#526
Posted: 12/19/11 at 2:57pm
--reading "11/22/63" (Stephen)King), almost 1,000 pgs. Will take months to finish probably, but so far, EXCELLENT!
Currently Reading (Take 2) — Page 22
#527
Posted: 12/19/11 at 6:06pm
Currently reading Ginger Rogers' autobiography. Very, very interesting.
"I'm the swell swab on the poop deck."
#529
Posted: 12/20/11 at 8:38am
On Sunday I tried to read "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan but abandoned it 1/4 of the way through. So I read another book instead (name I'm totally blanking on right now).
I finished "A Game of Thrones" and have started "Clash of the Kings"
Oh and of course I read my yearly tradition - the new John Grisham "The Litigators".
BroadwayBoobs: I'll give all of you who weren't there a hint of who took the pictures ...it rhymes with shameless
SOMMS: I knew it was Tink!
I finished "A Game of Thrones" and have started "Clash of the Kings"
Oh and of course I read my yearly tradition - the new John Grisham "The Litigators".
BroadwayBoobs: I'll give all of you who weren't there a hint of who took the pictures ...it rhymes with shameless
SOMMS: I knew it was Tink!
#530
Posted: 12/20/11 at 8:56am
ROME Robert Hughes
and THE FORSYTE SAGA John Galsworthy on ibooks
Just finished SEX AT DAWN Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
and THE FORSYTE SAGA John Galsworthy on ibooks
Just finished SEX AT DAWN Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
#531
Posted: 12/20/11 at 9:31am
I'm in the middle of Zero Day by David Baldacci, and I'm finding his lead character to be a total ripoff of Jack Reacher, the lead in the series of books by Lee Child.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
#532
Posted: 12/20/11 at 11:07am
Reading James Hilton's LOST HORIZON, after revisiting the 70s musical horror movie version. Pretty good, but there's a bit too much British white colonial condescension going on. It's heart is definitely in the right place, but it gets kind of annoying in places.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#533
Posted: 12/20/11 at 2:02pm
Roscoe, I recently purchased the movie.
Put the Augusten Burroughs book down after I bougt my nook Tablet. Just finished one of the free books it offered called "Street of Angels". Not bad. Just bought Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and starting to read it today.
Put the Augusten Burroughs book down after I bougt my nook Tablet. Just finished one of the free books it offered called "Street of Angels". Not bad. Just bought Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and starting to read it today.
Just give the world Love. - S. Wonder
#534
Posted: 12/21/11 at 10:25am
Uncage, that movie's really something. Just really awful in every way. Not even in the category of So Bad It's Good. Lots of silly banalities being passed off as serious profundities. The acting's pretty mediocre, with Liv Ullmann looking absolutely lost, she comes off like the winner of some amateur contest getting her Big Break rather than Ingmar Berman's leading lady -- you can't believe she's ever been in a movie before.
And then, of all people, Charles Boyer somehow manages to make his couple of scenes actually work. He's just magical.
And then, of all people, Charles Boyer somehow manages to make his couple of scenes actually work. He's just magical.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#535
Posted: 12/21/11 at 6:45pm
I just finished The Help. I would recommend it. Before that, I read Cane River that I loved but can't recall the author's name, and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, excellent! I know WV takes many potshots, but The Glass Castle is a true story that could be about any of the students I teach.
#536
Posted: 12/21/11 at 7:36pm
Finished Rick Perlstein's BEFORE THE STORM: BARRY GOLDWATER AND THE UNMAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS about a week ago.
Just started his follow-up: NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA.
I highly recommended this author. Both books are high-octane and compulsively readable journeys through a pivotal era in our nation's political history. He gives a lot of good insight into the dismantling and rebuilding of political coalitions which eventually gave rise to the Reagan Revolution and the political environment we still find ourselves trapped in today. A very novelistic historian.
Just started his follow-up: NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA.
I highly recommended this author. Both books are high-octane and compulsively readable journeys through a pivotal era in our nation's political history. He gives a lot of good insight into the dismantling and rebuilding of political coalitions which eventually gave rise to the Reagan Revolution and the political environment we still find ourselves trapped in today. A very novelistic historian.
"One no longer loves one's insight enough once one communicates it."
The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.
The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.
#537
Posted: 12/21/11 at 9:33pm
I just finished "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Wasn't 'Middlesex" and a took a bit of time to complete.
Next up "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht.
Next up "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht.
'Take me out tonight where's there's music and there's people and they're young and alive.'
#538
Posted: 12/23/11 at 11:25am
Yeah, the Marriage Plot was really hard for me to get through.
Just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Laughed and cried through the whole book. Beautiful book.
Moving on to Franzen's "The Corrections".
Just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Laughed and cried through the whole book. Beautiful book.
