Books, books, books...

[tomobedlam]

  Just finished the ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman, it never ceases to amaze me how Gaiman changes registers from one book to another, and even in the same book (anansi´s boys is a pretty good example) finished it in one sitting (is a short novel) and i´m about to finish the name of the wind due to be able to sinchronize between various devices, it was more easy to find time to read a chapter here and there even on the phone while i waited for something

[osmosisch]

I found Ocean to be a bit formulaic to be honest, but I might just have read too much Gaiman by now.

[Tanukitsune]

I finished the Oz collection, it was formulaic, but still "whimsical" enough, it was pretty strange to find out that the final book in this collection was written by Frank Baum's biggest fan, who continued the legacy of Oz OFFICIALLY, how crazy is that?

 

I also just started to read the H.G. Wells collection I got... He sure is verbose. The Time Machine was about 80 pages, but felt like much more.

[Dosed]

I finished The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier recently and I've started reading Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach not too long ago. I'd heard of neither of the authors before reading them, but they were recommended by an American friend so maybe Ecotopia, at least, is more well known over there. 

 

The Brief History of the Dead was pretty enjoyable. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a nice easy read. The premise is that there is a city people go to after they die, and they remain there until everyone on Earth who remembers them also dies. It's quite frustrating as the book never goes into some of the interesting, and quite confusing, goings on in the cities

such as why do people need guns in a city where no one can be killed? In fact I can't even remember if anyone can be killed there, or if it even talks about that issue.

-- Not major spoilers btw -- but it is pretty beautifully written. I'd also just read The End of Mr. Y previously and that was one of the biggest piles of shite I'd ever read so maybe it helped me enjoy Brockmeier's stuff more than I would have otherwise.

 

Ecotopia is a bit of a different beast, obviously. I'm enjoying it so far. I always enjoy alternative society books where people try out their whacky theories, but I often get frustrated with how perfect they seem to be without much cost, and maybe I will enjoy Ecotopia more so once I read about the sinister cost of this "stable-state" society. 

[agorman]

I just finished reading The Path to the Spider's Nest, by Italo Calvino, for a class I'm in about representations of history. The book showed World War II in Italy, set from the perspective of a young boy. I didn't think the book itself was particularly that interesting, and it didn't really speak to me in any meaningful way, and wouldn't be writing about it, if it wasn't for the Introduction Calvino wrote around 20ish years after the book was originally published. Calvino tries again and again, pretty unsuccessfully to explain why he wrote certain aspects of the book the way he did, which ends up making a really good case for the death of the author idea...as he doesn't really communicate any of it clearly.

[deadmoscow]

I just finished reading The Path to the Spider's Nest, by Italo Calvino, for a class I'm in about representations of history. The book showed World War II in Italy, set from the perspective of a young boy. I didn't think the book itself was particularly that interesting, and it didn't really speak to me in any meaningful way, and wouldn't be writing about it, if it wasn't for the Introduction Calvino wrote around 20ish years after the book was originally published. Calvino tries again and again, pretty unsuccessfully to explain why he wrote certain aspects of the book the way he did, which ends up making a really good case for the death of the author idea...as he doesn't really communicate any of it clearly.

 

I've only ever read If on a winter's night a traveler... by him, does any of his other stuff hold up to that same standard?

 

I just finished up S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst.  It's a sort of metafiction book, in the same style as Pale Fire and House of Leaves.  I think the book itself, as a physical object, is more interesting than the text within.  J.J. Abrams has a bad habit of introducing way too many twists and turns into his stories, complicating the story unnecessarily.  The story of the novel and the story surrounding it were both completely incoherent at times, and the author's prose was just kind of obnoxious at times.  The conspiracy / mystery portions of the story were nearly incoherent at times, and the romantic portions were just kind of trite and predictable.  The artifacts and footnotes littered throughout the book were super neat, but nothing else really holds up very well.

 

I'm about to crack into The Crying of Lot 49 for the third (and hopefully final) time, and then hopefully from there I'll finally start Gravity's Rainbow.

[Max Ernst]

I've read Crying of Lot 49 three times and it was better every time. It's just one of those books.

[Argobot]

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is happening in Seattle right now, so the Slate Audie Book Club decided to come here and do a live recording of their podcast. I was fortunate enough to attend the recording, where they discussed Slaughterhouse-Five. The last time I read that book was as a freshman in high school. Revisiting it as an adult really showed how much my relationship to fiction has changed over the past decade. I remember that I liked it as a kid, but I'm sure what I related to in the book then was completely different to what I related to as an adult. For one, this book is so much sadder than I remembered it being. It's still very funny, but the fatalism of Billy Pilgrim really struck me more as an adult. The specter of Vonnegut's real life depression was also much more present the second time I read it.

