huh
Finley Wren - Philip WyliePale Fire - NabakovInfinite Jest - DFWSula - Toni MorrisonGod Bless You Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut
― meh (jjjusten), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:58 (fifteen years ago) link
maybe
I started this thread to jump start my interest in reading fiction again. After reading so much non-fiction for school I sort of abandoned novels and realized recently that I really miss reading for fun so I thought remembering my favorites might be a good way of rekindling my interest and it has!
Also seeing everyone else's posts I keep thinking of others that I could easily have placed on my list. It's also fascinating to see what overlaps between posters.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:01 (fifteen years ago) link
People really seem to love some Pale Fire and with good reason!
OK one of my other favorite books is The Fermata by Nicholson Baker which is basically about sex with a little math thrown in.
i've read that and vox -- was a little shamefaced to check both of them out of the library -- but my favorite n.baker is the mezzanine.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I also read Vox which I enjoyed but not as much as The Fermata. I will check out The Mezzanine.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:06 (fifteen years ago) link
it's more about shoelaces and automatic hand-dryers than sex, but still good.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:07 (fifteen years ago) link
btw - I was pretty young/naive when I read The Fermata and pretty much looked like this the whole time I was reading it O_O.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:08 (fifteen years ago) link
Dance to the Music of Time -- entertaining, but a disappointment, esp. the volumes dealing with the war
Agreed - I read Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy soon after DttMoT, and it blew Powell out of the water. A different war of course, but she captured it so much more personally.
Halldor Laxman's Independent People goes on my list, possibly bumping off Snowcrash
One thing that really got me about Moby Dick - I didn't expect it to be so funny, and the first chapters had some genuinely funny stuff which drew me right in.
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:11 (fifteen years ago) link
Hang on a second - Halldor Laxman's Independent People - That's the Icelandic one about . . . sheep! Right?? I could hardly get through any of it. I know it's supposed to be excellent but I just felt like nothing happened.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:12 (fifteen years ago) link
laxness! i am working on that. but i got stopped. i think it's really great, i don't know why i can't finish books anymore. probably internet.
― harbl, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:14 (fifteen years ago) link
Maybe I didn't give it enough time. It was just very . . . slow. Also, long.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Well, there's sheep in it, but mostly it's about a very very stubborn guy who alienates his children (his wives all die from his pig-headed cruelty) and falls victim to his own pride when he decides to build a concrete house.
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:15 (fifteen years ago) link
i can't finish books lately either. i will also blame the internet.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fifteen years ago) link
it's my excuse too.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fifteen years ago) link
powers, the gold bug variationsdfw, infinite jestcamus, the plague
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fifteen years ago) link
it is super slow but in parts i was just like...wow. i think i was about halfway. xp
― harbl, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:16 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah i've tried independent people twice and failed, but i suck at reading these days
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:17 (fifteen years ago) link
gold bug variations is a great book! every time i think about rereading it i get sad, though.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:18 (fifteen years ago) link
powers, the gold bug variations
This one stalled me out and is staring at me accusatorily from the shelf over my right shoulder as I type.
― Jaq, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:18 (fifteen years ago) link
i am reading 3 books now :(last time i read any of independent people was in april. i can't finish a book unless i can do it in under 2 weeks, basically
― harbl, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:18 (fifteen years ago) link
hah Jaq, that actually happened to me the first time i tried to read it, too.
xpost
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:19 (fifteen years ago) link
ok, five:
Ulysses - James JoyceWar and peace - Leo TolstoyOne Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia MarquezThe Red and the Black - StendhalJourney to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
while reading each of the above i thought "this is the greatest novel i ever read".
In a top ten, I would include Moby Dick, The Sound and the Fury, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Vargas Llosa), and either All the Names (Saramago), Huckleberry Finn, or Don Quixote.
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Don Quixote is another I couldn't finish tbh.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:21 (fifteen years ago) link
this is a question i can never answer + it makes me anxious to contemplate but the truest response would probably be any five austen novels that aren't sense and sensibility, i.e. the answer i would have given when i was sixteen. :-/
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:22 (fifteen years ago) link
i can finish a book if it's good
if i can't, it's a Bad Book and i will hurl it at the floor w/disgust
xp i was about to mention don quixote (BAD BOOK)
― (╬ ಠ益ಠ) (cankles), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:22 (fifteen years ago) link
don qui-so-gay
― (╬ ಠ益ಠ) (cankles), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:23 (fifteen years ago) link
a little trick: you don't need to.
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:24 (fifteen years ago) link
x-posts LOL
Yeah, I get so frustrated when I can't finish them. I feel guilty like it's my fault or something because they're supposedly good books. From now on I'm with you, it's the bad books' fault - not mine.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:24 (fifteen years ago) link
a book like quixote i think is esp ok to sample liberally... it's a big, unwieldy and not-all-that-tightly-structured thing...not at all a standard novel format.
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:27 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't have much patience for a book that bores me. it's why i never made it past the rivendell section of lord of the rings.
i pick books in the bookstore by the first paragraph. if that grabs me, i'm in. otherwise, nah.
