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Author Topic: Rate the last book you read.  (Read 194177 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #240 on: October 06, 2009, 10:17:23 PM »


Disclaimer for those who grumble about Dan Brown: It's fiction. Pardon me while I suspend disbelief and enjoy myself.

I've enjoyed all of Brown's previous books, and I enjoyed The Lost Symbol as least as much. Like his other novels, it's loaded with fascinating details and yet somehow it never gets bogged down. What I loved most about this one is that it constantly feels like your on to something big. It certainly keeps you turning pages. Ultimately, it was a completely satisfying and enjoyable read.

3/4

FifthCityMuse

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #241 on: October 07, 2009, 03:36:30 AM »
I finished it about a week back, but I've sort of been without internet and in and out, but still, here we go:

It - (S. King, 1986)
This is, in all the world, of every book I've read, my single, absolute favourite. No, I'm not sure the prose is as good as some I've read (and I'm sure that The God of Small Things is probably being short changed here, but the emotional and deeply personal response I have to this is just without comparison. I find it so sad and wonderful and beautiful.

I actually had a thought reading it this time that in small way these children are almost superheroes. Not in the traditional sense of course, but they have these strange powers and abilities, and I mean, they're small, but they're still there, you know? Like Ben has this incredible mechanical mind, and Bill has Charisma, and Eddie has an uncanny sense of direction, and somehow they realise this, and somehow they don't and it's not just an important part of the magic in the plot, but also in the way it wraps around my heart.

I love the small things too. The way he'll break a paragraph with a single line that is all in italics
(something like this you know what I mean)
and in parentheses without punctuation. And somehow it works so, so well. And the way he carries sentences across sub-chapter breaks, and sets things up, and all of it.

But most of all I think it's the characters. I always like to pretend I'm Bill Denborough, but really, I'm not. I'm Ben Hanscom, through and through. Genuinely. It's why I adore it so much. When I finished At Swim, Two Boys, the main characters felt like real, flesh and blood people. Long before I finish It, I feel like King has made up a story about me, and given me the most beautiful friends, and the greatest adventures, and sure, I get sad when it ends, but I love it for it's middle. Hell, every time I read the thing I find myself wishing I could have an apocalyptic rock fight. I mean, surely it can't be pleasant, but there's something so vital about it, so real, and it's what I adore about this.

I love the foreshadowing, I love the beautiful, heart rending close; I simply adore every single aspect. One of the great novels of all time.

Colleen

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #242 on: October 07, 2009, 10:05:07 AM »
I love It also.  One of my favorite things was noticing that I was over 100 pages in, and feeling a little impatient because it was all still feeling like prologue and I was wondering when the main story was going to start--then I realized how much information I already had and had this "ooohhhh" reaction and adjusted my expectations to the actual pace of the story.

The pace of the last book I read, The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death, was much, MUCH faster.  I started and finished it on Saturday night, in fact, while I was doing my shift watching over the local Ruby Tuesdays.  Very interesting and quirky main character, who narrates, and a strange bunch of friends and acquaintances around him.  The main character was a teacher until a traumatic incident left him shell shocked and non-functional (but still, very often, a jerk to everyone).  His best friend/roommate finally tells him to shape up and get a job, and he takes one offered with a crime scene cleanup crew.  To his surprise, he finds the work satisfying and somehow healing to him; at the same time one of his first jobs turns out to lead to a twisting and turning tale involving suicide, murder, business competition, homicidal rednecks, smuggling and a stolen truckload of...something surprisingly valuable.

Much of the story is told in dialogue, without quotes, which I've seen other authors do (using an em dash to set off the start of each speaker's bits) but which I don't particularly like.  It seems easier to get lost, especially when there are more than two speakers, and I had to backtrack a few times to figure out who was talking.  But that was minor--the story's fast pace, suspense, and the intriguing characters kept me going.  The book seemed like the first of a series and I hope that is the case, because I would definitely want to read them.  And I hope someone has been smart enough to option this book because it would make a really good movie.

