Literature: Rate and Discuss

I thought you were going to say blow your load.
 
Pattern Recognition - by William Gibson

I read Spook Country before I read this, since I didn't know Spook Country was related in any way (although I only really remember one character who's in both -- a rich guy named Bigend who I don't actually like). It's not necessary to read Pattern Recognition first. I enjoyed both, but I'm not sure which book I liked better.

I felt like Pattern Recognition took a while to get started -- I spent the first quarter of the novel slightly confused and wanting stuff to happen faster. I didn't care for the repetition of the jet-lag aka "soul-lag" explanations, and also wasn't a fan of descriptions of the main character walking around cities noticing how things are slightly different in different locales (she tends to walk around a lot whenever she travels someplace new... especially when jet-lagged).

However, it picked up the pace more in the middle, and the end part when she's in...
Russia
...was really good, especially when she finally...
whacks Dorotea in the face with the roll of quarters or whatever she was carrying around. And also when she meets Parkaboy.

Pattern Recognition and Spook Country are very similar in terms of plot progression. It's almost like the same story with different situations:
--Both have strong female lead who works for Blue Ant corporation or subsidiaries, and gets offered job to investigate some central mystery
--Side characters/organizations include "mob" (Russian in PR, Cuban family in SC), and an old guy who's ex-CIA/NSA;
--Main character's personal friend(s) also help out to some extent
--After buildup to end, final resolution is somewhat underwhelming
 
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.

As someone who has been a tremendous Douglas Adams fan ever since reading the Hitchhiker's "trilogy" back in middle school, I don't have much of an excuse for waiting this long to read this book. I've been seeing it in bookstores and the library for about ten years now and never quite worked up the inclination to pick it up. What a mistake. I read this in the past few days (the 300 pages go quickly thanks to DA's writing style) and absolutely loved it. While it's no Hitchhiker's Guide, it's possessed of the same quirky, outside-the-box humor DA fans know and love, and I enjoyed it immensely. For some reason I never imagined it could be all that good despite being DA, and while I was right in that it couldn't hope to top HHGTTG it was far far better than I could have hoped. I think that if I had had the opportunity to get to know Adams he and I could have been friends, he seems to share the same worldview as me and prioritize things within it similarly.
 
If you like that, read The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, MUCH funnier. I just finished it a couple days ago: just as funny as HHGTTG. I couldn't stop reading and I was lol'ing every 2 or 3 minutes.

The first paragraph of the book is comedic genius. "It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, ‘as pretty as an airport.’"

Brilliance!
 
Yes, it's definitely on my reading list. Also I must have read the first page of that book at some point, because that line is very familiar.
 
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas:

Finished this a couple weeks ago, and wasn't sure how to write about it in this thread.

I loved this book. A real page-turner for me. Over the course of 600+ pages, the plot moves in every which way at a fairly rapid rate, which was something I liked. No one scene in the novel ever holds still for a profound period of time, save for the overarching chapters where Edmond Dantes is actually in prison.

For those of you who don't have a basic understanding of this piece of classic literature's plot, it's about a young man, Edmond Dantes, with an optimistic future as he is about to be promoted to the job of his lifetime, and marry the girl of his dreams. Bad things happen, and he is sentenced to an eternity of solitary confinement. The rest of the novel is about his astounding cunning and patience in seeking the revenge against the ill-doers that subjugated Dantes into imprisonment. His approach to revenge is in stark contrast with the movie (which I have not seen, but I heard it's almost like it's based on a different book), where Dantes just wags his sword at his problems. The point of the revenge-half of the story is that Dantes doesn't have to lift up a finger at all.

A most thrilling and exciting read.

The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas:

Upon completion of Monte Cristo, I took it upon myself to start reading the other epic swashbuckling tale by Dumas.

Another page-turner for me. It reads at about the same rapid pace as Monte Cristo (a characteristic of most of Dumas' novels, I assume). Aside from romantic adventure and musketeer hooliganism, character development is a crowning nugget this novel has to offer.

