BillF Posted October 3, 2012 Report Share Posted October 3, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 4, 2012 Report Share Posted October 4, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medjuck Posted October 4, 2012 Report Share Posted October 4, 2012 Wow. And I thought everyone had forgotten about Osborne. I wrote a dissertation about him in 1966. If people ask me about it I now usually have to explain who he was and why he was important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 5, 2012 Report Share Posted October 5, 2012 Wow. And I thought everyone had forgotten about Osborne. I wrote a dissertation about him in 1966. If people ask me about it I now usually have to explain who he was and why he was important. Forgotten man. Deserves to be remembered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Goren. Posted October 6, 2012 Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted October 6, 2012 Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 (edited) Junot Diaz: This Is How You Lose Her Edited October 6, 2012 by jlhoots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted October 6, 2012 Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 Junot Diaz: This Is How You Lose Her Let me know what you think. I honestly wasn't that taken with Oscar Wao (which the rest of the world seemed to love), so I don't think this is going to be my thing either. Anyway, still reading a ton of poetry (though some days it seems it is more skimming than anything else). Of all the poets I have been introduced to, it has been a couple of Canadian poets that will probably stick with me and join my personal pantheon -- W.H. New (from Vancouver) and Al Purdy. I'll pick a poem or two to add to the Poetry Cosmos thread. For the upcoming trip, I am going to be reading Gentleman Death by Graeme Gibson and then The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I have a lot of time on planes this trip). After this, I was thinking of tackling something a bit lighter -- Faulkner's The Reivers, which was his last novel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 6, 2012 Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 For the upcoming trip, I am going to be reading Gentleman Death by Graeme Gibson and then The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I have a lot of time on planes this trip). I can recommend The Corrections, but you'll need that time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted October 6, 2012 Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 For the upcoming trip, I am going to be reading Gentleman Death by Graeme Gibson and then The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I have a lot of time on planes this trip). I can recommend The Corrections, but you'll need that time! Well, I'm flying from Vancouver to Glasgow and back, so I figure 10 or so hours that aren't spent sleeping or on the laptop... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted October 7, 2012 Report Share Posted October 7, 2012 Junot Diaz: This Is How You Lose Her Let me know what you think. I honestly wasn't that taken with Oscar Wao (which the rest of the world seemed to love), so I don't think this is going to be my thing either. I really liked Oscar Wao, so I might not be your best source for an opinion. FWIW, I finished This Is How You Lose Her in one day (admittedly only 211 pages). I found it very compelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 7, 2012 Report Share Posted October 7, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 After all these years, I finally picked up Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, so I figured I'd enjoy this one again to get started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Jo Nesbo: The Leopard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 After all these years, I finally picked up Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, so I figured I'd enjoy this one again to get started. Credited with more or less inaugurating a new sub-genre of sf (well, along with a few early Bruce Sterling things.) For all that, I never much cared for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted October 9, 2012 Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 For the upcoming trip, I am going to be reading Gentleman Death by Graeme Gibson and then The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I have a lot of time on planes this trip). I can recommend The Corrections, but you'll need that time! Well, I'm flying from Vancouver to Glasgow and back, so I figure 10 or so hours that aren't spent sleeping or on the laptop... It was a bad series of plane rides today. Not only did we have to deplane because of a fuel leak (second time in 3 months, am I unlucky or what. Yes, better to catch it on the ground, blah blah blah, but seriously WTF is wrong with maintenance now). I strongly disliked Gentleman Death, though I finished it. And I hated The Corrections and left it half unfinished in an airport lobby (then went on and bought The Mill on the Floss for something more to my taste for the return trip). If I could point my finger on what bugged me about the book is that Frazen (to me) has a lot of barely concealed contempt for the characters, who make all kinds of terrible life-choices (many of which struck me as frankly cartoonish). A good novelist should have more genuine compassion for his characters, and I didn't sense that at all. But I suppose I have been in an unusually grumpy mood for quite some time, maybe related to my own life-choices. For better or worse, I disliked Frazen's early novel The 27th City, so I probably will just avoid him from here on out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul secor Posted October 11, 2012 Report Share Posted October 11, 2012 J.D. Salinger: Nine Stories Reread for the first time in about 45 years. Interesting to see the strengths and weaknesses of these stories from the perspective of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Goren. Posted October 13, 2012 Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted October 13, 2012 Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 Louise Erdrich: The Round House Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 And I hated The Corrections and left it half unfinished in an airport lobby (then went on and bought The Mill on the Floss for something more to my taste for the return trip). So I got about halfway through Mill on the Floss. (I probably could have finished it up on the plane ride home, but after they dimmed the cabin lights, my personalized light actually shone on my neighbour's seat -- so frustrating!) I think Mill on the Floss is a pretty good book, but one that I admire a bit more than I enjoy. The father is just too stubborn for me to really care for him, and I really don't care for Tom, who seems a right prat on top of being pretty thick. I probably can relate a bit more to Maggie now, given that my daughter is a pretty willful child (like Maggie, she even cut off a bit of her hair, which is not that uncommon for young girls apparently). I'm also about halfway through rereading Ishmael Reed's The Freelance Pallbearers. (Appropriately enough, this is a bathroom book. I know, TMI, but if you've read the book, you'll understand why this is relevant.) I liked the book a bit more the first time around, but I still like it a lot more than Flight to Canada, which we were discussing a few weeks ago. The verbal exuberance and general craziness is about the same, but Reed's targets of scorn are a bit more generic, i.e. he isn't attacking any specific politician or religion. As shallow as it sounds, I really could not get past his purile put-downs of Abraham Lincoln in Flight to Canada, though I disliked a lot of other aspects of the book. But the same general problem remains in that Reed seems to take down everyone and everything he comes in contact with (organized religion, Black nationalists, fifth columnists, double agents, lesbians, government workers, social workers, etc.). I'm genuinely curious if he views anyone or anything in a positive light. I find it exhausting being myself, and I am probably only 25% as critical of the world as Reed is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 (edited) Re-reading my Dad's second biography, a fascinating read about an important little-known American. On top of that, my Dad writes wonderful prose. Edited October 17, 2012 by jazzbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 I'm also about halfway through rereading Ishmael Reed's The Freelance Pallbearers. (Appropriately enough, this is a bathroom book. I know, TMI, but if you've read the book, you'll understand why this is relevant.) I liked the book a bit more the first time around, but I still like it a lot more than Flight to Canada, which we were discussing a few weeks ago. The verbal exuberance and general craziness is about the same, but Reed's targets of scorn are a bit more generic... What I had forgotten (or repressed) is that the ending is basically a several page-long homophobic screed. Really brought me down with a bang. I'm through with Reed -- he's just such a hateful, pitiful person (I still vividly remember what a d-bag he was when he started dogging out Alice Walker and other Black female writers) and that always ends up coming through in his writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control & The Manson Family by Adam Gorightly. Different and strange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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