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Um, am I wrong or do the Watchmen borrow heavily from this novel? *unsure*
Haven't read that one yet, but now I'm even more intrigued. I take it it's good?

Right now I'm reading:

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."



Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I feel no need to rate this, I guess because it's so long and there were times I loved it, and other times where I didn't think so highly of it. I blame Steve Kloves for the completely unfaithful movie adaption. Seriously, the man left out half of the damn book. I hate how the movie focused all on those crappy relationships, when in truth, the book focused a hell of a lot more on Voldemort and was a lot darker. I can't honestly believe that they ****ed the ending to the movie up so much, I mean seriously, the left the out the battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the few D.A. member against the death eaters. Something from the movie that I did miss seeing in the book was the death eaters attacking the burrow, especially because the chapter with everyone at the burrow at Christmas was a pretty dull chapter. The ending to the novel is perfect, it has me eagerly waiting to wanting to start reading the Death Hollows. I guess I'll start with it in a little while.

Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows

Talk about an amazing book, easily the best of all the Harry Potters. My only hope is that they can make the movie just as great, because it should be easier to with them breaking the movie into 2 different parts. The chapter the Prince's Tale is easily my favorite chapter in the entire book, because it's that one chapter where everything just gets explained so clearly. I did quite like Harry revealing everything to Voldemort right before they dueled for the final time. I still feel no need to rate it, but it's pretty much amongst the best books I've ever read.



Not sure, google flags up a few people saying the ending is influenced etc.

Hadn't heard of this tho - cheers for the heads up
There's also the troubled relationship between a woman and her omniscient husband...:\

@Harry: Of course it's good, it's Vonnegut...



I am burdened with glorious purpose
Iro, I know this is a bias of mine, but so far I haven't read any Gaiman. Oddly, my first impression of him was when he took part in a small documentary about the movie Coraline. He was talking at the camera about actually penning the original book ... and frankly, his ego seemed HUGE. He was showing the camera the original handwritten version (in one of those blank journal books) and how he had used whatever color pen he had that day ... and seemed oddly fascinated that he was showing us that one day he used a blue pen, and another day it might have been black ink... or green ... or ... LIKE WE REALLY CARE!

So, since that was my first exposure to Gaiman (aside from hearing everyone else sing his praises), I haven't been all that excited to actually pick up one of his books and read it.

If a skeptic like me were to TRY to read Gaiman now, which one would you recommend FIRST?
Austruck:
I liked Stardust a LOT. But it's light fairy-tale reading and it was perfect for me last summer when I was just sitting in the yard. And I laughed about your comment about the audiobook -- I have a long commute, too, during the school year and plan on getting quite a few. I heard The Lovely Bones, though, and I have to say the language in that book made for great listening. I can imagine Little Women being difficult!

Iroquois, I couldn't seem to get into American Gods. I tried and tried and I'm wondering if you breezed right through it or had some struggles? I just wasn't interested and couldn't really figure out what he was getting at.

Yoda -- The Giver is, I'm sure you know, a "young adult" lit book and is a part of the English curriculum here in Maryland. I had never really heard it was sympathetic to communism. I love the book, and I especially like how different people interpret the ending differently.

Well, I'm finally reading a book that's been out there a while and widely praised:



I absolutely love it. From the very first page...



there's a frog in my snake oil


The SFWA European Hall of Fame


More sci-fi shorts, this time translated Euro ones that us anglo-speakers don't normally see. There's a more open-ended, slightly pretentious woolliness to some of them that i found fairly annoying at the time, but several of them have stayed with me, so that can't be all bad. Others are just a bit silly, but short and sweet for all that.

There are some that hit home or hold together though. The Danish offering about a past-seeded world and a couple doomed to solve its conundrum is very evocative & holds its tone well, which is impressive given it's a translation. Other decent ones include: A Russian service that exchanges your destinies; A Spanish university course on reading between the lines; A wormhole captain with a secret and a space-dancing stowaway; A love affair between time cops; & a world where rooms of sub-human mutants unknowingly compete to be the one that enters society.

PS the Finnish one titled 'Baby Doll' is a thoroughly uncomfortable read, and until 9-yr-olds actually start getting implants, i struggle with its validity.

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I got for good luck my black tooth.
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow... a bitter little read.
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Next - Michael Crichton 2006
An interesting read like all Crichton novels, just as good as his other books but more of a comedy then a thriller. Exaggerating the the possible mistakes or unexpected results of genetic engineering.




State of Fear - Michael Crichton2004
One of the best books I've read in a while, my favorite Crichton novel. A controversial story about climate change that approaches the topic from a different angle. Even if you don't agree with the angle its a fast paced and entertaining story.



The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton 1969
One of Crichton's first si-fi thrillers, another great book but briefer then his newer novels. The plot revolves around the risks of a unknown virus that comes down from outer-space.

The Call Of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft 1928
I've never read a H. P. Lovecraft before and I had trouble with the language and understanding where the story was at times. Still an interesting read and very dark.



