I'm reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Loved Dragon Tattoo and Fire. The problem with this one seems to be the writers habit of giving each character a long, drawn out backstory that does nothing for the plot. He over explains everything. I've started skipping pages because of it. Its the slowest of the three, for sure.
Still, a good read. I'm looking forward to starting Game of Thrones next.
I just finished Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan and I'm currently reading Bellow's Humboldt's Gift
"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
The Magician King, despite how much The Magicians ended up pissing me off.
I actually liked Magician King better.
(And now I want to go back to Florence and Venice!)
Have you read The Monster of Florence?
I recently powered through a bunch of stuff...
All four Tana French novels: In the Woods The Likeness Faithful Place Broken Harbor
I liked all of them, but Likeness was by far my favorite.
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver After all the discussion here about the novel, I decided to read it and couldn't put it down. Kind of glad I saw the film first as I would have been much more disappointed in it if I read the novel first. Particularly with the characterization of the mother, which seemed wildly different. An excellent read, though my only quibble was that with the first person narrative, the mother's voice seemed articulate to the point of distraction at times. Yes, she's a writer (of travel books), but her word choices almost seemed evocative of another period, like Jane Austen or Oscar Wilde.
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline Predictable, but hugely entertaining. An absolute MUST for anyone with an affinity for video game history and classic 80s video games.
Redshirts - John Scalzi Hilarious and inventive fun for anyone with even the most pedestrian knowledge of Star Trek.
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card A friend recommended it to me because it is being made into a film with Harrison Ford. Very intriguing and for a sci-fi adventure novel with a child protagonist, much more mature than I thought it would be. I'm curious to read more in the series.
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen One of my favorite films and just now getting around to reading the novel. The dialogue is not only exquisite, but often hilarious.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
I just read GONE GIRL. what an incredible ride! lots of twists and turns, you just never know where its going.
Highly recommended.
FINDINGNAMO, SNAFU, THEATERDIVE, JORDANCATALONO, LIZASHEADBAND, PALJOEY: You all claim to "IGNORE ME" I wish you would and stop constantly commenting on my posts. Thanks ......................................................................................................................................
The MOST POPULAR and DANGEROUS Poster on BWW! Banned by the PTA, PTC and the MEANGIRLS of BWW.....................................................................................................................
...Ukraine Girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind..........................
COMPILERS by Aho, Lam, Sethi, and Ullman while tele-working from home this week on yet another deadline. I'd rather watch paint dry but it's required reading for my current project.
VON: The Life and Films of Erich von Stroheim by Richard Koszarski.
One of the great directors in American movies gets a stripped down biography -- very good on dates places and facts but rather light on insight into Von Stroheim. Fascinating reading nonetheless.
"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/
Before GONE GIRL, i read Spellbound by Beauty. About Hitchcocks obsession with his Blonde leading ladies... Grace Kelly, Tippi Hendren, Kim Novak, Ingrid Bergman... kinda sad what a perv he was. fascinating though, i dont think he could get away with that behaviour now
FINDINGNAMO, SNAFU, THEATERDIVE, JORDANCATALONO, LIZASHEADBAND, PALJOEY: You all claim to "IGNORE ME" I wish you would and stop constantly commenting on my posts. Thanks ......................................................................................................................................
The MOST POPULAR and DANGEROUS Poster on BWW! Banned by the PTA, PTC and the MEANGIRLS of BWW.....................................................................................................................
...Ukraine Girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind..........................
Homer & Langley by E L Doctorow, author of Ragtime. This is a fictionalized telling of the true story of the Collyer brothers.
This the male equivalent of Grey Gardens. Two wealthy brothers live in a four story mansion on Park Ave in NYC. One is blind and the other crazy as a result of wartime chemical exposure. The crazy brother collects newspapers, machines, etc. Even has a car moved into their living room. They spend their lives there until they die. NYC fire dept has to break through the roof of the home to retrieve the bodies as the stairwells and lower rooms were so blocked with "stuff".
The story is told from the point of view of the blind brother interestingly enough.
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Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
After finishing "Zealot," I decided to finally read The Bible (King James Version) cover to cover.
Jesus Christ, how the hell did I never know that Abraham and Sarah were half brother and sister, or that Lot's daughters got him drunk and both raped their father in his sleep! They didn't teach us that in Sunday school.
Reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (as opposed to Jill McCorkle's novel with the same title published a week earlier). It's a compelling read and I feel there is a sense of purpose its structure, but I still haven't figured out the "why" yet. Regardless, it is an engrossing novel.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
I really enjoyed "Zealot". It deserves to be popular apart from the boost it got from Aslan's interview on the Legitimization of Idiocy Network. I was especially intrigued by his account of the conflict between James, Jesus's brother and the leader of the Jerusalem Church which held Jesus to be a traditional, messianic savior (not divine) and remained a form of Judaism and Paul, the great evangelist who preached mostly to the Gentiles and advocated Christ's divinity. This part of Aslan's scholarship has the stuff of real drama. I think it would make a great play.
Correct me if my history of Christendom has grown rusty but isn't James attributed with establishing the orthodox Christianity of the East (Byzantium) as well while Paul is regarded as church father of the East (Holy Roman Church)? I agree that the fault line you note would make for a great play. When I have some free time, I'm going to read up on the what led to the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome.