Author Topic: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?  (Read 189798 times)

Offline Nathan

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #885 on: July 4, 2010, 05:40 PM »
Just finished Kull and The Fountainhead.

Now on this; it's the complete Lovecraft fiction* in chronological (publication) order.

*Or like 98% percent of it, minus some of the collaborations etc, but "complete" enough for my purposes. After starting with the major stories in the other collection, I wanted to read the rest of the oeuvre in order without having to jump between a bunch of separate anthologies.

« Last Edit: July 4, 2010, 05:42 PM by Nathan »
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #886 on: July 5, 2010, 11:27 AM »


Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 

I hear its terrible. You'll have to let us know.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #887 on: July 5, 2010, 09:04 PM »
Now starting, "The Yiddish Policement's Union" by Michael Chabon.



Theyh are the "frozen Chosen," two million people living, dying and kvetching in Sitka, Alaska, the temporary homeland established for displaced World War II Jews in Chabon's ambitious and entertaining new novel. It is—deep breath now—a murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller, so perhaps it's no surprise that, in the back half of the book, the moving parts become unwieldy; Chabon is juggling narrative chainsaws here.The novel begins—the same way that Philip Roth launched The Plot Against America—with a fascinating historical footnote: what if, as Franklin Roosevelt proposed on the eve of World War II, a temporary Jewish settlement had been established on the Alaska panhandle? Roosevelt's plan went nowhere, but Chabon runs the idea into the present, back-loading his tale with a haunting history. Israel failed to get a foothold in the Middle East, and since the Sitka solution was only temporary, Alaskan Jews are about to lose their cold homeland. The book's timeless refrain: "It's a strange time to be a Jew."Into this world arrives Chabon's Chandler-ready hero, Meyer Landsman, a drunken rogue cop who wakes in a flophouse to find that one of his neighbors has been murdered. With his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and his sexy-tough boss, who happens also to be his ex-wife, Landsman investigates a fascinating underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis. Chabon's "Alyeska" is an act of fearless imagination, more evidence of the soaring talent of his previous genre-blender, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.Eventually, however, Chabon's homage to noir feels heavy-handed, with too many scenes of snappy tough-guy banter and too much of the kind of elaborate thriller plotting that requires long explanations and offscreen conspiracies.Chabon can certainly write noir—or whatever else he wants; his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Solution, was lovely, even if the New York Times Book Review sniffed its surprise that the mystery novel would "appeal to the real writer." Should any other snobs mistake Chabon for anything less than a real writer, this book offers new evidence of his peerless storytelling and style. Characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket." It's a solid performance that would have been even better with a little more Yiddish and a little less police.
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Offline Morgbug

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #888 on: July 5, 2010, 11:09 PM »
Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 

I hear its terrible. You'll have to let us know.
[/quote]

Well I wouldn't rush out and buy it if were you, how's that for a review?  Yeah, it's not overly stellar and that's probably why it was still in the files.  Easier to read than "Eaters of the Dead" but his least favorite book of the lot.  If someone gives it to you, it's worth the read.  Otherwise don't. 
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Offline Mikey D

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #889 on: July 12, 2010, 01:08 PM »
From now on most of my reading will be done on this:



The first two books I'll most likely get are:



and

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Offline Sugart

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #890 on: July 12, 2010, 05:42 PM »
Mike, just curious why did you choose the Nook over the Kindle. I plan on purchasing a Kindle soon.

Offline Mikey D

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #891 on: July 13, 2010, 07:48 AM »
Cheaper (I got the Wi-Fi one), more available books, fell in love with it after putzing around with it one day at B&N, didn't feel like waiting for the Kindle to arrive, etc.

My understanding is you can't go wrong with either one and it's just a matter of preference.  You can fool around with my nook when I see you in a couple of weeks if you want to wait before buying.

I'lll shoot you a pm later regarding birthdays.
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Online GrandMoffNick

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #892 on: July 14, 2010, 01:49 PM »
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #893 on: July 14, 2010, 04:50 PM »
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.

I agree. I liked it too. Much better than P&P&Z. It will be a fun movie.
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Online GrandMoffNick

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #894 on: July 15, 2010, 07:05 AM »
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.

I agree. I liked it too. Much better than P&P&Z. It will be a fun movie.

Lincoln:Vampire Hunter is going to be a movie? Sweet
This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #895 on: July 15, 2010, 09:47 AM »
At the end of the audio book there is an interview with the author. He talks about writing the screenplay for it now and where he got the idea for the book. I don't know if he is involved in P&P&Z movie.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #896 on: July 17, 2010, 08:43 PM »
Now starting "Under the Dome" by Stephen King.



King's return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester's Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome's ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King's earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.
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Offline Nathan

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #897 on: July 30, 2010, 03:50 AM »
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #898 on: August 2, 2010, 05:08 PM »
Up next is the old classic, "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster.



"It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," Milo laments. "[T]here's nothing for me to do, nowhere I'd care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing." This bored, bored young protagonist who can't see the point to anything is knocked out of his glum humdrum by the sudden and curious appearance of a tollbooth in his bedroom. Since Milo has absolutely nothing better to do, he dusts off his toy car, pays the toll, and drives through. What ensues is a journey of mythic proportions, during which Milo encounters countless odd characters who are anything but dull.
Norton Juster received (and continues to receive) enormous praise for this original, witty, and oftentimes hilarious novel, first published in 1961. In an introductory "Appreciation" written by Maurice Sendak for the 35th anniversary edition, he states, "The Phantom Tollbooth leaps, soars, and abounds in right notes all over the place, as any proper masterpiece must." Indeed.

As Milo heads toward Dictionopolis he meets with the Whether Man ("for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be"), passes through The Doldrums (populated by Lethargarians), and picks up a watchdog named Tock (who has a giant alarm clock for a body). The brilliant satire and double entendre intensifies in the Word Market, where after a brief scuffle with Officer Short Shrift, Milo and Tock set off toward the Mountains of Ignorance to rescue the twin Princesses, Rhyme and Reason. Anyone with an appreciation for language, irony, or Alice in Wonderland-style adventure will adore this book for years on end.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #899 on: August 4, 2010, 09:40 AM »
Another kids book, "Three Tales of my Father's Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett.



My Father's Dragon--a favorite of young readers since the 1940s and a Newbery honor book--captures the nonsensical logic of childhood in an amusingly deadpan fashion. The story begins when Elmer Elevator (the narrator's father as a boy) runs away with an old alley cat to rescue a flying baby dragon being exploited on a faraway island. With the help of two dozen pink lollipops, rubber bands, chewing gum, and a fine-toothed comb, Elmer disarms the fiercest of beasts on Wild Island. The quirky, comical adventure ends with a heroic denouement: the freeing of the dragon. Abundant black-and-white lithographs by Ruth Chrisman Gannett (the author's stepmother) add an evocative, lighthearted mood to an already enchanting story. Author Ruth Stiles Gannett's stand-alone sequel, Elmer and the Dragon, and her third volume, The Dragons of Blueland both received starred reviews in School Library Journal and are as fresh and original as her first.
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