books, books, books

[migdd]

Been reading the Lemony Snickets books with my daughter at bedtime. I hope it gets a least marginally better for the Baudelaire orphans, 'cause I'm not sure I can take 10 volumes of misery. They're a good read though.

My ten-year-old son read the series this past winter and I tried to read along but only got through the fifth book out of thirteen (well, thirteen and a half, actually!). He was really into them and read all 3000+ pages in a little over a month. I enjoyed them also. From what he told me about the later volumes, I wouldn't expect much relief from the constant misery until. . .well, you'll see.

We watched the film (based on the first three books) after he completed the series and he pointedly insisted that the movie took great liberties with the text and that the books were much better!

[Otis Westinghouse]

My son said the same, he read them all at one point, but not in one month! 3,000 pages is great going, wish I could have spent my life reading at that rate (and keeping up with MBA...).

[migdd]

Reading the Snicket books was his reading acheivement for the year! He must have really enjoyed them because he would come home from school and read instead of attach himself to his Wii or PC driving games. He hasn't finished a book since then but he's trying to get into Inkheart.

[pophead2k]

Finished McEwan's Saturday and tend to agree with Otis' take on it. Although well written, the affluent navel gazing got a little tiresome. I prefer Roth's American Pastoral for an examination of baby boomer angst that occurs when the apple cart gets upset.

Currently reading Tara French's In the Woods, a reasonable police procedural, and then its back onto the 1001 list with Underworld and The Watchers.

[StrictTime]

Finished Beloved by Toni Morrison, creepy. And now I've got to get to the library.

[ice nine]

Started reading the graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale. Excellent. Very engrossing.

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

Started reading the graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale. Excellent. Very engrossing.

Yup, by turns it's funny, harrowing and heartwarming. I think 'comics' can sometimes get strong ideas and heavy issues across much better than prose.

[miss buenos aires]

Just read Get Shorty because it was on the list... I think I may have read it before. Too long ago to remember anything, but I would get a feeling about something that was going to happen, and then two lines later, it would. And I don't think Elmore Leonard is that predictable. Now reading John Fowles's A Maggot, which is completely unpredictable in every way. Fowles got a lot of credit from me with The French Lieutenant's Woman, then I hated The Collector and The Ebony Tower, but now I'm back to liking him. I think I only like him when he's being all post-modern and meta; the straightforward story isn't really his strong suit.

Next up, I think, will be Lucky Jim. A friend just gave me a collection of Miranda July short stories, but... it's not on the list...

[Otis Westinghouse]

Extending your lead, huh? Maybe you saw the film of Get Shorty...

[Who Shot Sam?]

Extending your lead, huh? Maybe you saw the film of Get Shorty...

Leonard is a fantastic writer. For me, it's the perfect kind of holiday or travel reading. A few others of his I've enjoyed:

Fifty-Two Pickup
Maximum Bob
Riding the Rap
Cuba Libre
Rum Punch
Out of Sight (probably my fave with Cuba Libre, which was an interesting historical departure for him)

Haven't read any of his Westerns. The problem with Leonard is that his style of storytelling doesn't translate well to movies or TV. They keep trying and keep falling short (no pun intended). Get Shorty was the best of the bunch, but none of them have really managed to capture his narrative tone. It's a tricky thing to do.

[pophead2k]

I'm also sticking to the list with Banville's The Sea. I'm most of the way through this short novel and the writing is intoxicating. A truly original mishmash of memory/present day/self evaluation that feels like its going someplace strange as I get on with it.

I must say, after rather randomly choosing three of the novels from the modern end of the list, that there seem to be a lot of recent books about middle-aged men ruminating on their lives!

[mood swung]

List suckups.

[Boy With A Problem]

Extending your lead, huh? Maybe you saw the film of Get Shorty...

Leonard is a fantastic writer. For me, it's the perfect kind of holiday or travel reading. A few others of his I've enjoyed:

Fifty-Two Pickup
Maximum Bob
Riding the Rap
Cuba Libre
Rum Punch
Out of Sight (probably my fave with Cuba Libre, which was an interesting historical departure for him)

Haven't read any of his Westerns. The problem with Leonard is that his style of storytelling doesn't translate well to movies or TV. They keep trying and keep falling short (no pun intended). Get Shorty was the best of the bunch, but none of them have really managed to capture his narrative tone. It's a tricky thing to do.

This is a good list - for some reason Killshot stands out. I generally like his Detroit books best - nice to see 52 Pick-Up at the top of Sam's list...also a good film with Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. In the Leonard vein, I've been hooked on George Pelecanos lately - all of his stuff takes place in DC with lost of muscial references...maybe too much so for some tastes. (if you like this sort of stuff I also recommend- George V Higgins (Friends of Eddie Coyle) and Charles Willeford's Hoke Mosely books (Miami Blues).

I read Dom Delilo's Falling Man and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian on vacation. I'm taking more uplifiting material next time - Blood Meridian was especially difficult to get through - had to read many sentances several times - I've subsequently talked to a couple of people who think that McCarthy was just making up some of the words in there. And it was even darker than The Road.

