Anybody read a good book lately?

[rjs246]

Yeah one of my buddies just read it and it took him 4+ months.

[phattymatty]

sounds fun.

[Rome]

The only other book I've read that was more difficult in terms of keeping focused throughout was Finnegan's Wake.  To be totally honest I still don't understand that book and never bothered to re-read it.

The best way to read Gravity's Rainbow is to read a chapter at a time then sit it down for a day or so then re-read it.

[rjs246]

Yeah I'm definitely not going to read and re-read each chapter, but I am going to have to remind myself not to read it after I've been drinking. I have a habit of doing that. With some books it doesn't matter. Something tells me this isn't one of those books.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Read Slaughterhouse-Five over the weekend, I had read Cat's Cradle and a lot of  Vonnegut's work, but this one always slipped through the cracks.

Since I've started going to college again, I have rediscovered the public library. I haven't read this much in years, and I think the TV was on for two hours total the past two weeks. I watched maybe the first quarter of the Eagles game, and ditched it in favor of Slaughterhouse.

Also, two things I picked up in the library - The Elements of Style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style), and On Writing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Writing) have been absolutely astounding. If you write, or have ever had the inclination to do so, these are great books.

After going back through this thread, I'm going to start in on McCarthy, whom I have never read. Where to start?

[rjs246]

I would start with All the Pretty Horses. It's a good intro to his writing style not to mention a phenomenal book.

[Phanatic]

Going on a rare business trip next week so I checked out "The Road" at the local library to read for the trip.

[Sgt PSN]

Be sure to take a porn mag with you so you can cut out some pictures and randomly place them in your hotel room's bible. 

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I would start with All the Pretty Horses. It's a good intro to his writing style not to mention a phenomenal book.

Just try not to picture Matt Damon as the protagonist.

[Diomedes]

Be sure to take a porn mag with you so you can cut out some pictures and randomly place them in your hotel room's bible. 

Like those closet Romes aren't already looking at porn. Make it interesting...put clippings from the Koran in there.

[rjs246]

I would start with All the Pretty Horses. It's a good intro to his writing style not to mention a phenomenal book.

Just try not to picture Matt Damon as the protagonist.

I steadfastly refuse to watch that movie. In fact after reading the book I can't begin to imagine how any film-maker could have chosen it to adapt. Absolutely not a story for the big screen.

[Phanatic]

Be sure to take a porn mag with you so you can cut out some pictures and randomly place them in your hotel room's bible. 

Awesome!

[Phanatic]

Well I figured I'd be reading The Road throughout this trip but I got through half of it on the flight already. It's very intense, very good, and very disturbing. I think I might read it a few times on this trip as there's some really deep stuff going on that I might miss the first time around.

[Diomedes]

Four books I haven't finished of late:


The Sporstwriter - Richard Ford.  Story about an adulterous upper middle class New Jersey dweller who writes about sports for a living.  Lots of mumbo jumbo about dreaminess and being disconnected from the world on account of a son dying young (8 or so?).  The writing itself is decent.  Descriptive passages about common everyday things like the Jersey Pike or the small town in which he lives are very good.  I basically didn't care about the protagonist.  There was no discernable plot after 150+ pages (out of 375), and I was forcing myself to read every page.  So I gave up.
Of the four books mentioned here, this is the one I am least likely to ever try again.
I have not read anything else by Richard Ford.

Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson.  Fantasy historical fiction.  Based during the time of the conflict between Newtonian and Leibnizian claims on calculus, this book has no pretentions to being literature...it's supposed to be fun.  It is loaded...LOADED...with historical scientific name dropping.  It's as though the author felt that he had to include every name that ever mattered, from Galen to Spinoza.  A bit ridiculous.  But that can be left aside as part of the confection of the book.  The language is not period..it's construction and diction is very modern.  Discourse between characters is reasonable period, but descriptive passages and asides use what feel like much more modern constructions.  I put it down for much the same reason as the above..I was deep enough into the book that I expected a plot to have revealed itself.. (200 pages out of 1000).  I realize I may seem an impossible reader, but at the 1/5th mark, I want the hook.
Of the four books mentioned in this post, this is the book I am most likely to go back to, however.  The writing is entertaining and humorous at times, and I gotta believe the hook is in there somewhere.  It's also part of some kind of trilogy..ah, the dreaded trilogy!
I have not read anything else by Neal Stephenson

The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer.  Jesus Christ was a miserable book.  I gather that this is regarded as his masterpiece or some such shtein.  I found it to be intolerable.  It wasn't that I didn't care about the main characters...that would have been nice...I disliked them.  I was rooting for them to get wiped out by the Japs.  And speaking of main characters, I also gather that there isn't really any one protagonist, that this book is more an effort to describe the whole gang and thereby produce an image of the whole thing, but that left me lost and disinterested.  I suppose the plot is taking the island, but if that's all it was, then I wasn't hooked. At 250 of 560 pages, I dropped it.  The passages I like most were those told from the god's eye view, tying the vignettes of hateful little men together.  "The campaign had slowed after beating back the initial....," etc.  These made the rest of it have some context and sense.  I do think a few of the episodes were extrememly well done, if also unsettling.  There's a scene where a jap surprises one of the characters, who is essenitaly paralyzed by being startled, and the Jap is shot down by one of his pals.  That was well done.
Of the three books mentioned here, this is the one I am second most likely to try again someday, based solely on its reputation.  I feel like I SHOULD read this book more than the others.
I have also read Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, which I thoroughly enjoyed and positively devoured.

We Were The Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates.  Apparently, this is the story of the unravelling of a New England family.  I got only about 60 pages into this one time Oprab book club, 450 page novel before I let it go.  It has something to do with somehting happening to one of the daughters (she gets raped or something I guess) and how that in turn effects the rest of the family.  I didn't really care about that daughter, or care to find out what happened to here.  Especially since it seemed unlikely I'd be able to beat off to the passage if it DID exist.  Maybe the book gets better, I certainly didn't give it much room to impress me.  But farg it, I'm the reader..if I no likey, I no readey, no matter what point I'm at.
This is the book I am third mostly likely to return to, because I gave up so early, because I liked another Joyce Carol Oates product, and yes, because if Oprah says it's good, I'll trust her (that lying piece of shtein dope fiend whatshisname aside).
I have also read Joyce Carol Oates' treatise "On Boxing," and liked it very much.  An ode to the sport that can be enjoyed and best appreciated by people who love boxing, but is a great way to explain a love of boxing to people who don't get it but are curious why we do.

There may be another book or two in the past year or two that I haven't finished...but I can't recall.  A few non-fiction books, but that's normal.  I'm a fiction guy and every time I try to read non-fiction I am reminded as much.  The authors of late who I have been enjoying are Somerset Maugham, Dasheil Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and the too-oft discussed in this thread Cormac McCarthy.

I am currently working on Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which is excellent so far.  This author has won every damn writing prize worth having twice and I can already see why.  He's obvioulsy a master.

[Zanshin]

Chandler is great.  I find Hammett to be less great, but still good.