensible; that David Mitchell would take his interweaving narrative of Cloud Atlas and instead create a deeply, historically accurate representation. Instead he provides a fairly succinct portrayal of believable and likeable characters, and equally is able to create a world we westerners are not used to, and make it real.

 

Ghostwritten is like Cloud Atlas in the sense that it's essentially a bunch of short stories tied together -- though Cloud Atlas is an expertly interwoven masterpiece. Ghostwritten doesn't claim to be so inter-relevant.

 

I really think that you can pick any of his books and find them enjoyable,

It's funny!... I thought this trailer looked incredible and it inspired me to read the book.

But having now read the book, I can't help but think how terrible the film looks! :p

 

[Always bound to be th e case I know but] The depiction of the characters looks terrible, and nor are any of them how I imagined them; especially Luisa Rey who I'm sure was white skinned and blonde in the book (not that they can't change the film however they like). Acting looks a bit dodgy too tbh! And just from the trailer there already seem to have been many changes to the narrative to make it work on screen.

 

And the way they've recast the same actors in every single one of the stories!

When reading the book it was only the central character that I envisaged carrying over, and even then I hadn't pictured them to bare any resemblance to one another.

 

I quite liked the movie's approach in this sense, but my main concern really lies in the fact that Tom Hanks has kinda sucked in movies for the last 5 years...

[dan-likes-trees]

A load of random replies to the last few pages follow! Did some travelling so I got a mighty amount of reading down.

 

So all the Mice and Men chat in here inspired me to pick up Grapes of Wrath which i proceeded to bomb through. I'd recommend it to all you Mice and Men fans, really compelling, long but goes quickly. That said I really liked the main plotline but I thought the characters were all pretty weak and insubstanial, didn't particularly care about any of them. Also some of the critique of the californian government seemed a bit overdone (though the introduction says that it's an accurate representation). Dunno. I really like the whole American cross-country route 66 thing so loved that, had a weird sort of adventure vibe for a lot of the book.

 

Also got East of Eden which is more character based and pretty good-ish from what I've read (though I've stalled on reading it).

 

What's Cannerey Row like Daft?

 

I Read this

 

 

Which fucking floored me. Like, hardly anything happens, it's incredibly slow-paced, quiet, but it's just really brilliantly observed writing. (Also, not at all about sports, misleading title). Stuff about stifled ambition and being happy in an average life, isolation, all that stuff. It's great.

 

Also really impressed by Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. About a Butler and repressed emotions and that sort of thing. Plot went exactly where I thought it would but the ending was really beautifully executed - seems like a really great writer. Going to read Never Let me Go as soon as I forget what happens from the film.

 

The Slap was another good one, big Australian novel, something like 10 sections each seen through a different character. Real interesting look at what seems to be a pretty diverse society, though it's pretty much solely comprised of unlikeable characters.

 

Read half of Crime and Punishment which is surprisingly readable but loonng. I really need to stop reading half of books.

 

Currently on Bonfire of the Vanities, the Wolfe hulk. It is great. Kind of reminds me of Mad Men if it were a couple decades on, really top black humour and a great set of characters. Good pageturner. Picked it up in a charity shop and it has this shockingly bad film cover

 

 

which i feel a bit embarassed to be seen reading.

 

Border Trilogy and Ford's Independence Day are next on my list

 

How does Cloud Atlas compare to Ghostwritten? Because I got bored of Ghostwritten.

 

Same! I keep meaning to come back to it. Got stuck on the one in Italy about halfway through. Remember a couple of the stories pretty well though, so they cant have been bad.

 

Just finished The Virgin Suicides (Yeah, this thread looks like I'm talking to myself but whatevs). Not too sure what to make of it. Anyone else read it? Or seen the film actually, because it's meant to be as close to a perfect adaptation as you can get (I saw it years ago and can only remember that Kirsten Dunst is in it). I'd like to hear people's thoughts.

 

Anyone read any other Jeffrey Eugenides? I hear Middlesex is highly recommended.

 

Yeah I read it a while ago... pretty sure I quite liked it, had a sort of weird observational style if I recall, which was quite interesting... Watched the film more recently, which I thought was shockingly bad, and I thought I liked Sofia Coppola. Worth a shot though, got a decent Air soundtrack I think.

 

Read The Marriage Plot the other week by him. Really enjoyable and more interesting than I thought it would be, but still a bit light. Generally about people finishing university but with a pretty random bunch of themes (one guy goes off travelling, another gets manic depression, all very loosely connected). Decent characters, better than I'm making it sound. My old man is currently reading Middlesex and gives it the thumbs up.. won the Pulitzer, so it's probably worth a read.

 

Pointless update but I'm half way through The Bell Jar. It's really weird, it makes me laugh at points but it's hard to read, too. It's veiled in this hopeless miasma but it's brilliant. Still, hard to read.

 

Finished it? What did you think? Had to google Miasma, top word.

