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[SolKane]

Just finished Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Read this after Women and Ham on Rye. Don't know what it is about these books, but it is just fascinating to read about someone being pretty much a dick who does not give a fuck in every sense of the phrase.
Next up will likely me Lamb by Christopher Moore

This is his second best book, after Ham on Rye, which is a much more intimate look at the Chinaski persona (his own life thinly veiled). I thought Women was pretty bad, almost unreadable, but I tend to finish a book once I've started it. Few people give him credit as a humorous writer, and I think Post Office shows that side of his writing best. I never got around to reading Factotum, but I did read Hollywood, which has some very outrageous caricatures of show biz personalities (such as Francois Truffaut). It's not great but if you like his work you'd probably enjoy it. I do generally feel that Bukowski is a fairly lousy writer.

 

[alex chilton]

Almost done with A Stranger In A Strange Land. Not as good as I thought it would be, but I found mostly part 5 to be interesting to me.

Anyone else who's read this book recently just keep imagining Bert Cooper as Jubal??

 

[Ratrat]

Anyone read Embassytown yet?

 

[Atruvius]

Yesterday I started reading Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. I haven't even read one thirds of the book but I can say it is great. I really like its world and it's first cyberpunk book I've read.

 

[Sleepy]

Anyone read Embassytown yet?

Is that out? The City and The City is one of my all-time fav books. I will definitely check this out.

Did you like Kraken?

 

[Ashes]

Reading:

5. "In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka: An elaborate torture and execution device that carves a sentence into a prisoner’s skin before death is at the center of this famous short story by Kafka.

Edit:

Should really give credit to this list.

You can read it yourself here.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

Are there any books (fiction/non fiction) about being chased or hunted in the woods? I know its a weird request but I have wanted to read such a book for a long time and can't seem to find one. Almost a combination of Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Wolf Creek meets Alan Wake.

 

[phisheep]

Are there any books (fiction/non fiction) about being chased or hunted in the woods? I know its a weird request but I have wanted to read such a book for a long time and can't seem to find one. Almost a combination of Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Wolf Creek meets Alan Wake.

Two of Jeffrey Deaver's do this rather well. One of them is "The Bodies Left Behind". I'll have a rummage and see if I can find the other one. Rummage failed.

 

[BanShunsaku]

Finished:

Better than I was expecting, so I moved straight on to:

Also started, in preparation for TW2 this week:

 

[besada]

Just finished the Scalzi "Old Man's War" books. I enjoyed them. Like reading Heinlein if Heinlein had been a fanboy of other science-fiction writers.

Not sure what I'm reading next. Just finished the last Hiaasen books I hadn't read (which is a goddamn shame) and am going back and forth about re-reading ASoIaF, re-reading the entire Fletch run, or digging into Stross and some Mieville I'm behind on (City and Kraken). Or jump back into Lankhmar.

Choices, choices, choices.

Oh, I read the first of Robert Sawyer's "Hominid" series. Neat idea, but he's a terrible writer. He shouldn't be allowed to write female characters, in particular. I don't think I can make myself slog through the other two.

I also just read the three Queen and Country novels, which were great. I read them in order with the comic book series, and the overall result was an amazing reading experience. I want more Tara Chace.

 

[Pau]

Finished A Visit From the Goon Squad for the GAF Book Club. I didn't really enjoy it but I guess I'll leave my review for when everyone else has finished as well.

Just started:

It's written in a style that can seem very jarring at first: no quotation marks or even separate sentences for dialogue. However, Saramago is a good enough writer that after the first couple of pages it's not a problem. I'm only about thirty pages in so I'm not quite sure where this is going, but it's definitely keeping me interested.

I also just read the three Queen and Country novels, which were great. I read them in order with the comic book series, and the overall result was an amazing reading experience. I want more Tara Chace.

As a Greg Rucka fan I should definitely start reading these as well. I thought the novels were adaptations of the comic series, but apparently that's not the case? That's interesting; I've never seen a series done like that.

