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Post by Hellcat on Jun 24, 2009 0:02:21 GMT -5
Brideshead Revisted by Waugh and Brothers Karamozov by Dostoyevsky are for me the quinessential novels. I wouldn't change a thing about them, not one word or period or anything. Of course there are critics who will see flaws in them, but for me they are the 2 best things I've ever read. As far a modern reads, the crime/mysteries of Michael Connelly are about a good as it gets. I recently finished Brideshead Revisited and I loved it. Great characters and excellent dialogue. Speaking of Connelly, I loved The Poet. Very compelling story with lots of twists.
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Post by solgroupie on Jul 27, 2009 13:17:22 GMT -5
the road, 2006, cormac mccarthy
an amazing story about a father and son's journey together in a post-apocalyptic world. you never find out what really happened - you are sort of in the same boat as the son, who was born just after the event took place. all you know is the world is now covered in ash, there is no sun, and your life consists of looking for food, water clean enough to drink, keeping warm and avoiding the cannibalistic "bad guys" that are a constant threat.
mccarthy has a way of writing that just takes hold of you from the first page. i thought it was going to be more of a sci-fi kind of story when i first heard of it, but it's not. i finished it in two nights because i simply could not put it down.
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Post by Satchmo on Jul 27, 2009 14:41:51 GMT -5
the road, 2006, cormac mccarthy an amazing story about a father and son's journey together in a post-apocalyptic world. you never find out what really happened - you are sort of in the same boat as the son, who was born just after the event took place. all you know is the world is now covered in ash, there is no sun, and your life consists of looking for food, water clean enough to drink, keeping warm and avoiding the cannibalistic "bad guys" that are a constant threat. mccarthy has a way of writing that just takes hold of you from the first page. i thought it was going to be more of a sci-fi kind of story when i first heard of it, but it's not. i finished it in two nights because i simply could not put it down. I finished it in three, which is the second quickest I've ever taken to finish a work of literature (the first is The Epic of Gilgamesh, which took an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take)
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Post by solgroupie on Jul 27, 2009 14:44:48 GMT -5
i read the firm in one night. i started late one afternoon. my roommate at the time went out with his friends and when he came back around three in the morning, i was in the same place, still reading. i think i finished it around five that morning. i literally couldn't put it down, but i never read it again.
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Post by callipygias on Aug 7, 2009 15:10:51 GMT -5
the road, 2006, cormac mccarthy. Not terribly exciting, but they've released the movie poster.
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Post by Satchmo on Aug 7, 2009 19:22:44 GMT -5
The teaser poster is better:
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Post by callipygias on Aug 11, 2009 15:56:49 GMT -5
I loved The Road and No Country For Old Men, but Blood Meridian, like The Third Policeman earlier this year, immediately enters my all-time top ten list. It's right at home among the greatest novels of all time despite the "GENRE: WESTERN" tag. This is even less a western than The Road is a simple sci-fi/post-apocalyptic thriller. I can't remember where I read it, but someone said, "This is not a western -- not even the best western -- this is literature of the highest order." The fact that McCarthy achieves what he does using historically disreputable genres is a testament to him. In the introduction to Meridian the famous literary scholar Harold Bloom calls Meridian the greatest work by any living American. He mentions several others, like Gravity's Rainbow and Mason and Dixon (both by Thomas Pynchon) and something by Philip Roth, but Meridian gets top billing. It's the extremely violent and partly fact-based story of "the kid," born in 1833 and a runaway at 14, and the group of government-sanctioned scalp hunters he hooks up with, the Glanton Gang, and the horrifically bloody trails they leave behind them everywhere they go. And I mean everywhere. When the indians run low they murder and scalp entire Mexican villages because the "receipts" (scalps) are similar enough to get them paid. But Meridian is more about McCarthy's amazing style and enormous themes, his respect of nature and love for words, and something most important of all that I don't know how to describe. And the characters. The Glanton Gang includes one of the greatest characters in literature: the judge. The same way the book fits among literature's greatest novels, the judge fits among its greatest characters. Here's a quote from a McCarthy site: (Judge Holden is) a figure without parallel in American literature. Holden seems to have been everywhere, and to know everything from European and native languages to the latest sciences. Simultaneously huge and delicately pale, ancient and childlike, the Judge is an accomplished fiddler and light and nimble dancer, but he is also a compulsive child molester and killer, the true south of the moral compass.Like most great authors McCarthy doesn't spoon feed. For example I had no idea until I read in Notes on Meridian afterward that the Van Diemenlander was from Tasmania (apparently called Van Diemen's Land at the time of the story). Same thing when they went through Bexar, which was apparently what San Antonio was called in 1849. And much more importantly, even the accusations the judge repeatedly throws at the kid toward the end of the book are either based on things not mentioned in the text, things he knows through supernatural means (you never know with the judge), or simply things he's making up or guessing at. McCarthy leaves it up to you. AMAZON.com ~ Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power.Just a strange aside, but check out Josh Brolin's character from No Country For Old Men next to an early picture of McCarthy.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Aug 11, 2009 18:40:50 GMT -5
I know you won't believe me, but that was already next on my book list. I've actually been trying to find an audiobook version, which is why I didn't just check out the print copy at the library.
