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At the moment it doesn't look like Richardson will live or find the money to complete volume 4 which is a pity as it is a magisterial achievement in a crowded field. I have read all three and there is also a dvd on Picasso with Richardson's help by Waldemar Januszczak worth seeking out.
Two books:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami...hjaunting and odd Japanese novel that is stories within stories. Highly recommended.
@Prespero- Murakami is always good
Why Marx Was Right- Terry Eagleton
I agree boredtryst... last of his i read was the very long IQ84
Doctor Sleep by Steven King, the sequel to the Shining.
i still havent made up my mind if i enjoyed 1q84
im on the last book and its more bizarre than anything else hes written
i enjoyed kafka on the shore
What do I read.....
R.A Salvatore,Stephen King,Dean Koontz,Michael Moorcock (I have all but one of the original Elric novels),just to name a few....Mostly anything sci-fi or fantasy that I think is good.
Dead Mountain - The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
by Donnie Eichar
Alice in Wonderland
Just read Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith. I really like her books even though she was problematic as a person. She seems to have a penchant for depicting solitary male sociopaths...makes for dark, but very readable fiction.
Read 1984 a little while back because I was never assigned it in school and thought I should see what it was all about (for basic literacy if nothing else). I enjoyed it. Every facet of the totalitarian experience thoroughly explored and fleshed out.
I also read Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett a couple months ago (or longer). His plots are very complicated...tough to keep track of characters and factions, but Red Harvest in particular is a worthwhile read. For those who don't know, Hammett wrote the Maltese Falcon. I never read it but saw the movie. Though he only wrote a few full length novels, he is considered by many the quintessential American hard-boiled detective novelist, along with Raymond Chandler and James Cain.
Edit: I had included Jim Thompson but his books aren't detective books in the same vein.
Currently Isis Unveiled by Blavatsky ... last book Tao of Jeet kune do
The Black Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black. It's the new Phillip Marlowe novel by the Iriah author John Banville. It's quite good, different to how Chandler wrote the character but atill definitely Marlowe at it's core
That sounds like a good read Emily. Maybe I'll take a look at that next!Quote:
Originally Posted by emilydelano
Recently read George Saunders' Tenth of December (some dark short stories),
Maud Casey's The Man Who Walked Away (very interesting fictionalized take on a compulsive traveler who lived in 19th century France).
Currently reading Out of Sight by the late Elmore Leonard and
Ian Mortimer's Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England.
Jaycee by Vickie Ternhttp://www.vickietern.com/1997/04/jaycee/
Trish, did you by chance see Soderbergh's film version of this? I confess I haven't read any Leonard because the tele/film versions of his work have usually been quite good (midway through the television series, Justified, as an example).Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
I really liked the film version of Out of Sight. Part of the reason is that the two main actors played against type. Clooney sort of abandons his usual cool in control persona to play someone much more crazy and on edge. Lopez really dials back her vixen persona - I really think this is her best job acting, not that that was ever a high bar to clear. Anyway, I should probably read some Leonard.
ON TOPIC: currently reading Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill.
Odelay,
For what it's worth, I saw the film version with Clooney and Lopez about a month after I read the book (this was in the theaters so a long time ago). I liked both.
Just read The Chill by Ross Macdonald. Also read the Black Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black. Liked them both...both set in Southern California. I think Ross Macdonald is my favorite mystery writer for the moment. Shame none of his books made good movies. I saw Harper with Paul Newman the other week and it really wasn't much better than an average movie I didn't think.
No I haven't seen the film...didn't even know there was one. Thanks for the recommendation (you too Bronco); I'll put it on my queue of films to stream.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odelay
Actually have haven't heard of Elmore Leonard (shows how out of touch I am) until Justified flickered into my living room one evening a few years ago. Since then I read Maximum Bob (totally loved it), Stick and Out of Sight. Since my late discovery of his work I found out some of my favorite films were inspired by Leonard stories: Get Shorty (a very funny and engaging film) and Jackie Brown (one of my all time film faves). Looks like I need to pay more attention to the credits.
On topic: Now relaxing with Robert Galbraith's Silkworm.
Just read John Waters ,"Carsick" . Funny guy , enjoyable read. I have been a fan of his for many years. I find him to be such a funny ,articulate and gentle person with a wildly unconventional slant on life.
Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America: John Waters: 9780374298630: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51woxOQWgQL.@@AMEPARAM@@51woxOQWgQL
Thanks Trish , buttslinger , and Prospero for alerting me to Ian Mortimer , John Richardson and Haruki Murakami . Reading"The Wind Up Bird Chronicals " now and looking forward to the Picasso and Medieval England books.
What happened to Stavros? Really miss his contributions around here!
I love your description of John Walters. I love his gentleness. And of course his kinky, understanding attitude.
I just heard a great review of Greg Iles's Natchez Burning. I haven't read any of his stuff and wonder if anyone has a Greg Iles's favorite to recommend?
I saw Stavros posted something yesterday in the strand about the Ukraine aircrash... but he is, otherwise, keeping a low profile.
I've just finished reading "The Garden Of Evening Mists' by Tan Twang En, a beautifully written rather poetic novel set in Malaysia about the relationship between an ageing japanese landcsape gardener and a young Chinese woman who was a POW of the Japanese during WW2. It is by turns beautiful and emotionally powerful.
