| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| offerw |
Posted - 03/13/2004 : 13:03:51
I've just finished Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions recently. A good read. I'm looking for something great though. DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little maybe? Anyone read that? |
| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| kathryn |
Posted - 04/01/2005 : 19:25:28
Just finished John Updike's new one, Villages.
Typical Updike. All about sex, sex and more sex.
So much sex that it got boringly monotonous after
the 10th description of copulation. Still, I adore
John Updike and do believe he's The Greatest
Living American Writer.
 I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 16:02:51
In hindsight, Corelli's Mandolin wasn't as good as I had thought.
UFO's and molestation, huh? Interesting.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Sir Rockabye |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 14:45:02
I just finished reading Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin. By no means a great novel, but a fun one. Real easy reading page turner about UFOs and molestation. Being made into a movie coming out in mid May.
Are you honest when no one's looking? Can you summon honey from a telephone? They sat there with their hooks in the water and their mustaches caked with airplane glue. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 14:40:04
Actually, I'm still finishing Captain Corelli's Mandolin (I'm not slow like duh... slow, I'm slow as in don't get much time to read).
I've read the Wilde before, its excellent.
 I'm like a lost snail in the night. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 14:39:38
quote:
Originally posted by kathryn
Does this ever happen to any of you? You read an iconic
book but you don't like it?
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics
all the time, I think maybe some of these so called iconic books are directed at a target audience, and largely a pretentious one, so yes.
I'm fairly sure it's not just me being dim.
 cats have nine lives/ which makes them ideal for experimentation |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 14:36:04
Phew. Thanks, Cheesey. That makes me feel better.
That's a good book you're reading. Not too taxing. How're you
liking it?
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 13:48:44
I know what you mean K, I was a bit like that with the one Kazuo Ishiguro I tried, I'm sure there're others.
I'm continuing my lazy trend by nicking A Picture Of Dorian Gray from my parents bookshelf over Easter. It's ace though, so no worries on that count.
I'm like a lost snail in the night. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/29/2005 : 13:05:14
I am ashamed to say that Saul Bellow's "Herzog" left me cold.
I must be an ignorant peasant. The man is awarded
the Nobel in Lit. and no fewer than three Pulitzers, but I can't get
into this book. I read every word but could not get into it.
Does this ever happen to any of you? You read an iconic
book but you don't like it?
Just started Updike's new one and have high hopes.
Also, read Caroline Knapp's "The Merry Recluse", essays
from her Boston Phoenix column and other places. I liked her
"Drinking: A Love Story" -- anybody read that?
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| ramona |
Posted - 03/07/2005 : 11:02:14
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins was a book I read in the fall which I absolutely loved. Really original story and charecters and SO beautifully written.
Also recently read Sight Hound by Pamela Houston who is an author I love. It was pretty good but I like her short story collection (Cowboys Are My Weakness) better.
_____________________________________________________________________
I wanna be cool, tall, vunerable and luscious.
I would have it all if I only had this much -
No need for Lucifer to fall if he'd learn to keep his mouth shut...
* * * * * * * * * * *
http://prettycrabby.com |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/07/2005 : 09:04:15
Let us know how it ends. I hear the Sasquatch
gets a music fest named after him and the greatest
musician ever plays there and mankind tramples
the Sasquatch's native land and everything goes down
hill from there.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| The King Of Karaoke |
Posted - 03/06/2005 : 21:48:57
No. but I'm ordering this right now.
http://washingtontimes.com/sports/20050305-115922-1282r.htm
----------------------
  |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/05/2005 : 13:20:51
....oh, I've also read Thinner. King mentions LOTR in some of his books. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 16:10:59
That was easy!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 16:09:26
ok
You can go eat a decroded piece of crap! |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 11:35:36
Shiner, read The Stand.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Newo |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 09:18:04
quote:
kathryn
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -
Bangladesh
3866 Posts
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 18:31:15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Never read LOTR. No interest. I know so many people
who are hard-core fans, but not me.
I read it summer before last and enjoyed it but have been going off it steadily, it´s just one of those dopey good vs. evil stories.
--
"Here love," brakes on a high squeak, "it´s not backstage at the old Windmill or something, you know." |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 05:01:36
it's funny 'cause he almost admits that the whole she-bang was written because he thought the first line was so great (admittedly, it was). he came up with it and had to write a story around it.
