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Post by Ryan on May 31, 2011 22:01:18 GMT -5
Reading Infinite Jest this summer, yay or nay?
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Post by Casey on May 31, 2011 22:05:15 GMT -5
I say meh. I only read it because I felt like I should and I didn't like or dislike it, I wish I had spent the weeks it took to finish reading something better. Hands down the most pretentious thing I have ever read.
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Post by Ryan on May 31, 2011 22:09:24 GMT -5
That's what I've heard some, but I'm still curious.
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Post by Tommy on May 31, 2011 22:17:34 GMT -5
totally going to be conflicted on which reading thread I should post in for the future now that I know this one exists
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Post by Super Nintendo Chalmers on Jun 1, 2011 1:26:02 GMT -5
Too Big To Fail by Aaron Sorkin, about the 2008 financial collapse. It's extremely dense, but it does a fairly good job of explaining things. The economy is something that I know absolutely fuck all about, and I feel like I need to learn. My first instinct reading this was to be all "fuck these old white guys," but I can't really muster that. Not that I necessarily sympathize or feel bad for them, but the whole world of hedge funds and stock trading and banking is so...alien that I just feel like I'm reading about some entirely different species.
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Post by Jessticles on Jun 1, 2011 17:03:14 GMT -5
I havent had the time to sit down and actually read so I've been audio-booking the Wheel of Time series by robert jordan for the past couple of months in the car on my way to and from work. I'm only on book 5 of the series.
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Post by Kathryn. on Jun 3, 2011 15:00:37 GMT -5
Reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins. Hated it the first time I tried, but I'm into it now. I finished The Handmaid's Tale recently. I'm pretty pumped that I'm now graduated and have time for leisure reading.
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Post by Bang on Jun 4, 2011 6:21:27 GMT -5
Re-read Hitchhiker's Guide a couple of weeks ago. I bought a Pride & Prejudice graphic novel at Comic Con which I want to start soon, but other than that I haven't started anything in a while. Not sure what to go for next.
I tried to start Moby Dick recently but it's not really the kind of thing you can dip in and out of, so I ned to wait until I have a holiday or something I think.
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Post by rarara on Jun 6, 2011 21:19:08 GMT -5
Today I was perusing the poetry section at Borders and saw that Sarah Palin's Going Rogue was catalogued there. It almost made up for them not having the Forough Farrokhzad I was looking for.
Annnnd I read Wise Blood in a single afternoon yesterday. Holy fuck. Now I really want a painting of a moose like the one Enoch had.
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Post by Tommy on Jun 6, 2011 21:37:16 GMT -5
ooh, how is Wise Blood? I have the movie in my netflix queue, but perhaps I should read it first
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Post by rarara on Jun 7, 2011 2:13:20 GMT -5
I have it in my netflix queue too. Reading it, I could see how one wouldn't be able to suppress the urge to make a film adaptation; but there was also a lot of inner monologue and that's rarely successfully conveyed in the film medium. I'll see when I see it. I'm not sure what else to say about the book. It's entertaining enough to read from cover to cover in one sitting. The characters and events are distorted and extreme, but their presentation is so casual that they're plausible. One thing I thought about upon finishing it was how starkly disparate the back cover editorials were with what I actually just read. Flannery O'Connor's prose is densley pictorial to the extent that anything else seems bland and formal by comparison—and so effortlessly so. I wondered, why does anyone bother trying to sell it with their own words, when it so clearly sells itself?
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Post by Bang on Jun 7, 2011 11:40:22 GMT -5
Just purchased:
Edgar Allen Poe: Complete Collection of Short Stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver Too Much Happiness - Alice Munroe
Thanks to recommendations here. Will report back!
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Post by rc on Jun 11, 2011 19:07:01 GMT -5
When did we get two reading threads?
Just finished Pride and Prejudice. Took me two months, but I'm convinced I approached the undertaking incorrectly, trying very precisely to decipher Austen rather than read it with fluidity. I restarted after a month of struggling through it, then proceeded to get through the read rather well. Sort of a funny realization.
She's tougher to read than Shakespeare at times, but it held a fun and inventive flow to it that I enjoyed. The story itself was quite interesting, and her humor was wonderful. I loved Mr. Bennet's unwavering sarcasm and Elizabeth's high reproaches. That part was exceedingly wonderful. I love how easy it was to find certain characters absurd; Mr. Collins was dreadful!
Overall, a very enjoyable book filled with interesting examinations on how first impressions can mislead our opinions. Also a delightful romance; the last half of the novel especially held me waiting for something positive to erupt from Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's affections.
4/5
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Post by Casey on Jun 26, 2011 14:59:30 GMT -5
I go through periods where I read three or four awesome books in a row and then I get duds for weeks. It sucks, I'm in a dud phase right now.
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Post by rc on Jun 26, 2011 15:01:19 GMT -5
I get that. It sucks. I'm hoping to come out of it and attempt tackling The Brothers Karamazov for the third try. I'm not sure if I stopped twice because other shit got in the way, or because the read is long and wearisome.
