General Book Thread

[Daft]

I decided it would be best to take a small break from space-y SciFi - thought it might be a little too much after reading Childhood's End and The Forever War in the space of a few weeks - so I started Robopocalypse (which is so far bloody awesome). Next I'm thinking Darkly Dreaming Dexter and then I'll choose between The Culture and Ender's Game.

 

So for The Culture, do you really recommend skipping Consider Phlebas? I've bough it and prepared to give it a go.

[jayseven]

The books are, largely, not connected to each other and there's little need to read them in order. Some of the events in Consider Phlebas are referenced later, but the book's last third isn't great. If you have a habit of putting books down then skip it - whereas I was a completionist so I was determined to start from the first and read them all.

 

I'd say that the Culture series is like BSG - it's about civilisations, politics, espionage and diplomacy as much as it is about spaceships and laserbeams, if not moreso.

 

Player of Games is the easiest to get into, and Use of Weapons is trickier and more convulted in narrative terms, but the scope is grander and sets you up to appreciate the sheer scale of The Culture.

 

So yeah; if you aren't committed to reading all of the books then start elsewhere - though I do recommend that you do read all of them - but I understand that it's rather a large commitment!

[Daft]

Hmmm, I'll give it a think. I may leave them for a while until I'm ready to tackle them all.

 

I'm about half way through Robopocalypse. Really enjoying it.

[jayseven]

Yeah, don't force it dude

 

I've got a pile of reading to do for other people; tutoring two kids in different years at school (one my cousin) so I have to read their reading lists. Thankfully education panders the masses so it's just books like Of Mice and Men that are short in length -- my only problem is the other books are all Australian Literature, and really hard to come by. The libraries are all out, and the books themselves aren't exactly popular save for school texts, so book shops either don't have them or are providing a good example of how expensive aus is... Y'see, I get $30 for an hour tuition, but the price of a NEW book here is easily $30 - that works out as about £20. For some reason books have a high tax here..?

[Daft]

Okay, so wow. Just smashed through Of Mice and Men. I completely forgot you talked about it in your reply and when I was surfing the Kindle store last night looking for something short too, I was like 'Uuurgh, I've tried to read it before and got bored but I seem to be more tolerant of stuff on ma Kindle' - I am 90% sure it's because of the layout/less words per page; makes me read faster - but I picked it up anyway (I have always really wanted to read more Steinbeck after having read Cannery Row ages ago). My subconscious is my master.

 

 

Holy shit. Was stunning. I'm almost speechless. I had tears in my eyes.

 

It was sublime.

 

Edit: So I've read four books in the past two weeks; Childhood's End, The Forever War, Robopocalypse and now Of Mice and Men. I am pleased. What next. I might just take a break for a bit.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Daft

[Daft]

Just finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Not really sure what to make of it. Interesting end. Think it would have been better had I not seen the TV show but I don't think that'll be a problem if I pick up the next book.

[Ashley]

The first is mostly the same as the first season (other than the ending), the second has some happenstance-ey similarities and onwards it's just completely different.

[Retro_Link]

So I don't read nearly enough... like at all really!

 

I think over the last 5 years or so I've probably read two books... The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night... and Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Well and a couple of autobiographies.

 

But I'd like to read a little more, so I'm just looking for a few suggestions really... maybe some 'classics'?

I'll have a look back through this thread too.

 

---

 

I was also thinking with the film version coming out some time, I might give Cloud Atlus a read?... as it's got the sci-fi element that will probably interest. Has anyone here read it and would recommend it or not?

[jayseven]

Cloud Atlas is not a great gateway read. The 'sci-fi' element you've seen is only for a couple of chapters. The story is set over hundreds of years so you won't get any of the sci-fi stuff going on in the 18th century! It is fantastic though.

 

What is/was your reading habit like? Just before bed? Just on the toilet? Just on a train journey? Figuring out how much time you have to read something is a sensible approach to getting back into reading -- obviously if you're hooked on a book then you'll make more time to read it but by default if your go-to mode is gaming or other, then start with when you read, not what you read.

[Retro_Link]

By gateway read you mean a book to ease me back into reading? I'm not sure if it's that as such because [well I've never been much of a reader but] when I start a book that I enjoy I tend to be able to dedicate enough time to it... as in I'll just sit on the sofa for a hour and read. So I guess I'm more of a 'before bed' reader as I could spend 30mins or so a day reading a book. Depends on the chapter size also.

 

(don't get me started on reading on the toilet... don't get it... never will :p)

 

But you would recommend Cloud Atlas then!?... It doesn't have to be a Sci-Fi book, I was just aware that there was at least an element of it in there. If it spans a few hundred years and visits many different locations and themes I'll most likely enjoy it. Although is it a case of being a bit complicated and you have to persevere or...?

 

I think I'll try Of Mice And Men too maybe? seeing as it's a relatively short read.

 

What you would recommend Jay?

Edited August 30, 2012 by Retro_Link

[jayseven]

Cloud Atlas isn't hard to follow, and perhaps it benefits from allowing sections to sink in. I used to recommend it to people all the time but I've found being over-ehtusiastic about things leads to people being let down by them :P

 

Of Mice And Men is the 'in' book here! It's seriously short - my copy is 91 pages long. I read it twice last week. As Daft said, it's more of a parable than a novel, with perhaps a gritty 'truth' at the end. If you can get it cheap (which you surely can!) then definitely! Well worth having in your 'read' pile.

 

I'm currently reading literature set at schools as I'm tutoring a couple of kids (I won't stop telling people) - so I'm reading short books, plays and watching movies which is reawakening the student in me. Still got Dearly Devoted Dexter and Railsea by Mieville sitting here. And a sydney history book which I promised an old man to read...

