Reading Tab

In the middle of finishing off Point Counter-Point, then going to work on some Pratchett

You know, I've always been avoiding this thread because I had assumed it had something to do with guitars and lazy music reading. Silly Shirble.

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A devilish combination of slightly bored and quite hungry

Max Brooks came to the comic book store owned by my company on Saturday for a signing of both World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide. He seemed like a really nice guy. I have my signed copies of both sitting on my shelf ready to be devoured by my eyes. Can't wait!

Whats 30 days of Night? Another Zombie read?

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

I just finished the Thirteenth Tale. It was everythinkg Austruck said it was. I could not put it down once I started it. Its all that Austruck said it was and then some. It was written like a nineteenth century novel. I highly recommend it.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons.....for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

OR



I'm not entirely sure which one I'm going to read yet. At this very moment I have the Dark Tower II so I started it. If I get out to the book store I'll pick up Shadows and start reading that one.

This book is fabulous. One of the only books I've ever read in a very short amount of time. I even want to read it again sometime soon.

Just finished

enjoyable and imaginative but cold. the heroine redeems herself but core contradictions pulled me short of loving her, and the book. author entangles her convictions with politics yet never truly explored that thread. for me, don't inclue that thread if you're not going to explore it and pay it its due.



i love smartass clever female detectives tangling with supernaturals and sex.



see above, although this heroine's not a detective.



a seemingly rich history relayed through the portrait of a modern family, tinged with "sensual" horror. apparently stephen king liked it, but i found it distant, cool, more academic. it lacked the passion required to tell such a tale. think anne rice without the passionately righteous characters. the same bad decisions and mistakes happen but we don't care as much as we should about the results.



emma holly, one of the foremost erotic novelists, generally writes about strong independent women who encounter one dominant male and one submissive male and ... well. also not for adults. probably more for female tastes, but definitely not really a romance novel. erotica, not romance! get it straight!



have the following piled up to read

i am concerned about such things but rarely if ever read them ... i feel like a bad human being for that,sometimes. but anyway, i'm half black, so this stuff fascinates.



a graphic novel, and oh how very graphic it is. very hot, clever, evocative, and very not for children.



I liked jacqueline's whole series but this latest has been sitting around gathering dust for months. i'll get to it ...

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life without movies is like cereal without milk. possible, but disgusting. but not nearly as bad as cereal with water. don't lie. I know you've done it.

keen little reader arent we?

on your review of Wicked, i found the authors goal was to make you love and hate elphaba as you journey with her just as you would love and hate any real person you know as you move along with them. so while we may love her or find her a figment of something bigger and more mysterious when shes younger we find out her cruelties and malice as she gets older. At the end i found i neither loved nor hated elphaba but that strange combination of both as with people in real life.

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Undercoverlovers 100 REDUX

I'm in the process of reading this prequel to all of the Hannibal Lecter books. Hannibal Rising, which has a movie adaptation coming out in February '07, deals with Hannibal Lecter during his formative years. What made Hannibal into a cannibalistic killer? It's a short novel, around 300 pages with a sort of large font used... very short chapters, feels very different from the other Thomas Harris books. Probably just a novelization of the upcoming movie. So far it's entertaining. Thirteen year old Hannibal's living with his sexy Japanese aunt, Lady Murasaki, and has just killed someone for the first time. The book was released today.

I'm reading 'The Gospel According To Chris Moyles' at the moment, It's not too bad so far.

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Books:
Invitation to a Beheading - Vladimir Nabokov
Goodbye Descartes - Keith Devlin

Comics:
The Walking Man - Jiro Taniguchi
Ode to Kirihito - Osamu Tezuka
Short Program vol.2 - Mitsuru Adachi
Cyborg 009 - Shotaro Ishinomori

yezzz, i started reading very young since i had no social outlets - it developed a healthy codependency.

re: elphaba - i neither loved her nor hated her either. the problem is no person, however flawed, can truly be both. you either love them or you hate them. if you love them, you forgive them what you would hate in someone else. if you hate them, no amount of forgiveness or consideration will make you love them.

if you walk the line too much you may feel nothing at all. when i brought up the political stuff, and the coldness, i meant that elphaba could have been loveable as a flawed person who fights for their political and social beliefs - maybe you don't agree with her 100% but she has her own logic, and that's enough to get you through it.

but you never get to actually see her beliefs in action, and she stops doing it, and she starts getting self-absorbed, at which point, i just kept reading the book just because i'd started it. don't write a story about an impassioned political activist who cares about the future of her country - only to have her really not care about the future of her country and piddle away the rest of her years.

she's the reason you're supposed to read it, after all, and she stopped being "real" - as multi-dimensional and fully developed as a protagonist should be. it's like he wrote her up 75% of the way, flagged back to 50%, and then just fizzled out by the end of the book.

blah. she's like ayn rand, made flesh. she cares a LOT - but mostly about herself. in theory, that's fascinating. in practice, it can get old readingwise.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Socrates Cafe - Christopher Phillips
Vicious Spring - Hollis Hampton-Jones

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

2 James Ellroy novels:

The Big Nowhere
The Black Dahlia

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

I just started reading Alfred Hitchcock : A Life In Darkness And Light. This book is full of information on Hitchcock's life and career.
1001 Movies You Must See Befor You Die - Steven Jay Schneider A great movie guide!

I just bought Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?: A Professor And a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity. Look at it HERE.

Should be here in a week tops.

How To Be Good by Nick Hornby

I've read all his novels now. This was his weakest. I have to say though, I think he's the current master of 1st person stream-of-consciousness narration and he manages to be one of the only writers of post-modern lit that's not obnoxious in some way.

Well, in Wicked's defense, a lot of the loose threads that don't pay off are continued in the second book, Son of a Witch. I don't like that one nearly as much as the first, but it's clearly a lead up to a third.

I'd ind of like to see Wicked made into a film by Terry Gilliam, and NOT based on the musical version, but thats just me.

children of men..pd james...not the same as the movie, but an interesting read nevertheless...highly recommended...