Just finished the Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, I'm going to go through it once again to pick up on anything that might of flew over my head
Good move, Sisyphus is really good. Squeeze out as much as you can. I finished call of the wild few days ago (if you haven't read it and like animals, pick it up now), now beginning to read Lebiniz's Theodicy, Don Quixote and Relativity.
On top of Pillars of Hercules (a book I'm really enjoying!) I'm also reading The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. This is my second reading of Birth of Tragedy, let's see how this goes.
Emile Zola's "Germinal." There's a lot of classics I missed out on reading as a student and now, many many years later, I'm slowly trying to rectify that. =)
Not too long ago I got Snow Crash. So far so good. Also, I've been meaning to finish Mockingjay. Don't know why its been so hard to get into.
I'm currently doing that, going through the classics myself, and I'm still on the young side of 25. I recommend anyone do this, and not just the Greco-Roman classics too - which admittedly I'm most interested in. I've found nothing but gems so far, from Gilgamesh & The Illiad to Beowulf and the Green Knight, and then to more recent classics; I have pretty much loved them all if I haven't deeply respected their place in the canon. My favorite area, though, is the Greco-Roman period, I've been brushing up on my terrible Latin just to read them in the original too. That, again, I can only recommend.
Just finished reading The Rum Diary by Hunter Thompson. Really enjoyed it, vividly written, a bit chaotic which was great. Slightly disappointed with the ending though, which I thought was rushed. Felt he was racing to the end, clearing up loose ends as soon as possible and I thought it could've been better served with a more subtle finish. It was written when he was 22 which, I suppose, perhaps tells me still had lessons to learn as a writer. At the same time, the subjects he tackled in the book about being over the hill, and with a lot of his characters middle-aged men, mixed in with some of the brilliant insights peppered throughout the book highlights his talent as much as anything.
Sitting about half way through John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Its supposed to be a classic but I never really got around to reading it while I was in school so I thought I might give it a go. Its actually a really fantastic story with beautiful character development. Definitely worth it so far.
East of Eden is one of my favorite novels. Steinbeck doesn't quite hit the heights he's aiming for, I think, but at least he's aiming high, and he achieves a great deal. It's a book that stays with me. I first read it when I was about 25 or so, and it kept nagging at me for decades. I just reread it last year and it held up. Good, good stuff.
Personal interest, I am doing Philosophy at university though so it may come in handy for an essay later down the track.
I really enjoy how well he sets the tone of the story and then how he uses that tone to make his characters come to life. I've read other Steinbeck works but East of Eden is definitely my favorite.
I'm on an Eastern European fantasy binge right now; Sergei Lukyanenko's The Night Watch, Andrzej Sapkowski's Time of Contempt and Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 (almost finished with that). I like to read several novels at the same time, for some reason, hence it takes ages to finish even one xP But at least I seem to be over my reader's block...
I finished a truly horrible, just God-awful piece of fiction about a traveling funeral for my book club. It was terrible in every way -- the characters were all the same, the character development was nonexistent, the dialogue was ludicrous and not even remotely the way people would ever talk. There was no real plot and the book was just plain boring. But it was also, by no stretch, "literary." It is the only book I have ever read that I have contemplated throwing in the garbage. I still might. I paid $0.01 for it used on amazon and I way overpaid. (Of course, I had to pay $3.99 for shipping.) But, on the bright side, I am now almost finished with a WONDERFUL book, called Countdown by Alan Weisman. (A follow-up to his earlier book called The World Without Us, which is one of my favorite books ever.) This one is about overpopulation. Although it is a tad repetitive, it is fascinating and thought provoking, showing various aspects of the problem from many different countries and through the lenses of various religions. I won an ARC on goodreads, so it doesn't even come out until the end of September, but I highly recommend it to anyone -- it is the sort of book that I think everyone should read, because the issue is so important that everyone should have a basic understanding of what is involved. It's one of those books that I have taken to carrying with me everywhere I go, hoping for an opportunity to sneak in even a couple minutes of reading.
There are some weeks when you know you're going to go through the wringer, so the only option is to pick up a favourite book and crash with it after the evening run. It's for that reason that I've gone back to China Mieville's The Scar. 800 pages of steampunk goodness with complex characters, a rich world, and intriguing politics. It's also not too challenging, which is just what I'll need by the end of the week!
I read "East of Eden" some time this year and loved it! One day, I'm hoping to tackle "Grapes of Wrath." EdFromNY > Yes, I'm definitely finding reading the classics worthwhile! Ah, back on topic: I finished Zola's "Germinal" which I mentioned here a while ago and finished some short stories by Yukio Mishima today.
Just finished Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (Guy who wrote Life of Pi). Myy God, it was striking. That book has stayed with me until now. Yann Martel might be one of the best authors alive. Currently reading Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Re-reading To Your Scattered Bodies Go by the great Philip Jose Farmer, the first in the Riverworld series. It's a phenomenal, imaginative, exciting science fiction/fantasy classic. (Very difficult to classify which one)
I just started my second attempt at The Passage. I bought it when it came out, a couple years ago, and really loved the first 250 pages. Then, everything changed, time passed, and almost all of the characters I'd come to care about were dead and completely new characters were introduced. A lot of new characters. I had a hard time keeping them all straight and following what was happening and I found it boring and just stopped at around 400 pages. I'm trying it again for my book club, and looking at it again, I remember why I loved those first 250 pages and I am trying very hard to get into the next 500 pages. Knowing that everything was going to change has made it easier for me this time, but I still am not completely in love with this second part of the story. I am really hoping that I can get more into it this time.
Started and finished Traité sur la tolérance by Voltaire last night, fantastic as expected. About 50 pages from finishing the Theodicy, I've been a bit lazy recently. Going to start the "Poetics" of Aristotle next.
