The 2nd "What are you reading now" thread

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La Dispute said:
I find most a lot of Murakami’s stuff quite flowerery and predictable, but it’s definitely enjoyable and breezy reading.

Norwegian Wood really hit me.
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I just finished reading Norwegian Wood this morning, and I feel empty. It's been a while since I've had a book hit me like that. The only other books in recent memory that have done that to me were parts of Dubliners and A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce, but those books were a lot harder to read and took a lot more effort on my part, so it was nice to have something a bit easier to get through in Norwegian Wood.

Just downloaded Magic Mountain by Mann after the main character in Norwegian Wood mentioned it, so I'm looking forward to that now.
 

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Seilum said:
Re: The "What are you reading now" thread

"Hark" by Ed McBain (87th precinct novels).... good light entertainment.
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Ed McBain's real name is Evan Hunter. He is the Author of two classics. Strangers When We Meet and The Blackboard Jungle. Both are worth a read.

The Blackboard Jungle actually has a place in history. An excellent movie was made of it in the mid 1950's. The movie opens with the first couple of bars from Bill Haley's Rock around the clock. It was the first time the world heard Rock and Roll and caused quite a sensation.
 
H.P Lovecraft, I've never read anything by him before but figured as someone who has always loved speculative fiction I should get around to it at some point.


I've started with The Music of Eric Zann and The Color Out of Space and really enjoyed both. I doubt I'll read everything, at least not in one hit and at this point I'm thinking of leaving At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward until after I've read a few more short stories.

Next up is Dagon and so far I've also added Pickman's Model, Call of Cthulhu, The Rats in the Walls, The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth to the reading pile.

If anyone's a fan feel free to suggest some favourites to add to the list.
 
Recently:

The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane by Marc Priestley ( behind the scenes noughties F1 was wilder than I thought!)
Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (pretty definitive chronology of his life but surprisingly no mention at all about the Sesame Street movie Follow That Bird)
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (written well but who cares about these people)
 
Haven't read much the past couple months (busy). Recently reread Under the Volcano and loved it much more than when in early 20s. Still find the final chapter a little underwhelming though compared to earlier chapters.

Currently on Desolation Island (the #5 Aubrey-Maturin involving Bligh & Australia).
 
I've sadly gotten out of the habit of reading books since becoming a parent. Joe Abercrombie is releasing a new book on Tuesday, A Little Hatred, so I'll grab it as an Ebook which I should be able to read on my tablet without waking anyone up with light. Hopefully get me back in the habit. I loved The First Law trilogy and the stand alone follow-ups so I'm really looking forward to getting back on the horse.
 
Currently reading The Solar War by A.G. Riddle, it the follow up to Winter World, I’m presuming it is a trilogy. It is Sci Fi thriller. The basis of the first book was mysterious object in space causes earth to become very cold and earth is iced over leaving 9 million survivors world wide. While the planet becomes colder they bring a group scientists together to save the planet. The second book I reading is set two years later. The Alien Intelligence has return
to earth’s solar system set on destruction by sending three vast asteroids towards earth. So far I have enjoy reading this series.

Also read one of his other books Departure which I enjoyed. That book was a stand-alone. I enjoy it as it started a bit like tv series Lost, where a plane crashes but this into an English countryside instead of an island and there is a lot of action. This is also science fiction thriller as well as his other books his written. There is a time travel element to the book.
The book has mix reviews probably for the romance subplot, the ending or they just couldn’t understand what was going on.
 
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Badesumofu said:
I've sadly gotten out of the habit of reading books since becoming a parent. Joe Abercrombie is releasing a new book on Tuesday, A Little Hatred, so I'll grab it as an Ebook which I should be able to read on my tablet without waking anyone up with light. Hopefully get me back in the habit. I loved The First Law trilogy and the stand alone follow-ups so I'm really looking forward to getting back on the horse.
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At supernova in perth i bought a book and was asked if i wanted a freebie with it.got back to the car to find it was Abercrombies new book.mustnt be the final draft or something?or was send out for ppl to review
Read all his stuff so was stoked
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Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
Just finished 'Convenience Store Woman' by Sayaka Murata. A short 4-5 hour read that may not be everyone's cup of tea but I found it quite interesting and philosophical about our role in the world and how we perceive others. Recommended if you're after something a bit different but without being abstract.
 