 

[besada]

As a Greg Rucka fan I should definitely start reading these as well. I thought the novels were adaptations of the comic series, but apparently that's not the case? That's interesting; I've never seen a series done like that.

The first novel takes place immediately before the final four issues of Q&C. The other two take place after the end of the comics series. Same characters, more complex stories, and Chace gets fucked up more. If you like the comics, I can't think of any reason not to read the novels.

 

[Femmeworth]

Dare Truth or Promise by Paula Boock (1998)
LGBTQ Young Adult Fiction

Mini-review (I suppose)
A short but gripping and dramatic read about first love, conformity, and identity. Basically a girl meets girl book set in New Zealand, presumably during the 90s. Starts off really sweet but progressively gets more dramatic and climaxes, with a hopeful ending. Being depressed and a LGBTQ person made the climax and events leading up to it hard to read, expecting a bad ending. However, it came through in the end.

My next LBGTQ read is planned to be

Fingersmith by Sarah Walters (2002)

Heard good things and looking forward to reading it.

 

[choodi]

So I am about to finish The Blade Itself and was trying to decide what book to read next...

On my Kindle is:

Don Quixote - Cervantes
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The complete works of William Shakespeare
The Republic - Plato
The Ware Tetralogy - Rudy Rucker
Born to Run - Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Paradise War - Stephen Lawhead

Recommendations?

 

[Salazar]

Read Mort, by Pratchett.

 

[Alex Connolly]

A Land Half Won - Geoffrey Blainey.

 

[meadowrag]

Just finished The Possessed by Dostoevsky.
Great book, although I found it to not be in the same class as his more famous works.

As usual after I finish a book, I research it online to read up on some critical analysis, and my god, I had no idea that Constance Garnett (a very prolific and renowned translator of Russian literature) was being so pervasively and violently blasted these days. Her work is under great attack in favor of a new couple who have been gathering awards recently like they are raindrops. I almost think they have the most functional and expert-driven marketing team that has ever existed at their disposal, working at a rate hitherto inconceivable. I looked up one of their translations on Amazon, and 9 out of 10 reviews were praising the translators themselves without the briefest mention of the virtues of the book itself, LOL. Not to mention that these new translations tend to cost double what the timeless, tested, and classic Garnett translations cost.

They can fuck right off.

 

[bumbillbee]

Just finished The Possessed by Dostoevsky.
Great book, although I found it to not be in the same class as his more famous works.

As usual after I finish a book, I research it online to read up on some critical analysis, and my god, I had no idea that Constance Garnett (a very prolific and renowned translator of Russian literature) was being so pervasively and violently blasted these days. Her work is under great attack in favor of a new couple who have been gathering awards recently like they are raindrops. I almost think they have the most functional and expert-driven marketing team that has ever existed at their disposal, working at a rate hitherto inconceivable. I looked up one of their translations on Amazon, and 9 out of 10 reviews were praising the translators themselves without the briefest mention of the virtues of the book itself, LOL. Not to mention that these new translations tend to cost double what the timeless, tested, and classic Garnett translations cost.

They can fuck right off.

While Constance Garnett was hugely important for both Russian lit and translation in general, and her translations aren't unreadable or anything like more extreme criticisms, I do prefer other translations of Russian literature, including Pevear and Volokhonsky. I think a lot of the newer translations are much more readable and more faithful to the original text (I don't speak Russian, so maybe the examples I've seen cited are skewed). Of course, I don't agree with some people who think that reading a Garnett translation somehow ruins the book, and I appreciate what she did, but I think P&V have produced some damn fine translations. And as a French speaker, I'm eternally grateful to them for leaving the French parts of War and Peace untranslated (with footnote translations).

I have a copy of The Possessed at home. I haven't read any Dostoevsky in a while, so I look forward to giving my copies of that and The Idiot the attention they deserve.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Dune, for the first time. I have some brief memories from seeing the film when I was a kid, just moments here and there, but otherwise am reading it from the viewpoint of someone who knows nothing.

Very weird so far.