That's all that really needs to be said about it. I, of course, watched the movie starring Jack Bauer and Charlie Sheen before reading this novel, and as a result I waited for events that happened in the movie to happen in the book. Many of those events never happen in the book. I won't say anything specific, but while the Cardinal is still a main antagonist in the book, all of the events that surround him in the movie do not happen at all. He has a completely different mission. Do not expect the endings between the movie and the book to line up, because the last 15 minutes of the movie simply do not exist in the book.
 
Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Erm well this was pretty ****ing good, unusual in places. Throughout is this whole feel of despair and desperation. At the start i was wondering about people and their obsession with animals and then i realised its all they had to cling on to know that something else was alive, and this obsession was the same in JR who despite the androids treating him like shit held on to. Also felt like Deckard was going crazy towards the end. Overall brilliant book
 
That's pretty much the feel of every PKD book in a nutshell, try reading A Scanner Darkly.
 
Also check out the PKD novels The Man Who Japed, The Game-Players of Titan, and The Penultimate Truth.
 
I can never decide which of the two (Do Androids Dream or A Scanner Darkly) I like better. They're both absolutely fantastic. A Scanner Darkly has like one paragraph that's one of my favourites out of any book ever. If my copy wasn't loaned out I'd spoiler tag the paragraph here.
 
Brideshead Revisited

Took me a while to get into this, but I stuck with it because it came to me very highly reccomended. My main problem with it was my dislike of the main character (and narrator); he came across as very cold and distant and as a result I found him difficult to sympathise with. However, the rest of the characters in the book are witty and engaging and I think that's what got me through it. It's the sort of book that gives you things to think about...if only to figure out what the narrator is saying in between the lines.
 
I loved A Scanner Darkly but wasn't a big fan of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I thought Ubik was pretty good though, so I'd recommend that one.

[edit]

Just finished reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. I think this is my 3rd time reading it, and it's still as deranged a story as it ever was. It's about a family where the mother is dying and they need to cart (literally, they have a wagon with mules) her rotting body around for over a week to get to town to bury it. Seriously. Each chapter is told from the point of view of the various family members (most of whom are totally messed up) and other people they interact with along the way.

It's a really good novel though. Definitely improves with each reading, since a lot of times the characters don't directly say what's going on, so you either infer it or find out later on.
 
^My friend loves that book. I've been meaning to pick it up.

I recently finished On the Road and I must say I loved it start to finish. It's not the most well formed or structured thing I've ever read, but in a way that's part of its charm. It's an amazing story of life that doesn't know where it's going until it gets there. Its themes are numerous and quite scrambled, but it all ties together so oddly and almost accidently. It's a passionate, honest, beautiful portrait of life, youth, and the search for meaning. I will be reading this again.
 
The Old Man and the Sea

Wonderful. Hemingway has such a beautiful and simple way of revealing the heart of his chracters by one or two lines of dialogue or a stray thought. Charming, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable through out.
 
The Old Man and the Sea

Wonderful. Hemingway has such a beautiful and simple way of revealing te heart of his chracters by one or two lines of dialogue or a stray thought. Charming, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable through out.

That's a fantastic book. I love Hemingway.
 
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Poetic prose? Very nearly. I enjoyed this a great deal; it's so introspective, and so delightfully nuanced in its developments. The final two parts of the book were a lot less structured and focused than the preceding one, but I suppose that was the point. Highly recommended.

Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan

The story of a young girl called Cécile living a care-free existence with her frivolous father, and how that changes dramatically as she experiences her first love, and a new woman enters into their lives with a more philosophical, driven, and rigid idea of life. Although certain character developments are a bit aloof, I think this is forgivable - Sagan was 18 at the time. It's a tragic tale. Read it.
 
That's a fantastic book. I love Hemingway.

<3 Would you recommend anything specific from him? I've already read The Sun Also Rises.

Reading Flyboys right now which, I believe, is about the experiences of several pilots who crashed on a pacific island and became POWs during WW2, but so far it's just been about Japanese history and culture, which isn't a bad thing.
 