Badesumofu said:
I've sadly gotten out of the habit of reading books since becoming a parent. Joe Abercrombie is releasing a new book on Tuesday, A Little Hatred, so I'll grab it as an Ebook which I should be able to read on my tablet without waking anyone up with light. Hopefully get me back in the habit. I loved The First Law trilogy and the stand alone follow-ups so I'm really looking forward to getting back on the horse.
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It's the first in a new trilogy in the First Law world, should be good.
 

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I’ve just started reading Phillip Kerr’s noir detective series, set in Germany during the 30s. Very late to the party as he wrote 18 with Gunther as the somewhat jaded private investigator and the author is now deceased.
The first three stories are in one volume so I thought I would buy it and see how I go. Am enjoying it so far, anybody else read the books?
 
I've read five of his stories so far and so its time for a short break from Lovecraft and I've switched over to Rocket Boys by Homer Hickman. It's the biography that the movie October Sky was based on and after years of hoping I might come across it in a second hand bookshop I finally got around to buying a copy online.
 
Just finished a reread of Suttree, which when I last read it in 2010 entered consideration as my favourite novel.

I was shocked by how much I had completely forgotten. In the ensuing years, I seem to have imagined that Gene Harrogate died at the end, and also could've sworn there was a vignette of Suttree being bashed by cops during one of his across-country trips. There are similar incidents in the book (and I read all of McCarthy in a 3 year span so some things may have blurred together), but these two things never happened.

Additionally, I was 21 back then, and reading this at 30 is different in many respects. You feel more lived-in, your compassion is more clear-eyed, you read more closely. You don't really think of Suttree's crowd in any demeaning way, they are just folks you know and recognise without judgment. Maybe I'm growing into Suttree? Some of his depiction of (young) women and the queer generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth, not as authentically drawn as the other folk we see, even if many of them are members of his milieu. Suttree is a fairly reasonable and fair figure, but the second half of the novel includes two fairly dream-like sexual relationships which effectively destroy both women, and only really worked for me as literary allusions, male fantasy and an ongoing wrestling sense of Suttree's damnation. Coinciding with Gene's absence for much of the second half (as well as Suttree drifting away from his barmates), it isn't quite as strong as the opening half, which mainly takes place on the river and the workhouse flashback, with dips into Suttree's family and heritage.

Gene Harrogate remains one of my favourite characters in literature. That section when he is trying to navigate under the city manages to mystically conjure a hell on earth which I found utterly beautiful, the peak of McCarthy's writing. And generally he is hilarious and utterly endearing in his various misadventures.

The dialogue throughout is fantastic, perceptibly full of life. Some of the flightier sections of prose stick out a little awkwardly, typically moments of Suttree getting a little ill in isolation or afflicted by some witchery, but the world-building language is all fantastic. There are only as much as a few pages where we aren't following either Suttree or Harrogate (the drunk junkyard man Harvey and Ab's final jailing from memory), although they directly follow on from encounters with these characters.

Absalom, Absalom! stood up much more impressively in whole to me on second reading, so I definitely regard that as my favourite novel now. This was my first McCarthy reread, so I'd be intrigued to see how well the others stand up.
 
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Have started a Discworld re-read. Have to say it's such a colossal shame so many people feel they should start with Colour of Magic as their intro to Pratchett and then write him off as a 'silly' comedy fantasy writer like Robert Aspirin or Piers Anthony. His first novel really does not do justice to his talent.
 