 

[meadowrag]

While Constance Garnett was hugely important for both Russian lit and translation in general, and her translations aren't unreadable or anything like more extreme criticisms, I do prefer other translations of Russian literature, including Pevear and Volokhonsky. I think a lot of the newer translations are much more readable and more faithful to the original text (I don't speak Russian, so maybe the examples I've seen cited are skewed). Of course, I don't agree with some people who think that reading a Garnett translation somehow ruins the book, and I appreciate what she did, but I think P&V have produced some damn fine translations.

I think my main problem with this new wave of P&V is that it seems like it's become a trend, where you have all of these people proclaiming that the new translations are superior in terms of capturing the true and intended voice of the author, and yet none of these people speak Russian anyways.
I'm sure P&V do nice translations, and that the proper authorities have come to a consensus regarding the validity of their translations, (otherwise we wouldn't be discussing them right now) but do their translations displace Constance entirely?

Perhaps I'm simply biased in that I'm a classicist who enjoys the "time capsule" quality of Garnett's diction. As an English speaker I feel it better captures the feel of the setting and time period of the novels, although "the feel" of the novel is the most frequent thing cited as a mark against her.

It's kind of like that cultural phenomenon where people in fiction who belong to a certain higher class or who are part of an imaginary empire invariably speak with a British accent, even though there is no such thing as Great Britain in that imaginary world. It's just the aesthetic of it, you know?

And as a French speaker, I'm eternally grateful to them for leaving the French parts of War and Peace untranslated (with footnote translations).

I'm not sure if Constance always does this or not, but I do know in the case of the Possessed, there is a certain character who lapses into French very frequently, and she translates it only in the footnotes. Perhaps she left it as such because "lapsing into French" is a very defining feature of that character.
I also just flipped through my Constance copy of War and Peace and immediately noticed some French dialogue, but for me it's impossible to say how heavy she may or may not have altered it's presence.

I have a copy of The Possessed at home. I haven't read any Dostoevsky in a while, so I look forward to giving my copies of that and The Idiot the attention they deserve.

I finished The Idiot for the first time a few months ago, immediately before I started The Possessed. Very entertaining read.

 

[bumbillbee]

I think my main problem with this new wave of P&V is that it seems like it's become a trend, where you have all of these people proclaiming that the new translations are superior in terms of capturing the true and intended voice of the author, and yet none of these people speak Russian anyways.
I'm sure P&V do nice translations, and that the proper authorities have come to a consensus regarding the validity of their translations, (otherwise we wouldn't be discussing them right now) but do their translations displace Constance entirely?

Perhaps I'm simply biased in that I'm a classicist who enjoys the "time capsule" quality of Garnett's diction. As an English speaker I feel it better captures the feel of the setting and time period of the novels, although "the feel" of the novel is the most frequent thing cited as a mark against her.

Oh, I definitely agree. Some people act like newer translations have somehow unlocked the text like the Bible Code, which is ridiculous. I do like P&V's system, where the wife who's a native speaker translates the text in a literal fashion and the husband reworks it back into English. And that appeals to me as a linguistics student, much like her translations appeal to you as a classicist. Of course, I do enjoy that "time capsule" quality from time to time, like in Baudelaire's translations of Poe, which are just awesome. So I guess our different opinions and backgrounds here prove that you can never have one "definitive" translation. If people are pretending that P&V are so amazing and faithful that no other translation can even come close and that Tolstoy himself would rise from the grave and thank them, then they're idiots. But I love having a choice.

I finished The Idiot for the first time a few months ago, immediately before I started The Possessed. Very entertaining read.

I read the first 100 pages or so a while back, but I'll probably have to start over. Not that I'm complaining; Dostoevsky is the shit.

And to answer the actual topic, I just today finished Thomas Pynchon's V. I've been on a Pynchon kick the past few months with Against the Day, Mason & Dixon, and now this. Can't wait to re-tackle Gravity's Rainbow this summer. I was 16 or so when I first tried it and it kicked my ass.

 

[Lard]

Yashakiden - The Demon Princess by Hideyuki Kikuchi

 

[kittens]

I'm reading three things right now:

Heavy shit. Especially the last one.