 

The podcast discussion itself was really great and I'd encourage anyone who has read this book (or any Vonnegut) to listen whenever Slate makes it available. This is the second time a book podcast has gotten me to reread a book that I first read in high school (the other time was when the Idle Book Club picked The Great Gatsby) and I'm seriously thinking of going back to other novels that I read at that age to see how my opinion on them may have changed over a decade.

[Nappi]

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is happening in Seattle right now, so the Slate Audie Book Club decided to come here and do a live recording of their podcast. I was fortunate enough to attend the recording, where they discussed Slaughterhouse-Five. The last time I read that book was as a freshman in high school. Revisiting it as an adult really showed how much my relationship to fiction has changed over the past decade. I remember that I liked it as a kid, but I'm sure what I related to in the book then was completely different to what I related to as an adult. For one, this book is so much sadder than I remembered it being. It's still very funny, but the fatalism of Billy Pilgrim really struck me more as an adult. The specter of Vonnegut's real life depression was also much more present the second time I read it.

 

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

I have been meaning to re-read Slaughterhouse-Five for some time now. The one image that has stuck with me the longest (though not in any detail, it now appears) is the scene where Billy Pilgrim is lying in a hospital bed listening to a man lecture him about Dresden and how the Allied firebombing of the city was necessary and Billy finally agreeing with him. 

 

I have read all Vonnegut novels save two, and they have all been quite sad or depressing or even cynical - some more than others obviously - but also very human. 

[namman siggins]

I've only ever read If on a winter's night a traveler... by him, does any of his other stuff hold up to that same standard?

Yes. While not as wholly unique and meta as  If on a winter's night a traveler , the rest of Calvino's work is worth your time.

 

I highly recommend reading  Invisible Cities  --> Cosmicomics --> and then  The Baron in the Trees  (my favorite from Calvino). The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount & Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City are also worth your time but I'd ch eck them out when your more comfortable with Calvino.

[Ben X]

Finally finished Homicide: A Year On the Killing Streets, the David Simon book on which his shows Homicide and The Wire were based. I fully recommend it. It's heart-wrenching, thrilling, funny, sad stuff, with some images that will stick in my head for a long time.

[Dosed]

I just finished Ender's Game and I absolutely loved it. I've been struggling with reading recently as I just have never been able to dedicate enough time to it, but this book changed that. I chewed through it (relative to how I've been reading recently) and I just found it incredible. It went to so many places I never expected it to go, and after I finish my big pile of books from my birthday, which includes The Flamethrowers and Wolf Hall, I'm planning on reading the rest of the series. I think it really appealed to me as a gamer because it's basically a big game of laser tag in zero gravity. It's definitely made me want to go and read more sci-fi, which I thought I was turned off of by Ecotopia. 

 

Slaughterhouse-5 is a pretty incredible book, I'd love to listen to people discuss the book. I read it about a year and a half a go, but I think if I reread it now my opinion of it would have probably changed a lot. I didn't love the book after reading it, but I did base my trip to Germany solely around going to Dresden because that's where some of the book is based. After being there and seeing how much of a beautiful city it is I'd love to reread the book at some point. I also feel like I understand how Vonnegut works as an author a bit more too, which with someone as bizarre as him it definitely helps to understand the insane logic and humour in his novels. 

 

I'd love to listen to a book based podcast, but I don't read enough to keep up with popular ones. Does anyone know of any podcasts where they discuss old sci-fi books and The Dark Tower series? Essentially I'm looking for a book podcast tailor made for me. 

[Argobot]

 The Flamethrowers 

 

Yeah!! http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/the_audio_book_club/2013/09/rachel_kushner_s_the_flamethrowers_discussion_podcast_and_book_club_guide.html

 

I read all the Ender books when I was 8 or 9 and cannot remember anything about them except that they taught me the word "hegemony." http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/the_audio_book_club/2013/10/ender_s_game_book_club_podcast_orson_scott_card_s_sci_fi_book_reviewed.html

 

(Sorry Idle Book Club. You are missed.)

[namman siggins]

As much as I love Slaughterhouse-5, I'd like to have a book club on Mother Night instead.

I LOVE Mother Night, such a highly-kinect absurdist book.

[Tanukitsune]

I'm reading the "Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud" that was recommended by a thread here and while I find it amazingly interesting, I hate the "wall of text" formatting.

 

The fact that there are no space between paragraphs and that these paragraphs can almost go on for a whole page do make it hard to read, at least for me that is.