Roobs321 said:
Just finished a reread of Suttree, which when I last read it in 2010 entered consideration as my favourite novel.

I was shocked by how much I had completely forgotten. In the ensuing years, I seem to have imagined that Gene Harrogate died at the end, and also could've sworn there was a vignette of Suttree being bashed by cops during one of his across-country trips. There are similar incidents in the book (and I read all of McCarthy in a 3 year span so some things may have blurred together), but these two things never happened.

Additionally, I was 21 back then, and reading this at 30 is different in many respects. You feel more lived-in, your compassion is more clear-eyed, you read more closely. You don't really think of Suttree's crowd in any demeaning way, they are just folks you know and recognise without judgment. Maybe I'm growing into Suttree? Some of his depiction of (young) women and the queer generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth, not as authentically drawn as the other folk we see, even if many of them are members of his milieu. Suttree is a fairly reasonable and fair figure, but the second half of the novel includes two fairly dream-like sexual relationships which effectively destroy both women, and only really worked for me as literary allusions, male fantasy and an ongoing wrestling sense of Suttree's damnation. Coinciding with Gene's absence for much of the second half (as well as Suttree drifting away from his barmates), it isn't quite as strong as the opening half, which mainly takes place on the river and the workhouse flashback, with dips into Suttree's family and heritage.

Gene Harrogate remains one of my favourite characters in literature. That section when he is trying to navigate under the city manages to mystically conjure a hell on earth which I found utterly beautiful, the peak of McCarthy's writing. And generally he is hilarious and utterly endearing in his various misadventures.

The dialogue throughout is fantastic, perceptibly full of life. Some of the flightier sections of prose stick out a little awkwardly, typically moments of Suttree getting a little ill in isolation or afflicted by some witchery, but the world-building language is all fantastic. There are only as much as a few pages where we aren't following either Suttree or Harrogate (the drunk junkyard man Harvey and Ab's final jailing from memory), although they directly follow on from encounters with these characters.

Absalom, Absalom! stood up much more impressively in whole to me on second reading, so I definitely regard that as my favourite novel now. This was my first McCarthy reread, so I'd be intrigued to see how well the others stand up.
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I just started Suttree again. I’ve not reread his others, except for Blood Meridian, which I keep coming back to. Got its hooks into me 20 years ago and I doubt I’ll ever get to the bottom of it.
 
Richard Pryor said:
Have started a Discworld re-read. Have to say it's such a colossal shame so many people feel they should start with Colour of Magic as their intro to Pratchett and then write him off as a 'silly' comedy fantasy writer like Robert Aspirin or Piers Anthony. His first novel really does not do justice to his talent.
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Whats wrong with the colour of magic?

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I'm just over a quarter of the way through The Burning White (the final Lightbringer book) and it is pretty good so far. I'm hoping for a satisfying resolution but after a quarter of the book, not much has really happened and it is leaving me a little worried about how much time is going to be left for wrapping up the individual character arcs.
 
mcnulty said:
I just started Suttree again. I’ve not reread his others, except for Blood Meridian, which I keep coming back to. Got its hooks into me 20 years ago and I doubt I’ll ever get to the bottom of it.
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I subsequently reread Blood Meridian last month (was 19, now 30), and honestly I don't really rate it all that highly anymore. The start and end sections are gorgeous, but the whole Glanton section becomes rather tedious.
 
The Sixth Extinction. Important but not fun.

Previously read The Picture of Dorian Grey. Enjoyed the start and finish but felt it lost it's way in the middle. Can't remember the last time I read a book where the main character is an a-hole so that was refreshing.

Richard Pryor said:
Have started a Discworld re-read. Have to say it's such a colossal shame so many people feel they should start with Colour of Magic as their intro to Pratchett and then write him off as a 'silly' comedy fantasy writer like Robert Aspirin or Piers Anthony. His first novel really does not do justice to his talent.
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I tried reading Colour of Magic and couldn't finish, what would you recommend?
 
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