Book Recommendations

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Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/19/17 at 3:33pm

Hey guys,

Starting this thread to share what we are reading currently. Keeping it on Off-Topic since I want it to be more generic and not just limited to theater. Feel free to share your theater book recommendations as well. :)

I'm reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize and 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. It's very good, I picked it up after reading the NYTimes review which does a great job of expressing how I feel about the book. I'd love for this to be adopted into a series/stage show.

Very much looking forward to the upcoming Harriet Tubman movie starring Cynthia Erivo.

Caption: Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/19/17 at 3:57pm

I'm on the last book of The Three Body Problem triology. Loved the first two books and would highly recommend them to anyone who is a fan of science fiction. Plus they were recommended by Obama. Back when we had a President who could read.

The Underground Railroad is next on my list.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/19/17 at 5:07pm

The Nix!!! It won a bunch of awards last year, and it was Stephen King's book of the year. It's not a scary book, though. It's just brilliantly written. I'm almost finished it. Then I'm going to try the new book by the "Girl on the Train" writer.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/19/17 at 5:52pm

"The Queen Mother: The Official Biography" by William Shawcross. The life story of the "Queen Mum," wife of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. I am a true Anglophile, and she has always been my favorite Royal. She had a long life, passing at age 101, so the book is also long at 1168 pages.

This brief video highlights the biography.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8bArNfKN4

Updated On: 5/19/17 at 05:52 PM

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/19/17 at 7:54pm

Loved The Underground Railroad.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/20/17 at 1:12am

I'm currently reading two books: Alan Moore's mammoth novel Jerusalem, which I've been gradually reading for about a month now and I'm not even halfway done (it's kind of brilliant but also very slow); and What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, which I'm almost done with and which I'm also enjoying.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/20/17 at 8:45am

I'm currently alternating between Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders and Teeth: Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America by Mary Otto.

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/20/17 at 11:18am

Mine is not as high-brow as all the above.

I just like a well written thriller/mystery/who-done-it and at the moment The Caller by Chris Carter holds my interest, as does all his novels.

Next is Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice. Devoured[?] all her books except this one. She must be REALLY pissed her precious vampires are overshadowed by all these pretty teen fiction creatures out there now.

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 9:34am

I had to read "East of Eden" this year for a class and thought it was one of the best books I have ever read. I found it to be incredibly powerful, relevant, and insightful and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

#10

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 10:13am

AC126748 - I bought the Mary Otto book just last month as a gift to my boyfriend (who runs a non-profit clinic and is going to dental school this fall).

These are great suggestions guys, let's keep this thread going :)

Caption: Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.

#11

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:03am

Valentina3 said: "AC126748 - I bought the Mary Otto book just last month as a gift to my boyfriend (who runs a non-profit clinic and is going to dental school this fall).

These are great suggestions guys, let's keep this thread going :)

"

It's such an interesting book. I imagine even more so for someone in the industry.

#12

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:09am

Wickedlover56 said: "I had to read "East of Eden" this year for a class and thought it was one of the best books I have ever read. I found it to be incredibly powerful, relevant, and insightful and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone."

I read East of Eden a few years ago on the recommendation of a friend, and I have to agree with you completely. My friend says it's her go-to recommendation for basically everyone, and I kind of have to agree.

I'm currently slogging through The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and it's really interesting but quite dense.

When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain. -Kad

#13

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 11:15am

Just finished Call Me By Your Name, which I wanted to get to before the movie comes out this fall. Easily one of my favorite books now, even if it is kind of devastating.

Trying to pick up Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler now. I'd started it a few months back and dropped it, but I liked the bits that I read. Next on the list afterward is Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee and The Girls by Emma Cline.

I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.

#14

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 12:18pm

Re-reading From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun. Very apt for the current climate. Afterwards, aiming for American War by Omar El Akkad.

#15

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 4:05pm

I finished What I Loved, and I think it might be the saddest book I've ever read. Not in a tearjerker way, where you have a quick cry and then you're over it, but in a way that leaves a deep, profound sadness that haunts you.

Now I'm reading Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes, though I find it mostly annoying, since it's ostensibly a novel but really it's a pedantic essay/biography.

#16

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 4:09pm

I think Flaubert's Parrot (like all of Julian Barnes' work) is brilliant, unique, and enormously entertaining.

