Book Chat Fiction - What Are You Reading Now?

Did anybody say Arturo Perez-Reverte ?

I've seen it in shops (I think) watched it being reviewed on the View and I've also been meaning to get it.

It's about these E European immigrants living in caravans in the UK where they live in between mushroom picking? It sounds excellent.

Quote :

Did anybody say Arturo Perez-Reverte ?

El Húsar. I read it a while back and I half read one about a fencer. Swords, not picket fencing. He is really excellent. Have you read his books?

Viva El Capitan Alatriste!

The Fencer and the Man Who Painted Battles.

Loved them and will read more when I can pick them up.

I finished Jodi Picoult today and realised I'd been had. The second half wasn't anything like as compelling as the first. In fact it was a litany of clichés and made me mad as hell that I fell for it.

WbS, there was a lot of medical jargon (and some interesting info about the stars and firefighting) but not a lot of real discussion about the issues - which was an awful pity.

Our book club is discussing this on Wed night - I'm curious to see whether it will be a discussion about the book, the issues, both or an intervention for the one or two with issues of their own.

I have The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak to read for another group on Thursday night. (sorry cf and Jared Diamond)

Kate P wrote:

I finished Jodi Picoult today and realised I'd been had. The second half wasn't anything like as compelling as the first. In fact it was a litany of clichés and made me mad as hell that I fell for it.

WbS, there was a lot of medical jargon (and some interesting info about the stars and firefighting) but not a lot of real discussion about the issues - which was an awful pity.

Our book club is discussing this on Wed night - I'm curious to see whether it will be a discussion about the book, the issues, both or an intervention for the one or two with issues of their own.

I have The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak to read for another group on Thursday night. (sorry cf and Jared Diamond)

That's annoying. Do you (or anyone else) like Douglas Coupland?

WorldbyStorm wrote:

That's annoying. Do you (or anyone else) like Douglas Coupland?

I loved Microserfs when I read it but I was in the middle of studying computer science. He's pretty cynical I think and purposely creates cardboard characters. And I loved how the ideas just kept flying around in Microserfs. It's a bit of a seminal dotcom-age novel. I have tried to get into Generation X from time to time but can't manage it. I think he's a genius though because the first time I read some of the Generation X soundbite things he has in there was a good while ago (1998?) but they've still stuck - "recreational slumming" and "advertainment" especially. I think I'd classify him as some sort of cultural archivist. What's your own opinion of Coupland?

Auditor #9 wrote:

WorldbyStorm wrote:

That's annoying. Do you (or anyone else) like Douglas Coupland?

I loved Microserfs when I read it but I was in the middle of studying computer science. He's pretty cynical I think and purposely creates cardboard characters. And I loved how the ideas just kept flying around in Microserfs. It's a bit of a seminal dotcom-age novel. I have tried to get into Generation X from time to time but can't manage it. I think he's a genius though because the first time I read some of the Generation X soundbite things he has in there was a good while ago (1998?) but they've still stuck - "recreational slumming" and "advertainment" especially. I think I'd classify him as some sort of cultural archivist. What's your own opinion of Coupland?

I loved him up to and including Girlfriend in a Coma, however some of the stuff he's written since seems to reprise the same themes agin and agin and agin...

Read "The Knight" by Gene Wolfe this evening. Very enjoyable if you like fantasy. Better yet, there's a sequel, which I can read tomorrow evening!

Just finished 'Encounter With Tiber' by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes. Good SciFi with a lot of tech.

About to start 'Shattered Sword' - (heavy) history book about the
Battle Of Midway in WW2. Also got a reprint of Yardley's 'American
Black Chamber'. (Yardley is also the guy who wrote 'The Education Of A
Poker Player' in addition to being a cryppie.)

Regards...jmcc

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently reading Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. And I'm really getting into it. I like a good long book and this one runs to just over 1000 pages.

I'm not a huge fan of fiction but I'm hooked. HOOKED!

I read Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago and I have to say I found it hugely entertaining. It was like a superhero book combined with a 1920s epic - a real page turner. I was very surprised to see all the bile this book engenders on p.ie at a later date.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I read Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago and I have to say I found it hugely entertaining. It was like a superhero book combined with a 1920s epic - a real page turner. I was very surprised to see all the bile this book engenders on p.ie at a later date.

She was a fierce smart writer, you know that everything that happens, ever look, ever smile is done for a reason and she gives nothing away. "Why did that happen" is a hanging question on each page. Excellent stuff.
I'm sure the bile is more to do with her Objectivist philosophy which is present in the book rather than the book itself. 

That and the fact somebody could say they like puppies on P.ie and it would attract bile.

cookiemonster wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I read Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago and I have to say I found it hugely entertaining. It was like a superhero book combined with a 1920s epic - a real page turner. I was very surprised to see all the bile this book engenders on p.ie at a later date.

