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I just finished The Kite Flyers - excellent insight into Afghanistan and the muslim world. Not to mention the big questions of shame, redemption, friendship, children.
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I just finished reading People of the Owl, by the Gears. I don't know how accurate their portraits of Native American life are, but I find them fascinating.
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I think I've read The Kite Flyers - I think it's called The Kite Runner in the UK. It was by far the best book I'd read in a long time... gripped me the whole way through, made me think, made me cry in places (the last book I actually cried at was Lost Boys, which I read six years ago). It's a beautifully written book, and the writer knows his subject at a very deep level.
Since then I've been reading Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, lent to me by my boyfriend who couldn't believe I'd missed them as a child (nor can I now, they are exactly the sort of books I would have loved then, and indeed still do). I've also read Karen Armstrong's biographies of the Buddha and of Prophet Muhammad - both very well written, erudite and sympathetic.
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I just finished "Wicked," which was amazing, and I'm about to start Tracy Chevalier's "The Lady and the Unicorn," by the same lady who wrote "Girl With a Pearl Earring," another simply fantastic book.
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Raia, I enjoyed "Girl With a Pearl Earring" as well. Grete (wasn't that her name?) was such an interesting character.
Right now I'm reading "The World According to Garp" and "The First Amber Chronicles." I keep having to put "Garp" down because it's kind of depressing, so then I pick up "Amber" to lighten the mood.
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Yeah, Griet... she was! I thought it was just phenomenally written... I really felt like I was looking at the Vermeer painting the whole time. And the characters were so beautifully developed. I can't wait to start "The Lady and the Unicorn"... and that's a work of art I've actually seen, so it'll be even more interesting!
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I should finish Eats, Shoots and Leaves today. I've enjoyd it and there are many things in it that I should remember, sadly, I don't think it'll stick. After that I'm bookless but I should be flying home this weekend and Mom always hooks me up with a pile of things to read.
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I'm reading the misserable faces of my students right now. Pretty funny stuff. 1 out of 25 kids brought back there homework and completely wrecked my plans for the period so now they are writing an essay on the importance of responsibility. I guess I'll be reading those next. Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I finished Orwell's Burmese Days the other day. I'm reading Dan Brown's horribly written Digital Fortress right now, and I'm still working on the The Lands Beneath the Winds Vol. II, but I haven't actually read it for a couple of days.
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I also loved Girl with a Pearl Earring, and have Wicked and Lady and a Unicorn on my shelf to read.
I'm currently reading Something Rotten -- A Thursday Next novel. Recent threads have made me realize just how far behind I am with my reading list!
Posts: 1777 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I'm reading "Wall Around a Star" by Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson. However, the whole trachyon transmission thing is really getting on my nerves, so as soon as I get to the library I'm going to get the first Amber book and try it out.
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I tried reading Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain, and while I loved the ideas and the concept and the ending (I cheated), the writing was so bad I couldn't get through it. It was bad enough to drive me back to "high" literature. Flaubert's Parrot doesn't have the alternative universe and imagination part, but the writing really is better. It's a joy in itself.
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quote:I just finished "Wicked," which was amazing, and I'm about to start Tracy Chevalier's "The Lady and the Unicorn," by the same lady who wrote "Girl With a Pearl Earring," another simply fantastic book.
Wicked was my favorite Maguire book (although I never did get around to reading Lost) and Lady was quite excellent. Girl is on my future list.
I'm working my way through Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, currently on book 5, "Soul of the Fire". I'm hoping to get through the series before the last Dark Tower book releases on the 21st.
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Plato's Apology... in the original Greek. Well, that's for a class, but I am reading the Crito (in Greek, of course) for fun.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I just finished a translation of The Immoralist by some French author whose name I forget. I am about halfway through the collected stories of H. H. Munro, better known as Saki. Next is King Solomon's Mines, but I have actually read that before some years ago. The used bookstore was not out of Zelazny, but I have already purchased all the novels they had that I had not yet read.
I think I like used bookstores better than new bookstores, although both in the same store would be nice.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Space Opera, how do you like the first Amber Chronicles? Have you read any other Zelazny?
blacwolve, do not check out the first Amber book until you are sure the library has the rest of the first series. I had to wait two years without knowing what happened next! Lord of Light is my favorite work by Zelazny, and it is a stand-alone novel.
The Rama series was weird. The first book was basically unconnected with the rest of the series, and was probably the most interesting. I read all the Clarke in my high school library and thought him basically overrated, but my high school library was not very large. I always find books I want to spend my money on more than his.