 

This book needs some serious editing, the simple fact that to read a footnote you hate to hunt it down at the end of the book, pretty much shows this was written by a scholar, not a writer. 

 

I'm just glad I find the subject interesting enough to put up with this formatting.

[Gormongous]

This book needs some serious editing, the simple fact that to read a footnote you hate to hunt it down at the end of the book, pretty much shows this was written by a scholar, not a writer.

 

Endnotes vs. footnotes is usually the decision of the editor, to be honest. All the professors I know who have published popular histories have had to fight for footnotes, often unsuccessfully, because there's a perception in the publishing community that people will get scared off if they see tiny text at the bottom of every page instead of hidden in the back of the book. It's an ugly thing.

[Tanukitsune]

While it does seem to be more logical to use endnotes instead of footnotes because they happen every page in these kind of books, the fact I have to do it so many times per pages makes me just give up, specially since most of these end notes are just referencing source material.

 

But when it's something that's further explained, I think a footnote is needed.

 

Why not have them both? Only one in twenty "endnotes" in this book would have been footnotes, if not less, so it would have less daunting and cumbersome than to see a footnote at every page.

 

You wouldn't even to change much, if you see a "footnote number" and it's not on the page, it should be obvious then that it's a endnote referencing source material.

 

Like I said, I just gave up on looking up the endnote, since they almost always reference some source materials, if not the same one on a different page. (Today I learned what Ibid means)

[Argobot]

For those of you who are interested -- the Slate Audio Book Club on Slaughterhouse-Five is now up http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/the_audio_book_club/2014/03/slaughterhouse_five_by_kurt_vonnegut_discussion_podcast_and_book_club_guide.html

[Max Ernst]

If you liked True Grit you should Gringo by the same author because Charles Portis is a hilarious and insightful author.

[Gormongous]

On a horribly misguided whim, I have begun to read the first volume of Hawkes' complete translation of Dream of the Red Chamber. I am enjoying it much more than I expected, but it feels very unsettling to have signed away at least a year of my life to one book.

[sclpls]

While it does seem to be more logical to use endnotes instead of footnotes because they happen every page in these kind of books, the fact I have to do it so many times per pages makes me just give up, specially since most of these end notes are just referencing source material.

 

This is my experience reading outside of college as well. Unless I am writing a paper on something, I'm going to give up on end notes fairly quickly, especially if I'm reading something that was extensively researched and every other sentence contains a citation.

[tberton]

Endnotes/footnotes is only a significant distinction if there are lots with pertinent information in them. If it's just citations, you're not supposed to read them anyway, so it's fine for them to be endnotes. You only read citations if you're specifically critiquing the book/article or researching the topic.

[Dosed]

I've just finished reading Wolf Hall yesterday based on recommendations from Chris and people on these here forums. This may make me seem a bit slow, but I really struggled to understand who exactly Mantel was writing about a lot of the time. Eventually I worked out you're just supposed to assume she's talking about Cromwell, which still didn't make it that much easier and I found I really had to focus and re-read some sentences to have any idea what was going on.

 

I think overall I enjoyed the book as even though I have no idea about English history I love learning how our colonising-flag-planting country was formed. It's a shame I couldn't give two flying shits about that stuff at school. Just like most things I regret now. I loved that she held back on the swearing so that when it happened it was quite shocking, and incredibly funny to boot. It also helped that there was a lot of talk about Yorkshire and York, as that's where I'm living right now, and I was happy to know there was a North-South divide all that time ago. Fucking southerners. 

[Gormongous]

This may make me seem a bit slow, but I really struggled to understand who exactly Mantel was writing about a lot of the time. Eventually I worked out you're just supposed to assume she's talking about Cromwell, which still didn't make it that much easier and I found I really had to focus and re-read some sentences to have any idea what was going on.

 

Yeah, that is one of the more interesting and difficult techniques that Mantel uses, although I came to love it. Cromwell is suffused in every scene, present but not always visible, even when talking or acting. It took me a few chapters to figure out, too.

[juv3nal]

so I'm pretty sure I love 'S. or The Ship of Theseus'

http://www.amazon.com/S-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642

 

despite not being far into it at all. It's just such a lovely object, bursting with newspaper clippings, a decoder ring, all sorts of weird ancillary documents.

 

caveat: I am totally a sucker for gimmicky things, and it is gimmicky as HECK.

think a low grade mix of Pale Fire, A. S. Byatt's Possession, & Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine stuff.

 

It even has weird ciphers that people are trying to solve online.

 

edit: some more pics of the interior here

 

edit2: holy carp there's full on weird ARG stuff going on with alternate versions of chapters being delivered to bloggers.