Now reading...

[Dr. Rat]

I'm just back from the Jersey shore, and, predictably, I started the DaVinci Code while there.

Just finished that. A junk food read, but not bad as that. He does action sequences and suspense pretty well, but isn't as good at the literary/intellectual mystery/conspiracy stuff as well as my favorites in this sub-genre: Eco, Pears, Davies, Stephenson, Ackroyd.

Speaking of Ackroyd, read First Light, which is touching in its way, but somehow a bit too obvious in playing for our sympathies sometimes.

Also read The D. Case, an interesting reworking of Dickens's Edwin Drood, incorporating his text with the minutes from a meeting of fictional detectives who "solve" the mystery Dickens didn't live to finish.

And am reading Gore Vidal's big book of essays United States. I read this years ago as part of my work on the periodical essay and I'm really blown away by how anti-semetic he seems to me now. Can't believe I didn't notice/gave him a pass on this before.

Speaking of Stephenson, any feedback from those who are reading his monstrous Boroque Cycle?--I'm thinking of giving Quicksilver another go trying not to be prejudiced against his use of anachronism.

--eric

[Chrome]

Eric:

Have you read anything by Arturo Pérez-Reverte? He does the literary/mystery thing pretty well, especially in The Club Dumas ... Charles Palliser's The Quincunx might also appeal to you:

[Dr. Rat]

Eric:

Have you read anything by Arturo Pérez-Reverte? He does the literary/mystery thing pretty well, especially in The Club Dumas ... Charles Palliser's The Quincunx might also appeal to you:

On Perez-Reverte, yes, I've read everything except the last one (started but gave up) and the Fencing Master, which I just ahven't gotten around to. Which I guess leaves three?

I did enjoy the Palliser book as well. Have you read The Unburied, another of Palliser's books?

--eric

[Chrome]

Haven't read The Unburied ... but I've got his "Betrayals" on the old bookshelf waiting for some day ... much like my CDs, my books keep piling around the house but ... I ... just ... can't... stop ... buying!

[A Lark Ascending]

I read the 'Da Vinci Code' on holiday and hated it. Undoubtedly a page turner but very formulaic in plot. The writing style had me wincing; and the way light bulbs came on in the characters heads at the end of each chapter had me raising my eyes to heaven! I can see the appeal - the whole Grail thing - but I've no desire to read anything else by Brown.

This was all brought home when I followed it with Henning Mankell's 'The Fifth Woman'. I've been working my way through Mankell's books over the last year. Detective fiction but with 3D characters and a real feel for the anxieties in Swedish society at present. Light fiction undoubtedly but done with great style and subtlty.

[7/4]

Dr. Rat said:

I'm just back from the Jersey shore, and, predictably, I started the DaVinci Code while there.

Just finished that. A junk food read, but not bad as that. He does action sequences and suspense pretty well, but isn't as good at the literary/intellectual mystery/conspiracy stuff as well as my favorites in this sub-genre: Eco, Pears, Davies, Stephenson, Ackroyd.

No problem here with a junk food read, my day job and my musical work require enough heavy thinking that I need it to get away from it all.

Bev:

I read the 'Da Vinci Code' on holiday and hated it. Undoubtedly a page turner but very formulaic in plot.

I don't mind it once in a blue moon, I haven't read a lot of fiction in the past ten years.

[A Lark Ascending]

Oh, I agree with you. My day job has me reading all the time. When I get home I want something with a good tale. The only 'hard' stuff I read these days is history.

I think I was just a bit surprised by the runaway success of the Brown. There are loads of writers writing relatively easy reads in a similar genre but with more style.

I suppose I'm more drawn to thillers and detective fiction with flawed heroes. The 'Da Vinci Code' came across as a script for an American blockbuster movie - all shiny teethed, successful heroes and heroines. It can only be a matter of time.

One thing puzzled me. When the bloke and the French woman suddenly flew to England and then escaped they made there way to the underground and caught the tube. Where did they get the English money to buy a ticket? They were in such a hurry I can't imagine they'd have stopped at a cash point machine.

This has worried me for the last month!

[Johnny E]

Now Reading:

Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

~and~

Inner Game of Tennis

[ghost of miles]

Johnny Rogan, A SEVERED ALLIANCE: MORRISSEY & JOHNNY MARR.

[Chrome]

Buddha's Little Finger - Victor Pelevin

For those unfamiliar with this modern Russian writer, he's well worth checking out.

A mix of black humor and political satire (esp. Russian politics) with just a little science fiction/speculative fiction added in.

[paul secor]

Just finished reading Walker Percy's The Moviegoer.

[Matthew]

Making my way through Charles Dicken's David Copperfield, and loving every page. I had forgotten what a wonderful writer Dickens is; so alive, creative, and real. Another book I'm reading is Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited by Clinton Heylin. It's a very interesting read and goes into great detail about Dylan's life. Recommended.

