It was a very original book, which was very deserving of the awards it has won. The writting truly made me feel that I was in this horrible world that McCarthy had imagined. It was different from anything I had ever read before in this sense.
Part of me wishes I had never picked it up as it was a horribly depressing thing for someone who had a 2 day old daughter when he began reading it to go through.
On the other hand McCarthy is clearly one of the best writters I have read. I could defintly see this book being taught in English 101 classes to undergrads within a few years.
I may read No Country for Old Men now before seeing the movie.
Ugh, I guess I'm just glad I'm done with it.
Anyone that would like to discuss this further please PM me as I would love to hear other's thoughts on this work.
catcher in the rye- i can't really explain what this book is about. its about a guy who has little direction in life (and is a teen). JD salinger creates a very funny cynical character who is pessimistic in nearly all aspects of life. a very funny book.
If you liked this you may want to try The F--- Up by Arthur Nersesian. Another coming of age story that I really liked. I will be reading Dogrun by him next.
So I'm about 250 pages into "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves and I had a question/theory (it's pretty good so far by the way, though somewhat of a slow read). I seem to remember that a few people around these parts have read the book. Claudius hasn't hinted that it will be revealed later, so I was wondering...
Spoiler:
Did young Caligula help Livia plant all the "omens" and poison Germanicus? They seem to hint at that pretty hard, though Claudius never comes right out and says it.
It's the first-hand account of the sole surviving member of a 4-man seal team that came under unbelievably heavy fire in Afghanistan. The book details his time in SEAL training and then the meat of the book is about Operation Redwing and the epic firefight that four SEALs got into with approx. 200 taliban fighters.
I has finished What is the What finally. I am not sure what my next book will be. Most likely either Monster Island or Fighting Ruben Wolfe (since I bought the sequel).
Bostaevski, how about a quick review of Lone Survivor? Sounds like something I'd be really into.
I thought it was really good. The beginning of the book is about how he wants to get into the SEALs, then a fair bit concerning what SEAL training is like. The meat of the book - and what I found riveting, could not put it down - was Lutrell's account of what happened during Operation Redwing. A team of 4 SEALs was sent in to take out a key Taliban leader. They were set up above a village in very mountainous terrain and eventually are set upon by a couple hundred taliban fighters. A spectacular gunfight ensues over the next couple hours. He diverts a few times to talk about what was going on at home during his ordeal and that slowed the pace a little bit but otherwise it was a story that had my heart racing.
I liked the voice it was written in - Luttrell has a sort of sarcastic, smart-assed sense of humor that I enjoyed.
The sleeper awakes
H.G. Wells
A committed socialist H.G. Wells attempts to envisage a future in which capitalism is supreme and companies rule the earth. A man with a small fortune falls into a coma and when he awakes two thousand years later compound interest has allowed his fortune to become so great he is now soul proprietor of most of the world’s properties and businesses. I have a feeling that the ACers over at the politics forum would complain that Wells vision of a giant state/company owning everything is more of a criticism of socialism but I think Wells would counter that his society is highly stratified and unequal with a majority of workers living in poverty working only for food and shelter and a minority enjoying a life of idle pleasure.
The Plot is perfunctory the characters thin and insubstantial the sleeper himself has little of his bewilderment and disorientation conveyed to the reader.
The whole thing races along at a great pace but fails to excite and the end will just seems strange and silly to modern readers.
One redeeming feature his imagining of the future did include the use of video tapes to distribute porn so he got something right.
Casino Royal
Ian Fleming
The first outing for 007 sees Bond playing a high stakes game of baccarat against a Soviet spy in an attempt to bankrupt him and force his defection.
This is a very different Bond to the movie Bond I grew up with. No less swarve or confident but more troubled by his career, dreaming of leaving spying behind and building a new life for him self. This bond is sentimental and falls for women quickly.
The story is a little disappointing the action scenes seem mild and pedestrian when compared to the films the prose is spars and elegant painting a board picture only giving detailed descriptions of the characters and the expensive positions of Bond himself who is a punctilious and fastidious man who is only interested in the best of everything.
The last third of the book follows bonds recuperative trip with the female lead, a love affair which seems strangely cold and distant. We know Bond intends to marry her but get little scene he is happy or even expects to be so.
The book ends with a plot device that I found unsatisfying and as a page turning action adventure the kind of book you just can’t put down it failed at least for me.
But the character of Bond a cold hard merciless man touched with a hint of regret was compelling.
PS I really liked the fact that Fleming thought the sophisticated beach wear Bond would sport is the kind that only Zap Brannigan and users of 70 San francisco bath houses would wear.
Finished "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves a little while ago. Some light SPOLIERS!!!! might follow.
Liked it quite a lot, though there are times when I think he could have simplified some things to make it a more fluent read. Aside from that, there's not a lot to dislike. Graves' choice of Claudius as narrator proves to be a good one. The first half sets up the time period well, imo, but the second half was my favorite. The bat-**** insane antics of Caligula are pretty funny and effectively drive the story. I particularly like his war with Neptune. Anyway, overall I would recommend it (and he does answer my question from earlier.)
