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Author Topic: Rate the last book you read.  (Read 194326 times)

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #430 on: April 30, 2010, 12:16:13 PM »
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness - Pretty fantastic.

tinyholidays

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #431 on: April 30, 2010, 09:52:59 PM »


The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen

I borrowed this novel several weeks ago from a friend after Reif Larsen gave a talk on campus. Now that the semester's winding up, it's time to return things, so I started reading The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet yesterday afternoon and finished a couple of hours ago. Whenever I took a break from it, I felt called back. What an amazing, wondrous book.


I know photos are something we usually reserve for movies, but a large part of the fun of T.S. Spivet comes from the sidebar footnotes, illustrations, and maps. See, T.S. is a 12-year old cartographer, and that's basically all that I'm going to say about the story of this novel. You'll want to discover it on your own. In fact, here. Let me compile some reasons why you would probably like to read this book.

  • You appreciate the sensation of joy.
  • You like to be reminded of why reading is a wonderful experience.
  • You appreciate visual gags.
  • You like being able to look at a hot author pic on the bio flap.

And many more!

An instant favorite. Joins Middlemarch and 2666 in the list of books I've read in the past year that I will recommend forever.

Okay, I know this review just boils down to exclamatory adjectives, but I really don't want tamper with the precious experience of reading the novel, so please indulge me with your patience.  :)

oldkid

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #432 on: April 30, 2010, 11:35:54 PM »
T.S. Spivit is certainly going on my queue at my  local library.  Looks great.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Abomination

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #433 on: May 01, 2010, 02:00:34 AM »

"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."

Even though I have only read two of McCarthy's novels, The Road and now this, I think he may be my favorite author ever.

I adored this book.  It is just so expertly crafted and had a great pace to it, it hurt to put the book down.  I finished it in just a couple days.

I only had a couple problems while reading it:

      1. Having seen the movie, I couldn't help but picture characters and scenes as they were on screen, and I was always anticipating certain scenes from the film.

      2. I was initially a little disappointed that it was written much in the same way as The Road, as one of my main reasons for loving The Road was that the structure of the writing and the sparse dialog really added to the tone of it.  However, after a little while I stopped caring, because it is so damn good.

      3. Aside from the final chapter/speech, I didn't really like the last few sections.  They felt like they dragged a little bit too much.

These are fairly small things though, and I ate up nearly everything else.  The short conversations between characters seem as though the weight of the world hangs within the words and there would inevitably be at least a line or two every few pages that made me stop reading and think about the profoundness of what was just said, and the eloquence in which it was expressed.  Violent and scenes of conflict had me feeling more alert and worried than most big-budget thrillers, and I never felt lost in the scene.

I am going to head over to Amazon now and buy The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian.  Must have more McCarthy!

4.5/5

saltine

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #434 on: May 01, 2010, 09:13:14 AM »
Quote
I am going to head over to Amazon now and buy The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian.  Must have more McCarthy!

 :)
Texan Down Under

tinyholidays

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #435 on: May 01, 2010, 09:40:37 AM »
T.S. Spivit is certainly going on my queue at my  local library.  Looks great.

Yay! I hope that you enjoy it, Steve!

Tim

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #436 on: May 02, 2010, 06:40:20 AM »

A Nest of Occasionals (Tony Martin, 2009)

This book was such a bloody good read! It has probably been six weeks since I read it, but even now thinking about some of the anecdotes still makes me chuckle.

A Nest of Occasionals is essentially a collection of mostly true anecdotes from the New Zealand comedian Tony Martin. It discusses parts of his childhood in N.Z. and his first few jobs there, and then about some of his early experiences living in Australia. I can relate to a lot of what he says, and his style of story telling is really entertaining. It is perhaps stretched a little here and there to make a more interesting yarn, but never strays too far from the truth.

The thing I really liked about it is that I have always been a big fan of Tony Martin, and although I know little bits of his life from his previous book Lolly Scramble, and from his TV shows and Radio Shows (long live Get This - the only show in the country that would promote Shortbus and Midnight Run.....possibly as a double feature!) it helps fill in a lot of gaps, that don't really need filling, but are just funny to read.

I think anyone would enjoy this book, whether or not they are familiar with Tony Martin, however his use of language is quite colloquial at times, which might make it a harder read for non-australians or non-new zealanders. I also found it was a lot funnier when I had Tony's voice in my head reciting the words to me.

I will have to go and buy this book for myself. The copy I was reading was graciously loaned by flieger, and I am sure I will want to revisit it again.



"Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form, its structure." Peter Greenaway

Abomination

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #437 on: May 04, 2010, 01:22:19 AM »
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon



"I think prime numbers are like life.  They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

This is my favorite book I have read this year, and I have read a few that I really enjoyed. 

The entire story is told in first-person by an autistic 15 year old, which results in a really charming and unique narrative.  I was never bored by this approach, nor did I ever think that it felt gimmicky. At one point, not quite halfway into the book, I thought that it wouldn't be able to hold up by continuing as it was, but then something happens that pushes the story along and the thought never occurred to me again.