Brad Stone , "The Everything Store: Jeff Besos and the Age of Amazon" good read .
Josephine Tey , "Miss Pym Disposes" classic 1950's mystery , liked "The Daughter of Time " more but I'm a fan now.
Michael C Corballis ,"The Recursive Mind" , make the argument that the brain shaped the creation of language in opposition to the Naom Chomsky argument that language shaped the brain.
Barbara Ehrenreich ,"Living With a Wild God: A Non-Believer's Search for the Truth About Everything" , fascinating discussion about the 'mystical experience' in our lives ,and the authors'.
Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde , "Slights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions" , the title says it all, great read.
Moises Velasquez-Manoff , "An Epidemic of Absence :A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases" . important information about the paradigm shift that's taking place in this field. The argument goes : "We need more manure ,mud and animals in our lives because that's what our immune system evolved to fight , now with those things gone the immune system is attacking it's own body."
James V. Stone ,"Bayes' Rule : A Tutorial Introduction to Bayesian Analysis" , nice intro to this powerful tool used in so many fields , including economics and medicine.
I put the Recursive Mind on my reading list. Sounds intriguing. I always conjectured that what distinguishes the human mind from those of other Earth beings is that it effectively simulates a universal Turing machine, hence allowing us to run arbitrary programs and to simulate any other brain. This gives us the capacity to imagine the world as our friend might see it, as a hunted animal might see it, etc. i.e. to empathize and strategize. I imagine evolution jogging along randomly trying one mutation after another, accumulatively building automaton brains with more and more layers, more a more capacities (like primitive recursion) until once day a primate appeared that had the capabilities of a universal Turing machine. That’s when thought truly became possible. Turing machines are the main conceptual tool of the mathematical field once known as Recursion Theory, though now rebranded (for the purposes of gaining grant money) as Computation Theory. My little conceit never got beyond this rather simplistic stage, so I’m interested to see if it’s in anyway parallel to Corballis’s conception.
My brother's wife insists that everything in their house be sterilized for their kids. We are forced to wash our hands before visiting with them etc. I've tried to nicely tell her that is actually not good for the development of the immune system. It's hopeless though and quite honestly I was barely even able to bring up the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
Just slip a little manure in their soft soap next time you visit. Just a little, not so that she'll notice :)Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Now = "The Walking Dead" Graphic Novels
Then = Anne Rice's "Servant Of The Bones"..
Lord of the Flies,Before that Beowulf
Anyone here ever read any A.S. Byatt? Any of the Brits who participate here? She's supposedly the "Beloved" Byatt in England. Just wondering what a good entry point is to her works. The only thing I'm familiar with is Possession which is a movie adaption of one of her books, which I thought was rather good. But I'm not big fan of reading the book after seeing the movie.
Currently blowing through some old 70's and 80's era New Mexico police mysteries by Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead and The Blessing Way. Quick, easy, entertaining reads.
EDIT: corrected for gender. Hadn't realized Byatt is a she.
Murder In Baracoa by Paul E. Walsh, a 1958 pulp novel
Just finished The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. An imaginative tour de force. But I am not surprised it did not make the Booker shortlist. I also just read J by Howard Jacobson - a very disturbing novel about hate in the near future and the latest by Haruki Murakami. J was the best of the three and is a Booker shortllsted book.
(Thanks for the review, Prospero. I bought Bone Clocks a week or so ago, but I haven't started it yet. I'm waiting for an appropriate window of spare time to materialize.) Just finished The Frangipani Hotel which is collection of Vietnamese "ghost stories" collected and reworked by its Vietnamese/American author, Violet Kuppersmith.
That sounds good Trish... I will get it. I am presently reading a novel called A Tale For the Time being by Ruth Ozeki... who is now a Zen Buddhist nun.
I think if you liked Mitchell's first three books - Ghostwritten, Number9dream and Cloud Atlas yu'll like The bone Atlas. I was not so keen on the two books in between.
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran. Think of it as a better version of Almost Famous told thru the eyes of a girl, with better music (England/early 90's). The main character is pretty entertaining.
AD&D 2nd Edition Night Below Campaign Box Set
Book 1: The Evils Of Haranshire
In the middle of William Gibson's Peripheral. Gibson's got his mojo back.
Currently in the middle of "Revelation" the 4th book in the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom.
Finished Munich Airport by Greg Baxter (2015), which is an accomplishment for me as it's modern fiction and I struggle with this genre. Your mileage may vary, but it reminded me stylistically of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I was never able to finish. LOL
Here's a very favorable paragraph from a review in The Guardian:
This rich and profound book is full of philosophical ideas and stark, ascetic beauty. There are no speech marks. The past and present interleave with one another in long blocky paragraphs without chapters or line breaks (as in Bernhard). The writing is scrupulous and often superb. Plot backs blushingly away and, instead, we are sifting deep into the archaeology of character in order to try to see existence itself
I bought this book used on Amazon, total bullshit. Turns out it's a book for women.
"John le Carre" the new biography by Adam Sisman.
A scholarly yet very readable biography of David Cornwall , pen name John le Carre , whose life was every bit as interesting as his novels.
http://www.amazon.com/John-Carre-Bio.../dp/0062106279
"To Explain the World : The Discovery of Modern Science " by Steven Weinberg
New from the Nobel physicist , very fresh and readable treatment of the history of science.
http://www.amazon.com/Explain-World-...lain+the+world