 

@Daft I shall warn you now' date=' that [b']Consider Phlebas[/b] is THE worst culture novel :P Player of Games is the easiest starter, but yes, Use of Weapons is what many consider his best - he 'started' the novel 20 years earlier, sort of that one story he'd, for years, yearned to do properly. You'll never look at a chair in the same way again (srsly). I just have to stress that fact again; Consider Phlebas is the worst of the lot. It's a great introduction to the idea of what The Culture are, but please, please continue with others afterwards. You will not regret it! The 2nd book alone is set something liek 250 or 600 years later...

 

I totally own Consider Phelbas but I think I'll pick up Use of Weapons and read that instead based on this. I really want a BSG style good read in my life!

Edited November 17, 2012 by dan-likes-trees

[jayseven]

The Culture novels are more about tech than BSG ever is, but for sure there's philosophy and politics involved. And just general awesomeness!

 

The Slap is sitting on my bedside table - it is a little off-putting in size. It was made into a TV series which got rave ratings (but then again anything home-grown culture-wise is bigged up). I'm sure I saw something about it back in the UK a year ago... but that's possibly untrue!

 

last book I read was The Fault in our Stars, a title by a guy called John Green. It was fairly clearly written for "young adults" (it was lent to me by the 17 year old kid I was tutoring), so it was a quick and easily digestible read. It dealt with some heavy topics; cancer and death; love with a Best Before date. It had some choice quotes that did make stop for a moment and open my eyes a little wider, but that's largely due to to my present situation (pseudo-caring for a couple of kids, life on the rocks, etc).

 

Got gifted a book of Australian short stories, written by a bunch of unknowns. Will give it a good read to see how it fares!

[Daft]

Yeah I read it a while ago... pretty sure I quite liked it, had a sort of weird observational style if I recall, which was quite interesting... Watched the film more recently, which I thought was shockingly bad, and I thought I liked Sofia Coppola. Worth a shot though, got a decent Air soundtrack I think.

 

Awww, naaahhh! I thought the film was quite good. I'd say it was one of the few movies that actually nails its book almost comprehensively. Generally I'm a fan of Sofia Coppola as a director, think she's a bad writer and the less said about her acting the better.

 

Finished it? What did you think? Had to google Miasma, top word.

 

Not yet. My Kindle tells me I'm 60% through. I found it funny in quite an absurd sense until about half way through, that's still there as I'm reading but it's getting increasingly momentous in its morbidity. So that's making it a little difficult to read. It's an amazing book, though.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Daft

[Cube]

I finally got round to finishing Micro by Michael Crichton (and Richard Preston, who took what Crichton had written, along with his very details notes and finished the book). I loved every moment of it, and it's filled with many incredibly detailed locations (and horrors) that are amazing to imagine. It was also filled with lots and lots of surprises which I never saw coming.

 

It's a massive shame that there will be no more books from him and I doubt that I'll ever find another author quite like him. At least he went out on a very high note.

[jayseven]

@Cube I've only read a few of Crichton's books - The Lost World and Prey - I remember nothing of the first, but the 2nd holds a place in my heart for sentimental reasons -- first [audio] book I read after my eye operation. If you had to make a top 5, could you?

 

Managed to filter through 15GB of ebooks to pick up 300mb that I thought were keep-able. Probably half of that was books I'd read already, but also Michael Connolley's Harry Bosch books. My dad's been raving about them for years now. I finished the first, Black Echo and it was, as all best-sellers are, exhaustively gripping throughout. I'm about 20% through the 2nd book Black Ice, and I can tell that it is carried by the reader's expectation/desire to find out what happened next to the main character, even if the story so far isn't as enticing.

 

I've always been fairly dismissive of best-sellers, and really I don't know why. I mean, I really enjoyed Time Traveller's Wife and the whole The Girl... trilogy. Why am I always so quick to dismiss the charts? Well, shades of bandwagon come to mind... I do tend to 'prefer' the award-winning books, but I have to admit I've clearly been missing out on something. Just because someone is skilled enough to be able to produce a book a year does not mean they are shit. I'm learning to appreciate this, and I'm enjoying the fact

[Cube]

@Cube I've only read a few of Crichton's books - The Lost World and Prey - I remember nothing of the first' date=' but the 2nd holds a place in my heart for sentimental reasons -- first [audio'] book I read after my eye operation. If you had to make a top 5, could you?

 

Thinking quickly: Prey, Micro, Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Timeline.

[Jim]

Really enjoyed all of Brandon Sandersons books, so bought this:

 

 

Hoping it to be similar, or at least as good.

 

i've heard only good things about this.. but after I finished off A Song of Ice and Fire.. I've decided to tackle the Wheel of Time series. I think I'm biting off more than I can chew there...

[bob]

i've heard only good things about this.. but after I finished off A Song of Ice and Fire.. I've decided to tackle the Wheel of Time series. I think I'm biting off more than I can chew there...

 

Final book came out today! On chapter 8, and oh my goodness is it amazing. You won't be disappointed if you make it to the end!