Read a good book lately?

[MathGirl]

I don't think we've done this, at least not since I've been around. I just read "Leaving Las Vegas." It's a short novel by John O'Brien. A dark, horrible, fascinating story of a terminal drunk and a whore. I know they made a movie of it, but I don't do movies much.

The author led me to believe that the hopeless drunk who was drinking himself to death was an autobiographical character. John O'Brien killed himself not long after he wrote the book at age 34.

"Leaving Las Vegas" is not something to read if you're looking for a 'feel good' experience, but it's a very, very good book.
MG
Ps. Anyone else read anything good lately?

 

[Alex756]

I'm actually re-reading one of my favorite horror books right now.

One of my Favorite Authors is HP Lovecraft -- mostly becasue of the nterconnected world many of his short stories are in. HOwever this book is a collection of short stories only one of which is his.

Its called 'Shadows of Innsmouth' The common connection between all the stories is that they have something to do with the town of innsmouth which is corrupted with evil influances and the inhabitants are more sea monster than anything else.

The interesting twist is that many of the big Names of horror have written short stories for this book, and it is incredible to see what differant people do with it.

So many writing styles and visions but they all keep whatever is the core of the mythos.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-5525177-9696733?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Alex756

 

[openthighs_sarah]

Not so lately, but within the last twelve months I read a book by William Goldman called "The Silent Gondoliers." I'm not sure you could find a book farther, in spirit, from "Leaving Las Vegas".

It's a fable about an Italian gondolier in Venice who couldn't sing. It's just one of the sweetest, most perfectly crafted stories I've ever read. I read it in one night, and I cared so much about the protagonist that I wanted to weep.

Sometimes I like darkness and realism. Sometimes I like joy. This was pure joy.

 

[Guest]

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

This is the first in a series about a 'literary' detective named Tuesday Next. In a futuristic 1980's England literature needs to be protected from all sorts of harm, including those who enter original texts to change plots. In this book someone kidnaps Jane Eyre and Ms. Next goes after the kidnapper. (The text also attracts many Japanese tourists.)

Any English major or otherwise well read person should enjoy this. There are all sorts of inside lit. jokes, e.g., Richard III has a cult following similar to "The Rocky Horror Show" with the audience dressing up as fave characters and shouting out lines w/the actors; Surrealism has just been declared legal and there are protests by classicists. Also, Wales has seceded from the U.K. and Thurs. has to sneak across the border. There is also a special forces unit that deals with the supernatural (vampires, werewolves). And last but not least the Crimean War is still going on.

I'm about to start Fforde's second book, Lost in a Good Book wherein Thursday is aided by Miss Havisham.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

The last book I read and finished was a Star Ward book. I am now, currently reading "Hearts In Atlantis" and thinking that it is an incredible book. I haven't finished it yet, but so far...
Excellent.

 

[Quasimodem]

Although it was published about a dozen years ago, until recently, I managed to miss:

“The Difference Engine”
by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

A novel set within a rather intricate alternate history, in a world where, Charles Babbage built a practical - working - mechanical computer, in mid-19th century Britain. Therefore, this alternate Britain is simultaneously going through both an Industrial and an Information Revolution.

While the story is accessible to anyone, it is especially rewarding to those who combine a taste for science fiction with some historical knowledge of the early-to-mid Victorian Era.

 

[redrider4u]

A warning....

I began this book, anticipating a good read. It's entitled: "Beyond the Fall of Night," by Gregory Benford. The book is a sequel to "Against the Fall of Night" by Arthur C. Clarke, a very respected SF writer. Well, the first part of the book was a repeat of "Against the Fall of Night." The second part was the sequel. Man, I have to tell ya, it is horrendous! I like SF and Fantasy, but this novel was one of the most boring, off the wall, uninspiring collection of words and paragraphs this side of WWII. Into the Salvation Army box for sure!

Next up.........."Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," by John Berendt. A re-read. Should be good.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Just finished Larry McMurtry's new novel, "Sinkiller." It's the second volume in his ongoing saga about an English aristocrat and his family stumbling around on an extended hunting expedition in Indian country on the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in the early 1830's. Sinkiller is the nickname of the taciturn mountain man (trapper) who marries the Lord's motor-mouthed oldest daughter.

