Currently reading Rachel Simon's The Story of Beautiful Girl. I was fortunate enough to meet (and hug) Ms. Simon last week at the NYSARC annual convention in Albany. Who says nothing good ever happens in Albany?
Came home to find a copy of Tucker Maxx's I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell sitting on my pillow courtesy of my girlfriend, so that's what I started tonight.
I've just started reading A Clockwork Orange, I quite like it so far however, I am finding the invented language a little difficult to follow.
Junot Diaz's "This Is How You Lose Her." My friend's sister really loves this author and I decided to try one of his books. It's an emotionally hard read so far. I have trouble with the main character's misogyny. Also, definitely not to be read in a negative frame of mind although I respect his writing.
I want to thank people here for recommending "Kindred" by Octavia Butler. The images of slavery in the early 1800s are going to be stuck in my head for a while. I'm trying to put my finger on just what it is about a story that makes it stick in your head like that. I'm now reading "Maya's Notebook" by Isabel Allende. It's very different from "Forest of the Pygmies" by the same author which I finished a couple weeks ago. I want to read the other two in that series, "City of the Beasts" and "Kingdom of the Golden Dragon" after I finish "Maya's Notebook". The trilogy (or rather three separate stories with the same characters) is a more simple series that is a fun, finish-in-a-couple-days, reads. "Maya's Notebook" promises to have some heavier stuff about the tragedy in Chile that followed Salvador Allende's assassination. Allende was Isabel's father's first cousin.
@GingerCoffee you can't go wrong with Butler. You might try her book Fledgling, which is also quite good. Butler's strength lies in her characters, primarily, and how good she is at creating empathy. Her writing is excellent as well, of course.
I have no doubt that she's a wonderful writer -- that's partly why I was so disappointed in Flight Behavior. In particular, I'd heard she was a great storyteller. But that was what I found particularly lacking - the storytelling. I'd definitely be willing to read her other books. But it's not particularly high on my priority list, given just how big my TBR pile is. I just finished a biography of J.D. Salinger, called J.D. Salinger - A Life. It's not the most recent Salinger bio, but that new one is what finally made me move this one, which came out a couple years ago to the top of my list. It was okay - it was more of a dissection and analysis of his works than a true biography, but what was particularly striking was how often he was rejected (always makes me feel better), but also what he got away with. I really wonder how much he could do today, as far as creative control and some of the demands he made about covers, etc. I just started a novel called Finny. Our book club is reading a subsequent book by this author and he is visiting, so I wanted to read both of his published novels. I'm really struck by how this really seems like a first novel, and how amateurish it is in some respect. It reminds me far more of novels I read in my critique group than it does most published novels I've read. Mostly, I see the Iowa MFA coming through in the extensive use of metaphors. Otherwise, I'm finding a lot of the dialogue clunky and lots of stuff that doesn't really tell me anything. He's created some cute characters, and it's an easy read, but I'm finding a lot wanting. I am curious to see whether I think his next novel, which I believe is very different, reads.
I've just finished reading John Safrans Murder in Mississippi. I'm not sure if Safran is known outside Australia. He makes documentaries and is a bit of a trouble-maker. Excellent book!
Hey there! Presently I'm reading the grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck. So far, it seems like an amazing book and well worth all the out of the world reviews for it. This is my first Steinbeck book, though I also am in possession of The Winter Of Our Discontent, and will get on to it after this one.
I just restarted reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I got a few pages into it months ago, but put it aside in favor of some other things. I always thought I'd get to it sometime, but the movie has been on TV recently and my roomie has been watching it and wanting to talk about it. I've told him I don't want to hear about the movie because I don't want to watch it until I read the book, so now I'm suddenly motivated. I'm reading it along with several other books, so I expect progress will be slow.
Re reading 'Letters to a young contrarian' by Christopher Hitchens, 'Good Sense' by Baron D'Holbach, & 'On Politics' by Alan Ryan.
Working my way through Building Great Sentences: How to Write the Kinds of Sentences You Love to Read by Brooks Landon. It is interesting because he argues not cutting sentences down to the minimum, but making them longer, more precise and rich with detail. His focus, at least for the 68 pages that I've read, is on making effective use of the cumulative syntax, adding free modifiers, allowing detail and texture to seep into the writing, like an image woven into a quilt. So far he's only written about it's formation, but I think the next couple of chapters are on rhythm, balance and style. He's not arguing against anyone who says to cut out needless words, but instead promoting that we learn to add the right words.
One Hundred Years of Solitude. I started it a while back, but I took up my screenplay and put it aside. I should pick it back up because it is good.
Done with The Exile, fantastic thriller, by the way, and have moved on to Michael Cordy's, "The Crime Code".
I have the DVD lecture course Brooks Landon gave on this subject, sold by The Teaching Company. He's a good lecturer. He referenced a couple of other sentence-meisters, Francis Christensen and Virginia Tufte, and I bought their books. Pretty interesting stuff, but most of it is the kind of thing I was doing anyways. I'm glad of the positive reinforcement, though. Too many people keep telling me to dumb down my prose, shorten my sentences, limit my vocabulary, and otherwise behave like I'm writing for children. I'm not, and I won't.
Well, it turns out that I am all caught up on The Dresden Files, so I'm working my way through Kay Hooper's psychic trilogies until Skin Games is out.
Am about to start reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" - is a big favourite of the husband's and he thinks I'll like it.
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" - Really impressed by it after the disappointment of a James Bond novel (It was okay, great style, but just a bit boring) Also started Alan Moore's "Voice of the Fire" - Only at the start, it is very interesting though. I am looking forward to reading "Jerusalem", when he gets around to finishing it! On the non-fiction front the one that has most of my attention at the moment is "Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind", by Colin Renfrew - Great stuff!
Hmmm... I never realized the was a video lecture, but then again I only just bought the book and haven't had my computer to look him up I completely agree with your last paragraph. I was at Banes & Noble trying to decide on at least one book about writing and when I read his argument (and a few pages) I was sold. There's more to good writing than simply stating the point. "Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?" (Gertrude Stein).
