Reading any good books? II

[katya]

I'm just about halfway through Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. It's excellent. I read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and loved that, but Kafka on the Shore is even better.

[EllethValatari]

Just finished "A Separate Peace." I was very intrigued by the book after it was mentioned in school and read it within two days. It had some of the most intense insight into the dark competition between human beings I've ever encountered. After I finished the book I watched the 2005 film with a friend and we both enjoyed it. Very true to the book! Toby Moore did an amazing job as Finny.

[Beren3000]

I've just started "The Time Traveler's Wife". Seems to be a very interesting read so far...
I can only hope its initial momentum doesn't fizzle out to just a gimmicky love story.

[Nerdanel]

i just finished reading Tiger, tiger by Margaux Fragoso. i hadn't heard of it before i bought it, but it sounded promising when i read the back - and it certainly delivered. it's her own memoir of her relationship with the man who sexually molested her. it's written in an incredibly intelligent way, and doesn't give way to the image of a paedophile being the predator, the pure evil that we want to make them look like, to fit into our black-and-white world. she does in no way defend paedophiles or cast them in a good light - after all, she has suffered the mental harm from growing up with one herself.

i tried to look at some reviews after i read the book, and i'm amazed by the things people react on. this is her story, the way she remembers it. she has amazing clarity of thought when she writes it and tells of her relationship. all people seem to react on is the fact that she describes some of the sexual acts. a new york times reviewer said that the first act described is 'perhaps the most indecent thing published in any major book of the last decade'. well, i don't think the situation was very decent.
to me, it seems like she wants to tell the story as truthfully as she can, showing how this kind of relationship can be in reality. to be able to do that, i'm happy she didn't take into account the prude reviewers at the new york times. it isn't a pleasant read, but it's a great read.

it has lead to a lot of good discussions already (me and s read it at the same time) and very interesting insights. this is what the synopsis says (and what caught my interest):

"I still think about Peter, the man I loved most in the world, all the time.

At two in the afternoon, when he would come and pick me up and take me for rides; at five, when I would read to him, head on his chest; in the despair at seven p.m., when he would hold me and rub my belly for an hour; in the despair again at nine p.m. when we would go for a night ride, down to the Royal Cliffs Diner in Englewood Cliffs where I would buy a cup of coffee with precisely seven sugars and a lot of cream.

We were friends, soul mates and lovers.

I was seven. He was fifty-one."

it's worth a read, if you think you can handle it.

[cee2lee2]

I read Packing for Mars by Mary Roach this weekend. It's subtitled "The Curious Science of Life in the Void" and filled with facts derived from interviews, her personal experience with simulations, and published studies and not a page was boring to me. Lots of information about the effects of space on human bodies and how to deal with human body functions while in space.

[Earniel]

Just read a very interesting book called 'The First Fossil Hunters' by Adrienne Mayor. Interesting (and to me totally new) concepts and well researched. I thought the first chapters about gryphons were the most interesting, and the book made a good case for tying the emergence of the myths about gryphons to protoceratops fossils.

The rest of the book was an eye-opener too, I never knew the Mediterranean area had that many bonebeds and megafauna. And to see those tied so cleverly to local myths and legends made some very good reading.

Awesome book. If you like mythology and paleontology, this is a good book to see the two fields intertwined.

[inked]

RED ORCHESTRA by Anne Nelson. It is an account of the resistance to Hitler by Germans linked by their political communism. I find it a fascinating account. I have been reading of resistance to Hitler since high school (graduated 1973) when I first read the Resistance of the White Rose. But this is the first account of the communist resistance I have read. The authoress does not pull punches and shows Stalin for the beast that he was. Nonetheless, the the brave resistance cost folks their lives and properties and families. A truly interesting and absorbing read.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

RED ORCHESTRA by Anne Nelson. It is an account of the resistance to Hitler by Germans linked by their political communism. I find it a fascinating account. I have been reading of resistance to Hitler since high school (graduated 1973) when I first read the Resistance of the White Rose.

Ah, you kids... Class of 72 (though I didn't actually, technically, graduate- or even show up most of the time... ).

But this is the first account of the communist resistance I have read. The authoress does not pull punches and shows Stalin for the beast that he was. Nonetheless, the the brave resistance cost folks their lives and properties and families. A truly interesting and absorbing read.

Haven't read much of that either- the whole official Communist Party behavior in that time was simply so disgusting, desparately trying to follow every twist and turn of Stalin's policy, as shown in Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia".

