quote:

Originally posted by less_success:
Started going back through High Fidelity. I just like the book way too much to not read it every couple of years.

Great book. Although, ultimately I married a woman with musical taste very much unlike mine, I totally get the characters.

I just started After Dark, Murakami's newest. So far, it's characteristically Murakami. I also bought Chabon's new one, and my son is enjoying it quite a bit. I think that's my next book.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels coffin:
Oh, i think there are a few things even a wise old owl like you could learn, marky-san...

a) did you know we are involved in a war on a abstract concept? i.e. 'Terror'

Next week I'm going out to fight indifference

Very true ~ Orwellian concepts are alive and well today. Big Brother is certainly watching our every move. As long as our fine government can instill fear within the masses, they will continue to reap the benefits of having dutiful followers.
Did someone mention sheep?

Just started Chabon's new book - The Yiddish Policemen's Union. It's kind of funny, and ridiculously catchy, but I don't know why I'm still reading it. For some odd reason, I feel as if I don't really like it, even though I do and I can't put it down.

Great to see the book forum alive and well.

I've just started Pankaj Mishra's rather wide ranging bag of religion, travel and political overview of India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal and Afghanistan, entitled Temptations of the West.

I found a review of it in the Guardian and was thoroughly intrigued.

60 odd pages into it, I am finding his writing style is not particularly engaging, and his insights are not as illuminating as I was hoping for, but it certainly is teaching me a lot about curious forgotten corners of our great wide world.

So far, definitely recommended.

quote:

Originally posted by Sinister:
Just started Chabon's new book - The Yiddish Policemen's Union. It's kind of funny, and ridiculously catchy, but I don't know why I'm still reading it. For some odd reason, I feel as if I don't really like it, even though I do and I can't put it down.

This is one I plan to get to. I really liked Wonder Boys and LOVED ...Kavalier and Clay.

I'm still reading Eliade, but I want to start a novel here pretty soon. If only I could choose one from the stack! A couple I'm looking closely at are The Melancholy of Resistance and Seeing. Anyone have any ideas?

I liked Summerland, but haven't read any other Chabon.

Got halfway through Kavalier and Clay, put it down one day, and it went missing.

Shortly after, my life spiralled a little outta control, and I am yet to pick up the Chabon novel and finish it, ha ha.

That's no good. Was it good up to then?

I was enjoying it, but I haven't been desperate to return to it, so I guess that tells me something.

I loved Kavalier and Clay, and started reading the Yiddish Policeman thingy. I'm really liking it; more than my offspring is. But I have always loved the whole Yiddishe thing. From early Roth to Woody Allen, and this is absolutely in that tradition.

In a different vein, I finished Murakami's After Dark. Definitely minor Murakami. More a novella than an actual novel, and a bit wispy and insubstantial. No talking cats, which I, personally, thought that it could have used.

Talking cats!?
Everything could use a talking cat or two.

Murakami has a thing with cats, doesn't he? Not only talking ones as in Kafka on the Shore, but also in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. My personal favorite by Murakami is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Izmael by Daniel Queen

I can't read that site . What language is it in?

I'm guessing eastern European.

I'm guessing Polish or Czech.

I think Slovenian?

Currently reading? Well, at this actual moment, I have just put down my Mandarin phrasebook.

Talk about tricky languages!!

I could tell it's some sort of Slavic. But...they all look the same to me...

Ni hao ma, Ishmael?!

Xie xie?