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Post by sarah on Jun 26, 2011 15:20:11 GMT -5
Last book I finished (that I will admit to publicly that is) is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
There are parts that are kind of problematic, but overall, fully compelling and sad and horrifying and interesting. It's been a long time since I actually did not want to put a book down and ended up reading something in little more than a single sitting.
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Post by Casey on Jun 26, 2011 15:21:05 GMT -5
Yeah I was thinking of something like that to get me out of this funk but I just remembered I have a whole stack of books I bought when my Borders closed, I think I'm going to go with the Flannery O'Connor biography.
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Post by Casey on Jun 26, 2011 15:24:16 GMT -5
Oh Sarah I've been wanting to read that but my library only has it in hardcover so I'm waiting to find a cheap paperback copy. I'm glad to hear it's a good read. EDIT: if anyone has an ereader or doesn't mind reading on their computer, check out library.nu/. It's amazing. EDIT 2: They have the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks! I neeeeed a kindle so I can read all these great books on something other than my computer.
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Post by Meredith on Jun 26, 2011 15:25:09 GMT -5
Just finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I actually really enjoyed them both, even though I expected to HATE Freedom. Every review and summary I read about it made it seem like the most pretentious thing EVER, which it is, but I still liked it.
I just started The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Stoked about this.
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Post by Super Nintendo Chalmers on Jun 26, 2011 15:29:17 GMT -5
Hitchhiker's Guide is amazing. They lost me around the third or fourth book, but the first two are must-reads.
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Post by sarah on Jun 26, 2011 15:29:29 GMT -5
Oh Sarah I've been wanting to read that but my library only has it in hardcover so I'm waiting to find a cheap paperback copy. I'm glad to hear it's a good read. EDIT: if anyone has an ereader or doesn't mind reading on their computer, check out library.nu/. It's amazing. EDIT 2: They have the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks! I neeeeed a kindle so I can read all these great books on something other than my computer. I was just going to say that google books has a pretty hefty chunk on preview. Good if you wanted to see if it hooked you...but again, the annoyance of reading on the computer.
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Post by Pillars of Aaron on Jun 26, 2011 16:11:44 GMT -5
Started reading The Time Machine for like, the hundredth time last night. Hopefully I make it past chapter 4 this time.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2011 17:51:41 GMT -5
I bought Paradise Lost the other day. Think it's going to take me awhile to get through this haha.
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Post by claire on Jun 26, 2011 18:17:32 GMT -5
Currently reading Remix by Lawrence Lessig for thesis research. It's really, really interesting, though, and is basically about user interaction with content given developing technologies, and what that means for consumers, producers and copyright in general.
So if you're a media nerd, it's awesome.
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Post by Casey on Jul 19, 2011 20:08:34 GMT -5
I'm reading As Always, Julia and it's really really good. I read "My Life In France" a few months ago and that was awesome too. For some reason the story of how "Mastering The Art of French Cooking" is really interesting to me and I love books that are a series of real letters. In one of the first few ones Julia had asked Avis DeVoto for advice on publishing her manuscript and when Avis wrote back saying she wanted to take it to Houghton Mifflin Julia writes "Your letter has thrilled us all (would say excited, which is my real reaction, but am learning not to use that word because of its more carnal implications in French!)" She's just so funny to me. And also her homophobia is pretty funny too because it's just so over the top/creepy but somehow non-threatening? Like she describes some cooking school in France as a "nest of homovipers." Not in any of the books I've read about her, I think the homophobic stuff might have just come out recently as a result of Julie and Julia (which I LOVE oh man I could watch that movie over and over, but the book was pretty insufferable.)
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Post by rc on Jul 19, 2011 20:40:40 GMT -5
The family is looking into buying a used book store, which I'd then manage. Pretty excited about the prospect. My sister got the first Winnie-the-Pooh book while we were there, and its the funniest children's book I've ever read. Awesomely told and wonderfully British!
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Post by Casey on Jul 19, 2011 20:45:43 GMT -5
Oh my god, that's so cool and I am so jealous! What's it called? When I was in high school I used to search "used bookstore" in google maps and end up going all the way out to Pasadena because the ones in Claremont suck so much.
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Post by Jessticles on Jul 22, 2011 17:20:49 GMT -5
Borders is officially closing everywhere now I went to Barnes and Noble today because I got a giftcard for there and I spent an hour in there and ended up getting nothing. I will really miss Borders.
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Post by sarah on Jul 22, 2011 17:46:15 GMT -5
So, I'm kind of (mostly completely) ashamed to admit it, but I have been reading totally cheesy romance novels for awhile. I have been decently lucky so far in finding books that at least have good enough writing that I can just kind of laugh off the ludicrous plots and give my brain a chance to just sort of shut off. Until now. You know a book is probably worse than Twilight when it contains the phrase "...the masculinity that throbbed like sunlight around him." Yup.
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Post by Terp Torp on Jul 22, 2011 20:56:16 GMT -5
Ha, does sunlight often throb? Is that a thing I miss?
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