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Aug 15, 2009 7:54:06 GMT -5
Three good books I bet you’ve never read.
1) Under the Beetle’s Cellar. Mary Willis Walker. Not only one of my top five favorite mysteries, one of my top ten favorite books of all time. Though the middle book in a series starring a woman journalist, it stands alone. In Texas, a religious nut (like Koresh) decides the endtime is coming and he kidnaps a bus of elementary schoolchildren who he plans to sacrifice in a few weeks, stowing them in a buried bus under the well-defended compound barn. The journalist, who has interviewed him before, tries to figure out at the behest of the FBI a way to get through to him, delving into his history and psychology. At the same time, the kidnapped bus driver, a Vietnam vet who doesn’t particularly like people (including children) sets himself the task of keeping the children alive and sane, and training them in some kid-level guerilla warfare, all beautifully-arranged ticking-clock drama building up to a terrific climax. The bus driver character is much of what makes this book so special to me—he’s the most appealing reluctant hero I’ve ever encountered. There’s tragedy in this book, and though I’ve read it three times so far, I cry my way through a half-dozen tissues every time.
2) The Quartzite Trip. A paperback original, I discovered after reading it, with a limited printing, out of print, and hard to find, but I found a pristine copy for a dime at a library sale. This is the sort of coming-of-age novel that a smart high school teacher would have given to those special students to read, though as an older adult, I found it totally engaging. It’s set in, I believe, the early 1960’s and is about a high school class trip, the Quartzite Trip, to Quartzite Arizona, which a teacher arranges on his own time, inviting only a handful of kids each year, and selecting them in a way no one can figure out—there are jocks, A-students, shy kids, tough kids. This is a stylistically interesting piece of writing, sort of Vonnegut meets a lucid version of Gertrude Stein meets Cynthia Voigt. He uses several interesting devices, such as a sort of high school essay technique of stating a thesis about a character, giving examples in engaging invisible-prose narrative, then restating the thesis in precisely the same words. This might sound as if it might be irritating, but the effect is downright poetic.
What’s even more impressive than the style are the human insights. For instance, the “good girls” and the “bad girls” by reputation end up being more alike than either of them or the boys around them would expect. The passages where the author (a man) describes girls’ private attitudes towards their breasts or menstrual periods are so accurate, I suspected him of being not a man…but then, while I can’t attest in the same way to the accuracy of these interior thoughts, what he had the boys thinking about their sexual issues I suspected was just as true. No matter the type of character, they all have deep thoughts. And my review still doesn’t do it justice—it’s sui generis, a terrific book, the author’s only book (sad for the world, that), and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
3) Whatever Happened to Loni Garver, Carol Plum-Ucci. While the previous book is marketed as regular mainstream fiction, this is marketed as a young adult novel, and it touches on many of the standard issues of that genre: in-crowds and outcasts, the passage from childhood to adulthood, secrets versus appearance. This is among the best of such novels, I think, and I’ve read a hundred of them. Part of what makes it stand out is the title character, Loni Garver, who is not the point-of-view character but the precipitating change to the protagonist’s world. Loni Garver is androgynous, and it upsets the hell out of people. His (her?) very presence, his sangfroid in the face of the reactions he triggers, these pull in the protagonist, a girl with a secret from her in-crowd mates. Loni Garver takes her from her small-town world and into a larger world, literally and figuratively. The ending is quite strong—violent—for the ending of a young adult novel, which also elevates it beyond others of this ilk.