[bob]

Of Mice and Men was ruined by having to study it at school, like so many books i suppose...

[Daft]

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

 

I want to read Dearly Devoted Dexter but it's been removed from the Kindle store because it was a crappy version. Rage. It's cool, I wasn't going to dive into it straight away but it better be up there soon.

 

Been reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. It's not really doing it for me. Think it might be time to start Ender's Game.

[jayseven]

I read Cloud Atlas first, then read Number 9 Dream and recently Ghostwritten then The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (had to look it up to remember). I haven't finished Black Swan Green.

 

One thing David mitchell loves is Jazz. Another is eastern culture. number9dream and, I suppose, Retro's overheard element of Cloud Atlas are kind of attempts to cash in on the steampunk of Snow Crash (neil stephenson) [neal?]. Black Swan Green is a poor try to merge autobigraphy with storytelling (imo). 1000 Autumns is, to me, the first [the guy in the boat] chapter of Cloud Atlas expanded. Ghostwritten is like a collection of short stories strung togehter through common themes (jazz music; eastern philosophy)...

 

BUT! Cloud Atlas IS more engrossing.

 

It is the most direct of his works, yet also the most complicated narratively. But the narrative structure is easy to split up ( abcddcba!). @Supergrunch is a known fan and will be better at remembering than I. I do also remember reading a short story Mitchell wrote that was published in a new free-mag distributed at train stations that I just couldn't care about... But 1000 Autumns was lovely to read. In a sense it was rather tell-tale, but the fact that he's written something that hollywood ISN'T currently producing means that he's not trying to be the next crichton, which means I find it far more enjoyable to read his well-written film scripts.

 

Cloud Atlas was always meant to be too complicated to shoot as one movie, it felt. Ghostwritten was always more of a TV series.

[Retro_Link]

Have you read Life of Pi Jay/anyone?

[bob]

I have.

 

I loved it. Apart from the bit with the island obviously.

[Retro_Link]

I don't know what that refers to as I haven't read it and I'm not looking for any spoilers, but you would recommend it?

[bob]

Yes i would definitely recommend it, i thought it was amazing when i first read it. And don't worry, that wasn't really a spoiler.

[jayseven]

@Retro_Link I read it before I went to uni... so that's over 5 years ago now. I don't remember any of it! Lots of philosophy.

[bob]

I don't remember any philosophy. Shows how much of a pleb i am.....

 

You should read it anyway, as the film comes out later this year (i think) and it looks amazing.

[jayseven]

Lol; I taught my cousin teh word 'pleb' a few months ago and he's spread it to his school. Your usage reminded me to check the wiki backstory as i couldn't remember what it really meant... So now he's loaded up with "plebe" and "plebby." We had already come up with "preb" - there's a large asian community so the engrish wordplay works, but mostly we decided it means "pre-pubescent pleb," a most damning insult for teenagers.

[bob]

My mum always uses it, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn't in common usage...

[Supergrunch]

I read Cloud Atlas first' date=' then read [b']Number 9 Dream[/b] and recently Ghostwritten then The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (had to look it up to remember). I haven't finished Black Swan Green.

 

One thing David mitchell loves is Jazz. Another is eastern culture. number9dream and, I suppose, Retro's overheard element of Cloud Atlas are kind of attempts to cash in on the steampunk of Snow Crash (neil stephenson) [neal?]. Black Swan Green is a poor try to merge autobigraphy with storytelling (imo). 1000 Autumns is, to me, the first [the guy in the boat] chapter of Cloud Atlas expanded. Ghostwritten is like a collection of short stories strung togehter through common themes (jazz music; eastern philosophy)...

 

BUT! Cloud Atlas IS more engrossing.

 

It is the most direct of his works, yet also the most complicated narratively. But the narrative structure is easy to split up ( abcddcba!). @Supergrunch is a known fan and will be better at remembering than I. I do also remember reading a short story Mitchell wrote that was published in a new free-mag distributed at train stations that I just couldn't care about... But 1000 Autumns was lovely to read. In a sense it was rather tell-tale, but the fact that he's written something that hollywood ISN'T currently producing means that he's not trying to be the next crichton, which means I find it far more enjoyable to read his well-written film scripts.

 

Cloud Atlas was always meant to be too complicated to shoot as one movie, it felt. Ghostwritten was always more of a TV series.

Ghostwritten is amazing, and easily Mitchell's greatest book in my opinion, and certainly one of my favourite books. There's a crazy amount of stuff (in fact something of a meta-story) going on between the lines, but you have to read it several times to work this out. Jacob de Zoet is also pretty brilliant, and Cloud Atlas is good, but maybe ever so slightly too perfectly structured to quite go in the top category.

 

But yes, few authors reach the heights of David Mitchell.

 

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.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Supergrunch

[Daft]

I think that's the longest trailer I've ever watched.

[MoogleViper]

I've just finished A Dance With Dragons 2: After the Feast (Part 5, Vol. 2 of the A Song of Ice and Fire series). It really is a brilliant series, I urge any of you who have the remotest interest in fantasy/adventure (although it's more to do with politics, scheming and power struggles than sword and shield fighting).

 

Has anyone else read it? Personally I think the first 2 books were the best, and it went downhill slightly afterwards. It can also be very frustrating. I don't want to spoil anything but it's far from the hero always wins, happily ever after type story. Still a great series though. Can't wait for The Winds of Winter.

 

I think my next book will maybe be Carl Sagan's Cosmos (although I'd like to watch the TV show first), or A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Anyone read any of them? Recommendations?