Moving on to Franzen's "The Corrections".
#539
Posted: 12/23/11 at 11:47am
I guess difference of opinion roscoe. While not the best movie, I enjoy it. Saw it 3 times when it was originally released in theaters.
I am possibly reading another book about Joe Papp next. Am loving my new nook. I can shop an pop samples on my bookshelf to read and decide if I may want to buy a book.
I am possibly reading another book about Joe Papp next. Am loving my new nook. I can shop an pop samples on my bookshelf to read and decide if I may want to buy a book.
Just give the world Love. - S. Wonder
#540
Posted: 1/4/12 at 9:53am
I recently read ISRAEL RANK, the novel that the great Ealing Studios comedy KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS is based on. The novel is okay, for the most part, a fairly serious picture of the serial killer, with some good snarky wit along the way. The film is surprisingly faithful to the novel, even taking some dialogue and narration word for word from the book in places.
The film, though, is able to elevate the story into something far more interesting. The final scenes of the novel, while interesting in their own right (especially considering they were written in the early 1900s) fall rather flat, resorting to an irony that feels rather tame and contrived now, especially in comparison with the climactic trial scenes in the film.
Glad I read it, though.
The film, though, is able to elevate the story into something far more interesting. The final scenes of the novel, while interesting in their own right (especially considering they were written in the early 1900s) fall rather flat, resorting to an irony that feels rather tame and contrived now, especially in comparison with the climactic trial scenes in the film.
Glad I read it, though.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
Updated On: 1/4/12 at 09:53 AM
#541
Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:34am
Just finished reading Brian Kellow's excellent biography of Pauline Kael, A Life in the Dark. Next I'll be starting As Always, Julia, an edited anthology of the letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto.
Lately I've found I can't get into current literary fiction. I've tried, but in order for me to get past the first few chapters, both the writing and the story have to be superb, and I haven't seen much that fits that bill. I'm open to any suggestions you all might have for a good current (within the last 5 years, I'd say) novel or collection.
Lately I've found I can't get into current literary fiction. I've tried, but in order for me to get past the first few chapters, both the writing and the story have to be superb, and I haven't seen much that fits that bill. I'm open to any suggestions you all might have for a good current (within the last 5 years, I'd say) novel or collection.
"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
#542
Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:41am
Have you tried Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS or FREEDOM? THE CORRECTIONS is a bit older, from 2001, I think -- but they might be of interest.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#543
Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:47am
Yes, I've read and loved both. In fact, I believe FREEDOM was the last current novel I finished (earlier this year).
"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
#544
Posted: 1/4/12 at 12:20pm
I could not get through the Corrections. I just finished The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. He also wrote the book Election - which is the book the movie of the same name with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon was based on.
KFTC!!!!!
#545
Posted: 1/4/12 at 12:24pm
What were your thoughts on The Leftovers? The premise sounded promising, but I've been disappointed in Perrotta's last few books.
"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
#546
Posted: 1/4/12 at 1:44pm
I thought it was really interesting. It's the only one of his books I've read. Parts of it were depressing, but it ended on a sort of hopeful note.
KFTC!!!!!
#547
Posted: 1/4/12 at 2:20pm
I've never posted in here, and haven't read most of what's being talked about. At any rate, I just finished THE HUNGER GAMES which I really enjoyed and soon I'll start CATCHING FIRE.
I'm almost finished with EATING ANIMALS by Jonathan Saffran Foer. It's a look at the factory farming industry and cultural influences on our diet. While I thoroughly enjoy the book and his writing, I kept having to put it down given the horrific details of factory farming in this country. I highly recommend it, although towards the end it is getting rather preachy, which he alluded he would not do at the beginning.
I'm almost finished with EATING ANIMALS by Jonathan Saffran Foer. It's a look at the factory farming industry and cultural influences on our diet. While I thoroughly enjoy the book and his writing, I kept having to put it down given the horrific details of factory farming in this country. I highly recommend it, although towards the end it is getting rather preachy, which he alluded he would not do at the beginning.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." -Stephen Colbert
#548
Posted: 1/4/12 at 7:39pm
Right now I'm reading a totally cheesy romantic comedy type book called Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. I needed something light after the Leftovers.
KFTC!!!!!
#549
Posted: 1/4/12 at 8:08pm
Just finished The Hunger Games trilogy, soon to hop back into and finish the Tales of the City series. I have the last two left.
A work of art is an invitation to love.
Updated On: 1/5/12 at 08:08 PM
#550
Posted: 1/5/12 at 9:19am
Reading Edmund White's CITY BOY, his account of his life in NYC in the 60s and 70s. Some fun descriptions of gay life at that time, and some good name-dropping. His account of the creation of THE JOY OF GAY SEX is most interesting.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
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