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." - PFC!
i'm going to quote this guy hoping you may heed his experience and follow....he couldn't get into "the gunslinger."
Can you guess what happened?
That’s right, I couldn’t get into it.
Now, let’s just review my King history a moment. I read Cycle of the Werewolf and Creepshow when I was nine. Progressed to Pet Sematary and Night Shift and Rage and actually journeyed into the lands of It before I was fourteen. I read The Stand – the big one! – and gulped up every page. And yet … and yet, the world of The Gunslinger eluded me.
Yes, I’m one of those people.
Because of my completist’s personality, the fact that I’d never finished The Gunslinger (I gave up halfway between The Way Station and the mountains) gnawed at me, in that tender squishy part in the back of my mind. Eventually, I broke down and went the business-traveler’s route: I bought the audio book. I saw an advantage here: one, it was King himself reading it, and at that point in my life, anything King said or did was gospel. Two, I was having a story read to me, and there’s always something comforting in that. Listening to a book taps into that small, tired child in all of us who want Mom to read us just one last story before heading into the Land of Nod.
Well, the ploy worked … but barely. The masterful tone King eventually took on when reading his stories on tape (the one he employs so well in Bag of Bones and the unexpurgated Desperation) had not yet been fully formed. King is certainly having fun with his reading, but he’s not quite an expert yet. Plus, the story remained (for me, at least), as dry and arid as the Mohaine Desert. I got through it, but I fought through it.
What amazements, then, when I tentatively put in the first cassette of The Drawing of the Three, expecting more of the same … and getting far, far better.
The story continues in more detail elsewhere: I listened to, then read, both The Drawing of the Three and The Wastelands, and was among the first in the world to get my hands on Wizard and Glass the day it came out. I thrilled at the Dark Tower connections I stumbled across in Insomnia and Hearts in Atlantis and Black House. I became the guy who, when getting Bag of Bones signed in Cambridge, asked Stephen King probably his most hated question: “When’s the next Dark Tower book coming out?”
And still. And still: The Gunslinger remained The Great Unloved. I’d listened to it. Liked it to the degree that it started a story I was enthralled by. When I tell people about The Dark Tower series, I always urge them to start with Drawing. The gaps will fill in themselves.
Yeah. I’m one of those people.
So when King announced that, in anticipation of Wolves of the Calla, he would be re-releasing The Gunslinger in a revised, expanded version … well, my heart kind of leapt, fannish as that sounds. He explained in interviews that he was doing this, actually, for people like me: to give folks more of an easy in. There were a lot of people – fan people – who had not read the Tower books specifically because the first book was so obtuse. King was going to help us out in that respect. Not only that, but he was going to expand the text. Not as extensively as he’d done in The Stand, of course, but he’d definitely be doing some retouching: lengthening some scenes, trimming others, and then glossing it all over by connecting it more fully with the remainder of the series. No longer would The Gunslinger be the odd man out, so to speak. It would be a fully integrated, fully functioning member of the Dark Tower family.
Now the big question is: does the book itself live up to the hype? Gods, yes.
The second I opened the book, I became that scared fifteen-year-old again: a little frightened that I would again be unable to delve into a book by my favorite writer (when you’re a book nerd like me, this is an actual fear.) King assuaged that fear right off the bat, by doing one of the things King does best: talking about his own work. Whether it’s the afterward to Different Seasons or “Why I Was Bachman” or the book-length look into the life of the mind, On Writing, King has never been short of fascinating when discussing the whys and hows of his fiction. (To those asking that oft-repeated dullard’s question “Where do you get your ideas?” look no further than here.) At the opening of The Gunslinger, King has inserted both an introduction (“On Being Nineteen”), explaining his influences and thought processes surrounding the initial set of stories involving our favorite gunslinger, and a Foreword, discussing why he’s decided to “fix” The Gunslinger. To read these short essays is to remember why you came to King in the first place: entertainment of the highest order. Turn to chapter one, and you’re faced with that epic first sentence: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
funny thing is, i need to read this expanded edition.
You can go eat a decroded piece of crap! |
| PixieSteve |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 03:48:47
man i tried reading gunslinger and it was boring as hell. |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/04/2005 : 03:45:50
SK says in his epilogues and stuff how his other books were dry-runs at what seemed to be the DT series, how it wrote itself. the diary at the end of DT6 Song of Susannah is amazing, i don't know what is fact and what is fiction but it is really wierd. if the diary is true , whoa! if he made it up, fuckin' genius! either way, it makes you wonder. especially the locals who lived in and around turtleback lane, and the whole walk-in business.
i've never read the stand but i think i know what charachters are involved.