 

[Iksenpets]

Been reading this and it's been going pretty quickly. Really, really good book if you're into history or evolutionary biology or both.

And been very slowly working my way through this, in response to all the talk DFW has been getting with the publication of The Pale King. I'm enjoying it, though I'm hardly more than 10% into the behemoth of a thing.

 

[phisheep]

So I am about to finish The Blade Itself and was trying to decide what book to read next...

On my Kindle is:

Don Quixote - Cervantes
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The complete works of William Shakespeare
The Republic - Plato
The Ware Tetralogy - Rudy Rucker
Born to Run - Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Paradise War - Stephen Lawhead

Recommendations?

Er, I wouldn't take Shakespeare all in one go. Knock 'em off one at a time. Might start with one of these: Macbeth (short and bloody), Henry V (bloody long, but at least you will have killed off the biggest one), Titus Andronicus (just plain bloody).

EDIT: Oh, and take just the one sonnet each morning and combine it with one of Bach's preludes-and-fugues and a bacon sandwich. Wonderful start to the day.

Don Quixote needs to be taken in small doses, preferably when you're reading something else alongside - it helps the flow and you don't notice some of the turgidity so much.

Alice can be zapped at a sitting.

Take Plato one dialogue at a time with think time in between.

Oh fuck it, just read Mort.

 

[storl026]

 

[choodi]

Er, I wouldn't take Shakespeare all in one go. Knock 'em off one at a time. Might start with one of these: Macbeth (short and bloody), Henry V (bloody long, but at least you will have killed off the biggest one), Titus Andronicus (just plain bloody).

EDIT: Oh, and take just the one sonnet each morning and combine it with one of Bach's preludes-and-fugues and a bacon sandwich. Wonderful start to the day.

Don Quixote needs to be taken in small doses, preferably when you're reading something else alongside - it helps the flow and you don't notice some of the turgidity so much.

Alice can be zapped at a sitting.

Take Plato one dialogue at a time with think time in between.

Oh fuck it, just read Mort.

Thanks for the tips

 

[sparky2112]

And been very slowly working my way through this, in response to all the talk DFW has been getting with the publication of The Pale King. I'm enjoying it, though I'm hardly more than 10% into the behemoth of a thing.

Well, imho, you're over the IJ 'hump'. The first 100-ish pages are the toughest, because it's fairly disjointed. Actually, now that I've just said that, I think the same is true of The Pale King. I stuttered up to about page 80 and it took off like a rocket for me after that. Love it.

 

[sparky2112]

Perhaps I'm simply biased in that I'm a classicist who enjoys the "time capsule" quality of Garnett's diction. As an English speaker I feel it better captures the feel of the setting and time period of the novels, although "the feel" of the novel is the most frequent thing cited as a mark against her.

I feel the same way with Proust. The original, by Moncrief, is almost impossible to find now, but I found an old, old printing of the first volume and compared it against the newer Kilmartin and found that I actually preferred the 'purple' prose of Moncrief (which is the primary complaint leveled against it - that Moncrief 'flowered up' the language). Well, okay, then flower away, I say.

 

[Salazar]

Moncrieff anonymously reviewed his own translation and badgered Proust about hurrying up.

The man was a winner.

 

[JCX]

Just started "Infinite Jest" yesterday.

 

[Shiv47]

Started reading Bill James' Popular Crime, but quit about 50 pages in; the writing is terrible. Stick to baseball, Bill. Moving on Erik Larsen's In the Garden of Beasts, and eagerly awaiting the release of Miller and Shales' Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN.

 

[VistraNorrez]

Perhaps I'm simply biased in that I'm a classicist who enjoys the "time capsule" quality of Garnett's diction. As an English speaker I feel it better captures the feel of the setting and time period of the novels, although "the feel" of the novel is the most frequent thing cited as a mark against her.

It's kind of like that cultural phenomenon where people in fiction who belong to a certain higher class or who are part of an imaginary empire invariably speak with a British accent, even though there is no such thing as Great Britain in that imaginary world. It's just the aesthetic of it, you know?

