Now reading...

[BillF]

[BruceH]

The Hydrogen Sonata - Iain M. Banks

[kinuta]

[jazzbo]

Back to this one, I put it down because it's hard going, very dense, but also very fascinating.

[ejp626]

I've been delayed in finishing up The Engineer of Human Souls due to reading/browsing a lot of poetry for my (potential) anthology.

I finally wrapped this one up on a plane ride, appropriately enough a return flight from Toronto. I don't really know the problem, but this started stalling about halfway through. It is just too long and there is so little actual plot. The book flashes back and forth between the narrator's life in Toronto and his previous life in Czechoslovakia, and I naturally thought it would end with a scene describing how he managed to defect, but instead there were two letters from people describing a former bandmate's last days. So underwhelming. Maybe that is the worst -- a novel that starts strong and ends pitifully.

I've picked out a couple of novels for my next flight (about a week away), but haven't decided what to read in the interim. I should pick something light and fun, but am not sure I have anything like that at hand. In a pinch, I might reread Read's The Freelance Pallbearers.

[BillF]

[paul secor]

John Berger: Here Is Where We Meet

Fascinating for the most part. Died toward the end for me.

[BillF]

[BillF]

[BillF]

[medjuck]

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.

[BillF]

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.

[B. Goren.]

[jlhoots]

Junot Diaz: This Is How You Lose Her

Edited October 6, 2012 by jlhoots

[ejp626]

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.

[BillF]

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!

[ejp626]

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...

[jlhoots]

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.

[BillF]

[BillF]

[Jazzmoose]

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.

[jlhoots]

Jo Nesbo: The Leopard

[BruceH]

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.

[ejp626]

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.

[BillF]