― collardio gelatinous, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Sometimes if I know that I'm not in for long haul SERIOUS novel reading I turn to things like this:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/wp-content/uploads/mewritebook.jpg
Which btw is great.
― ☺☻☺☻come on ppl now smile on u brother☺☻☺☻ (ENBB), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:32 (fifteen years ago) link
Two books I enjoyed the hell out of and would put on my list but haven't finished (but will)
Don QuixoteTristram Shandy
Reading and enjoying reading is about routine and partly about a little enforced isolation.
Plus I think it is easier to learn what is true from fiction.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:43 (fifteen years ago) link
And I think what is boring in a book changes and diminishes as you work those reading muscles.
And the above two I mentioned are not chores to read (certainly not DQ, as some have suggested).
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:44 (fifteen years ago) link
its kind of tempting here to right a lot 2 justify my love but i will just right a list instead
01 nabokov lolita02 davies deptford trilogy03 price clockers 04 bolano savage detectives05 aciman call me by your name 06 mahfouz cairo trilogy 07 mccullers heart is a lonely hunter08 nabokov speak, memory09 solzhenitsyn cancer ward 10 le guin earthsea
― Lamp, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Gustave Flaubert: Madame BovaryJacqueline Susann: Valley of the DollsAndy Warhol: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back AgainAhmadou Kourouma: MonnewIshmael Reed: Mumbo Jumbo
OTM, it's gay and butch at the same time. xposts
― collardio gelatinous,
Wha???
― Kevin John Bozelka, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Pride and Prejudice Confederacy of Dunces Toole100 Years of Solitude MarquezJustine DurrellGatsby or Beautiful and Damned Fitzgerald
― pj, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 03:53 (fifteen years ago) link
okay a full fucking ten after a few drinks:
Calvino "The Baron In The Trees"Fante "Ask The Dust"Doctorow "Billy Bathgate"Dick "Martian Time Slip"Cain "The Postman Always Rings Twice"Fowles "The Collector"Crews "Car"Fielding "Tom Jones"McCarthy "Blood Meridian"Jelinek "The Piano Teacher"
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 04:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Fowles "The Collector"
this book made a big impression on teenage me but i was never really able to get over my loathing for clegg which i felt kind of guilty over
― Lamp, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:02 (fifteen years ago) link
the end of the collector is maybe the most sad & accurate thing i've read abt mental illness in the context of a (very) psychological novel.
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:03 (fifteen years ago) link
that is to say.. the capacity for the psyche to delude the self seems almost limitless, sometimes.
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:13 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah the way he ends it w/ clegg's thoughts is really despairing. its funny - i remember i totally h8ed the magus and was really prepared to dislike the collector for its cruelty but it wears u out. its a tough book to read but "rewarding" i think? idk
― Lamp, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:21 (fifteen years ago) link
it's definitely a lot more focused than the magus, anyway. it is very tough to read, but that's also what makes it so compelling--the reader's empathy with Miranada against his or her empathy with Clegg's totally fucked outlook on life. But his outlook dominates the narrative, to the extent where the reader almost has to feel disgusted with himself for sympathizing.
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:24 (fifteen years ago) link
btw drunk.
O'Brien - The Things They CarriedThompson - The Killer Inside MeGatsbyMcMurtry - The Last Picture ShowA Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
― My vagina has a dress code. (milo z), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:31 (fifteen years ago) link
i think the collector works better because it engages the reader in self-examination but in a non-gimmicky non-"whos the real sadist" way that i kind of remember the magus working.
with empathy - miranada kind of sucks shes spoiled and foolish and contemptuous and i think the book plays that against the reader she can be hard to empathize w/ because shes so relatable. and clegg is so obv reprehensible i always felt guiltly about loathing him like it was a smallness of spirit or something? but then, the end.
― Lamp, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:34 (fifteen years ago) link
hmm.
DFW, Infinite JestYukio Mishima, The Sea of Fertility TetralogyIan McEwan, The Child in TimeFanny Howe, Radical LoveVirginia Woolf, The WavesCharlotte Bronte, Jane EyreHollinghurst, The Line of BeautyGass, In the Heart of the Heart of the CountryChu T'Ien-Wen, Notes of a Desolate ManLovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
I read a lot more poetry...but these are my favorites. I admire personal style in fiction more than I appreciate story-craft, or whatever.
Think 2666 would be on here, but I have a few hundred pages left.
― the blowhard is the blowhard (the table is the table), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:35 (fifteen years ago) link
i should read the collector. i liked the magus and a maggot, but felt sort of let down by the ending of each.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Not personal style.
Distinct writing voice, or non-voice.
― the blowhard is the blowhard (the table is the table), Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:36 (fifteen years ago) link
There is nothing wrong with reviling Clegg--he's an absolutely pathetic, sad example of a control freak somehow given the means to put his fixation into action.
― ian, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 05:40 (fifteen years ago) link