• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

I just finished reading...

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Master.

I highly recommend it; I'll probably reread it sometime.

Now I'm going to go and read more Henry James. And maybe even William James.

And Edith Wharton.
 
I was reading Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann, but I didn't end up finishing it :eek: . I found the book to be quite tedious and boring.. I had to force myself to read it until I just gave up in the end.
 
Wabbit said:
What book have you just finished reading and how was it???


I just finished A Painted House By John Grisham. Overall I liked it. It was good but not great. He certainly knows how to tell a good stroy and I was impressed with that. On the negative side, his characters very simple cardboard cut outs. The plot is pretty predictable and simple. This is my first encounter with Grisham. I liked it, if I see another book by him that catches my fancy then I might buy, but I won't be rushing out to get another.

That's a good book, although I thought it was a big step for Grisham to write a book other than fiction/law. It wasn't one of his best works, but you should read some of his older ones like A Time to Kill (his first book) or The Firm. If you watch the movies though, it will give you a good idea of what kind of writer Grisham is (seeing as the films are very close in relation to the books). Hope this helps you.
Click to expand...
 
Steph said:
Wabbit said:
What book have you just finished reading and how was it???


I just finished A Painted House By John Grisham. Overall I liked it. It was good but not great. He certainly knows how to tell a good stroy and I was impressed with that. On the negative side, his characters very simple cardboard cut outs. The plot is pretty predictable and simple. This is my first encounter with Grisham. I liked it, if I see another book by him that catches my fancy then I might buy, but I won't be rushing out to get another.

That's a good book, although I thought it was a big step for Grisham to write a book other than fiction/law. It wasn't one of his best works, but you should read some of his older ones like A Time to Kill (his first book) or The Firm. If you watch the movies though, it will give you a good idea of what kind of writer Grisham is (seeing as the films are very close in relation to the books). Hope this helps you.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendations! :) Those books concerning lawyers are not really something I would normally go for. .. but If I see one of those very cheap second hand I might try my luck!
Click to expand...
 
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. They have really sticked a lot to the book when they made the movie, down to a point where a lot of the dialog is the same. I'm Joe's complete lack of surprise. The book is more detailed than the movie and you get more on the characters.
It was a bit strange reading it when you have seen the movie first, because since the dialog was so similar I heard it like it was Edward Norton reading it in my head. :rolleyes:
 
My recently finished books are:

Walking by Henry David Thoreau:
It's an amazing book, i absolutely love it. It's also an easy and quick read and a good begining for everyone interested, but yet unfamiliar, with Henry David Thoreaus work!

The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder:
Another one of my favorites and another amazing book. It's a collection of essays. It's not always an easy read, but it's always interesting and captivating.

Sometimes both books are a little bit sarcastic and put in a little bit of irony, which i thought was great because it put in a taste of good hearted humor!
 
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I know that this book is said to be one of the best anti-war books ever but actually I didn't like it very much. It was certainly quiet grotesc and a bit disturbing but nothing extraordinairy. The language was okay and some phrases were spectacular but all together it was a below average read.
 
We Need To Talk About Kevin

Occasionally I get asked why I even bother to continue reading newer books since I am continually insulted, embarrassed, infuriated, bored (etc, etc, etc) by a *very* high percentage of them. Well, believe it or not, that cascade of emotion(s) is not a desired effect; the game plan is to find a good read. Absurdly, this is getting to be harder than looking for the whattayacallit it in the haystack and more oft than not I find myself apologizing to trees that their brethren were slaughtered and pressed for such unworthy scars of ink.

Usually I use what I call the ‘domino effect’ to find new books of interest; xx writer mentioned s/he likes yy writer, so maybe yy is pretty good. Not always the case, but statistically it’s at least ok.
So, recently I came across a writer named Lionel Shriver and her newest book entitled _We Need to Talk About Kevin_ (2003). It came up on a Google search with “Amy Hempel”, who remains a favourite of mine.
So, dominos in place, I ordered a copy of the book.
Not knowing anything about the novel (I don’t read reviews or even dust-jacket blurbs) I was a bit tentative as I’m…not…a big…fan of children (putting it mucho mildly).
And I saw the writing layout was a series of letters, which I think has saturated the market a bit, or maybe I’ve just read too many at once (recently Amy Hempel, Chuck Palahniuk, Lydia Davis, among others, have all published stories in letter-style (Hempel’s was wonderful though). Hell, I even started writing one before being dismayed by that)…but I was immediately taken in by the story. And this format works exceptionally well, as challenging as it is as a concept for an entire 400 page novel.

Very briefly, each chapter is a correspondence, or better yet, her own term, “respondence” by the mother of a teenaged boy who is now in jail for a Columbine-like incident [if this is already an outdated or obsolete term: kiddies, these means the kid killed some fellow students on school property] to her husband, as they’ve separated since the incident.
(none of that was a spoiler of any sort, so don’t fret)

And I’ll really just leave it at that. Look into it. You may love it, you may hate it.
But I think you’ll stick with it.

Deftly written and an engaging, and dare I say an *important* novel.

Here’s the little bit I added to the site:
http://www.amyhempel.com/shriver.htm

This novel was also just awarded the Orange Prize (in the UK) and very deservedly so, which I say (write) with trepidation, as I can’t recall the last time a book deservingly won an award. Award, these days, seems to immediately devalue a work.

In the US a hardcover edition is available (pictured on the above site) and a blisteringly horribly covered trade paperback (note to commercial artists: be creative! Make us curious about a book! Idiots!), and no slight to Counterpoint (http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/counterpoint/home.jsp), who publishes some good stuff - but if you buy that edition, pretend the cover is, say, an image of a bunch of snapped crayons. Or a squirt gun leaking ink, be it blood red or black. Something, you know, other than: a picture of a boy. Something that makes you think.

Or order the UK edition, the company offers free shipping internationally:
http://www.serpentstail.com/

I’ve already sent out several copies and also encouraged the local English book shop to carry more copies (they had two, now they have one).

So, this is what it’s all about: finding new writers to follow.
Shriver’s been around for a bit, this is her 7th novel, and she’s articled many an upstanding periodical, so finally she’s getting her due.
Apparently it’s not just mediocrity that continually rises to the top.

So I’m going to go virtually hunt up the rest of her books and read the rest of the interviews (she’s the best interviewee I’ve read in years, not many admit to reading crap books with “I only got through it because I had to review it. Bloody awful,” which of course is more fitting a review than the one she will have to submit to an editor)…

The few of you that actually break the circle of mundane pap, read this book. If you can’t find a copy, I’ll send you one.

j
“The prospect of being enveloped into any family had all the appeal of getting stuck in an elevator between floors.” _We Need To Talk About Kevin_ p. 143
 
Just finished The Tin Drum by Gunther Grass.
Excellent read;plenty to think about and Oskar Matzerath is one(two) of those charachters you will never forget.
 
The Story of my Life by Helen Keller

It's the story of Hellen Keller (1880 - 1964), who was both deaf and blind and her devoted teacher Miss Sullivan.

Short read, in places way too elaborate and often tiresome. Furthermore some important information is missing and the fact that Helen talks about her seeing things is a bit irritating.
 
Just finishedFatherland by Robert Harris. A very good read, his portrayl of Nazi Germany, an alternate future and how the Nazi state may have expanded and operated is both interesting and thought provoking especially for anyone interested in 20th century history.
 
Running Wild - J G Ballard.

The book was an easy read. I found something really strange about the writing style - I just can't point out. All the time I was reading, I was thinking -- why is it written this way? :rolleyes:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top