That's perfectly fine but please don't act so condescending to people that prefer the P&V translation. And Constance Garnett has been criticized for a long time. Nabokov really hated her.

And here's an interesing article on translations from the New Yorker. Garnett is a big focus.

Here's an interesting passage form the article: "Garnett’s flaws were not the figment of a native speaker’s snobbery. She worked with such speed, with such an eye toward the finish line, that when she came across a word or a phrase that she couldn’t make sense of she would skip it and move on."

I'll give this to Garnett, her translations are still very readable today when many older translations aren't.

 

[Kunan]

Man oh man do I love me some Crichton.

 

[rocksteady1983]

So far so good. About a third of the way done.

 

[Guileless]

Finished A Visit From the Goon Squad for the GAF Book Club. I didn't really enjoy it but I guess I'll leave my review for when everyone else has finished as well.

Finished it last night too, but I thought it was great and exceeded my expectations (hard to do since it was on every 'Best of' list published.)

Will also reserve thoughts until everyone is finished.

 

[aidan]

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht. Awesome and eerily similar to a novel I am currently in the midst of re-writing myself.

 

[Karakand]

So I am about to finish The Blade Itself and was trying to decide what book to read next...

On my Kindle is:

Don Quixote - Cervantes
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The complete works of William Shakespeare
The Republic - Plato
The Ware Tetralogy - Rudy Rucker
Born to Run - Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Paradise War - Stephen Lawhead

Recommendations?

shakespeare

 

[Maklershed]

Currently reading Kindred on my Kindle


Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

 

[omgkitty]

I am still reading this. Will hopefully finish it tonight:

I also have this on the way from Amazon. I keep hearing everyone say that Infinite Jest is his best work and that this isn't as good, especially after reading Infinite Jest, therefor I am going to read it first. Makes sense right?:

 

[sparky2112]

I also have this on the way from Amazon. I keep hearing everyone say that Infinite Jest is his best work and that this isn't as good, especially after reading Infinite Jest, therefor I am going to read it first. Makes sense right?:

It's not bad; it's like watching a Cy Young winner throw some practice pitches before tossing a no-hitter. I mean, it was one of his two undergrad theses, so don't expect a masterpiece. At the time though, given the amount of stuff he turned in? He probably left quite a few profs slack-jawed.

 

[omgkitty]

It's not bad; it's like watching a Cy Young winner throw some practice pitches before tossing a no-hitter. I mean, it was one of his two undergrad theses, so don't expect a masterpiece. At the time though, given the amount of stuff he turned in? He probably left quite a few profs slack-jawed.

I just feel like I will enjoy it more if I don't know what he's fully capable of. I usually like to start from the beginning when it comes to author's regardless and I really like the artwork (cause that's why you read a book right? haha)

 

[SolKane]

Just finished The Possessed by Dostoevsky.
Great book, although I found it to not be in the same class as his more famous works.

As usual after I finish a book, I research it online to read up on some critical analysis, and my god, I had no idea that Constance Garnett (a very prolific and renowned translator of Russian literature) was being so pervasively and violently blasted these days. Her work is under great attack in favor of a new couple who have been gathering awards recently like they are raindrops. I almost think they have the most functional and expert-driven marketing team that has ever existed at their disposal, working at a rate hitherto inconceivable. I looked up one of their translations on Amazon, and 9 out of 10 reviews were praising the translators themselves without the briefest mention of the virtues of the book itself, LOL. Not to mention that these new translations tend to cost double what the timeless, tested, and classic Garnett translations cost.

They can fuck right off.

Well the book is actually called "Demons" and the criticism of Garnett is hardly novel, Nabokov has some rather acerbic things to say about her work. In my estimation, Garnett's translations are serviceable but not exceptional, whereas Pevear/Volokhonsky's are not only more contemporary but also more faithful to the originals. For instance they generally stick to the same syntax as Dostoevsky, which Garnett takes a lot of liberties with. And I wouldn't go so far as to say Garnett is "under attack" but most translations become outdated within 50 years as a rule of thumb, and updated translations are always needed for works of literature. In fact Dostoevsky is one of the most easily accessible writers in Russian, which speaks to the modernity of his prose style, something which, if you judged only by older translations is ultimately lost to the reader.

