Now reading...

[Jazzmoose]

Well, I think the main problem is that Cherryh was published mainly by DAW books, and for some reason, I had this impression of DAW as some cheap garbage publisher back in the seventies and early eighties, and so avoided their books completely. I missed out on a lot of good SF with this misguided approach; I'm trying to make up for it now.

[jazzbo]

I read a lot of her stuff then. Good stuff.

[paul secor]

Read a number of poems from August Kleinzahler's The Strange Hours Travelers Keep while walking this morning.

Edited March 12, 2010 by paul secor

[Matthew]

The Miles Davis Reader: Interviews and Features From Downbeat Magazine. Very nice collection of the articles in Downbeat.

[BillF]

Alice Munro, The Love of a Good Woman

Superb short story writer

[Matthew]

Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis by Jack Chambers. I've always liked this one, lots of information. I now have numerous books, more than I dare count, at various stages of completion, about Miles cluttering my desk and tables in my home.

[Joe]

Just finished Nathalie Sarraute's TROPISMS.

Now I'm flipping through James Wagner's THE FALSE SUN RECORDINGS (for all you readers of contemporary American poetry.)

[Matthew]

The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944 - 1945 by Paul Fussell. Interesting take by Fussell, trying to convey the reality of the infantryman's life in Europe. Not too many pages, just 165, but an interesting read. I might try his memoirs next.

[ejp626]

Well, my plans have been shot to hell, but I've still read some interesting things. I wrapped up Divided Cities. It's pretty good actually, for an academic book.

I finished Buffalo by Sidney Blair (it's been my cardio workout book).

Not to be confused with The Night Buffalo by Guillermo Arriaga, which is also on my reading list.

I've continued my detour into Soviet literature and am about 1/3 through Alexander Kaletski's Metro.

I'll probably wrap up The Burn by Vassily Aksyonov by the end of March and get back to my master plan of Mahfouz, Narayan and Nabokov.

[BillF]

Asimov, Foundation & Empire

[jazzbo]

Try Edgar Pangborn's "The Judment of Eve." In some ways lighter weight than the others, but not the worse for it.

Edited March 23, 2010 by jazzbo

[BillF]

Asimov, The Complete Stories Vol 2

[Jazzmoose]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

I don't know how dystopian you want to go, but you might try Brian Aldiss' Greybeard, though be warned, the premise that launches the story is definitely sf. I hope.

[BillF]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

Here's a little list:

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake

Kasuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

[A Lark Ascending]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

Here's a little list:

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake

Kasuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

The two highlighted immediately sprang to my mind. Both are in a world not that disimilar to ours but where rather unpleasant things have gone several stages too far.

I'm enjoying:

Suits my taste for books that question orthodox mythologies. Interesting to read how the anti-modernist bias of some of the early collectors helped shape at least one dominant interpretation of the music; and how similar it is to how many of the English collectors reacted in pursuit of 'authentic' folk music.

[BruceH]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

"334" by Thomas Disch. Hardly sf at all.

Also "The Space Merchants" by Pohl & Kornbluth. Might be too "sci-fi" for you though, as it presents a nightmare future in which corporations and manipulative advertising have taken over society, and we all know that couldn't happen, right?

Then there's that OTHER Edgar Pangborn post-apocolyptic novel, "Davy," which is so light and happy that it hardly qualifies as dystopian, despite the setting. It almost makes you wish you could be lucky enough to live in such a world.

[Van Basten II]

Currently reading this

Juliette by the Marquis de Sade

Finished the first part, one thing for sure won't watch the movie, compared to the scenes described in the book Antichrist is a Walt Disney story. The book is nontheless fascinating although it feels like a porn movie, dirty and explicite scenes followed by philosophical comments and so on. Will read the second part eventually but need to read something different, to woipe away the memory of blood and other body fluids.

Have startd reading this one.

What's going on I can't post pictures anymore ???

Anyway Common Ground by Anthony Lukas

If this is as fascinating as Big Trouble by the same author, I'll be for a treat.

[ejp626]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

Here's a little list:

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake

Kasuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

If you want the grand-daddy of dystopian future books, you might consider We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was written in 1921, though it saw publication in English and French long before it was published in Zamyantin's native Russia. There are some sci-fi themes but not too much (apparently they eat a petroleum-based diet that killed off the majority of the population when it was introduced!). Anyway, Orwell said it was definitely an influence on 1984, and he thought but couldn't confirm that Huxley was aware of it as well.

[GA Russell]

Tonight I finished The House Without a Key by Earl Derr Biggers (1925), the first Charlie Chan story. Light escapist fare, but a page-turner.

[BillF]

Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

Here's a little list:

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake

Kasuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

If you want the grand-daddy of dystopian future books, you might consider We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was written in 1921, though it saw publication in English and French long before it was published in Zamyantin's native Russia. There are some sci-fi themes but not too much (apparently they eat a petroleum-based diet that killed off the majority of the population when it was introduced!). Anyway, Orwell said it was definitely an influence on 1984, and he thought but couldn't confirm that Huxley was aware of it as well.

Yes, I've read We. Bit fragmentary, but fascinating as a source for Orwell and possibly Huxley, as you say.

[jazzbo]

Tonight I finished The House Without a Key by Earl Derr Biggers (1925), the first Charlie Chan story. Light escapist fare, but a page-turner.

This was written at the site of the hotel I stayed at in Oahu in 2005, the Halekulani. The most wonderful place I've ever stayed.

I'm now reading

Edited March 24, 2010 by jazzbo

[sal]

"Norwegian Wood" - Haruki Murakami

[Jazzmoose]

Tonight I finished The House Without a Key by Earl Derr Biggers (1925), the first Charlie Chan story. Light escapist fare, but a page-turner.

Interesting. I used to have several of these, but unfortunately they were disposed of before my move to Louisiana, before I'd ever got around to trying one.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944 - 1945 by Paul Fussell. Interesting take by Fussell, trying to convey the reality of the infantryman's life in Europe. Not too many pages, just 165, but an interesting read. I might try his memoirs next.

Hmm, hadn't seen this one. Where is it set? Pretty much a 'Battle of the Bulge' centric tale.. .....or some other locations like Hurtgen Forest? Colmar Pocket? Aachen? etc?

[Matthew]

The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944 - 1945 by Paul Fussell. Interesting take by Fussell, trying to convey the reality of the infantryman's life in Europe. Not too many pages, just 165, but an interesting read. I might try his memoirs next.

Hmm, hadn't seen this one. Where is it set? Pretty much a 'Battle of the Bulge' centric tale.. .....or some other locations like Hurtgen Forest? Colmar Pocket? Aachen? etc?

Fussell writes about various topics in the book, some of which are, Bluge, Cobra episode, Falasie, Hurtgen Forest, Medics, Skorzeny Affair, Infantry Morale, the Peiper Affair, among others. They are not in-depth chapters by any means, most eight to ten short pages, but interesting. More like, if the reader finds the chapters interesting, he/she will have to do some further reading to get a better understanding of what Fussell is talking about.