With Hemingway, you cannot go wrong with For Whom the Bell Tolls or A Farewell to Arms
 
Tweak - Nic Sheff

I really haven't read in awhile; awhile being about five years since I wanted to sit down and read through a book. This book reminded me a lot of Requiem for a Dream (the reason I picked it up). It was quite engaging...I had a hard time putting it down. Mainly though, I think this book served as a kick in the pants sort of thing to get me reading again. I became genuinely furious at the protagonist, which I was surprised at...being emotionally pulled by literature, again, something I had not experienced for a good five years.
 
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.

His Dark Materials is shaping up to be the greatest trilogy ever so far (I'm halfway through the second book). Daemons, Dust, Good and Evil, Scientists and Alchemists and Shaman. Armored Bears and Zombies. Death and destruction. Mystery and wonder. Absolutely amazing.
 
It is awesome. And when you're done with it, why not start on Paradise Lost?
 
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.

His Dark Materials is shaping up to be the greatest trilogy ever so far (I'm halfway through the second book). Daemons, Dust, Good and Evil, Scientists and Alchemists and Shaman. Armored Bears and Zombies. Death and destruction. Mystery and wonder. Absolutely amazing.

It only keeps getting better too. Pullman's penny dreadful style stories are good too, but they're not quite on the same level.
 
His Dark Materials is indeed one fine fantasy trilogy.

It is awesome. And when you're done with it, why not start on Paradise Lost?

I am listening to the audio book of that as, well, I type! Ian McDiarmid as Satan: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

I wish to take the opportunity to use this post as a means of conveying this excellent quote from McDiarmid himself, on playing Palpatine:

"There's a moment in one scene of the new film where tears almost appear in his eye. These are crocodile tears, but for all those in the movie, and perhaps watching the movie itself, they'll see he is apparently moved — and of course, he is. He can just do it. He can, as it were, turn it on. And I suppose for him, it's also a bit of a turn-on — the pure exercise of power is what he's all about. That's the only thing he's interested in and the only thing that can satisfy him — which makes him completely fascinating to play, because it is an evil soul. He is more evil than the devil. At least Satan fell — he has a history, and it's one of revenge."
 
I'm reading His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife right now (after long pause) and it's really one of best fantasy books, little snippets from Milton, Keats and others in every chapters are delightful.

Paradise Lost with Ian McDiarmid sounds excellent, I would love to hear that.
 
Matter - Iain M Banks
9/10
As usual Banks sets up a story and takes it in a direction you would never expect, with engaging characters and well written prose. As one comes to expect it leaves several unanswered questions after it ends, but it's done well enough that this comes off as a good thing rather than bad.
Matter was a little light on Minds and Drones for my preference though.
 
Don't Start The Revolution Without Me - Jesse Ventura
7/10
Overall this book felt kind of meh to read. Mostly Ventura tend to talk about the places were he lived and how he likes to spend his free time. I was hoping to get more political views from him, because I tend to find most of the stuff he says to be inspiring. What was good about this book was when he talked about how the media was reducing him to the lowest common denominator when he served as governor of Minnesota -- just like they do when any other politician they don't like gets into power. I found it rather disturbing really (although not entirely surprising). Of course his political views were interesting too although I don't agree with him on all the stuff he says, he's faily decent compared to most politicians.
 
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Always have loved this book. Took only a couple of hours to read, it's super simple despite being a pretty old classic. I hadn't read it since I was 7 or 8.
 
Well let's see, I'm about 3/4 of the way through Flyboys and To the Last Man, hopefully I'll be able to finish them soon. However, I recently completely read:

Brave New World

Well you see, I love the setting of this. I love the humor, I love the writing. I want to love it completely. Basically it comes down to an undeveloped plot and several characters I just didn't like. Every character other than John Savage is a mostly brainwashed brick wall that can't see anyting but what they've been taught. Fair enough, but ****ing Bernard Marx over here has no consistency and I can never tell whether he's meant to shock me with his defiance towards the system or annoy me with his complete cowardice. He seems to be completely set as a force against the system until it starts serving him.
Maybe that's fair and is pretty true to human nature, but hey, I thought he was a pretty good protagonist until that point, I just didn't want to see him give into his infantile desire for power at all and I didn't expect or desire a switch to John Savage as the focus of the book at all. John Savage is the complete antithesis of Lenina (and every Epsilon, Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha) because he believes in complete and utter self denial, self control, discipline, and sacrifice, and all for virtually no reason really. It just annoys me because it completely throws out the point of the book. Moral and social behavior is based almost entirely on social conditioning and John was conditioned in an entirely different way. His behavior is still stupid, pointless, and irritating though. It's presented as though this is the way society should be and it just doesn't work. And replacing an intense argument with Mustapha Mond with that shitty epilogue-ish and pointless last chapter? Bah humbug! But alas, the book is very funny and interesting, if nothing else, and I'll probably read and enjoy it again.

