Books - What are you reading?
Discussion
coppice said:
I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. Stunningly well written book - just loved it. If plot is your thing then I dare say it could be reduced to half the length - but if I just wanted plotting I'd still be reading Alistair McLean .....
Each to their own, but I'm now over 500 pages in and it's like swimming through treacle...Tell me what's SO incredible about a book that spend 100 pages telling me that the main character goes off the rails and on a drug and drink binge when living with a parent who exhibits no control or sets no example?
It's a long, rambling, self-indulgent book, which is very much the trend of the time, as if the quality of the literature is measured by weight...
Sorry, but I'm willing it to end...
M.
Edited by marcosgt on Tuesday 8th September 09:02
marcosgt said:
Each to their own, but I'm now over 500 pages in and it's like swimming through treacle...
...
Sorry, but I'm willing it to end...
Sounds as if, like me, even though you already dislike the book, you're not willing to just stop reading it and move on to the next one. I think I've only ever dropped one part-way through, and I can't remember what it was....
Sorry, but I'm willing it to end...
Currently reading "The Cutting Season" by Attica Locke. A murder in deepest Louisiana, based on an ante-bellum house and cane fields with slave shacks et al preserved as a museum. An interesting whodunit so different from the usual and rich in texture. Recommended so far, but we'll see at the end.
droopsnoot said:
marcosgt said:
Each to their own, but I'm now over 500 pages in and it's like swimming through treacle...
...
Sorry, but I'm willing it to end...
Sounds as if, like me, even though you already dislike the book, you're not willing to just stop reading it and move on to the next one. I think I've only ever dropped one part-way through, and I can't remember what it was....
Sorry, but I'm willing it to end...
It certainly has its moments, but overall it feels like a lot of padding.
M
marcosgt said:
Tell me what's SO incredible about a book that spend 100 pages telling me that the main character goes off the rails and on a drug and drink binge when living with a parent who exhibits no control or sets no example?
Quite simply - the way she writes . Her descriptive prose and characterisation are breathtakingly good.Forget racy plots(not that this book lacks plot ) - style and literary flair is what counts for me Edited by marcosgt on Tuesday 8th September 09:02
Edited by coppice on Tuesday 8th September 22:28
coppice said:
Quite simply - the way she writes . Her descriptive prose and characterisation are breathtakingly good.Forget racy plots(not that this book lacks plot ) - style and literary flair is what counts for me
Oh well, we'll have to agree to disagree to an extent (which is perhaps the sign of, at least, an interesting book), at least until I've read it all, but I find many of the characters sketchy (Hobie, for example, so often lauded by fans of the book, doesn't really have a character at all so far - He's the epitome of softness, soft in his manner, soft in his speech, soft in the head! - I find him, so far, just a caricature - Others are similar, his father and Pippa for example, although I hold out hope for Pippa's character in the remaining third).The opening was strong with some really interesting ideas, but then they seem to have just evaporated into a rambling tale of whimsy and sketchy ideas once he moved to Vegas.
I'll reserve judgement until the end, but so far, my opinion remains that the book is less than the sum of its parts!
M
I've just finished "Natural Causes" by James Oswald, very enjoyable read though there was one short piece that I thought was rubbish, which I can't describe further without ruining it.
Features a Scottish detective, has a character called Stuart McBride and it turns out the author is a mate of the author of that name.
Features a Scottish detective, has a character called Stuart McBride and it turns out the author is a mate of the author of that name.
Recently read:
Stephen King - Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1) - I enjoyed this but it answered nothing. Who was the man in black, why is the gunslinger going to the tower? What happened to the old world that the little boy knew. This comes across as just a lead in to the series.
Jack Kerouac - On the Road, this was great but I found it quite depressing.
Surviving The Evacuation, Book 1: London - Loved this, it's a silly zombie apocalypse book but it's fun.
José Saramago - The Double - Made into a film called Enemy with Jake Gylenhall. Book was good but the film was better.
Tommy Wallach - We All Looked up - Avoid, I didn't know that this was young adult fiction when I picked it up. It's not terrible but it's written for an audience I'm not part of.
Adam Neville - The Ritual - First half of this is great, brilliant, tense horror. The second half it completely changes and goes to hell. First half 9/10, Second half 4/10.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five - Wonderful.
The Moon is down - John Steinbeck - It's short, 112 pages but brilliant.
