What Did You Read Today?

[KONGO]

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. It was alright. More self-help than real fiction. Very naive, all told.

[If_You_Wanna_Be_The_Man]

Currently reading 'The Redbreast' by Jo Nesbo

[IWA-Boss]

I don't read that often but recently I've started reading "About The Author" by John Colapinto. I've been pleasantly surprised by the book so far in terms of plot, style and almost everything. Must remember to finish it soon.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Currently reading 'The Redbreast' by Jo Nesbo

I read the first 200 pages and stopped (after loving The Snowman) Not because the book was bad, its just a thing I've had for about six weeks now where I've read the first 50+ pages of a book and then stopped and moved onto something else. I've done that to 5/6 books. I've gotten bored easily. Maybe I'm just waiting for a book to REALLY grab me by the balls, I'm not sure. Either way I thought about taking a break from readinf until my birthday next week, but not having ANYTHING to read on the commute to work is anathema to me, so I've simply taken a break from fiction until then. I'm currently reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, after really enjoying the movie starring Brad Pitt despite not knowing the first thing about Baseball.

Hope this cures my reading wrestlessness.

[Poneglyph]

Just finished books 1 and 2 of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It took forever to get going and hook me and it didn't help that the perspective changed between chapters - when I got invested in a character, the chapter ended and I had to read about the other one. I can't even say that I could have skipped the first 400 pages, because they were important, but they didn't feel like that while I was reading them. Also, the dynamic in the dialogues was really weird, but I think that's more of a cultural clash.

[Hagen]

I finally finished London Fields by Martin Amis, it was a real struggle to get through and I was close to putting it down a bunch of times. There is no real plot in the novel, merely a cast of characters who get thrown into a scenario and then you watch them develop. There is no doubt that Amis has a strong command of the english language and really interresting characters but this was way to dull and way too long.

[Froot Loop]

I finally finished London Fields by Martin Amis, it was a real struggle to get through and I was close to putting it down a bunch of times.

I've really struggled with this as well (it's in my"half-read" pile at the moment.) It's annoying because I do like the characters, I just can't get through it. I found the same with Time's Arrow (although for completely different reasons.) I still want to read Lionel Asbo though.

[Skummy]

Ben Aaronovitch's "Moon Over Soho". I was pleasantly surprised by "Rivers Of London" - it's been a long time since I've bothered reading that ilk of fantasy fiction, and I tend to shy away from series of fantasy books these days. The whole "it's as if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Met!" marketing of it put me off, but it had been recommended to me, and the concept is similar in some ways to something I've been working on.

While I'm only a little bit into Moon Over Soho, it doesn't seem quite as strong, but "Rivers" was great. It was nothing groundbreaking, and all a bit silly, but it does pretty much what it set out to do, and was a lot of fun.

I also recently read Billy Robinson's autobiography, in pretty much one sitting. Really fascinating stuff, and while it's a bit rambling and not especially well-written - and skimpy on the detail - he's great at discussing the mechanics of wrestling, and throws in a lot of nice anecdotes and tidbits about wrestling's past. I love stuff like that, just because of how little recorded history wrestling actually has.

Before that, it was Mike Nelson's "Mind Over Matter". It's a collection of essays or whatever on different topics - I didn't think I'd enjoy it all that much, as observational comedy's not my thing, and I didn't think Nelson would be too good in writing, but I genuinely laughed out loud several times.

[The Sandman]

There seems to be atleast couple of people who've read Murakami's books here. I've read Norwegian Wood and Kafka On The Shore that i've thoroughly enjoyed. I'm now 100 pages into The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, nothing has really happened in it, so far it feels like it's not really going anywhere. Maybe it does pick up soon. Anyway, i'm enjoying his work and thinking of which one to get next. I'm thinking Sputnik Sweetheart, After Dark or 1Q84. From what i've read here about 1Q84 and actually just couple of posts back it apparently takes even longer than in Bird Chronicle to get going? So anyone who's read these, any recommends?

Edited September 7, 2012 by The Sandman

[ZJ Penn]

Currently reading The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Thought reading it straight after The Extended Phenotype might be too heavy going, but it's a hell of a lot more accessible, I got through nearly a quarter of it on my lunch break. I also just finished Friends Like These by Danny Wallace the other day. It was good fun, but certainly not as interesting as Join Me or Yes Man were. That said, I think I've grown out of that style now and it just doesn't do it as much for me anymore.