Junior

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #243 on: October 12, 2009, 02:44:28 PM »
The Dream Keeper and other poems - Langston Hughes.

Ostensibly a collection of poems for kids (hence my reading it for kidlit) this book is really great for all audiences. Again, I'm not saying anything new when I say that Hughes is a really good poet, but it's true. And you can read it in less than an hour. Here's a fave:

Quote from: As I Grew Older
It was a long time ago.
I have lamost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun-
My dream

And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose slowly, slowly,
Dimming,
Hiding,
The light of my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky-
The wall.

Shadow.
I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.

My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

Good stuff.

A-.

Romeo and Juliet - Billy Bob Shakespeare.

Ok, he's good too. And this is a pretty good play. I like (or I guess dislike) how modern culture has painted Juliet as the one who falls stupidly in love with Romeo when it's really the other way around. And Friar Lawrence is the man.

A.
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pixote

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #244 on: October 12, 2009, 04:49:39 PM »
Marry me, Juliet. You'll never have to be alone. I love you, and that's all I really know.

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FifthCityMuse

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #245 on: October 13, 2009, 06:17:11 AM »
To The Heart of the Storm - W. Eisner
Not what I expected, but really fantastic. It reminded me of Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs, and while I think I liked that a little more, this was pretty fantastic. It's terribly moving in moments.

Fire on the Mountain - A. Desai
Not what I was expecting either. A little slow, and I'm sure some of the intricacies of the language were lost on me, but it was really rewarding, and the final two pages make the whole book just that much better. It's not likely to break my top 20, but it's quite beautiful, and I would recommend it.

Junior

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #246 on: October 13, 2009, 04:05:43 PM »
300 - Frank Miller.

I can't stand the style. Super short sentences abound. Basically verb and noun. Pictures are quite pretty. Story is quite boring. Ideology is pretty unsettling.

C-.
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FifthCityMuse

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #247 on: October 17, 2009, 09:55:13 PM »
The Name of the Game - (W. Eisner, 2003)
Not as good as To the Heart of the Storm. I'm not actually sure I'd recommend it at all. I mean, it's done well, but I don't feel like it really grants anything to the social story. It's about families and marriage and immigration, but it's kinda dull.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - (M. Satrapi, 2003)
Really wonderful. The story of Anoosh is perhaps the most beautiful thing here, but it's one of the most beautiful heartbreaking stories I've read. I never really understood why Adam and Matty didn't like the film - I adored it. The GN is similar to the film, but the film works better. I wonder if in part it's because it includes the stories from Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, which I'm reading now, which I suspect may make for a fuller, richer story. Still, it's great. Look it up.

flieger

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #248 on: October 17, 2009, 10:29:01 PM »
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - (M. Satrapi, 2003)
Really wonderful. The story of Anoosh is perhaps the most beautiful thing here, but it's one of the most beautiful heartbreaking stories I've read. I never really understood why Adam and Matty didn't like the film - I adored it. The GN is similar to the film, but the film works better. I wonder if in part it's because it includes the stories from Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, which I'm reading now, which I suspect may make for a fuller, richer story. Still, it's great. Look it up.
'Tis a great book. 'Tis a good movie.

oneaprilday

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #249 on: October 17, 2009, 10:31:58 PM »
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - (M. Satrapi, 2003)
Really wonderful. The story of Anoosh is perhaps the most beautiful thing here, but it's one of the most beautiful heartbreaking stories I've read. I never really understood why Adam and Matty didn't like the film - I adored it. The GN is similar to the film, but the film works better. I wonder if in part it's because it includes the stories from Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, which I'm reading now, which I suspect may make for a fuller, richer story. Still, it's great. Look it up.

I agree about both the book and the film. And it is one of those rare occasions where I like the movie more though the book is excellent. (Adam and Matty didn't like the film? I thought they had a complaint about the second half but generally liked it overall? I'm not remembering what they said very well . . .)

 

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