The Book Thread

[Matt79]

I started a thread on Thomas Pynchon and only got one sarcastic reply.

 

[Mr Casson]

I started a thread on Thomas Pynchon and only got one sarcastic reply.

And what a reply!

 

[Beleg]

I started a thread on Thomas Pynchon and only got one sarcastic reply.

Ehm, what were you expecting, seventy page dissertations on the postmodernistic symbolism inherent in V-2 rockets?

 

[Kweek]

has to be playboy




oohw ****.

 

[Matt79]

Ehm, what were you expecting, seventy page dissertations on the postmodernistic symbolism inherent in V-2 rockets?

All I asked for was "which book of his would you recommend to read first, and are they any good?"

 

[_Ed_]

Currently reading "The Fourth Bear" by Jasper Fforde. Fantastic stuff, he's a great writer.

"The others are critical in hospital."
"Critical?"
"They don't much like the food or the staff. They're otherwise fine."

 

[silentstriker]

Just finished reading "Manifold: Space" by Stephen Baxter. Excellent book.

 

[GIMH]

Picked up Hostage a couple of weeks back, and read it in like 2/3 days, it was enthralling. Now I'm reading Zero Game and I shamefully cannot remember the writer. I've lost my way with it a bit though, bloody Ashes

 

[16 tins of Spam]

A Tale of Two Cities blew me away. The best "classic" that I've read so far.

The way that the bloodlust of the revolutionaries and their hatred of the aristocracy saw them condemn one of their benefactors to the guillotine left me amazed. Also, the duplicity throughout the story was clever, and fun to pick out.

 

[Beleg]

All I asked for was "which book of his would you recommend to read first, and are they any good?"

They work well as doorstoppers.

 

[Fusion]

Hasn't anyone else here read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossini?

Just finished it. What an excellent book! In fact, it's one of the best books I've ever read, based on the effect it had on me. The story is heartbreaking and inspiring. The tagline, "there is a way to be good again" is the best description for it. The book has its flaws for sure; there are far too many coincidences and perhaps some characters are a bit too clichéd, but the story and the beautiful way its told overcome all that. They have already made a movie (which has been shown in film festivals but has not been mass released yet). The advance reviews for the movie are as positive as ones for the book itself, so I can't wait to see it.

 

[sledger]

just finished Inversions by Iain M Banks, i know Hakon has read it, has anyone else?

i thought it was pretty good but only really really got going in the last two chapters, very interesting read, but the twist (or supposed twist) at the end i saw coming...but another good showing from a great author.

 

[Corli]

Currently reading "The Fourth Bear" by Jasper Fforde. Fantastic stuff, he's a great writer.

Jasper Fforde is amazing, I agree. I can't wait to lay my hands on his newest book.

I've recently finished Quite Early One Morning by Dylan Thomas. It's a collection of some pieces he read on the radio. It was fantastic to read, Thomas had such a way with words.

I also read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. It was a bit disturbing, but very insightful and very well written.

I've been trying to get a copy of The Kite Runner for ages, it's always already out when I go to the library. Hopefully I'll manage to read it in the holidays.

 

[silentstriker]

Old Man and the Sea

 

[Chubb]

just finished Inversions by Iain M Banks, i know Hakon has read it, has anyone else?

i thought it was pretty good but only really really got going in the last two chapters, very interesting read, but the twist (or supposed twist) at the end i saw coming...but another good showing from a great author.

Yeah I really liked Inversions, it is a bit different from his other books because the scale is so much smaller and consequently it is slower, but he was trying to do something different and I think it works quite well. Showing the effects of a Special Circumstances mission from the other side was a great idea. I kind of felt a bit sorry for Oelph because he didn't get to see where the Doctor was really from. Mind you he probably would have had a heart attack!

 

[sledger]

Yeah I really liked Inversions, it is a bit different from his other books because the scale is so much smaller and consequently it is slower, but he was trying to do something different and I think it works quite well. Showing the effects of a Special Circumstances mission from the other side was a great idea. I kind of felt a bit sorry for Oelph because he didn't get to see where the Doctor was really from. Mind you he probably would have had a heart attack!

yeah its quite tragic really, its great though the way that the references are subtle so that somebody who hadnt read any of the books in the culture series wouldnt know what was going on, have you read any other of the culture novels? The only one i havent read from that series is the state of Art, otherwise i've read them all and thought that they were all excellent.

 

[Chubb]

yeah its quite tragic really, its great though the way that the references are subtle so that somebody who hadnt read any of the books in the culture series wouldnt know what was going on, have you read any other of the culture novels? The only one i havent read from that series is the state of Art, otherwise i've read them all and thought that they were all excellent.

Exactly the same... all of them except State of the Art. I don't particularly like Sci Fi as a genre, but Banks is just superb. I've tried other sci fi writers but they just aren't the same. The new Culture novel "Matter" is coming out in 2008.

 

[sledger]

Exactly the same... all of them except State of the Art. I don't particularly like Sci Fi as a genre, but Banks is just superb. I've tried other sci fi writers but they just aren't the same. The new Culture novel "Matter" is coming out in 2008.

Yeah agree totally, not at all a fan of other heavy sci-fi type stuff, but Banks writes superbly, all of the ones i have read i will be reading again, as there is so much there that one could miss first time round, will definitely be getting matter, as soon as it comes out hopefully, would be awesome to see one of them get made into a film (provided a good job was done of it).

Have also read against a dark background and the algebraist, which although not being from the Culture series are also pretty good.

 

[silentstriker]

Also finished Feynmann's Lectures of Physics. That is mind bogglingly good.

 

[Beleg]

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is perhaps the best book published since the turn of the century.

Think Iain M. Banks/Ursula Le Guin/Haruki Murakami with a dash of Wilkie Collins, the imagination of China Mieville leavened with a touch of realism and the narrative talents of Sameul Pepys - multiply it 10x and you have somebody who begins to approach this dude's talent.