RF

 

[Rainbow Skin]

I've been lamentably slow with my fiction reading lately, but my two discoveries this year have been W.G. Sebald and Sebastian Faulks.

Sebald's Austerlitz is narration within a narration, of a peripatetic intellectual who over the years starts delving into his Czech Jewish birth, from before he was evacuated to Wales in the War. As well as being written without any paragraphing, which gives a remarkable flow to it, it is illustrated with pictures of architecture, plans, old photos, and bills. A beautifully made book in every way.

Faulks is a surprisingly light stylist. I wouldn't have expected to enjoy him so much, but the story moves forward very quickly and is infused with realism. Birdsong is set in the First World War, and has the brilliant sun and village life of pre-war France as well as the most graphic descriptions of the horrors of the trenches (a subject I would normally avoid). Charlotte Gray is the tale of a quiet young Scottish woman enlisted into special operations in France, in the Second World War, and going off on her own to seek her missing pilot lover. The same compelling mix of personal detail and vivid settings.

Non-fiction: Typology and Universals, Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics.

 

[cookiejar]

I'm in the process of re-reading two of James Ellroy's books. I'm just finishing "The Black Dahlia" , his fictional take on the murder of Elizabeth Short. Then it's on to "American Tabloid", another fictional take on the Kennedy era and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

[krasts1981]

hmm

I like to read late very often.
I red a Vonnegut "Galpagous" and noe reading
Mihail Bulgakov "Heart of the Dog" in russian.

But at this moment i am witing for 5th book fo Harry Potter in my country.

 

[TheEarl]

I'm currently reading SS-GB by Len Deighton. It's a book about what England would have been like if the Germans had successfully invaded in 1940.

The Earl

 

[Lovepotion69]

I'm currently reading Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis" and started on the Harry Potter books too. Wanted to know what the fuss about HP is all about...

Before those I read a King collection of his short stories and re-read LOFTR.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's summer for Christ's sake. I pick em up and put em down.

Rereading another O'Brian: the late Patrick O'Brian, whose 20 or so volume Aubry-Maturin series on life in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars is surely some of the finest writing I've come across in the last 5 years. I realize that these are not for everyone though. Women especially don't seem to like them, which is weird, because I think he's even better than Jane Austin at recreating a finely nuanced world of real and fascinating people. He makes you realize how very great historical fiction can be; not only tells a great story, but puts you back in the time so that you know what their world was like, what they thought of it, what it felt like, smelled like, tasted like. I miss his characters whenever I'm not reading him. I'm also picking up a lot of late seventeenth century speech mannerisms, which is kind of fun.

I especially like to see how he violates every rule you think you know about writing and pulls it off through sheer talent. Makes you realize how silly the rules are.

Also re-reading Mailer's "Ancient Evenings" because where else can you get non-western religion and sex? Read it before. No one seemed to like it when it came out, but I do.

For fun got an anthology of hard-boiled detective fiction from the pulps of the 40's-50's. "Dan Turner, Hollywood Private Eye" is some great over-the-top slang-filled writing, with roscoes spitting lead, knuckle sandwiches, chilled starlets and bodies everywhere "oozing ketchup". It's like a cheap Raymond Chandler on speed. What's cool is that these guys who wrote for the pulps had to churn this stuff out so fast that the plots make no sense, but things happen so fact you don't even notice. It's a triujmph of style over substance.

Non-fiction: history of Route 66, tarot symbology, witchcraft in Europe. Whatever looks interesting in the library. Grab an armful and sort em out later.

---dr.M.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I'm currently reading Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis" and started on the Harry Potter books too. Wanted to know what the fuss about HP is all about...

Before those I read a King collection of his short stories and re-read LOFTR.

His short stories (especially his last collection) haven't impressed me as much. Where are you in "Hearts"? I'm about halfway through the second segment. At first, it didn't seem to fit where the first left off, and because of that, I didn't want to read further. That didn't last long though...
King truly is a modern master. It's a shame he's retired.

 

[MathGirl]

Reread

I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Moving Pictures" for about the third time. Every time I reread one of TP's books, I find several things I missed before. He's always interesting and hilarious.
MG

 

[Dr Richard]

I've read some excellent books over the last few months. The most recent was "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, which I found to be extremely moving. Aside from that "Flights of Love" by Bernhard Schlink is also a wonderful collection of short stories about love, by a German author with a very elegant turn of phrase. It's one of those books that you feel sad when you finish it, because you just want it to last forever. One of the more offbeat books I've read recently is "Death and The Penguin" by Andrey Kurkov, a fantastically surreal look at the life of an orbituary writer in Russia, who has a pet penguin (he got it when the zoo closed). I'm currently reading "If nobody speaks of remarkable things" by Jon McGregor, and it's excellently written.