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Post by Emperor Cupcake on Aug 17, 2009 22:48:42 GMT -5
As I mentioned in the "Now Reading" thread, I have been working my way through Dan Simmons's HUGE new novel Drood. Well, I just finished it today, and all I can say is... well, I'm speechless actually. What a FANTASTIC book. Now, keep in mind that if you decide to read this book it's going to be quite a commitment; it's almost 800 pages, and it took me six days off and on to read it, which is a really long time for me. But if you are a fan of Charles Dickens and/or Wilkie Collins, or of Victorian mystery fiction in general, you should love it (I don't think being familiar with Dickens's or Collins's work is a requirement, but it does make the book a richer experience, in my opinion). It's audacious and ambiguous and infuriating, but damned if I couldn't put the thing down, and it's left me with so many unresolved questions and disturbing images. It's probably not everybody's cup of tea, but I would highly recommend it.
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Nov 30, 2009 11:54:59 GMT -5
The Thirteenth Tale By Diane Setterfield. I loved this book without hesitation. It's both a novel, a sort of mystery with gothic elements, but also a love poem to the act of reading our favorite books. A good writer is a magician who casts a spell over us, the narrator says, and this author cast a spell over me.
The only caveat I have is that I don't know that men will like this as much as women. Though I went through several amazon customer reviews, and it seems they do.
I'll cheat and quote a summary/review from bookbrowse:
"All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.
As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.
Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.
The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life."
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Jan 20, 2010 12:34:37 GMT -5
The Broken Shore, Peter Temple.
For anyone who's a Michael Connelly fan, this guy is like the Aussie Connelly. Terrific, beautifully wrought dark crime novel.
Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story Leonie Swann. Funny, charming, odd, wonderful. A shepherd is murdered. His flock is left alone and decides to investigate the murder. One reviewer said “Wind in the Willows meets Agatha Christie,” which is close enough to accurate to quote. The sheep are very ovine in their tastes, myths, metaphysical views, and inclinations, and yet they have language so get to narrate this story and make fun of people a good deal (their take on human religion is a hoot). Not nearly so cloying and cutesy as the pet-assisted American amateur detective books I’ve read, this book set in Scotland by a German woman, translated into English, is something altogether wittier and layered, and humans never get center stage or understand that the sheep are anything more than dumb animals. The sheep get all the heroism for themselves and they are sure to win you over as they did me.
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Post by callipygias on Jan 28, 2011 1:53:55 GMT -5
Library of America got a hold of Vonnegut!I'm not sure how many of you shop LOA's beautiful, extremely well-made hardcover collections, but after years of waiting they're finally releasing Vonnegut. The books themselves really are beautiful--they're the kind of books you want to wipe your fingerprints from when you set them down. They're not cheap, but the paper is so fine they fit a BUNCH into each volume. Kurt Vonnegut, Novels & Stories, 1963-1973 has Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and some of his short stories. The best part: the pre-order price is marked down from $35 to $18!Oh, happy day!
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Feb 8, 2011 16:33:56 GMT -5
that's the best of Vonnegut, to be sure. Slaughterhouse Five is one of the best novels of all time, imo.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Feb 8, 2011 18:12:57 GMT -5
Library of America got a hold of Vonnegut!I'm not sure how many of you shop LOA's beautiful, extremely well-made hardcover collections, but after years of waiting they're finally releasing Vonnegut. The books themselves really are beautiful--they're the kind of books you want to wipe your fingerprints from when you set them down. They're not cheap, but the paper is so fine they fit a BUNCH into each volume. Kurt Vonnegut, Novels & Stories, 1963-1973 has Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and some of his short stories. The best part: the pre-order price is marked down from $35 to $18!Oh, happy day! I'm just glad they did Philip K. Dick before him. Granted, PKD was dead first, but still...
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