Up next I'm hoping the rest of the le Carré novels will arrive soon so I can get started on that series, and I picked up some of the next Discworld books for like, 2 or 3 quid each the other day. There's also the second half of Crime and Punishment ominously staring back at me from the bookshelf since New Year. There's also some autobiographies left over from Christmas and Closing Time by Heller, which someone on here (Kaney?) put me off reading years ago and it's been catching dust ever since.

I'm actually looking to start collecting a fantasy or sci-fi series of books to read over winter if anyone has any suggestions? I'm open to anything although, as with TV shows on DVD, it has to be easily accessible (as in to buy, not necessarily to get into) and complete/finished.

Edited September 11, 2012 by ZJ Penn

[Predak]

I've been reading A Dance with Dragons, I'm loving it, I have developed a Game of Thrones obsession.

[Poneglyph]

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. It was one of the best reading experiences I've had in a long time - it was like the book was written by Bolaño specifically for me.

I'm reading some of Leopoldo Maria Panero's poems, but I can't wait to get my hand on 2666.

[Nick Adams]

Finally getting around to reading my copy of Allende's Zorro. Pretty interesting story so far, and I like that she establishes his parents first instead of just having him born. Also glad I bought it in Spanish instead of English. $10 less (no translation needed), and I imagine that the original text is richer in meaning than the English version.

[Hagen]

I finished On the Road by Jack Kerouac and while the open references to sex and drugs, what the book originally became famous for, aren't nearly as shocking today as they were in the 50's, it's still a really good book. Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness writing style is really easy to follow and the underlying themes of friendship and struggeling with your place in the world are still as relevant today as they were back then. Kerouac's exploration of the world through his friendship with Neal Cassady (or Dean Moriarty if you will) is really well done and ends on a pretty cool morale. Now that I've read all three "major works" of the Beat Generation, I can say that On the Road is easily the best.

I've now started the rather ambitious project of reading Underworld by Don DeLillo. I just finished the prolouge to the book "The Triumph of Death" and if the rest of the book is anything like that then I'll be absolutely hooked. Searching around the internet though, it seems people generally agree that the prologue is the best part, so I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Hagen

[METALMAN]

The paper

[Schlitzbrille]

"The Gods Will Have Blood" by Anatole France. Got it for Christmas two years ago, tried reading it a few times, never really got into it. I'll try again to like it.

[Froot Loop]

Just finished "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene. I tried to read it when I was about 17 but didn't really get into it but I totally romped through it this time. Quite short but really intense. I've also just finished listening to a Librivox recording of "A Room with a View." Loved the book and the production was really good considering it was free!

The Librivox recordings are on iTunes as podcasts - loads of audiobooks public domain texts and they're generally good quality.

[stokeriño]

Today I have been mainly strip-mining the bibliography pages of 'The Origins of the First World War' (Seminar Studies in History) by Gordon Martel.

That counts, right?

[VerbalPuke]

I finished off the Grapes of Wrath today, great book, Steinbeck is definitely one of my top five authors.

[Skummy]

I read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World Revisited" in a single sitting; it's effectively a sociopolitical essay discussing whether the worlds of 1984 and Brave New World are likely to come true, looking at the world at the time it was written (mid-80s, I believe) and existing sociological trends.

And good GOD maybe it's just aged badly, but it's horrible. Sweeping statements, awful sociology, and borderline fascist assertions. Complete waste of time.

Before that I read Vril: The Power Of The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, as it had been hyped up to me as a seminal fantasy novel, and through it's connections to various occultists and whatnot, I felt it would be worth reading. It wasn't. It has a narrative style that's very Victorian, very of its time, but that I tend to find pretty off-putting in anything but exceptional fantasy and horror stories, wherein the narrator is telling the story as if it's a dinner party anecdote, and the opening chapter is full of "you would scarcely believe..." and so on and so forth. But nothing bloody happens. He's created a fictional society living under the earth, and the entire book is just an explanation of that society, how they function, etc., with barely any plot to speak of. It feels like a lengthy, cumbersome introduction to a larger book where this fantastic, wonderful, mysterious ancient race actually fucking do something.

And, finally, now, I'm reading Michael Moorcock's "Mother London". I've not read any Moorcock since I was a kid, but this doesn't seem to be like his usual stuff, and is very much akin to the kind of book I'm trying to work on myself, but haven't done any work on for a few months - I knackered my hand/wrist a while back, and handwriting was painful, since it's recovered I've just not got back into the habit of writing - so far it's bloody good, fantastically written, but I've nowhere idea where it's going.