The Dead Zone by Stephen King-great fucking book.

Just finished, "The Sense of an Ending", Julian Barnes which was excellent and"Disgrace", J.M. Coetzee which was very good and, "Salvage the Bones", Jesmyn Ward also very good.

Just starting, "The Sojourn, Andrew Krivak.

Moby Dick and it is a pleasure!

I just finished Fifty Shades Trilogy!!!!! It was awesome! Need to find another series!

Reading an ARC for a friend. Good story, but too much dialogue

She's good about critique or I wouldn't have agreed to review it

Night Shift by Stephen King.

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King.

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King.

i"m reading Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead....in the middle of it...
Has anyone else read it?
I'm curious, because I'd love to exchange impressions of the book...
I have read a couple of NM's works, but nothing serious...this is his "big" book, the one that made him famous.
It is so well written, that a couple of times...you're pulled out of your reading experience to re-read a particular
sentence or paragraph again in admiration...that rarely happens.
His cast of characters are
filled with hatred, greed, laziness,obsequiousness, cruelty, stupidity, insecurity, vanity, rage, lust, self-pity and just about
every single hateful thing there is. Mailer shines a light so bright on humankind, there is no place to hide. Just as the troops are
exposed to the horrors of war and each other and finally, their own characters:There is hardly any place to enjoy, so you really feel like you're going through the
hell the soldiers are...it's sickeningly accurate a reflection of ourselves I guess; however ugly and unpleasant.
So while I admire his achievement in unrelenting realism; I hate living there. I hate the characters just like they hate each other.
I'm sure this is an intentional irony and commentary...that if we think we are better, see how easy it is to "hate"...
Also, I'm sure it's much rawer, and therefore hard to stomach because many of these types of "voices" are not so common today...
people are more politically correct.. the sexism and misogny is astonishing and universal.....

I remember reading Faulkner and at first I was completely distracted by the characters because I did not find them credible...not
understanding the south, the educational levels, the feudal life, how "stuck" people were in time and place.
As NAKED was written in the 40's, there are also lashings of previous cultural nuances that appear. The fact that most women work now, I believe has changed everything.
Anyone???????????????

Anyone?

I've read many of "war" novels, memoirs, histories, etc

War and Peace
All Quiet on the Western Front
And No Birds Sang
Catch-22
The Caine Mutiny
From Here to Eternity
Slaughterhouse Five
Winston Churhill's WWII
The Gun's of August
The Desert Fox (Rommel)
The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich
etc, etc, etc...

icindy wrote:i"m reading Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead....in the middle of it...
Has anyone else read it?

I've been prompted to pick it up the next time I happen to be somewhere where it's available! If I continue on with my plodding progress through Anna Karenina though it will be a month or so before I'll even be ready to start another book.

War and Peace

I have it but haven't yet read it. I like Tolstoy's short stories but Karenina has me wary of starting another Tolstoy novel anytime soon.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Now you're talking! This is one of my favorite books.

Catch-22

I considered this one to be an overly long though enjoyable read.

Slaughterhouse Five

I've been considering re-reading this one. I have never been able to appreciate Vonnegut.

EDIT: Of course, for pleasure or as a challenge, I am currently reading Anna Karenina.