paul secor Posted September 16, 2011 Report Posted September 16, 2011 Haruki Murakami: Kafka on the Shore A wonderfully inventive and disturbingly moving novel His best work IMHO That's only the second Murakami I've read. The first I read was After Dark, which had its moments but didn't grab me. I started with that one because early on it mentioned Curtis Fuller's "Five Spot After Dark". I'm planning on reading more of Murakami's works. Hope it's not all downhill after Kafka. Quote
ejp626 Posted September 16, 2011 Report Posted September 16, 2011 Probably the last book I'll check out from the Chicago library. Are they confiscating your library card? Well, I have lost (and had to replace) more than my share of books. But actually I am moving to Vancouver in just under two weeks. Quote
porcy62 Posted September 16, 2011 Report Posted September 16, 2011 Hope it's not all downhill after Kafka. Not at all, "Norwegian Wood" and "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" are excellent too. BTW he is a jazz and vinyl lover, so I tend to be forgiving about him...just joking he's great writer. I didn't like all his works, but, Dostoyevsky and Conrad a part, I could say the same for every writers. Quote
paul secor Posted September 17, 2011 Report Posted September 17, 2011 Hope it's not all downhill after Kafka. Not at all, "Norwegian Wood" and "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" are excellent too. BTW he is a jazz and vinyl lover, so I tend to be forgiving about him...just joking he's great writer. I didn't like all his works, but, Dostoyevsky and Conrad a part, I could say the same for every writers. Thanks for the recs. Read about 25 pages of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in a book store this afternoon, so that will be my next Murakami. Then I'll move on to the ones you mentioned. Quote
JohnJ Posted September 20, 2011 Report Posted September 20, 2011 Hope it's not all downhill after Kafka. Not at all, "Norwegian Wood" and "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" are excellent too. BTW he is a jazz and vinyl lover, so I tend to be forgiving about him...just joking he's great writer. I didn't like all his works, but, Dostoyevsky and Conrad a part, I could say the same for every writers. Thanks for the recs. Read about 25 pages of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in a book store this afternoon, so that will be my next Murakami. Then I'll move on to the ones you mentioned. Pretty much love all Murakami. Favourites not mentioned include "A Wild Sheep Chase", "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun". Quote
BillF Posted September 20, 2011 Report Posted September 20, 2011 Just finished this. Strange book, where bed-hopping by male and female starship crew alternates with passages of sheer scientific gobbledygook, including - and this is the first time I've seen this in a work of fiction - a mathematical formula! Quote
Jazzmoose Posted September 20, 2011 Report Posted September 20, 2011 I'm not a big Anderson fan, but Tau Zero would be in my 'hall of fame' library for sure. Quote
BruceH Posted September 20, 2011 Report Posted September 20, 2011 I'm not a big Anderson fan, but Tau Zero would be in my 'hall of fame' library for sure. Mine too, although it's admittedly been a long time since I read it. Anderson did seem to have a preference for a medieval social setup. Quote
paul secor Posted September 23, 2011 Report Posted September 23, 2011 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: Blood Sinister One of the books in the Bill Slider series - a decent entertainment Quote
jazzbo Posted September 24, 2011 Report Posted September 24, 2011 Just finished the book that comes with the Grateful Dead Europe '72 box set. VERY GOOD. Quote
Leeway Posted September 25, 2011 Report Posted September 25, 2011 Continuing my Dickens marathon: Quote
jazzbo Posted September 30, 2011 Report Posted September 30, 2011 Love this series of books about Amerotke, chief judge of Egypt during Hatshepsut's reign. Quote
porcy62 Posted October 1, 2011 Report Posted October 1, 2011 (edited) The first book I read with the criminal report of the author, instead of bibliography/biography, in the last pages. In the italian edition at last. Edited October 1, 2011 by porcy62 Quote
BillF Posted October 5, 2011 Report Posted October 5, 2011 H G Wells, The Invisible Man Haven't read this since my youth. Such skilful writing! Quote
jazzbo Posted October 5, 2011 Report Posted October 5, 2011 (edited) Fascinating Edited October 5, 2011 by jazzbo Quote
ejp626 Posted October 5, 2011 Report Posted October 5, 2011 About halfway through The Geometry of God by Uzma Aslam Khan. Am also reading Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide on the bus. After this, I will probably tackle some Canadian lit. I recently learned that Robert Kroetsch died in a car accident this past summer. I've read perhaps half of his novels, and I think I'll go back through them chronologically. The Studhorse Man is one that people should definitely seek out, and I plan on rereading this for certain. After that, perhaps Jack Hodgins, who writes a lot about BC. And possibly read some of Timothy Findley's novels (only read about 1/3 of those). Quote
Royal Oak Posted October 17, 2011 Report Posted October 17, 2011 Alan Bennett - Untold Stories. The passages about his mother's mental health problems are superb - his observation of mental illness and all that goes with it is incredibly perceptive and very unsentimental. It should be required reading for mental health professionals, in the UK at least. IMO of course Quote
BruceH Posted October 19, 2011 Report Posted October 19, 2011 Wow, a preface, a forward, AND an introduction. What, no prologue? Quote
Royal Oak Posted October 19, 2011 Report Posted October 19, 2011 Wow, a preface, a forward, AND an introduction. What, no prologue? Do you think Clem's poem will be in there? Quote
ejp626 Posted October 19, 2011 Report Posted October 19, 2011 Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide Robert Kroetsch The Studhorse Man Just finished both of these. The Hungry Tide is really a solid novel. What makes it quite special is that he shows people coming from a number of different viewpoints sympathetically -- scientists/ecologists, managers working within the system, simple fishermen, villagers striving to better themselves -- and showing (at least implicitly) the positives and negatives of these different ways of life. It's a fairly non-judgemental work, though there are a couple of nasty personalities that come into play. I'd say Ghosh hits his stride (for me) about 50 pages in. By contrast, The Studhorse Man is pretty hilarious from page 1. I really don't know why this isn't better known, as it is one of the really great Canadian novels (I guess there's your trouble). The novel is another riff on the Ulysses story (as the scholarly intro to the latest edition points out at length -- I would probably just skip this), with plenty of inversions. It's actually probably a riff of Joyce riffing on Homer, if you get my drift. But that doesn't take away from the fun. Quote
BillF Posted October 21, 2011 Report Posted October 21, 2011 Just finished this. Not Le Carré's best, but I've never read a stinker by him yet! Quote
kinuta Posted October 21, 2011 Report Posted October 21, 2011 Continuing my Dickens marathon: Great book. Off topic but the BBC adaption is one of the best Dickens series they have done. Quote
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