Though I saw One Flew over the Cockoo's Nest in a bookstore and got seriously tempted to buy it. I didn't. I scanned some more only to find Nobakov's Lolita on the shelf above, a book recommended to me by sb here and one of my American friends. I got out and went to another bookstore where I saw a tiny booklet Of Mice and Men, also by Penguin modern classics. I didn't buy -- and haven't read -- any of those books. I know I know...
Reading Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and while it, thus far, hasn't paid incredibly noticeable attention to the visual makeup of the text itself, there are moments that remind me that the concerns of a poet are certainly the concerns of the novelist. Plus the psychology and representation of the youth's mind through writing is quite fantastic.
Reading--well listening--Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie. I'm almost two-third way through, left with the last two discs. Should finish it before Monday.
Tried reading Dorian Gray. It's probably the first "classic" I've attempted. It was really great at first. The only book I haven't struggled to get into. It was like those first few pages were written for me. Then I get to chapter 11 and it becomes way too much. Sentence length exploded, I just couldn't understand what the hell Wilde was on about. I haven't returned since.
Noam Chomsky's Profit over People. I haven't read much of his work before this, and it seems like a good intro book to decide whether I want to read more of his work.
The Internet is a Playground and I'll Go Home Then both by David Thorne. This man is a comedic genius! I got them both for Christmas and I've not stopped laughing since.
For some reason I was given the new King novel (Revival) for Christmas. I don't know why. It isn't good.
Just finished Five Little Pigs today. Damn, I was close, and yet, not so much! Great story, a little long-winded but worth it I suppose. The two dead characters were somehow the most interesting for me, and when that happens, you know the author has done a great job. Thinking of reading another Agatha Christie novel for next week, and then I'll switch to a modern author. Either Peril at the End House or Murder on Orient Express.
He died in 2013. A great shame as he was a tremendous talent. Just finished Hemingway's Fiesta after misplacing it for much of the last year. Another of the twentieth century's great American writers.
I've not read anything Stephen King has put out since Lisey's Story. Still, I'm curious to read his newer stuff, when I can get around to it. Why is it bad exactly?
I am not that far into it. Now the last Stephen King novel I read was probably The Shining, or that one that contains The Shawshank Redemption and the Nazi story, and at the time I was in my early teens. My problem with it:-. It is lazy, it just feels churned out without much thought or consideration- I mean we all need a pension fund, but I am not expected to read most people's pension funds. I heard that he could rattle out 10k words a day, and now I truly believe it.
Different Seasons is the collection of novellas with Shawshank and the Nazi story is called 'Apt Pupil'. I'm saddened by this, I'd heard about his recently sci-fi novel about going back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination or something. I was hoping after Under the Dome, King had started really trying to produce something really good. I guess not. I'm still going to check out his newer stuff one day, but still, shame.
I downloaded Andy McNab's The New Recruit as my on-the-road book. Yeah, it's far from high-brow, but I like them military thrillers, darn it. It's been a quick, fun read so far.
Having completed the excellent Ilium, I've moved straight on to the sequel, Olympos. I do like my Dan Simmons space opera.
I am in my second year of Spanish classes, and I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish -- not for class, but for personal enrichment -- half to practice the language and half to expose myself to good literature. Reading this book in Spanish is one of the most demanding things I have ever attempted, but thoroughly rewarding.
Any Raymond Carver fans out there? I'm reading Beginners at the moment which is quite an experienus as I was very familiar with What We Talk About... Also, I've been learning to do cryptic crosswordss so have been reading a guide to those. Slow progress so far!
It's a drug, slippery and lewd. It grabs you by the cock in public and doesn't let go. I fuckin' love Miéville.
I used to do cryptic crosswords all the time. Very challenging! I still subscribe to Harper's and the Atlantic magazines, and they have cryptics in each issue, but I haven't been doing them recently - brain is too tired.
It puts the punk in steampunk. There's some work in that genre that's just like "woo... airships!" (which isn't necessarily bad), but this seems to live up to both halves of that word.