Dr Richard

 

[MathGirl]

I'm currently reading SS-GB by Len Deighton. It's a book about what England would have been like if the Germans had successfully invaded in 1940.

Dear Earl,
A similar book in another era is "Ruled Brittannia." It's about London under Spanish occupation in the 16th century. Seems the Armada won, and the gre... Spaniards successfully invaded and ocupied England. Marlowe, Will S, and some of the others are resistance fighters.

Pretty good book. Written by someone named Dingleberry or somesuch.
MG

 

[TheEarl]

Q-C: King hasn't retired has he? I thought he was still knocking out 2 or 3 a year.

MG: Thanks, I'll look out for that one. I like books that muck about with history like that. The best exponent of that is actually Thomas Harris, who is famous for writing Enigma, which I thought was the worst book you could read without resorting to Geoffrey Archer. Fatherland is a story about if the Germans had won the war, then the Holocaust would never have been discovered and Stalin's concentration camps would have been the horrific post-war discoveries.

The Earl

 

[Quasimodem]

The Earl & MathGirl,

Since we seem to be getting into a very narrow branch of Alternate History, please allow me to mention one of my favourite SF writers, Norman Spinrad. Almost every novel he writes is in some variety of experimental form.

"The Iron Dream" is the title of a science fiction story he wrote, but that is supposed to have been written in an alternate universe by Adolph Hitler, where he became a science fiction writer, instead of the course he followed in this alternative.

I have read, and enjoyed almost everything Spinrad has written, with the glaring exception of 'The Iron Dream". That, I tried to read on four separate occasions, and failed to get past the first chapter.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm currently reading SS-GB by Len Deighton. It's a book about what England would have been like if the Germans had successfully invaded in 1940.

The Earl

Nevil Shute wrote a book during 1940 called "What happened to the Corbetts". It was based on what had been found out from the Nazi occupation of Poland.

At the time it was thought to have been propaganda, but recently released documents show that the Nazis had a detailed plan for the occupation of the UK with a softly, softly approach while parts of the UK were still fighting and a harsh regime when all organised resistance had ended.

They had written "The Black Book", a detailed list of the thousands of people who were to executed when the harsh regime started. Any intellectuals or deviants were to be added. Their definitions would include almost every member of Literotica. Half a million men were to be taken as hostages for the good behaviour of the rest of the population. Any acts of sabotage or resistance would have meant the death of some of the hostages.

Makes the deck of cards wanted in Iraq look rather tame, doesn't it? The deck of cards were "wanted" not on a death list to be shot on sight.

Og

 

[Chicklet]

I just re-read "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchet and...shoot...someone else...Neil Gaiman. Actually, I re-read it because it was mentioned by svenskaflicka somewhere around here.

I read Harry Potter 5, but I didn't think it was that great And I *am* a Harry Potter fan.

-Chicklet

 

[Guest]

Any intellectuals or deviants were to be added. Their definitions would include almost every member of Literotica.

Ogg, I presume you are assigning the 'intellectual' bit to Lit. members.

necessarily presumptuous Perdita

 

[jfinn]

Like Dr. R. I recently finished The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold and found it amazing. But that was four or five books ago and nothing since has been nearly as compelling.

Right now though I'm in the middle of The Murder Book, by Jonathan Kellerman which is a solid entry in his Alex Delacourt series and as the twist of being more about his usual sidekick, the gay homicide cop, Milo Sturgis. I'm also reading another series book, Hard Eight, by Janet Evanovich who's always good for a laugh-- like her main character Stephanie Plum, JE never disapoints.

I've also just started Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safranfoer which is a fictional memoir of a young mans look at his family's past. This last might be the one to get me to stop thinking about Sebold's book. At least it's promising so far.

Jayne

 

[Svenskaflicka]

OotP... and it WAS a great book, Chicklet!

Powerful, intense, deep... I can hardly wait until I get to read it for the third time! If only my friend would hurry up and finish it, so I can get it back..!