Have you read Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"? There's a bit about the (pre-war) betrayals of the German Communists by Stalin in there.

Another interesting group were the Eidelweiss Pirates, basically working-class youth gangs who resisted the Nazis out of counter-cultural reasons, and enjoyed getting into street fights with the Hitler Youth.

[GrayMouser]

Also just finished "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Booker Award, about the rise of Thomas Cromwell, and his relations with Henry VIII and Ann Boelyn.

Excellent, and a great change from the post-Modernist stuff that usually wins- just good story-telling.

One complaint is that Cromwell is a bit too perfect- a bit of a moderate modern man dropped in a very passionate age.

OTOH, she definitely takes sides- strongly pro-Protestant, and many unkind things to say about Thomas More.

[inked]

Thanks for the leads, GM.

Also read CHURCHILL'S WAR LAB by Taylor Downing, a remarkably fun read of all the hard science promulgated by the visionary leader.

[Tessar]

Just finished a book called Darkwing. Picked it up totally by chance in the library (was studying, looked at the shelf across from me, stood up, walked over, and pulled out a book at random) and it was SO GOOD!

It was by Kenneth Oppel, and it was set in an anthropomorphic prehistoric time. It was about these things called "Chiroptors," and they were supposed to be the predecessors of bats, and one of the characters had "evolved" into the first bat.

Really interesting because there's lots of surprise story twists, thrilling moments, and some exciting "political" stuff where some of the animals are fighting for power.

[Earniel]

Currently reading Le Spinx des Glaces by Jules Verne. I'm halfway through it and it's interesting, if slow to build. It sort of feels like I'm reading one of the very first fan fiction stories, as the characters in this book are in search of characters lost in the Antartic in a book by Edgar Allen Poe. Must be weird, buying and reading a book you believe to be fiction until you get to the chapters where the main character suddenly meets your lost familymember and only then through that finding out how he disappeared in the first place. The effect is rather curious, but working so far.

[Tessar]

Recently finished "The Name of the Wind" and the second book in the trilogy.

Now I'm gnawing my fingernails to nubs waiting for the next book. I can't believe it's not coming out till NO ONE EVEN KNOWS WHEN. AAAAAAAARGH.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Name-Wind-.../dp/0756404746

If you haven't read it, I can highly, highly recommend it. One of the best-written fantasy novels I think I've ever read, and his command of the English language is impressive... without throwing in 10 million words you've never seen before, he makes poetry out of the story. I think his writing style is incredible.

[Tessar]

WOWWWW. So I'm reading Dragon Flight from the Pern series and I have to keep reminding myself it was written in a different time with a different world in mind... the female protagonist and male protagonist are killing my modern sensibilities of what I expect for female leads.

So far there's been a lot of the female getting hysterical and the man shaking her physically till she calms down, the woman is constantly undermined and shown to be a fool by the much wiser and better man, and every time she does something brave or clever he smiles and "indulges" her... even when she discovers something totally unique and new to them, he ends up getting the credit for it by virtue of determining how to use her discovery strategically.

It was disappointing because in the beginning of the story she was a very strong, clever lead and it feels like she's lost most of her fire.

Also the sexual themes are... disturbing. He apparently hurts her the first time they have sex pretty badly, and then he's just like, "well I'm great in bed and trying to be gentle now, so I'm sure she'll come around."

Yikes. I'm enjoying the book for its good parts, but with all the PC training we go through and with all the new, strong female leads I've gotten used to experiencing in my fantasy stories... this is really something else.

[Rían]

I'm re-reading CS Lewis' Till We Have Faces. An obscure little story, but really great. It had a profound influence on my thinking.

[Nerwen]

Oh, I love Till We have faces! One of my best online friends used top use it as a siggy quote. You know, the one about, "Are the gods then not just?" "Oh, no, child, what would become of us if they were?"

Susie

[Attalus]

I prefer Max Brand, myself, the Sackett yarns in particular.

[Nerwen]

So, how come I don't see any of those in your library? I'd like to read one, see how they stack up

[Earniel]

Currently re-reading Bryony and Roses by Ursula Vernon.(It's a short e-book so it's easier to read at the moment, little time for anything else.)

I've always liked her art, but her writing is getting very good too. And the main character is a gardener of which there is rather a dearth of in stories, I find.

[Princess Fluttershy]

if you count fairy books yes i have i read about good fairy and bad fairy