#17

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 4:19pm

SweetLips said: "Next is Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice. Devoured[?] all her books except this one. She must be REALLY pissed her precious vampires are overshadowed by all these pretty teen fiction creatures out there now."

She did a pretty good job of pushing vampires into that realm herself. From turning Lestat into a rock star adored by millions, focusing on how young and beautiful Armand was (Armand's relationship with his creator was basically pederasty), and so many other examples, she has no leg to stand on if she wanted to be pissed about the turn vampires have taken in young adult fiction.

#18

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 4:42pm

newintown said: "I think Flaubert's Parrot (like all of Julian Barnes' work) is brilliant, unique, and enormously entertaining.

I think he tries to be too cute, and I find his writing style a little obnoxious, and not as clever as he seems to think it is.

#19

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/24/17 at 8:18pm

I'm currently reading --- or more accurately, rereading --- various poetry anthologies. In these coarse and troubled times, we are lucky to have beautiful words and thoughts to turn to as balm for the soul.

#20

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/25/17 at 12:08am

I'm reading a rather incredible find. "3 For Bedroom C" by Goddard Lieberson. It's a 1947 1st printing and it's puzzlingly dedicated to "Little Hedwig". It's a broad situational comedy set on a transcontinental train.

It's also the basis for a movie from the early 50's which was supposedly starring Gloria Swanson in her only color movie.

It's fun in several ways, the story of course, with rich society ladies, wacky situations...but I'm holding a real old fashioned type book, just maybe like a 5 x 7 small little [bible]?. ahahaha

I Can Has Cheezburger With This?

#21

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/25/17 at 9:27am

hork wrote: "I think he (Julian Barnes) tries to be too cute, and I find his writing style a little obnoxious, and not as clever as he seems to think it is."

Well, it's your opinion, and certainly valid as such, but it should be noted that, seeing the spectacular reputation Barnes has in the literary world, that's a bit like saying "I think Einstein's theories are overrated," or "Michelangelo just didn't know what to do with paint," or "Mozart wrote stupid music."

I mean, no one is saying that you can't say it, or that no one will agree with you, but a lot of people are going to look at you funny and move to a different part of the room, and maybe snicker.

It's also an attitude vaguely reminiscent of the patter section in the song "Telly" from Matilda:

"Who the Dickens is Charles Dickens? Mary Shelley? Cor, she sounds smelly. Charlotte Bronte? Do not want-y! Jane Austin? In the compostin'. James Joyce? He doesn't sound noice. Ewen McEwan? Ugh, I feel like spewin'. William Shakespeare? Schwilliam Schmakespeare. Moby Dick? Easy, Grandma."

Updated On: 5/25/17 at 09:27 AM

#22

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/25/17 at 11:31am

newintown said: "hork wrote: "I think he (Julian Barnes) tries to be too cute, and I find his writing style a little obnoxious, and not as clever as he seems to think it is."

Well, it's your opinion, and certainly valid as such, but it should be noted that, seeing the spectacular reputation Barnes has in the literary world, that's a bit like saying "I think Einstein's theories are overrated," or "Michelangelo just didn't know what to do with paint," or "Mozart wrote stupid music."

I think you're overrating his reputation. He's nowhere near a Mozart or a Michelangelo. I don't think there's any living writer who has that kind of reputation, and certainly not Barnes, whose name I never even hear (not that I circulate much in the literary world). But even if he did, so what? There are lots of "great" writers I don't care for, and that's true of virtually every reader. If someone moved to the other side of the room because I called Flaubert's Parrot obnoxious and patronizing, I wouldn't want to talk to that person anyway.

#23

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/25/17 at 3:36pm

AC126748 said: "I'm currently alternating between Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders and ..."

I read this recently. Took a bit to get into the unusual structure. But well worth the effort.

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.

#24

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/26/17 at 2:43am

I'm quite the bibliophile.

I loved loved loved The Nix and Underground Railroad as well

recently read and enjoyed

Exit West

Moonglow

Gentleman in Moscow

All the Light We Cannot See

as newer titles

as far as revising some 'classics':

IT

Harry Potter

Valley of the Dolls

make a good summer read!!

Updated On: 5/26/17 at 02:43 AM

#25

Book Recommendations

Posted: 5/26/17 at 3:03am

I'm trying to get through The South Under Siege. Details at the link below.

The South under siege, 1830-2000: A history of the relations between the North and the South

#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.

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