I enjoy these reviews. I'm going to see if the sleeper awakes is in my HG Wells big collection book I have. It sounds at least interesting enough to read.
I'm still waiting on Fighting Ruben Wolfe or The Hottest State to get back to the library (checked out) so I can read that. I might need to read another novel instead to pass the time...bleh.
I just started reading Dan Simmon's The Terror, a historical novel on an Arctic expedition in the 1800s gone bad by way of a nameless horror in the frozen wasteland...
I just finished Lower Your Blood Pressure in 8 Weeks by Stephen Sinatra, M.D. Pretty interesting. He deals a lot with diet and supplements in ways that specifically apply to hypertension, which is useful, as you can read a lot about diet and supplements in relation to other conditions or disease/disease events, like heart attack and stroke, or osteoporosis, but that discussion may be ill-suited to figuring out what to do about hypertension. He has an entire diet plan too, and discusses the role of different types of exercise. I like that he has a broad mix of approaches rather than just picking one as a favorite, as so many doctors and dieticians do, and overestimating its value while saying everything else is total crap or outright dangerous. He doesn't have a promotional or ideological axe to grind, and seems to me to recommend things that are moderate and sensible.
Also enjoying rereading The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories. Just finished The Girl With the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber, who can be very good but strikes an unexpected odd note of sexual repression and general uptightness here, like a perfectly charming conversationalist who mentions something ghastly so quickly in passing that you're not quite sure you heard it or that it wasn't a joke without a shred of humor.
I just started reading Dan Simmon's The Terror, a historical novel on an Arctic expedition in the 1800s gone bad by way of a nameless horror in the frozen wasteland...
so far so good!
this looks very interesting. i'd appreciate it very much if you wrote a review/commentary on the book after you're done reading (though i might just pick it up before then).
currently reading 'The Green Mile' by stephen king. Very good book so far and I'm enjoying it.
Also finished 'The Blind Side' by Michael Lewis. If you enjoy football in the least, this is a must have. It follows Michael Oher, a prodigy of a football player who is a physical specimen (something like 6'5 350 as a junior in HS). he is adopted by white upper middle class parents and it tells of his struggles through academic and social boundaries.
this book also describes the evolution of the game, with Bill walsh and the 49ers and also lawrence taylor, who revolutionized the way offenses are designed. a very cool book.
The Clash of Fundamentalisms
Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
Tariq Ali
An ambitious book that attempts to explain the rise of militant Islam in the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one. The author concentrates mainly on his home land Pakistan and gives a handy and concise history lesion on the partition of India, the Kashmir situation, and the creation of Bengal.
This isn’t some dry text book despite being well researched and informative it’s also a great read, wide ranging in scope unpretentious and amusing it even includes a little poetry. I heartily recommend this to every one but especially those posters from the politics forum who seem to think Muslims have some kind of special craziness gene that make them hate freedom.
"Only Yesterday" by S. Y. Agnon. Apparently this is the best Hebrew language book written during the last century. The introduction is fascinating, and fits in well with my new-found love for Humanities, as it explains the historical context of this book. I had to skip some of it because of spoilers and interpretations. I will return to it after I am done reading it.
The fictional story takes place during the immigration of the Zionists to Isreal, or the Aliya. I just started it.
"The Inherent Superiority of Women" by Ashley Montagu (a male, btw):
It isn't a "why men suck" book. It is interesting so far, as the author discusses Women's role in world history, arts and sciences, as well as their genetic, physical, and mental attributes.
I just finished reading "Vernon God Little". The book was very good and funny. It is about a teenager accused of conspiracy to murder in a high school shooting and then it escalates to him being accused of murder for around 50 murders around the state of Texas. He gets into more and more trouble as an ambitious man makes the judicial system a reality tv show and gets money out of the troubles of Vernon. Good read.
Now I will start reading "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy, the book looks small and having seen the movie will make reading it quite fast.
This is not about the book I am reading tonight, but rather about the book I just finished. I just got done with The Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver. The lady in my life finished it first and she challenged me to figure it out.
I would say there is no way to figure out all that is going on because you don't have enough clues and this is one of the most convuluted of Deaver's novels that I have read.
Moby Dick. I like parts. Other times I find it boring with all the technical whaling stuff in it. Anyways, I'm over half way done now so I'm committed. Kind of hope they see Moby some time and it gets more interesting.
Mark, I really like Moby Dick despite some of the dragass parts. I am quite certain I'll enjoy it more on reread because I won't be on time constraints for a class.
I just finished The Hottest State last night, Ethan Hawke's debut novel. I thought it was pretty good in terms of story and characters...sort of. The writing itself was very conversational in tone and the characters sometimes seemed too far removed from my mind to make sense of their actions.
That all said, I was sort of like 'oh this is an okay book' throughout it. At the end, for some reason I can't articulate, I felt a sense of completion and symmetry. It was very weird because I couldn't pinpoint why it got better after finishing it; it just did. I can't really think of any other books where that was true.