Next up will be Victor Frankl - Mans Search for Meaning or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Stephen King - Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1) - I enjoyed this but it answered nothing. Who was the man in black, why is the gunslinger going to the tower? What happened to the old world that the little boy knew. This comes across as just a lead in to the series.
Jack Kerouac - On the Road, this was great but I found it quite depressing.
Surviving The Evacuation, Book 1: London - Loved this, it's a silly zombie apocalypse book but it's fun.
José Saramago - The Double - Made into a film called Enemy with Jake Gylenhall. Book was good but the film was better.
Tommy Wallach - We All Looked up - Avoid, I didn't know that this was young adult fiction when I picked it up. It's not terrible but it's written for an audience I'm not part of.
Adam Neville - The Ritual - First half of this is great, brilliant, tense horror. The second half it completely changes and goes to hell. First half 9/10, Second half 4/10.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five - Wonderful.
The Moon is down - John Steinbeck - It's short, 112 pages but brilliant.
Next up will be Victor Frankl - Mans Search for Meaning or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
LandR said:
Stephen King - Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1) - I enjoyed this but it answered nothing. Who was the man in black, why is the gunslinger going to the tower? What happened to the old world that the little boy knew. This comes across as just a lead in to the series.
That's exactly what it is, no? It's worth reading the whole series, they're really good. LandR said:
Jack Kerouac - On the Road, this was great but I found it quite depressing.
Ineresting, I read this and almost hated it, the last few pages redeemed it to just being slightly disliked. What do people see in it? It's just some useless, spineless layabout with equally useless friends sponging off the few decent people they meet. I think maybe I just don't 'get' it.leglessAlex said:
LandR said:
LandR said:
Jack Kerouac - On the Road, this was great but I found it quite depressing.
Ineresting, I read this and almost hated it, the last few pages redeemed it to just being slightly disliked. What do people see in it? It's just some useless, spineless layabout with equally useless friends sponging off the few decent people they meet. I think maybe I just don't 'get' it.leglessAlex said:
Ineresting, I read this and almost hated it, the last few pages redeemed it to just being slightly disliked. What do people see in it? It's just some useless, spineless layabout with equally useless friends sponging off the few decent people they meet. I think maybe I just don't 'get' it.
I think it's a book written from the perspective of a generation disillusioned by American life at the time. The idea of settling down, starting a family, stable job etc. They wanted to live their dream, always travelling, always just chasing a good time and screw the responsibilities. They didn't care about the "American Dream", consumerism and materialism. Life was an adventure, go out drink, do drugs, travel, meet people. If the characters had enough money, and a bed, to have a good time that night then all was good. I found it depressing though because the lifestyle they were chasing, it didn't seem attainable, or at least if it was it was temporary. It was never sustainable.
The book was filled, for me, with the sense that society would win. That the main characters would end up beat down, defeated and miserable. That was sad to me, that there seemed to be an entire disillusioned generation destined to end up unhappy.
I can see why you think that they were just slackers or layabouts and sponges though.
I think this was the best part of the book for me:
On The Road chapter 11 said:
Then I went to meet Rita Bettencourt and took her back to the apartment. I got her in my bedroom after a long talk in the dark of the front room. She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing. She sighed in the dark. "What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.
"I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.
My moments in Denver were coming to an end, I could feel it when I walked her home, on the way back I stretched out on the grass of an old church with a bunch of hobos, and their talk made me want to get back on that road. Every now and then one would get up and hit a passer-by for a dime. They talked of harvests moving north. It was warm and soft. I wanted to go and get Rita again and tell her a lot more things, and really make love to her this time, and calm her fears about men. Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk-real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious. I heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotive howling off to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my star further.
"I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.
My moments in Denver were coming to an end, I could feel it when I walked her home, on the way back I stretched out on the grass of an old church with a bunch of hobos, and their talk made me want to get back on that road. Every now and then one would get up and hit a passer-by for a dime. They talked of harvests moving north. It was warm and soft. I wanted to go and get Rita again and tell her a lot more things, and really make love to her this time, and calm her fears about men. Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk-real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious. I heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotive howling off to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my star further.
Edited by LandR on Thursday 17th September 09:44
Got the New Richard Castle on Saturday. Nicely paced read with interesting nods back to the TV series as well as "Firefly" and "Doctor Who". Try reading without Nikki Heat being Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion as Jameson Rook. I don't know who the Ghost writer is but they are pretty good at weaving a yarn.
Edited by telecat on Thursday 17th September 20:51
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