Reading for pleasure! What are you reading now?

wtownandrews

Audio: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A novel about books, the joy of books (beyond just reading...the joy of knowing them, having them, cherishing them) and some adventures and mystery. Very melodramatic, very passionate in a mid-20th century latin kind of way. Light and enjoyable so far.

Paper: Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen. The cover blurbs compare it to Tolkien, so perhaps my expectations are too high. 80 pages in and it hasn't captured me yet, and may get dumped if I hit 100 and the feeling hasn't overcome me...so far seems like a fairly routine magical world fantasy adventure

bohemian_girl · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:39 am Post subject:

My inner teenager has been sucked into the Twilight series by Stepanie Meyer. I'm reading Eclipse, the third book in the trilogy at the moment. The whole forbidden love thing is what I love about it.

I'm also reading Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins. It's the true story of a free spirited British aid worker in Africa who fell in love with a Sudaneese warlord.

jaywalker

Ralphinlaos-J.L. Burke ,one of my favourites. I like Clete Purcell,'' When the law starts to favour the Low Lifes,change the law'' my memory of one of his quotes. I'm even keener on Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaason.
I'm not at all keen on 'Serial Killers' I find that writing about them is a bit of a Cop out. No plot needed-''Well he's mad ain't he ?'' Lawrence Block is also good but sometimes his Alcoholic PI Matthew Scudder can annoy with his drinking. Have you tried Kinky Freidman ? A strange writer but fascinating. {The last Jewish Texan Cowboy.} Ciao. J.

tarav · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:37 am Post subject:

I am reading A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins. It is a great refresher! I love his passion and the way he is so straightforward. His writings on Gould are very interesting.

bibliophile_18 · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:03 am Post subject:

Right now, I'm not reading anything--I don't have any idea where the public library is here! I just finished the Tears of Artamon trilogy and volume 20 of Fruits Basket. -_- November is forever away for the next-to-last volume of that...and I am willing to take suggestions on all forms of books that I can buy! I really need something to read to keep me occupied better than the computer.

Penelope · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:08 am Post subject:

A very cheering read, recommended above all others by me!!!

'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy' - by Douglas Adams

If I were marooned on a desert island......this series of books are the ones I would choose to have with me.

It is a trilogy - of five books!!!!

Added to the five is a wonderful volume called 'Mostly Harmless'

Also I recommend 'The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul' by the same author.

gig · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject:

I loved the Shadow of the Wind...excellent book..reading New England White be Stephen Carter...and just finished Turows limitations

tarav · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject:

I am reading Pinker's Stuff of Thought. So far, I like his Blank Slate better.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:22 am Post subject:

gig · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:55 am Post subject:

I have always found it interesting that some readers are only non-fiction-al while others are fiction-al. Me, I'm a fiction-al kind of gal when reading but I will listen to both...so does that make me auditorially non-partisan?

hegel1066

I have an old habit of always having my hands on about half a dozen things at a time, in the fear that I'll find one of more of the books that I'm reading needlessly repetitive or suddenly unsatisfying.

I'm now reading:

George Steiner's "My Unwritten Books". Steiner was a long time literary critic and writer who wrote some of the most percipient criticism of the last century. I believe he's considering retirement, if he hasn't already retired. "Unwritten Books" is really a crowning gem.

Mikhail Bakhtin's "The Dialogical Imagination". Bakhtin was a Russian Marxist literary critic and semiotician. Much of his work focuses around tropes in literature, and societal forms found in literature, like "carnival" and the "grotesque." His work on the history of laughter, chronotope, heteroglossia, and the dialogic imagination are especially worthy of note.

Michael Taussig's "The Nervous System". Taussig is a brilliant cultural anthropologist who did years worth of research in South America, and now teaches at NYU. This particular text is comprised of nine essays, in which he talks about everything from the way we try to commodify the state to the ways in which we "reify" the state in order to give it our power.Ever the critical Marxist, Taussig focuses on state violence and force to achieve its ends. To quote Benjamin, "To live in a state of emergency is not the exception, but the rule." (How pertinent is this today!)

Eric Auerbach's "Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature". I can't say anything that hasn't already been said in praise of this fantastic piece of literary scholarship. It's exactly what it says it is: a history of representations of reality in Western literature. ALL of Western literature - from Petronius and Tacitus to Virginia Woolf. A must-read for any serious fan of comparative literature.

Alberto Manguel's "The Library at Night". I bought this late one night while I was browsing through a bookstore. It is an incredible collection of short essays on different books, and the idea of the library, and what they mean to the author. The author, it seems, is a veritable polyhistor, which I greatly appreciate.

George Bataille's "On Nietzsche". Read with caution. Bataille was one of the progenitors of postmodern thought. He has some ... er, interesting, but not unwelcome interpretations of Nietzsche.

gig · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject:

I think a reader always has more unread books on hand than he needs to... much like an overstocked refrigerator...however, books never spoil....I can count on one hand how many books I have started and didn't finish...although as I get older and time becomes more precious I have to admit I have become pickier ...and fatter!

Penelope · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:23 am Post subject:

At least books are not fattening and they don't damage the teeth!!!

gig · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:29 am Post subject: books are like sweets....

Penelope, have you read anything by Benjamin Black? I know its a pen name ...but for the life of me I can't remember his "real" name.


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