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Post by Ratso on Apr 5, 2006 22:51:25 GMT -5
"The Hotel New Hampshire" never read it before, but so far I like it.
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Post by eliservo on Apr 5, 2006 22:52:23 GMT -5
When Corporations Rule the World I'm not reading this on my own free will...also, Nightfather a Holocaust literature piece that I like a lot better than Survival in Auschwitz!
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Post by eliservo on Apr 5, 2006 22:53:35 GMT -5
"The Hotel New Hampshire" never read it before, but so far I like it. Ratso, dear Ratso...you don't put book titles in quotes, you either italicize or underline.
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Post by Ratso on Apr 5, 2006 23:00:41 GMT -5
"The Hotel New Hampshire" never read it before, but so far I like it. Ratso, dear Ratso...you don't put book titles in quotes, you either italicize or underline. I know that. But I'm a rebel.
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Post by Emperor Cupcake on Apr 5, 2006 23:46:59 GMT -5
Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond.
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Post by Cleolanta on Apr 6, 2006 6:00:27 GMT -5
At the moment, I'm rereading a neat short story collection called "Science Fiction by Gaslight". It's a bunch of stories from the popular magazines of 1891-1911. This kind of thing is right up my alley--as I like old-timey sci fi just as much as I enjoy the more modern kinds--and the price was right: I got it at the library's "Friends' Booksale" years ago for a dime! :)
Ah, yes, finally I can say I'm reading something that I'm not embarrassed to admit to in public... :P
Oh, and before this I was reading another anthology book that I got for really cheap at the library, this one a collection of stories from Communist/Socialist countries, printed in 1970 when that was still a big deal. And yes, before anybody asks, it DOES have a few stories by Stanislaw Lem in it. In fact, I picked up the book and decided to start reading it...right on the day he died. Freaky. So at least now I can say I've read a _little_ of his stuff...
...Notorious
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Post by Gemini Man on Apr 6, 2006 14:31:07 GMT -5
Frankenstein - Dean Koontz
Just started book two
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Apr 6, 2006 22:54:26 GMT -5
At the moment, I'm rereading a neat short story collection called "Science Fiction by Gaslight". It's a bunch of stories from the popular magazines of 1891-1911. This kind of thing is right up my alley--as I like old-timey sci fi just as much as I enjoy the more modern kinds--and the price was right: I got it at the library's "Friends' Booksale" years ago for a dime! :) Ah, yes, finally I can say I'm reading something that I'm not embarrassed to admit to in public... :P Oh, and before this I was reading another anthology book that I got for really cheap at the library, this one a collection of stories from Communist/Socialist countries, printed in 1970 when that was still a big deal. And yes, before anybody asks, it DOES have a few stories by Stanislaw Lem in it. In fact, I picked up the book and decided to start reading it...right on the day he died. Freaky. So at least now I can say I've read a _little_ of his stuff... ...Notorious Lem = awesome The classic russian sci-fi novel is _We_ by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
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Post by marytylerless on Apr 7, 2006 19:29:35 GMT -5
I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is my second time reading it, but my first on my own free will.
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Post by losingmydignity on Apr 7, 2006 19:37:59 GMT -5
Mockingbird would be a great book is Lee had just cut out all the social/racial issue crap.....
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Apr 7, 2006 20:54:00 GMT -5
Mockingbird would be a great book is Lee had just cut out all the social/racial issue crap..... No kidding. That stuff gets in the way of its riveting plot.
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Post by losingmydignity on Apr 7, 2006 20:55:13 GMT -5
Mockingbird would be a great book is Lee had just cut out all the social/racial issue crap..... No kidding. That stuff gets in the way of its riveting plot. Okay, Mr. Sarcastic....since when does a novel need a plot?
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Apr 10, 2006 17:28:53 GMT -5
No kidding. That stuff gets in the way of its riveting plot. Okay, Mr. Sarcastic....since when does a novel need a plot? You're right. Stories aren't supposed to have "stories." That is, like, SO pre-Rick Moody, pre-Dave Eggers. Anyone who reads the New Yorker that stories are supposed to just end for some reason that only the author (maybe) knows. I'm kidding. Kind of. I never had much patience for "psychological" novels or character studies. That's why I study pre-novel literature.
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Post by losingmydignity on Apr 10, 2006 19:36:40 GMT -5
Okay, Mr. Sarcastic....since when does a novel need a plot? You're right. Stories aren't supposed to have "stories." That is, like, SO pre-Rick Moody, pre-Dave Eggers. Anyone who reads the New Yorker that stories are supposed to just end for some reason that only the author (maybe) knows. I'm kidding. Kind of. I never had much patience for "psychological" novels or character studies. That's why I study pre-novel literature. So you would consider Ulysses a psychological novel or a character study? Or Beckett's novel trilogy. I ask because those are the first books that come to my mind when I think of plotless books. Or Alain Robbe Grillet's totally non-linear books where he attempted to do without psychology altogether? (not totally successful in my opinion). You don't like that heavy-handed Theodore Dreiser statement making plotted kind of novel do you? And the New Yorker's stories usually have quite traditional kinds of plots and endings (think Alice Munro, et al.). I've never read Ricky Moody or David Eggers. I have a feeling I'm better off keeping it that way.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Apr 10, 2006 21:47:58 GMT -5
You're right. Stories aren't supposed to have "stories." That is, like, SO pre-Rick Moody, pre-Dave Eggers. Anyone who reads the New Yorker that stories are supposed to just end for some reason that only the author (maybe) knows. I'm kidding. Kind of. I never had much patience for "psychological" novels or character studies. That's why I study pre-novel literature. So you would consider Ulysses a psychological novel or a character study? Or Beckett's novel trilogy. I ask because those are the first books that come to my mind when I think of plotless books. Or Alain Robbe Grillet's totally non-linear books where he attempted to do without psychology altogether? (not totally successful in my opinion). You don't like that heavy-handed Theodore Dreiser statement making plotted kind of novel do you? And the New Yorker's stories usually have quite traditional kinds of plots and endings (think Alice Munro, et al.). I've never read Ricky Moody or David Eggers. I have a feeling I'm better off keeping it that way. I'm talking out my ass like usual. You're right on Ulysses and Beckett, just like you could also be with Woolf or other "modernist" and "post modern" writers. You're also right that psychological or character study is too limited for what I was getting at. I really meant "stories" that don't follow a conflict/resolution model (for which Robbe-Grillet is perfect). But then, I also didn't really mean that, because I actually like Beckett and Robbe-Grillet a lot. In truth, I was trying to sound smart and really only thinking of certain "post-modern" writers who act like narrative and plot is cliche that I find personally irritating (Eggers' crew...read the contributors to McSweeney's). Hardly enough to generalize. (And Moody can be fun but Eggers drives me up the wall. Of course I realize that he's one of those people who, if you don't like him, you're just not playing the same game...and I'm willing to admit that I'm just not into that game.) Truth be told: what bothers me in fiction is stuff that doesn't seem to enjoy being fictional. I mean that whether it be 19th century "realist" novels or recent short stories that try to capture a contemporary "mindset." I don't turn to fiction for a mirror of myself. I want to see what's possible, potential, interesting, or novel, not just a representation of what is. But why does this matter? It doesn't. I'm just not editing as I type.
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