[Who Shot Sam?]

I generally like his Detroit books best - nice to see 52 Pick-Up at the top of Sam's list...also a good film with Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret.

That's one film I haven't seen - will have to keep an eye out for it. It is one of his more enjoyable books.

[miss buenos aires]

I'm also sticking to the list with Banville's The Sea.

Pophead, if you want to trade list books at any point, I've got a few lying around...

[BlueChair]

I'm delving into Graham Greene with Brighton Rock. Enjoying it so far!

[migdd]

The Fixer - Bernard Malamud

Read this many years ago, found it on the bookshelf recently and decided to give it another read during my lunch hours. A great one. It was sitting on the shelf right next to Dubin's Lives, The Natural, The Tenants and God's Grace. I may be rediscovering Malamud over the next while. Mid-life crisis, perhaps?

[johnfoyle]

I'm also sticking to the list with Banville's The Sea. I'm most of the way through this short novel and the writing is intoxicating. A truly original mishmash of memory/present day/self evaluation that feels like its going someplace strange as I get on with it.

Agreed . I loved The Sea but it's near impossible to summarise ; it's just a matter of wallowing in the mood that is evoked. I recently met Maeve Binchy and somehow our conversation came to Banville. In her characteristically candid manner she admitted that she gave up on The Sea after about 80 pages. She just could not get a handle on it.

I've just finished Philp Kerr's The One from the Other, which means I've read , in the last few weeks, all five of his 'Bernie Gunther' crime novels. Excellent stuff, bringing to life Germany of the 1930's/40's.

Next up is Graeme Thomson's I Shot A Man In Reno , which I just got in a preview copy via www.abe.com.

[pophead2k]

I've been enjoying his similarly entitled blog.

I'm on to Underworld by DeLillo. I'm about 100 pages in and I can't say I love it yet, but I've got 735 more pages in front of me to change my mind.

[RedShoes]

Took some time during vacation for some reading - got through Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions in 2 1/2 days... may be a record for me! I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I need to read more of Auster's stuff - Blue has been a fan for awhile so we have a few of his books on our shelf at home. I think I'll do The New York Trilogy next.

[johnfoyle]

From todays Sunday Times - ha-bloody-ha -

[Otis Westinghouse]

I'm on to Underworld by DeLillo. I'm about 100 pages in and I can't say I love it yet, but I've got 735 more pages in front of me to change my mind.

But aren't the first 100 the best? As I understand it, the baseball game is meant to be the outstanding element of the book. I have it on the shelf, awaiting a spare 6 months.

Took a break from the 12 month effort of Against The Day [holiday would have been a good time to read it, but too damned heavy to travel with] to read J M Coetzee's Youth (on the list, though I've had it waiting on the shelf a while), a very entertaining account of a would be great writer coming from South Africa to London in the 1960s and his general disillusion and failure to get anywhere - great picture of mid-60s London.

I then got onto my first Haruki Murakami title, Dance Dance Dance. It's fun, though it's hard to be sure how successfully the translation nails the tone of the originally. To this British reader, it seems to be too much in the American vernacular. The cover makes refs to Raymond Chandler, so is it essential that it uses a hard-boiled US style? For me it often jars, but it's still an enjoyable read. Quite bizarre, but interesting with it. It isn't one of the 4 of his on the list, though. Anyone here read him? One thing that drove me mad was in the utterly weird scene involving Sheep Man, the latter speaks in run together compound words, soit'spresented inthissortofstyle. Now you'd have thought the copy editor would pay special attention here as it's extra hard for the eye to detect errors, but there were four on one page, ferchrissakes! Two in one sentence! I could wring their necks.

[pophead2k]

Finished Underworld in a feverish 8 hour reading spree so I could avoid taking it on the plane as I came to visit my family in the Pacific NW. I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet; it is still sinking in. Yes, Otis, the baseball game is a wonderfully written piece. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on the bizarre scope of the novel (it starts in 1951, jumps to 1992, visits the seventies, then the fifties again, vignettes from the sixties and ends in the fifties......whew......) or the jumps from omniscient to first person and back, but I will say that the writing is often breathtaking. I can absolutely appreciate it as a work of art, if not as first class 'entertainment'.

On the aforementioned plane trip I had a very enjoyable read through Gabriel's Gift (of course it is on the list!) which was a terrific change of pace from the DeLillo. Short and breezy, it is a must read for anyone who ponders the questions of art, creativity, and inspiration.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Confession: had to google the title to see who the author of that was (Hanif Kureishi - I should have known, vaguely remember hearing about it in 2001 it now I've looked it up).

8 hour session - am both jealous and in awe! If I could find myself 20 of those, I might finish Against The Day.

Isn't appreciating a work of art always more satisfying than 'first class entertainment'?

[pophead2k]

Good point Otis. In the short term, I would say not necessarily, but in the long term, a work of art will stay with you and grow in importance and meaning. Many have suggested that it was probably a mistake to make Underworld my first DeLillo!