The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde 1891
A excellent book, even better considering when it was written. Such an easy read but effective in delivering the message. Even if your familiar with the story its still a must read.



there's a frog in my snake oil


Vacuum Flowers

Earth is a hive-mind, police forces are press-ganged criminals, and aboriginal hunting parties can reside inside a single head. These are a few of the quirks and inventions in this 80s sci-fi. Along with the conceptual creativity, one of the best aspects is the seamless ecology of the asteroid worlds & the gradations between their gravities and cultures. It becomes a rich backdrop to the breakneck race for survival our heroine takes us on. I felt a genuine claustrophobia & disorientation at times which suited many of the circumstances & conundrums.

Not to everyone's tastes, and not always successful (a tripped out commando raid & several delirious speeches come to mind) it still charges along at a fair old clip and will probably engage anyone into deep space&time shenanigans. So long as you don't mind the politics angle being left to writhe over future spires. No neat geopolitical endings here.

It hits up against the wall of a lot of sci-fi in terms of scant relevance to current times, beyond the industrial-politicial preoccupations, but there's some semi-lurid sex and a struggling relationship-against-the-odds that allow the toes of the skittering story to ground themselves occasionally.

+

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1
Haven't read it recently, but i'd still recommend Stations of the Tide more highly (
). If anything more lurid in terms of sexual shenanigans and the like, and with an equally pulsing ecosystem and level of invention, but more grounded too with its setting & covering more realistic relationships, anecdotes, philosophies, societies and near-future technologies by the end.





After Dark Haruki Murakami 2004

Mari a school girl stays out at night reading in a Denny's until she meets a young Trombonist who knows her sister. Not long after a female retired wrestler who owns a love hotel comes looking for her and needs her help with a Chinese prostitute. Mari's sister lays at home asleep while someone unrecognizable watches on. Sounds confusing ? well it actually isn't. This is a great read, engrossing and descriptively beautiful. I look forward to reading more of his work.

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there's a frog in my snake oil


Newton and the Counterfeiter

Breezy but edifying take on Newton's life and times, with the main focus being on his little-known role as Warden of the Mint, and the ensuing 'detective' pursuit of a prominent counterfeiter through a London bulging with crime. Grander themes run throughout the book though, from insights into the birth of financial institutions (like the miraculous 'money doubling' of paper money & many other ingenious means of dealing with a war king's national debt), to Newton's struggles to combine his religious beliefs with the mechanistic world he was uncovering (the description of his Principia starting with explanations of the solar system, zooming down to the earthly affairs of apples & cannon balls, then finally shooting off with a comet, taking us outside our known realm and metaphorically further out into God's universe, is a particularly pleasing one).

Out of necessity nothing is explored too extensively, leaving us instead with a flavour of a unique individual, but more importantly, of the unique nature of the time. Familiar edifices and characters only succeed in fleshing it out: The political world breaths like a beast, street life scurries through the cracks, and everyone is in pursuit of small and large victories.

If you're interested in history, science, politics, rogues, economics or the religion of the day then there's liable to be a smattering of something here to entertain you

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[EDIT ~ Should mention some of the subject matter is a bit dry at times, but the author does have a decent writing style and normally pulls you through]



\m/ Fade To Black \m/
Im reading another Discworld Novel called Jingo and so far it is very entertaining, we all the Discworld books are

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Chocolat Joanne Harris 1999

Vianna and Anouk, mother and daughter shift into a small town and open a chocolate store. The local priest is threatened by her and this escalates into a sort of popularity battle. A good novel that doesn't take anything to seriously and relies on beautiful language and 'fuzzy feelings' to carry the story along.



Zedlen

You probably know this already but the movie is very enjoyable too.
I actually haven't seen it. I wanted to read the novel first, since novels usually flesh the story out more. It ll be one of the next movies I see.



Just finished another Klosterman...

Fargo Rock City
A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
by Chuck Klosterman



Just finished this one last night (been reading it off and on for at least a couple of weeks). It details the author's love of heavy metal music while growing up in a small town, and branches off into long passages trying to make sense of the often confusing and nebulous world of rock classification (for example: "Sasquatch rock"), classify similar artists into increasingly smaller sub-groups, and randomly speculating on the whos and whys of the music of the time (largely the 80s and early-to-mid-90s).

I would've breezed through it a lot faster, but, well...I'm not a big heavy metal fan. I am a big Chuck Klosterman fan, though. The book is far less autobiographical than I was expecting/hoping, and to someone as generally unfamiliar with heavy metal as I am, the book can seem quite dense, and can feel a little like a chore at points. Given how much I enjoyed the parts discussing bands and songs I knew well, however, I expect I would've liked the book a good deal more if I were more familiar with the other groups.

I'm fascinated by Klosterman's pseudo-defense of glam rock and the like, even if a bit part of it boils down to observing that some things are important just because an entire generation grew up with them.

I'd recommend the book to anyone who grew up in the early 80s and is familiar with the music of the time, and even remotely enjoyed it.

, though I think a
might have been attainable if I had more metalhead in me.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, at the very end of the book, he included a copy of a letter from his landlord warning him about noise complaints from "loud music" and "jumping." I thought that was a pretty brilliant want to end it.



I've been reading The Wanderers and though I've seen the movie, I've been kind of surprised by how graphic it is so far... I may report back when I've finished...
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