Current Reads

I've had a really good run of books lately. I finished Anna Karenina, which was just as amazing as kiran said it would be. I read both of Catherynne Valenti's Fairyland books, recommended by Raksha. They were so charming and lovely, I adored them. I read If on a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino, which was wonderfully cool and weird, and followed it up with the book it inspired, Cloud Atlas, which was one of the most fun novels I've read in a long time. It only took me two days because I couldn't put it down and I enjoyed it much more than the movie. And I've finally read Persuasion, because I realized that I never had, which surprised me. I've read all of Austen's others, so now I've done them all. It was really good, of course.

I'm on a true crime kick at the moment, and I'm wrapped up in Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders. I must have been about 15 when this case was apparently all over the media, but I can't recall ever even hearing about it! It's so weird that two bright kids who could have done so much with their lives evolved into thrill killers pretty much because they wanted to escape their small Vermont town so badly.

VodouDoll wrote: I read both of Catherynne Valenti's Fairyland books, recommended by Raksha. They were so charming and lovely, I adored them.

Oh, this makes me so happy! I'm glad you enjoyed them!

I've been reading John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began series. I'm currently on the third book, The Third Day, The Frost. It's about a group of Australian teens who go camping for a week and come back to find Australia has been invaded. They then become guerilla fighters. I'm really surprised its publisher didn't do a "If you liked Hunger Games, try Tomorrow When the War Began" campaign. A lot of the things I liked about Hungers Games is present in this series--a female pov, surviving off the grid, and a well paced plot.

big chicken, there was a movie made of the first book a couple of years ago that I thought was quite good (though I read the books as a teenager, so I don't know exactly how true to the book they stayed).

ETA: QueenSix!! Thank you for that info about Eva Rice's book. I'm so excited, I thought it was NEVER going to happen!

The movie version of the first book was what started me reading the series. I thought it was a faithful adaptation and I hope the sequel actually gets made.

On Monday I finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and felt as thought I'd finished a 100 mile trek through the woods with only a very basic map and a small bottle of water. It is an amazing feat of world building, but did it have to be 1006 pages long? I don't think so! Earlier on I finished Gone Girl, and damn, it is a wild ride. I spent all day at work waiting to leave so I could finish the story. I've yet to fully formulate my thoughts on it, but I definitely want to read something else by Gillian Flynn.

After two such contrasting reading experiences, I feel as though I should take a break from books for a couple of days, but on the other hand I'm totally in the reading zone, so I should enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh goodness, I'm reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell right now, and am feeling sort of the same way. I really like it! But it's so long! And it's kind of boring! But then cool things happen! But it takes forever and you have to read a lot of parts about gentlemen going to battle and stuff! But clearly that's part of the style! But it is wearying and repetitive and there is basically no plot! But when I'm not reading it I miss it and the cool parts are really cool!

Late to the party on this one, but Furious Love really bummed me out. I bought into Taylor and Burton 100% and to have it ultimately not work because of their alcoholism was so sad. Richard Burton, especially, seemed so tragic to me with his family issues and constant professional disappointment and ruined health. They seemed just perfect for each other and like a hell of a lot of fun most of the time.

Does anyone know what the story is with this supposed last letter he sent Taylor? I am seeing lots of disputes that it existed, which I buy completely, but then where did this story that she was buried with it come from?

I don't know where the buried with it came from, but Elizabeth herself said the letter existed. I buy it. Just because they were totally that insane.

She also said that he lived they would have gotten married, and probably divorced again, and I totally buy it.

I have a weird feeling about Jonathan Strange. One night my subway broke down and I was trapped on the red line between Harvard and Central from 8pm until midnight. I happened to have the book in my bag so I pulled it out and read the whole entire thing in one go. I'd never been so happy to have a long book on me, and that one kept me so engrossed that I hardly noticed the time passing. Anytime I hear that others thought it was too long (which is a common criticism, I think) I feel like I can't weigh in, since it was just long enough for me.

Yesterday I finished How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti. It was almost universally lauded by critics, but I really didn't like it. I agreed with James Wood in the New Yorker who called it hapless, incoherent, messy, hideously narcissistic, slack, sloppy, vulgar, pert, disgusted, self-hating, and evasive. And he called the prose ungainly. That's about what I though too.

MAN. I can't believe you could read that whole thing in four hours. But I am glad you had it along! Because four hours on the damn Red Line? Blaaahhhh. I'm glad it was the exact length you needed at that exact time! It's almost like...magic. ...Or not.

That, by the way, is why I always have a minimum of three magazines, one of which is a New Yorker, on my person when I'm commuting. And the Kindle too if I know what's good for me.

I don't think I read it from scratch, if that helps. I was a hundred or so pages in, probably. But still, I've never been so grateful to a book in my life. It was interesting and long, which were the two things I needed right then.

I've been reading Arthur & George by Julian Barnes for literally two months. I think this is the longest I've taken to read a book since, like, Middlemarch. It's good, just not something I can read a lot of at once. Definitely will need something fluffy from the library next week. On the other hand, also need to get Sherman Alexie's short story collection Blasphemy.

I just finished reading Gone Girl, purely because of all the discussion about it on this thread. I loved the first half and had to force myself to stop reading so I could sleep, but the second half drove me crazy. I'm about to start reading Sharp Objects.

I was floored by the insane awesomeness of Gone Girl and yet couldn't make myself care about Flynn's Dark Places. I put it away after a few tries in December. I'll probably revisit it sometime this year.

Dark Places took a bit to get going and the protagonist is really unlikable, at least at first, but I really loved it by the end.

I'm halfway through The Orchardist and I've really liked it but now it seems it's getting bogged down and meandering and I'm losing my will to continue.

I had mixed feelings on Dark Places but I loved Sharp Objects. I thought it was more straightforward than Gone Girl but in some ways more shocking.

Finally read Middlesex, which I loved, and Finnikin of the Rock, which I mostly liked. I think Jellicoe Road is pretty much perfect, so maybe my expectations for Finnikin were too high. The exposition was pretty clunky, lots of unnecessary explanations of emotions, tonally confused. But II'm still willing to give the sequels a chance - despite my criticisms, I still wanted to get to the end!

I liked Dark Places better than Sharp Objects - I had a really hard time with that one, on a few different levels.

I plan to try both of Flynn's previous novels this year. I just can't imagine that anyone who wrote something like Gone Girl would be able to bore me. I think I need to be in the right mood for those books though.

Right now, I'm reading Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef. It's as delightful as I hoped, and I'd love to go eat at his Red Rooster restaurant if I visit NYC this year!

Just finished reading Warm Bodies and it was very good. Kiran is right. It is what Twilight could have been if it had decent writing, a sense of humor, and a sense of self awareness.

I've been waiting to read "Dark Places" but I just started a Shakespearean tragedy class and first up is "Titus Andronicus." I've never read it, so I'm hoping it will be interesting.

Yeah, it is definitely interesting. Brace yourself!

Well, at any rate Titus is probably the only thing to make Dark Places seem like a happy, fun romp.