Read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell first.

Just my personal bias, but I remember you asking about it a few pages back. It's one of my favorites, and I think it deserves consideration along with the classics of fantasy literature. It might take some getting used to, as she adopts a 19th century literary style for most of the book, but it's great. I also loved her short story collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Sometimes I entertain myself by casting a film adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - right now I've settled on Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Strange and Ian Holm as Mr Norrell. Even though any film adapation of a 782 page book is likely to be unsatisfying!

I've also thought about reading Pynchon but never have - thank you for the descriptions, kendocubano! Maybe sometime although I doubt I'd really find his books enjoyable if they are as described. But sometimes I like to challenge myself.

quote:

Originally posted by blueskyoas:
Read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell first.

Just my personal bias, but I remember you asking about it a few pages back. It's one of my favorites, and I think it deserves consideration along with the classics of fantasy literature. It might take some getting used to, as she adopts a 19th century literary style for most of the book, but it's great. I also loved her short story collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Sometimes I entertain myself by casting a film adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - right now I've settled on Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Strange and Ian Holm as Mr Norrell. Even though any film adapation of a 782 page book is likely to be unsatisfying!

Oh I definitely will. I am surely taking my sweet time on the last Harry Potter book, but I already got a copy of the Clarke book and am looking forward. It’s interesting that you mention a possible film version. About a day after kendo recommended me the book, the A.V. Club did a feature of books that should be turned into films very soon. Guess which one was the second one they mentioned?

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
Oh I definitely will. I am surely taking my sweet time on the last Harry Potter book, but I already got a copy of the Clarke book and am looking forward. It’s interesting that you mention a possible film version. About a day after kendo recommended me the book, the A.V. Club did a feature of books that should be turned into films very soon. Guess which one was the second one they mentioned?

Cool! I'm excited it's already in the works. And they thought of Ian Holm too...

being half the way thru a biography of Al Capone I am sad about the evil in the world. What a bastard jerk he was.

I just finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". It was an enjoyable and quick read, but I feel that it lapsed into several apocalypse cliches (sometimes the whole road thing reminded me of Mad Max) and, with a few notable exceptions, lacked the philosophical insights on good and evil that are so beautifully illustrated in his earlier works (namely "Blood Meridian").

I have just started a bit of school reading. I am reading Max Weber for the first time and find his "Sociology of Religion" to be an interesting historico-sociological analysis of the evolution of global religion. There are certainly some large gaps (especially concerning African religion) and he is clearly writing in the Hegelian dialectical tradition, but, thus far, I find it to be an insightful examination of religion that, for the most part, avoids the pitfalls of provincialism and antisemitism that tends to plague European writers of this period.

Well, yesterday I started Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I am about ten pages in and so far, it seems promising.

just started The Raw Shark Texts.

i am riveted.

I'm currently picking up on where I left off on Vernon God Little 3 years back.

And I'm itching to get a copy of Zadie Smith's On Beauty.

I really didn't like On Beauty, despite having liked White Teeth, and, especially, Autograph Man. I just hated the characters. I found them reprehensible. While I don't have to "like" characters in order to enjoy a book, it helps if there is someone I can identify with. If I feel like I'm spending company with people I actively dislike, though, it's hard for me to want to keep reading, no matter how well done the thing is technically.

Couldn't agree more with you k/c and the sunshine band. If the characters are the kind of people you would run a million miles from in real life, well then....

Currently reading: Gawain & the Green Knight. (Trans. Simon Armitage)

Another very recent translation by Penguin is not quite in the league of Armitage's delightful rhythms and musicality methinks, so after a quick squizz in the bookshop I bought Mr. Simon's.
Gee but its great.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels Coffin:
Currently reading: Gawain & the Green Knight. (Trans. Simon Armitage)

A longtime favorite of mine. I don't know whose translation I read, but I always loved it. It helps that I love the Middle Ages.

I finished Suite Francaise while on vacation and thought it was simply magnificent. Reading her notes for the third part, "Captivity," makes me incredibly sad that she was unable to finish it. She was planning to bring characters from the first and second parts together and develop it more. What a shame!

So I just started another, shorter work by Irene Nemirovsky that was just published this year, Fire in the Blood. I also saw that a four volume collection containing several of the novels which were published during her lifetime is set to be released next year. I'm eagerly looking forward to it. She is such a wonderful writer.

quote:

Originally posted by DrAwesome:
I just finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". It was an enjoyable and quick read, but I feel that it lapsed into several apocalypse cliches (sometimes the whole road thing reminded me of Mad Max) and, with a few notable exceptions, lacked the philosophical insights on good and evil that are so beautifully illustrated in his earlier works (namely "Blood Meridian").

I liked The Road. Incredibly bleak and sad but very moving and I thought a fairly realistic portrait of a desolate, post-destruction world. Well worth the read.

I just re-read No Country for Old Men in advance of seeing what the Coens have done.

Extraordinary writing, and possibly most reminiscent of McCarthy's Suttree for me.

He tells of the empty, confused streets of small town, rural America so well, and the empty confused folk who populate them.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels Coffin:
I just re-read No Country for Old Men in advance of seeing what the Coens have done.

Extraordinary writing, and possibly most reminiscent of McCarthy's Suttree for me.

He tells of the empty, confused streets of small town, rural America so well, and the empty confused folk who populate them.

I'll be finishing it up in a couple days.

Bloody hell! My school (in China) has just scored some ancient paperbacks from an Australian school library, mostly B grade action stuff, however Alistair MacLean, who I love dearly, is in there with The Satan Bug.

Ooohh! Its all mysterious military goings on and wise cracking anti-heroes...what a joy!

Finished "Calamity Physics," and really enjoyed it. Just started a new biography of Marco Polo. So far so good.

As I was writing, I realized that I had written "Macro Polo." It made me imagine "I can haz Xanadu?" with some cheerful looking cat!

' The Cold War' by John Lewis Gaddis.

It serves as a reasonably useful intro to most of the major points of the war that wasn't, but it is missing a great deal of important stuff, such as Latin America's role in the great game, and it canonizes the disgusting Ronald Reagan, to the point of ascribing ideas to him that were Gorbachev's in actuality.

So apart from its pro-American bias, and some dodgy conclusions, its worth a read if you want a primer.

Currently reading "the boy in the striped pajamas".

Just finished up "the Road" for the second time! And "blindness" by saramago.

quote:

Originally posted by hudson:
And "blindness" by saramago.

That's a pretty messed up book. I liked it though.