She was a fierce smart writer, you know that everything that happens, ever look, ever smile is done for a reason and she gives nothing away. "Why did that happen" is a hanging question on each page. Excellent stuff.
I'm sure the bile is more to do with her Objectivist philosophy which is present in the book rather than the book itself.

That and the fact somebody could say they like puppies on P.ie and it would attract bile.

Have you tried it?

ibis wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I read Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago and I have to say I found it hugely entertaining. It was like a superhero book combined with a 1920s epic - a real page turner. I was very surprised to see all the bile this book engenders on p.ie at a later date.

She was a fierce smart writer, you know that everything that happens, ever look, ever smile is done for a reason and she gives nothing away. "Why did that happen" is a hanging question on each page. Excellent stuff.
I'm sure the bile is more to do with her Objectivist philosophy which is present in the book rather than the book itself.

That and the fact somebody could say they like puppies on P.ie and it would attract bile.

Have you tried it?

I actually think I did once.

cookiemonster wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I read Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago and I have to say I found it hugely entertaining. It was like a superhero book combined with a 1920s epic - a real page turner. I was very surprised to see all the bile this book engenders on p.ie at a later date.

She was a fierce smart writer, you know that everything that happens, ever look, ever smile is done for a reason and she gives nothing away. "Why did that happen" is a hanging question on each page. Excellent stuff.
I'm sure the bile is more to do with her Objectivist philosophy which is present in the book rather than the book itself.

That and the fact somebody could say they like puppies on P.ie and it would attract bile.

It is a pity they couldn't read the book on its merits. If you take The Fountainhead on its merits as a novel, and ignore the fact that it promulgates a philosophy (and that children do not exist in it), then I think it is extremely inspiring. You don't have to sign up to a philosophy to enjoy it or to take away the grains of truth.

Aye, and I'm enjoying Atlas Shrugged as a novel. Though I am interested in Rand's philosophy and it does add an interesting aspect to the novel.
I see from wiki that some have considered AS as the second most influental book in their lives save the bible!

Anyway, as I said, I'm not a hige fiction far (as I sit here looking at the top shelf of my book case I see 3out of about 30 or 40 books.

However my fav book of all times is fiction.

I also like a bit of Bob Ludlum, which I once described a "dicklit". But don't repeat that while somebody is drinking coffee neat by.

cookiemonster wrote:

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently reading
Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. And I'm really getting into it. I like a
good long book and this one runs to just over 1000 pages.

I'm
not a huge fan of fiction but I'm hooked. HOOKED!

I remember
reading Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' and those awful Baroque
novels of his. They may have been over a thousand pages each.
They certainly felt like it. Some people are wonderful short novel
writers and Stephenson is one of them. 'Snowcrash' was brilliant.

Having met some very strange people who claim to have been influenced by Ayn Rand's
'philosophy', I'm not in any great hurry to read any of her books.

Regards...jmcc

Currently slavering my way through the grim gorgeousness of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. I'm a little over third of the way through and already I want to read it again.

cookiemonster wrote:

Aye, and I'm enjoying Atlas Shrugged as a novel. Though I am interested in Rand's philosophy and it does add an interesting aspect to the novel.
I see from wiki that some have considered AS as the second most influental book in their lives save the bible!

That's worrying. Her philosophy has often been accused of being a cult.

I don't know much about her but I'm pretty sure she was vehemently atheist. I like that many of her readers still ranked the Bible ahead of her!

Just started Jesus: Social Revolutionary? By Peter McVeryy SJ.

I will report back in a day or so.

I finished re-reading Persian Fire by Tom Holland today. Addictive stuff I must say. It'll be useful for a politics essay I have to do for January since it deals with some very interesting and very different modes of socio-political organisation.

A fantastic read for anyone interested in history and Holland already has another book out called Millennium. Given his previous form, it's also quite good. I'm also definitely going to get Conspiracy over the Christmas. I've been too busy to get it before now but I must have it read over Christmas.

Has anyone got a Sony E reader or Amazon Kindle? I was looking at the E reader in Waterstones Dawson St the other day and their interesting things alright. I'm particularly fascinated by the fact that the screen isn't backlit and therefore behaves very differently to other electronic displays. It's much like looking at a calculator's display in fact.

Are you sure Conspiracy is out yet, Ard-Taoiseach? I've been looking for it recently, now that you've got me hooked on Harris. Have a feeling it's only out next Autumn

Will get round to Holland at some point. Am reading the Greek bit of Lane Fox'The Classical World at the moment.

Then it will be two Orhan Pamuk novels - The new Life and My Name is Red. Snow by Pamuk is a fiction must-read for everyone.

Someone loaned me Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South this week as Recession-era Winter reading.

Audi

Did you get around to Magician yet? Thoughts?