Some passages were hilarious, some were heart-breaking, and some shed an interesting outlook on life that I had never imagined and caused me to mull over the idea in my mind for several minutes.  I am very glad that I got around to reading this finally.

5/5

FifthCityMuse

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #438 on: May 06, 2010, 11:37:17 PM »

Behindlings - Nicola Barker

Nicola Barker is an interesting writer. A really great writer, but an interesting one. A messy one. One I really love. There’s a rule that is pretty much standard across the board in writing, best summarised by Strunk & White as “Omit Needless Words”. Barker totally disagrees with this, and it is totally glorious. Consider the following:

“The pigskin was firm to the touch. She tapped at it with her knuckle -  the way you’d tap a tambourine - then she plucked at a string with her index finger. She sniggered, guiltily. It produced that deliciously tinny, utterly distinctive banjo sound - that dizzy twang - that stifled yowl of an angry tabby with it’s tail caught in a malfunctioning cat-flap. She liked it.”

What a crazy, delightful passage. It’s gorgeous language, so evocative, but so over-the-top. You could scrub out half of it and it would be just as evocative, but nowhere near as good, or distinctive.

I think that is perhaps what makes Barker so interesting. She shouldn’t work.  She’s verbose and expansive. She writes stories with no discernible plot and strange, unlikeable characters, and somehow it all works.

Really, really well.

I had an absolute hoot reading this. It’s not necessarily an easy read, and the themes and ideas often sit far deeper in the narrative than is standard in literature, but the search for them is rewarding, and when everything finally comes together in the end, you feel like you’ve read something impressive.


American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Gaiman is a fascinating figure in the world of writing. He’s probably the biggest superstar in the world of writing, a genuine celebrity, but with the talent and the stories to back it all up. Sandman is a massive achievement not only in the world of comics, of graphic novels, but in the world of writing as a whole.

American Gods is a curious novel. It’s a deeply researched, deeply layered novel that, at it’s centre, deals with a theme familiar to Gaiman, the idea of change vs. death, but it’s dealt with in really interesting and fantastic ways. Even tho he’s dealing with really similar ideas to Sandman, the treatment is so different, and so it never feels like he’s treading water.

He has a really strong gift for character, especially Shadow and Wednesday, and a real feel for story and structure. He’s also got the ability to create a mythology down pat, and it never feels unoriginal or bastardized, although it’s probably both. He doesn’t necessarily have the strongest gift for prose, although that’s really a minor complaint, and it’s not as if it’s bad, just very plain, functional prose. Which probably isn’t a bad thing.

It’s not a novel that’s gonna break my top 20, nor is it one that I’m likely to ever read again. But it’s definitely strong, and totally worth reading. And I definitely can’t wait to further explore Gaiman’s oeuvre.


Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martell

Martell is such an fantastic writer. I’ve loved Life of Pi and The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccomatios, and when I heard this was coming out I was super excited. With good reason.

It’s the story of a successful writer, Henry, who writes a novel and an essay on the Holocaust, designed to be shipped together, printed as a flip book, where each half is printed opposite ways up, so that the book can be flipped over and the other part read. His editors turn the book down, and Henry leaves the world of writing. He moves to another city, and there he is sent a Gustave Flaubert short story and a scene from a play. He eventually meets the writer of the play, a taxidermist.

It’s a fascinating novel dealing with art and celebrity, but also dealing with the Holocaust in the most incredible of ways, with the persecuted cast as a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil.

It’s fantastic, daring writing. It’s a relatively brief book, just on 200 pages, and it only took me probably 3 hours to read it. But it’s so worth it. Really highly recommended.

oldkid

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #439 on: May 08, 2010, 11:57:53 AM »




American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Gaiman is a fascinating figure in the world of writing. He’s probably the biggest superstar in the world of writing, a genuine celebrity, but with the talent and the stories to back it all up. Sandman is a massive achievement not only in the world of comics, of graphic novels, but in the world of writing as a whole.

American Gods is a curious novel. It’s a deeply researched, deeply layered novel that, at it’s centre, deals with a theme familiar to Gaiman, the idea of change vs. death, but it’s dealt with in really interesting and fantastic ways. Even tho he’s dealing with really similar ideas to Sandman, the treatment is so different, and so it never feels like he’s treading water.

He has a really strong gift for character, especially Shadow and Wednesday, and a real feel for story and structure. He’s also got the ability to create a mythology down pat, and it never feels unoriginal or bastardized, although it’s probably both. He doesn’t necessarily have the strongest gift for prose, although that’s really a minor complaint, and it’s not as if it’s bad, just very plain, functional prose. Which probably isn’t a bad thing.

It’s not a novel that’s gonna break my top 20, nor is it one that I’m likely to ever read again. But it’s definitely strong, and totally worth reading. And I definitely can’t wait to further explore Gaiman’s oeuvre.


You should catch the sequel Anansi Boys.  It certainly captures the spirit of the original and it almost has the strength of character.  Both of these are among my favorite novels.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

 

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