You can go eat a decroded piece of crap! |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 20:22:01
I want to read LOTR again, but then I am a fan. Actually, I've had The Silmarilion for ages, but have never finished it! Oh yeah, I heard about how other SK novels tie in with Dark Tower-especially The Stand, I think.
CARL.
 "Join up, conform and wear a different uniform!"
|
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 18:34:03
i read it once, the second book was so difficult to get through, worse than the slow parts of DT. funny how it was the best of the three movies though.
I'm what you call a repeat offender. I repeat, I will offend again! |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 18:31:15
Never read LOTR. No interest. I know so many people
who are hard-core fans, but not me.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 18:28:44
carl, you may want to read The regulators (bachman),Desperation, It, and the stand before getting into books 5,6, and 7. but they by no means are necessary.
I'm what you call a repeat offender. I repeat, I will offend again! |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 18:26:29
Sir and Kiki, funny how people re-read LOTR, though. I'd estimate the Dark Tower series is only twice as long.
I'm what you call a repeat offender. I repeat, I will offend again! |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 15:10:38
quote:
Originally posted by shineoftheever
carl, whatever you do, do not get discouraged, i know there are parts in the next 4 books that really drag but it pays off in the end, man.....enjoy!
Yeah, The Waste Lands seems to try and tie events from the first book together with the second, and it does seem a little bit more forced in places(so far), but it's still pretty enchanting. I've read quite a few King books(although not that much, considering how much he's produced),all borrowed from a friend(including The Dark Tower books!)-Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, 'Salems' Lot, The Shining, Pet Semetary(a particular fave-the movie adaptation was a bit of a dud!). Actually, I think that's all the King I've read. I have an old copy of The Tommyknockers somewhere, which I never finished.
CARL.
"Join up, conform and wear a different uniform!"
|
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 15:01:15
Nice to see Stephen King fans here. Though I don't think
I could make myself re-read that series, great as it was.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Sir Rockabye |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 14:55:12
I wish I could pick up those books again. I went through the whole Stephen King universe two or three years ago, just enough time for me to have forgotten the specifics of Darktower books #1-4, the Stand, and a bunch of others that were all tied together, but not enough time for me to pick them up again. With the publicationo f the end of the Dark Tower series, my interest was re-piqued, but not enough for me to sit down and re-read thousands of pages.
Are you honest when no one's looking? Can you summon honey from a telephone? They sat there with their hooks in the water and their mustaches caked with airplane glue. |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 14:15:46
carl, whatever you do, do not get discouraged, i know there are parts in the next 4 books that really drag but it pays off in the end, man.....enjoy!
I'm what you call a repeat offender. I repeat, I will offend again! |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/03/2005 : 13:59:26
I'm reading Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower Part 3-The Waste Lands' at the moment. I've a bit of catching up to do with that series. The second book('The Drawing Of The Three') is great-I hav'nt read the revised edition of 'The Gunslinger', the first book. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/02/2005 : 16:01:57
LOL! I totally misunderstood you. I thought you meant you
were going to start writing that book. You should still
write one, all about The Smiths. I could help with
research. I could, um, interview Morrissey and stuff.
I think younger of you, not lesser of you. I thought you
were my age, for whatever reason. You are lovely
just as you are, Homers. Now get writing!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 03/02/2005 : 14:19:16
Do you think less of me now?
I am not wiritng this book by the way, I am reading it. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/02/2005 : 11:45:36
Homers, your book sounds fascinating. Might you
consider extending the date by two decades so
as to include The Smiths. Also, you might want
to think about changing the title to "Oh Manchester,
so much to answer for." You have such a great
idea!
Um, for some reason I thought you were my age.
Whatev.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| Homers_pet_monkey |
Posted - 03/02/2005 : 03:22:22
Why Kiki?
I am gonna start a new book today called 'The True Story Of Manchester's Music 1958 - 1965'. My dad's old band is in it. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 03/01/2005 : 18:10:41
27 going on 28? I didn't know that! Well, OK. That puts
everything in new light!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 03/01/2005 : 18:05:32
don't stare at her ass........eat it!
I'm what you call a repeat offender. I repeat, I will offend again! |
|
|