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Yeah, I've never been terribly impressed with Clark. He's never struck me as bad, really, just not as great as he's cracked up to be. Now, I should say that it has been...oh, probably a decade since I last opened one of his books (could be more, could be less), and I was basically a different person a decade ago than I am now, so it's always possible that his stuff would really appeal to me, were I to reread it now. I don't remember it well enough to be able to tell you what it was I didn't like about it.
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The problem with reading Irving's other works is that Garp is vastly superior to everything else he's ever written. I think you'll feel kind of letdown if you try his other things, I know I sure did. Certainly I never recommend any but GarpPosts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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What I disliked about it was the pace. I can deal with slower-paced stories when done well, such as Asimov's first three Foundation novels. Clarke just seemed a bit too realistic in describing every mundane detail, and did so in a way that neither added to the story nor made me think. On the other hand, it was not like he was a bad author, just not worthy of being placed on the same level as Asimov or Heinlein. Of course, I have never been a huge fan of hard science fiction, and Clarke seems to go in that direction more than those other two.
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And I thought Ciderhouse Rules was vastly superior to ...Garp. Different people, different tastes.
Clarke isn't a storyteller: one who can get you to care about his characters; about whether they have a past, or a future. He's an idea man, who writes to share his often brilliant combination of ideas with others who also like to play with ideas.
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Rendezvous With Rama is disconnected because it was written something like 10 years before the others, and the only one written alone. It's more like a prologue and trilogy. Clarke is certainly an author who likes to put detail in his books, but that never bothered me. Much of of the detail is in there for some sort of reason. His characters I find rather stock characters- they are either weak or strong. However, I never found them boring, contrived or badly written.
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I'm currently reading The Horizontal Everest. Very interesting stuff.
I just finished The Eyre Affair, also a Thursday Next novel. Hey Christy, did you read The Eyre Affair? I thought it was a fun read.
quote:The problem with reading Irving's other works is that Garp is vastly superior to everything else he's ever written.
Gotta disagree with you there, man. A Prayer for Owen Meany was better for me than Garp, though I did like Garp immensely. Ever since I saw The Door in the Floor, I've been meaning to read A Widow for One Year. If the film is any indicator, the book will be excellent.
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Teshi, did you read Rama Revealed? Because that is, chronologically, the last part in the series. Or did you just read them out of order? Garden of Rama is part 3 of a 4 book series.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm still working on War and Peace . I've reat a little over 20% of it. If I started reading something else, I'd never get through War and Peace as it has over 2000 pages. Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Actually, I shouldn't pretend to have read the complete works of John Irving, I'm quite sure I haven't read them all. Sufficed to say, I thought it was quite marvelous and didn't enjoy Cider House nearly as much as I'd been lead to believe I would. Perhaps I'm still bitter Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Danzig, I'm not sure what I think of the Amber Chronicles yet. I'm not very far in (maybe 100 pages or so?). I was surprised that the mystery of who Corwin truly is was solved so quickly; I suppose this means that there's lots of family drama and backstabbing to come. I like it, but so far I'm not in love with it yet.
As far as Irving goes, the only other thing I've read by him was "Cider House Rules," which I enjoyed. I just loved Homer. He is an author I plan to definately continue reading.
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just finished re-reading the King of Ys series by Poul and Karen Anderson. I've always liked that series. Lucked upon it in Half-Price books one day. Before that, I scrounged and scoured and got back all of my Incarnations of Immortality books (Piers Anthony)and re-read that set.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jun 2004
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*mutters* The Purdue Library doesn't have any of the Amber books, so instead I'm reading a book of Zelazny short stories, and then I'll attempt Ursula Le Guin for the 5th or 6th time.
Are Zelazny's books in the same style as his short stories? I'm not sure I could stand a whole book this oddly styled.
Luckily, walking around right off of campus today I discovered that they're moving the West Lafayette library to a location that's a fifteen minute walk away. I'm so relieved, the university's fiction selection leaves a lot to be desired.
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What LeGuin are you reading, blacwolve? Most of her stuff is quite good, but there are a couple that are a bit tedious. Always Coming Home leaps to find. Fascinating idea, but I've never made it through that one, I have to admit.
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I'm currently reading Lamb, the Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal which, although it sounds highly irreverent actually manages to be funny without being really sacreligious. I recomend it.
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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Well...I love Arthur Clarke. Just finished reading "Childhood's End" and "Earthlight". Amazing stuff (for me, at least).
After that (and before "The Da Vinci Code" (I also bought the 'Breaking the...Code', Farmgirl, although I know one has nothing to do with the other)) I read "The Black Arrow", from Robert Louis Stevenson.
Sometimes I wonder how, being a Portuguese Language teacher I find so much time to read English/American fiction. Oh, well...geekness points for me Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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