...

Well that certainly was a lot of disorganized and hastily written words. Hopefully my points aren't too unclear and jumbled. I'm also excited to note that I have found a bookstore in my town that actually sells graphic novels. I quickly went in with a lot of books I wanted, and went out with only two, and a significantly thinner wallet. I have purchased V for Vendetta and

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

The art in here is breath taking, horrifying, and marvelous. The writing is very interesting. The vibe is so sinister and dark and authentc it just works. It never pushes a flashback or a psychanalysis too far. Just enough to keep you interested and not seem self serving. The plot is very odd and strangely insignificant. Batman's conflicts oppose and simultaneously mirror Arkham's and the conclusion seems appropriately lackluster. Batman walks out as simply as he walked in. Still terrified and confused, but reassured.

...

I am now readng V for Vendetta, which is fantastic.
 
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

This is one of the densest books I have ever read. It took me half the summer to read; there's so much all going on in it at once that I had to read it really slowly. It's a brilliant read though, entertaining throughout with very engaging characters. So many different personalities and opinions are presented in it that it's impossible to side with any one character. Questions of morality, religion and politics are constantly being raised and discussed. Overall, it made me think "Who are we to judge anyone else?"
 
Now I am reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and I like it greatly. It is a detective with the elements of history. Very exciting book!
 
Now I am reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and I like it greatly. It is a detective with the elements of history. Very exciting book!

I love that book. The detective part is very well done, but the whole framework of religious strife in a monastery with heretics and an evil inquisitor is just (or even more) interesting. Also William of Baskerville is one of my favourite novel characters. He seems like someone you can talk to for days and not get bored with.

Currently re-reading Dune. Best science fiction novel. Ever. Read it if you haven't, even if you are normally not into scifi. The scope of it ranks up there with Lord of the Rings.
 
For me the most impressive part of Name of the Rose is just the accuracy of his depiction of monastic/medieval life, as well as his meta-historical musings ('We stand upon the shoulders of giants'--coming from a 14th century monk). I found the story a little tired. But the ambiguous ending is definitely worth it.
 
Brave New World

Agreed on your criticisms of the book, except I didn't even find it that funny or interesting. I disliked pretty much every character. Some people are ok with reading books or watching movies full of characters they don't like, but I personally hate it.
 
For me the most impressive part of Name of the Rose is just the accuracy of his depiction of monastic/medieval life, as well as his meta-historical musings ('We stand upon the shoulders of giants'--coming from a 14th century monk). I found the story a little tired. But the ambiguous ending is definitely worth it.

Have any of you read Foucault's Pendulum by Eco? It is better than The Name of the Rose imo. Dan Brown basically plagiarized it when he wrote The Da Vince Code.
 
Rare Earth - 8/10 Very good at explaining how life was thought to begin as well as discussing the reason for the title

I have a few books which I'm looking forward to reading, those being:

Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer
The Portable Atheist - Christopher Hitchens
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors - Carl Sagan
 
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 9.5/10

Best book of the series, thus concluding an amazing saga. I was impressed with the amount of action and suspense there was loaded into the story. Many key characters die so expect the unexpected. Also I highly recommend those who want to see the movie at least read this book before someone spoils it for you.
 
Infinite Jest- Huuuhhh/10.

I'm 50-some pages in, this book is a ****ing doozy. So far it has me hooked, I'm interested to see if it will keep my interest for 950-ish more pages.
 
The Road 8.5/10

Awesome and powerful book and a very quick read. It was very dark and left me wanting more
 
Back
Top