BruceH Posted November 14, 2012 Report Share Posted November 14, 2012 After years of being a Clarke fan, I concluded that none of his novels are as good as Childhood's End. I haven't read too many novels by him; that's too bad. On the other hand, as good as Childhood's End was, it's understandable. Actually, growing up I think there were times when I preferred his science fact writing. That's the way I felt about Asimov, believe it or not. Oh, I find that VERY believable. Asimov was always more convincing in the non-fiction category. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted November 14, 2012 Report Share Posted November 14, 2012 FWIW, I liked Telegraph Avenue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.D. Posted November 16, 2012 Report Share Posted November 16, 2012 I've been reading Philip Kerr's "Bernie Gunther" series. Very interesting concept: a noirish and hard-boiled detective's progress and survival through Germany in the 1930s and 40s (with everything that entails), and subsequent globe-trotting exile. I'm on the seventh of eight (so far). Unusually for such a series, the writing generally improves book to book. Kerr took a 15-year sabbatical from the series at one point. I recommend these unless you have an aversion to or are tired of Nazi-related books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 Just finished the latest Tom Wolfe. Very entertaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Goren. Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 Jo Nesbo: The Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 (edited) Close to wrapping up The Mill on the Floss. My initial impression still holds -- a novel that you sort of admire but don't actually enjoy that much. Tom is still such an insufferable prat, and the father is, to his dying day, a man determined to make the wrong choice from what life has to offer him. I just want it to be over at this point. I happened to grab the graphic novel version of J.B. Priestly's An Inspector Calls (with the full text, they declare proudly). Boy, am I glad that I read this in this format, rather than paying to watch it on stage. For me, time has done it no favors. The speeches are so over the top. Look, look at the uncaring industrialist. Step right this way to see the selfish children of the rich. Look at the charity society woman who has no "soul." And so on. G.B. Shaw and Brecht can sometimes pull off the trick of writing politicial or politicized speech without seeming like they are pulling pages out of a sociology textbook, but Priestly sure can't. And then the "twist" or rather double-twist at the end is, to me, an infuriating cheat straight out of the pages of G.K. Chesterton, maybe copped directly from The Man Who Was Thursday. I certainly know people who love the Father Brown stories, but I found them unbearable (atheists who kill simply to make The Church look bad, I mean really). I'll be steering clear away from this in the future and probably all of Priestly's work. Edited November 24, 2012 by ejp626 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - Lois McMaster Bujold. Best new Miles novel in many a year, and Miles isn't even in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aparxa Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 Joseph Kessel - La passante du Sans Souci Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Really disappointed in the last 100 or so pages of Mill on the Floss. I particularly disliked the actual ending. It seemed like it was heading to a downbeat but "organically consistent" ending, i.e. one that made sense given what had happened before. The actual ending is almost totally random and stupid. I am totally showing my age, but one of the newsmagazines (probably Time) ran little inserts on how to improve one's writing as well as reading comprehension. I think there was Bill Cosby discussing speed reading and so on. Anyway, some comic writer decided to give some advice and said that endings were easy: Everyone got run over by a bus. And if you wanted to change it up a bit, you could use Everyone was run over by a truck. That's kind of how I felt at the end of this novel -- I honestly feel cheated -- it's such a long book for such a terrible payoff. All that said, there is one semi-brilliant passage in the novel, which I will copy out gratis to spare you from making my mistake. For the tragedy of our lives is not created entirely from within. ‘Character’ — says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms — ‘character is destiny.’ But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive Hamlet’s having married Ophelia and got through life with a reputation of sanity notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility to his father-in-law. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christiern Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Amazingly good read. What a character ! Does not surprise me. I used to work with him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted November 28, 2012 Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 Larry McMurtry: Custer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 First read this 35+ years ago. Still holds up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 First read this 35+ years ago. Still holds up. My experience, too. Have read it three times - first at the age of 15 and last about 5 years ago. One of the truly great books for me. Amazingly good read. What a character ! Does not surprise me. I used to work with him. Did you! Any stories to tell? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 My experience, too. Have read it three times - first at the age of 15 and last about 5 years ago. One of the truly great books for me. Orwell was the first 'proper' writer I got obsessed with whilst reading 'Animal Farm' for 'O' Level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted December 1, 2012 Report Share Posted December 1, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Goren. Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 The biography of Lee Iacocca. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 (edited) Edited December 8, 2012 by BillF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 I've been debating with myself about getting this one, how is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 It's entertaining and at times insightful. It's very much a baby boomer book in that there are lots of cultural references that a middle-age white goy would know. I have been sharing a lot of books on these matters with my Dad but didn't this one as these references would have less meaning to him. At its core it's a bit too much about John Coats and less about interpretation of Genesis. I enjoyed it but not as much as other books about Paul, Abram et al that I've read lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted December 8, 2012 Report Share Posted December 8, 2012 It's entertaining and at times insightful. It's very much a baby boomer book in that there are lots of cultural references that a middle-age white goy would know. I have been sharing a lot of books on these matters with my Dad but didn't this one as these references would have less meaning to him. At its core it's a bit too much about John Coats and less about interpretation of Genesis. I enjoyed it but not as much as other books about Paul, Abram et al that I've read lately. Thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Wood Posted December 10, 2012 Report Share Posted December 10, 2012 Barry Malzberg - On a Planet Alien Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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