What are you reading now - and then

[fab]

[Ambiguous shyster]

Devine adoratrice and vengeful spirit even though I've read the latter twice...great thread

[Ambiguous shyster]

I'm not a reader for pleasure, and I prefer articles over books in the non-fiction realm, but my favorite book is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. If you've never heard of it, you will... when the movie comes out next year.

~BB~

The books sound Interesting, the film didn't get good reviews but I liked it. I love dystopian sci fi themes and these children are pushed into war... I forgot to order these gonna check the local oxfam which always has a good range of books if not than ordering the series. Thanks for the reminder .

[biggdawg]

Yup. Read all the Reacher series , Hiaasen is good too. All the way back to Lawrence Block.

James Ellroy is probably my favorite crime writer. The guy is brilliant in a twisted way. Of course I'm a big Elmore Leonard fan as well. RIP. I've tried a lot of the most popular and or acclaimed people in the genre. I love stuff that's either hard boiled or quirky. Currently reading House of Thieves by Charles Belfour. It's set in 1886 New York and I'm enjoying it so far.

Have you ever read any of the Serge Storms series by Tim Dorsey? I know it sounds trite but he's like Carl Hiaasen on acid.

[fab]

[bobagemman]

[broncofan]

James Ellroy is probably my favorite crime writer. The guy is brilliant in a twisted way. Of course I'm a big Elmore Leonard fan as well. RIP. I've tried a lot of the most popular and or acclaimed people in the genre. I love stuff that's either hard boiled or quirky. Currently reading House of Thieves by Charles Belfour. It's set in 1886 New York and I'm enjoying it so far.

Have you ever read any of the Serge Storms series by Tim Dorsey? I know it sounds trite but he's like Carl Hiaasen on acid.

You ever read any Jim Thompson? The Killer Inside Me, Population 1280, The Grifters, The Getaway. If you like hard boiled, the guy is excellent. Even darker and more twisted than Ellroy...but very difficult to like one but not the other.

Thompson also helped Kubrick write screenplays of Paths of Glory and The Killings...but Kubrick only gave him credit for writing "dialogue" for the Killings which was surely unfair but that's a longer story.

[broncofan]

I've noticed no matter what site I see this thread on a LOT of people seem to be into really deep thinking type of literature. Not that I would ever question anyone's honesty.

Not into classics of literature but this comment reminds me of when people respond to a sentence with a multi-syllable word by accusing the speaker of trying to confuse or impress them. I'm sure some people like good literature because they get enjoyment out of reading it. There are probably people who read Melville, Dickens, or Orwell because they have a different temperament and can delay gratification.

[Stavros]

Not into classics of literature but this comment reminds me of when people respond to a sentence with a multi-syllable word by accusing the speaker of trying to confuse or impress them. I'm sure some people like good literature because they get enjoyment out of reading it. There are probably people who read Melville, Dickens, or Orwell because they have a different temperament and can delay gratification.

The 'classics' are appreciated for both form and content, that is, the way the writer writes, and what he or she writes about. Taste then tends to determine whether a reader prefers, say in the 19th century, Balzac to Dickens or Cooper to Eliot, or in the 20th century the intensely stylish modernists like Conrad, Woolf and Joyce to the plain narrative/content driven books by writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Cormac McCarthy. There is room for all, just as some readers prioritise a genre in their reading -say, 'science fiction' or 'crime' and there may be a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, but that is not for me to judge.

One small point, I don't now if people are intimidated by Melville, perhaps because Moby-Dick is such a large book -but Melville's literary genius is on show in some short stories, notably Bartleby, which I imagine is a classic for law students as well as the general reader. I also recommend Billy Budd, as the execution of the 'Handsome sailor' is surely one of the most beautiful examples of English prose that we have to read, again and again and again.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/bb/Chapter26.html

[buttslinger]

I just checked out "Scarlett Hawthorne"......not the book, the new Grooby chick!
But it started me to thinking about a short story by Hawthorne that I read years ago and want to re-read, The Birthmark.
It's about a guy that marries a perfect woman except for one flaw, a small red hand shaped blemish on her left cheek.
While he sees past the blemish at first and they are happy, the longer they stay married the more and more he becomes obsessed with that little imperfection, and everybody knows that can't end well.