Sulphur on 23/4/2009 at 07:04
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Sorry, I won't derail this thread further by criticising entries. I'll stfu now.
Naw, I'd appreciate hearing a different opinion, actually. That's part of what makes discussions here interesting.
Catch-22's a pretty love it or hate it book, yes. The narrative's non-chronological scattershot approach does get tiresome; I remember it took me a good couple of weeks to finish the book because of it.
The last person I recommended Catch-22 couldn't "get" it, and refused to get it because it was so God-damn absurd. Which, I tried telling her, was the point, but she refused to read another page because she couldn't stand it any more. I get the feeling most other women wouldn't like the book either. :D
dj_ivocha on 23/4/2009 at 08:04
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga) The Vorkosigan Saga - a fantastic (no pun intended) sci-fi series by Lois McMaster Bujold, with heavy emphasis on character interaction and character development. As opposed to a lot of other works, the sci-fi backdrop is used to support the character-based stories and not the other way around. (
http://www.sfsite.com/05a/mv175.htm) A review of the series - for reviews of the individual books I recommend Amazon. Also while you CAN read the books out of order, I strongly suggest reading them in the chronological order, presented in the Wikipedia article.
I read all 15-ish of them in less than two months, which is not too shabby, considering I had to work a lot in february and march and also had my studies at the uni and a couple of important practicals and such to do. :eek:
Also (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Seven_Suns) the Saga of Seven Suns, which, while nowhere near as good as Bujold's work, I still found an interesting read, being a sucker for space opera and all. (
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2004/05/review-saga-of-seven-suns-books-i-and-ii/) Review of the first two books, (
http://scififantasyfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_saga_of_seven_suns_by_kevin_j_anderson) review 2.
june gloom on 23/4/2009 at 08:35
Quote Posted by Aja
Besides his letters, what, exactly, of his have you read that would lead you to this conclusion?
A while back I went on a masochist kick and forced myself to suffer through the entirety of
Ulysses. I tried to read
Portrait but I couldn't help but wish I was reading something else. A big part of my problem with Joyce is that he very obviously did not have a good editor.
Joyce is overrated as fuck. I bet half the people who praise his work have never actually read it. (The same is true for Neil Stephenson.) He was also a douchebag whose literary criticism of other peoples' work basically boiled down to them not being as good at writing as him. I think he made his writing incomprehensible so that he could feel intellectually superior to people who couldn't read his bullshit.
st.patrick on 23/4/2009 at 09:06
Screw Joyce, go for Cunningham's The Hours. The film was brilliant but the book is a bit more intricately woven.
Edit: dethtoll QFT.
Ajare on 23/4/2009 at 09:13
I too have recently restarted reading, after a lapse of quite a few years. Books I've enjoyed, past and present would include:
The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Not the most original choice I'll admit, but once you get over the initial weirdness it develops into the most surreal, beautiful and bitingly satirical stories. What is all the more impressive is that the target of the satire was Stalin's regime, and had Bulgakov been discovering writing it he would almost have certainly suffered a similar fate to some of his characters.
Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter. I'll happily admit I'm totally gay for anything Angela Carter wrote, but this is probably my favourite work of hers. So imaginative and well-written, and the heroine is one of the coolest fictional characters ever conceived. Also worth a mention by Carter is
The Infernal Desire Machines Of Doctor Hoffman, which is insanely filthy but again, so brilliantly creative.
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K Dick. He explores some unusual themes in this one, and seems generally more meditative. It's a nice change from his more straight-forward (or at least, as straight-forward as PKD gets) stories.
I'm reading
100 Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez at the moment. It's good, great in parts, but I'm not quite getting the "this book will change your life" vibe that the puff and the raving reviews seem to imply.
Quote Posted by "dethtoll"
A while back I went on a masochist kick and forced myself to suffer through the entirety of Ulysses. I tried to read Portrait but I couldn't help but wish I was reading something else.
Someone once said that children are the best critics of books because if they don't like one, they'll just stop reading it. Adults, on the other hand will force themselves through it because they feel they're either not "getting it", or that it'll make them a better person. I mean, Joyce is hugely important in literary circles and post-modern theory, but I've met very few "normal" readers who've claimed to genuinely enjoy him.
Rogue Keeper on 23/4/2009 at 09:24
Hmm, what should I pick up... Well what about one of my fav novels for children:
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_(Novel))
It is a novel for children, but in many respects it's a mature story. Or at least it seemed mature to me when I've read it around my 10. In may ways it introduced me to leftist ideals early at that age of mine - friendship, cooperation, honesty, solidarity, reasonable patriotism... It affected me profoundly, very pretty book. But I didn't read it since then and I wonder how it can look to a grownup reader today. Worth a shot.
quinch on 23/4/2009 at 09:32
I found The Road very upsetting and I was blubbing during the last chapter. I guess that's what would happen if the only resource left in the world were humans. Now that's horror!
The best new book I read last year and one of the best books I have ever read is The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. It details a disturbing murder investigation in middle England in the mid nineteenth century and chronicles the origins of Scotland Yard's Detective Inspectors as they are known today and seems to have inspired the murder/mystery novels of Wilkie Collins. In short, a gripping crime novel with an unexpected twist towards the end and a detailed history of the period.
Also recommend last year's Booker winner The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.
Kuuso on 23/4/2009 at 11:08
I enjoy a genre what some speak as "reaalifantasia" which is clumsily translated to "real fantasy". The idea is that the books that fall under this category are based on real world, but are twisted and somehow magical. Most books I've read are in that lovely zone, where there's no clear good and evil and the fantasy isn't fantasy per se, no elves and that shit. My favourite must be (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Smilla%27s_Feeling_for_Snow) Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg. It's a detective/thriller story about Smilla, who somehow, has developed a weird sense regarding snow, where she can sense what has happened on it and the like. It's a modern classic.
Ajare on 23/4/2009 at 11:24
Quote Posted by Kuuso
I enjoy a genre what some speak as "reaalifantasia" which is clumsily translated to "real fantasy". The idea is that the books that fall under this category are based on real world, but are twisted and somehow magical.
This sounds to me like another word for (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism) Magical Realism (several of the books I posted fall into it).
