Metal Reviews

i started Quicksilver (book I of the baroque cycle, i think), which itself was split in 3 books. the first part was dead boring, the second looked like it was picking up, but i had to quit right then because my 30 days to return the book to the store were up.

looking and amazon, the consensus seems to be that he just can't help himself and his books are much fatter than they need be.

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finished "Aprender a Rezar na Era da Técnica" (literally "learning to pray in the era of technique") by Gonçalo M. Tavares, of whom José Saramago said "Gonçalo M. Tavares has no right to be writing so well at the age of 35. One feels like punching him!".
i enjoyed it a lot. it's heavy on ideas but light on the story, which usually is something that i hate, but he puts the philosophy across very tastefully.

probably going to start "Jerusalém" by the same author next.

After a brief hiatus, I'm really flying through Lord Of The Rings. I guess I finially gained an appreciation for his lengthy descriptive passages. They really help me get into the book that much more.

Finished the book of Susannah Clarke short stories (some good, some not), tried to start War of the Flowers and failed for now, so its back to Wolfe after all.

Gene Wolfe- On Blue's Waters (Book 1 of the Book of the Short Sun).

Well I finished uni for the year, so I went to the library before I went home and got:

William Gibson - Neuromancer
Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
Kurt Vonnegut Jr - The Sirens of Titan
Philip K. Dick - We Can Build You
Franz Kafka - The Trial

these two are good. i need to read All the Pretty Horses again. haven't read the others.

I loved No Country For Old Men (the book) so I'm reading all his other stuff. Would have got The Road, but someone had already borrowed it out *shakes fist*

Vonnegut's always good and I've been meaning to read that one.

The Trial is amazing if you know that it is basically unfinished/open-ended.

Artie Lange - Too Fat to Fish

Michael Oondatje - Anil's Ghost

One of my favorites.
Very dark and surreal. Probably read it half a dozen times.
I used to read quite a bit, before parenthood.. Now I am good for perhaps three pages (if lucky) a night before lights out.

Right now I am plodding through The Idiot. So far, so good, as is to be expected from good old Dostoievsky.

That one started out so slow. I didn't get very far before I put it down. Now reading Wars of Position by Timothy Brennan.

Gene Wolfe- In Green's Jungles (Book of the Short Sun, book II)

Unreliable narrator and identity confusion= Weeeeeee.

I expect a slow start from 19th century literature.
It'll be a year before I finish it, if ever...
strange though; The Possessed, The Brothers Karamozov and especially Crime and Punishment, I pretty much zipped right through. I have Notes From the Underground waiting in the wings.
Something special about Dostoyevsky's style that sets him apart from lot of 19th century novelists.

switched to The English Patient. i bought if off a homeless dude 2 years ago and found my c opy again, i didn't like it then but id ecided to go for his 'classic' book rather than Anil's Ghost. so far i love it.

Started on Crime And Punishment.

blargh.

lost my borrowed copy of Jerusalém, don't know what to do

The Testament Of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

That's what I mean. C&P I breezed through. Karamazov the same except I've been stopped by school both time I've read it. Notes is awesome. I can't pick a favorite out of the three. Yet The Idiot sounds great it was just much slower then the others.

Read Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis for school, but it actually turned out to be ridiculously good. It's a great retelling of the Psyche and Cupid myth, so I'd recommend it highly to you mythology buffs. Fairly entertaining and really makes you think...might actually be one of my favorite books.

Will Self-The Butt

A lot better than I was expecting, I must say.