 

[Bananakin]

Just read The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, enjoyed them both but was a bit disappointed by TWMF. Then read Bossypants over the weekend, it was pretty funny but there wasn't a lot too it. And now I'm just starting A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I'm looking forward to.

 

[braves01]

I'm actually reading the Penguin Classics War & Peace right now, except it's neither the Garnett translation nor a P&V. The translator is Rosemary Edmonds, who, from the brief blurb about her, seems like a fairly prolific Tolstoy scholar/translator, having also translated Anna Karenina and some others, along with some Pushkin and Turgenev.

She translates all the French except for little quips here and there that are generally well known even among English speakers, and I admit I don't mind not having to constantly check footnotes to see a translation. She notes which passages in the text were originally French, but not with asterisks, however. I'm not certain what she's added, or what Tolstoy himself included, but it seems like she just adds "in French" wherever something was French in the text (e.g. "..." Bolkonsky said in French). It's a little distracting and I imagine it would drive a serious scholar crazy, but it's very readable for a casual fan, imo.

Edit: The New Yorker article mentioned above is excellent and should be read by anyone interested in this discussion.

 

[Mgoblue201]

While Constance Garnett was hugely important for both Russian lit and translation in general, and her translations aren't unreadable or anything like more extreme criticisms, I do prefer other translations of Russian literature, including Pevear and Volokhonsky. I think a lot of the newer translations are much more readable and more faithful to the original text (I don't speak Russian, so maybe the examples I've seen cited are skewed). Of course, I don't agree with some people who think that reading a Garnett translation somehow ruins the book, and I appreciate what she did, but I think P&V have produced some damn fine translations. And as a French speaker, I'm eternally grateful to them for leaving the French parts of War and Peace untranslated (with footnote translations).

I have a copy of The Possessed at home. I haven't read any Dostoevsky in a while, so I look forward to giving my copies of that and The Idiot the attention they deserve.

I'm in the midst of David Magarshack's translation of Anna Karenina, and though I lack a firm reference point, I do adore the language which of course owes its existence to Tolstoy but has a real radiance in English, and I would assume that at some level the translator must be commended for working to bring that about.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I just finished:

Loved it.

I'm about 1/3 done with:

Really liking it.

Just started reading:

I'm still working on "A Journey" by Tony Blair and Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol".

I'm tentatively reading:

The fourth installment in the Capitan Alatriste series. It seems to be another great one, from what I've read.

 

[Ratrat]

How many times is he going to describe something as being simply indescribable?

 

[Liquid_Bike]

I'm actually reading the Penguin Classics War & Peace right now, except it's neither the Garnett translation nor a P&V. The translator is Rosemary Edmonds, who, from the brief blurb about her, seems like a fairly prolific Tolstoy scholar/translator, having also translated Anna Karenina and some others, along with some Pushkin and Turgenev.

She translates all the French except for little quips here and there that are generally well known even among English speakers, and I admit I don't mind not having to constantly check footnotes to see a translation. She notes which passages in the text were originally French, but not with asterisks, however. I'm not certain what she's added, or what Tolstoy himself included, but it seems like she just adds "in French" wherever something was French in the text (e.g. "..." Bolkonsky said in French). It's a little distracting and I imagine it would drive a serious scholar crazy, but it's very readable for a casual fan, imo.

Edit: The New Yorker article mentioned above is excellent and should be read by anyone interested in this discussion.

Edmonds translation is excellent in my opinion. As a whole it is my favorite translation of War and Peace. It's old enough that it has that "time capsule" feel but it flows really well too for the modern reader.

 

[Qwomo]

How many times is he going to describe something as being simply indescribable?

Welcome to Lovecraft, enjoy your stay!