[ghost of miles]

Now re-reading Thomas Merton's NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION and ESSENTIAL WRITINGS. Thanks to Matthew's rec, I hope to soon pick up a copy, used or otherwise, of THE SIGN OF JONAS. And finally wading once again into some Indiana jazz books--JELLY ROLL, BIX & HOAGY and THE JAZZ STATE OF INDIANA.

[Dr. Rat]

Just finished reading Walker Percy's The Moviegoer.

How was it? I've always wanted to read this because he brough us Toole, and I figure anyone who did that ought to be pretty good himself.

Or no?

--eric

[patricia]

Just finished Molly Ivins' "Who Let The Dogs In?" I don't always agree with her politically, but she has the present administration pegged. Recommended.

About to start the latest Patricia Cornwell offering, featuring her character, Kay Scarpetta in "Blow Fly". Cornwell took some time, a couple of years ago, to write a non-fiction account of the results of her research into the Jack The Ripper case, "Portrait of a Killer". It was very convincing and worth checking out. Facinating to apply today's forensic methods to that, as yet, unsolved case.

Edited September 10, 2004 by patricia

[billyboy]

Currently reading "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz. Very interesting book on how the multitude of choices leaves us either unable to choose or much less happy with our choice. I sit and stare at my cd collection for way too long trying to figure out exactly what I want to listen to!

Also started the new McSweeney's Quarterly, the Comics issue. A beautiful book full of new and old comics from Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Charles Burns, Lynda Barry, etc. Kind of like a hardcover issue of 'Raw.' Definitely worth picking up.

Also reading 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus!"

[Jazzmoose]

I've been spending the last month or so rereading old SF paperbacks of mine. I tell you, after spending the last few years reading Faulkner, Ellisnon (R, not E!), Welty, etc., etc., I can finally understand the reaction some have to SF. Some of it is still good, but a lot of it is just junk. As an example, Heinlein would have been better off sticking to juveniles and maybe writing political tracts. He's just not that good. And he was one of my favorites!

[7/4]

John Shirley - Gurdjieff: an introduction to his life and ideas

[Chrome]

As an example, Heinlein would have been better off sticking to juveniles and maybe writing political tracts. He's just not that good. And he was one of my favorites!

I was a big sci-fi geek growing up, but even then I didn't see what people got out of Heinlein ... it was/is literally unreadable to me. I was more of an Asimov kind of guy!

[jazzbo]

Heinlein had some great science fiction ideas and pushed the medium forward with his drive and vision.

He also helped out a number of other less successful writers I believe with cash when desperately needed; I know he did so for Philip K. Dick on more than one occasion.

I actually enjoyed reading a few of his books a few years ago that I had not before (Friday, Number of the Beast). . . .Wild late in life stuff full of sex drive and playing around with the "smells and sights" of the genre.

When I was reading the genre though I liked more however a different type of writer, the Dick, Pohl and Cornbluth and Varley type. . . whatever that is!

[Jazzmoose]

I agree Heinlein was a force, and some of his early short stories hold up ("By His Bootstraps" in particular stands out in my memory), but his adult novels just don't hold up for me. The only one I enjoyed in my rereads was Job: A Comedy of Justice, which of course isn't really SF at all. Friday was enjoyable in spots, but there was no point to it, or to many of his later novels.

Pohl and Kornbluth (Particular Kornbluth!) were favorites of mine as well, but I just reread Merchants of Venus not too long ago, and it really wasn't that good in my opinion.

Rest assured, however, that Dick is still on my approved list!

Another (later) author that I sitll find engaging (although no more substantial than the others mentioned) is Allen Steele. Good nuts-and-bolts SF with human characters...

[ejp626]

Some of the classics of SF do end up being just awful when read as an adult. The Space Merchants, mentioned above, is not good. Bester's The Stars My Destination manages to violate almost every SF principle, but is still on many people's top ten lists.

I recently reread the first five books of Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber and still enjoyed that. I am a little apprehensive about rereading Roadmarks, since it was an early favorite.

I think Heinlein really went off the rails at The Number of the Beast and never recovered. But as a kid, I eagerly read all the musings from the dirty old man he had become.

I generally find the SF novels that hold up the best are the most anthropological -- Cherryh's Wave without a Shore and her Chanur novels, LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness. David Brin seems pretty good still, even if his book did inspire Costner's awful The Postman movie. Ian McDonald is a good but obscure SF writer.

One very interesting speculative fiction writer (not quite SF) is James Morrow who has written an entire trilogy about what happens when God's dead body turns up in the Atlantic Ocean. Towing Jehovah (the first) is the best in the series.

[Jazzmoose]

LeGuin is a treasure!

[jazzbo]

Yeah, I enjoyed C. J.'s stuff when I read it in the eighties. . . .

Mark, I really enjoyed reading some of the Gateway stuff by Pohl a few years ago. . . . Held up pretty well. Was just fun to read and think about.

[Chrome]

Speaking of current sci-fi, Patricia Anthony's first couple of books (Brother Termite, Cold Allies, Happy Policeman) were very good ... anyone that Richard Morgan book Altered Carbon? Very William Gibson-esque, if you like that kind of thing.