STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I'm reading "Laughable Loves" by Milan Kundera at home. It's pretty good, it's a book of short stories. I've only made it through 2 so far, though, I just started it this weekend.

At work during lunch I'm reading "The Beautiful and Damned" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's OK. I might give up on it before too long, though. The characters really bore me.

-- Edited by ttara123 at 14:23, 2008-11-17

clothes horse - is the children's blizzard nonfiction? That sounds interesting.

Currently I'm reading The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. I'm about halfway through and really enjoying it so far.

Next up is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I'm intimidated by the sheer mass of the book but have heard great things. Plus it's the "assigned" reading for book club, so I'd better start crackin!

I just finished The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Before that I read Deluxe by Dana Thomas.

Now i'm reading Teaching Outside the Box by Louanne Johnson and next up is Pablo Nerudas 100 Love Sonnets.

Elle wrote:

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Previously: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I really enjoyed it!  I would have never found it since it was under Sci-Fi at my library, but it's about what would happen if militant Neocons took over and restructured society for 'the safety' of women.  Really interesting read, since the author leads you into the scenario via a series of frighteningly plausible events.

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 This was such a good book! I was assigned to read it in college. I never would have picked it up otherwise

Elle wrote:

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Previously: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I really enjoyed it!  I would have never found it since it was under Sci-Fi at my library, but it's about what would happen if militant Neocons took over and restructured society for 'the safety' of women.  Really interesting read, since the author leads you into the scenario via a series of frighteningly plausible events.

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Elle, you should check out Octavia Butler. She's an amazing science/fantasy fiction writer- and African American (she's worthy to check out for just being one of the very, very few minority women sc-fi writers). I recommend her "Lilith's Brood" series as well as "The Parable" series. She plays with gender and sexuality categories but in a really innovative way. Besides the interesting intellectual thoughts behind her writing, she simply tells a good story.

With a new job (and the old job, but part-time) I only get to read for the fifteen minutes in bed before I fall asleep but I'm currently slogging (but in a good way) my way through Gormenghast. I'm really not sure how to describe this book. Gormenghast is the name of the castle around which the book is centered. I guess it's just a regular book (beginning, middle, and end with a plot line and main and secondary characters) but the writing is, hmm. The writing is descriptive, to say the very least.

Here's an example:
If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing - flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it. High-shouldered to a degree little short of malformation, slender and adroit of limb and frame, his eyes close-set and the colour of dried blood, he is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy - some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings.

I absolutely love this book, but to really understand each sentence and appreciate the beauty in the writing, you have to read each sentence over and over again. I only get through a couple of pages each night and the book is longer than even a good Harry Potter book, so, yeah, it's taking a long time. To be fair though, the copy I'm reading is the trilogy all together so I am about half-way through the second in the series.

ttara123 wrote:

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clothes horse - is the children's blizzard nonfiction? That sounds interesting.

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yes, they're both nonfiction. it's a really horrible story but also amazing that anyone survived.

Just Read- The Paper Chase, it was ok, I think I would like to see the movie now...just to compare

Wicked - what did you think of the Shock Doctrine?  I saw Naomi Klein on the Colbert Report a while back and thought the book sounded really interesting.