What is everyone currently reading? « Columbus Underground Messageboard

Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion » Books

What is everyone currently reading?

[760 posts] [231 contributors]

Topic Rating:

(Total Ratings: 2)
Rate this topic:

Started 7 years ago by Anne
Latest reply from M.O.

Tags:

« Previous 1…363738 Next »

jeff_r

Login to Send PM

Cookie said:
I thought I'd be waiting longer for Jeffrey Euginedes' The Marriage Plot to be available from the library. I guess I'll be reading that next.

I doubt I'll read it, but let me know what you think. I read "Middlesex" and liked it well enough, though I never have gotten around to "The Virgin Suicides".

I heard Eugenides talking about "The Marriage Plot" on one of those NPR shows, and it just didn't interest me.

On my end, I just finished "Heir to the Glimmering World" by Cynthia Ozkik

and just started "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman

Posted 5 months ago #
Cookie
Flyntonville
Login to Send PM

jeff_r said:
I heard Eugenides talking about "The Marriage Plot" on one of those NPR shows, and it just didn't interest me.

I heard someone talking about it on NPR, and the english major in me was all over it.

Posted 5 months ago #
jeff_r

Login to Send PM

Cookie said:
I heard someone talking about it on NPR, and the english major in me was all over it.

Ha! See, that's exactly why I'm taking a pass! :)

A novel focused on an undergrad love triangle at Brown in the early 80's (with heavy doses of French literary theory) got my egalitarian sensibilities all in a dander!

Posted 5 months ago #
Cookie
Flyntonville
Login to Send PM

jeff_r said:
Ha! See, that's exactly why I'm taking a pass! :)

A novel focused on an undergrad love triangle at Brown in the early 80's (with heavy doses of French literary theory) got my egalitarian sensibilities all in a dander!

I'm about a third of the way into it and so far it's way more love triangle than fancy book learning. Not what I was expecting.

Posted 5 months ago #
Snarf
Dystopia
Login to Send PM

Kentucky Straight by Chris Offutt.

Riveting, often heartbreaking stories that take readers through country that is figuratively and literally unmapped. These stories are set in a nameless community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.

"I believe Mr. Offutt knows the same world I do, and his talent for writing about it shines on every page." - Larry Brown

Posted 5 months ago #
chaptal
West Side
Login to Send PM

The Last Sultan: The Life and Times of Ahmet Ertegun, by Robert Greenfield. Just started the story of the co-founder of Atlantic Records.

Before that I read Le Freak, by Nile Rodgers. This is a book that had more drug use depicted in the first fifty pages than in Keith Richards' entire book. Rodgers tells a very compelling, and frank, story about his legendary music career.

Posted 5 months ago #
jeff_r

Login to Send PM

Just finished The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Just starting Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Posted 5 months ago #
bayrea
Dublin, Oh
Login to Send PM

I am half way through Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. This book is a must read if you are a computer nerd from the 80's... chock full of references from Dungeons and Dragons, to C-64's to War Games to 80's music. It's sort of like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory for nerds that grew up in the 80's. The same author wrote the screenplay for Fanboys so if you like that kind of pop culture references you will love this book.

Ready Player One Facebook Page

Posted 4 months ago #
M.O.
Columbus
Login to Send PM

The True Story of the Killing of Oblama bin Llama. The government version is way off ... that goofy ex-SEAL's story is way, *way* off ... but this account is *just* perfect.

Please read this and pass it on to everyone you know.

Posted 4 months ago #
groundrules

Login to Send PM

Snarf said:
Kentucky Straight by Chris Offutt.

Riveting, often heartbreaking stories that take readers through country that is figuratively and literally unmapped. These stories are set in a nameless community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.

"I believe Mr. Offutt knows the same world I do, and his talent for writing about it shines on every page." - Larry Brown

I love Offutt, and I love short stories. you want some more of that ilk, check out Breece D'J Pancake. I still can't pronounce 'turtle' correctly after reading his book years ago.

Posted 4 months ago #
Snarf
Dystopia
Login to Send PM

I'll check it out, thanks for the tip.

Posted 4 months ago #
jeff_r

Login to Send PM

I just finished The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (Note, the link is to the e-book)

5 stars. Spooky.

Posted 4 months ago #
jmak
Gahanna
Login to Send PM

"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. Been on my to-read list forever and finally getting around to it.

Posted 4 months ago #
DavidF
Elysium Fields
Login to Send PM

jmak said:
"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. Been on my to-read list forever and finally getting around to it.

That was my go to book in my early teens. Bizarre, disgusting, awesome!

Posted 4 months ago #
rus

Login to Send PM

jmak said:
"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein. Been on my to-read list forever and finally getting around to it.

If you like that, you may also like The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.

Posted 4 months ago #
tolemac5050

Login to Send PM

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Posted 4 months ago #
hajames66
Arena District
Login to Send PM

tolemac5050 said:
11/22/63 by Stephen King

Just finished that a couple of weeks ago. Pretty good. Classic King quality.

Working on Feast for Crows in the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Posted 4 months ago #
Corrin Radd

Login to Send PM

Over the last month I read:

Coriolanus by Shakespeare. I'd never even heard of this play, but it's excellent except for shorting us on the ending.

A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin. Exhausting but excellent. Loads of tragic moments. Loads of "fuck yeah!" moments.

We The Animals by Justin Torres. Possibly the most effective use of point of view that I've ever read. Brilliant, spare, poetic use of language. It has the exact opposite ending of what I was expecting and wanted. This is a pretty great little book.

Posted 4 months ago #
Kbear919
Villaggio Italiano
Login to Send PM

Posted 4 months ago #
TomOver
herenowbeyond.org
Login to Send PM

Now or Never: Saving America From Economic Collapse, by Republican Senator Jim DeMint is one of several books I got from our city's fine library system.

I want to get back in the habit of reading writers who likely have drastically different world views than I do. Doing so gives me greater appreciation for how arguments are structured and how research is put together.

By that standard, DeMint's book is a disappointment. The main conclusion of most of the points he makes are that Democrats are destroying America. I found at least one blatantly false claim in his book. It's where he writes that the huge national debt is due to the irresponsible spending of Democrats.

That assertion is at odds with the increases in the national debt and budget deficits under Reagan, as well as the same under Bush #43.

The writing quality of Now or Never is not good in that he repeats himself even within one or two pages.

The book is also poorly annotated. There is a general bibliography for each chapter but a well-annotated book would have for every assertion on every page a footnote referring to one or more sources for further inquiry.

DeMint's book also lacks an index. Perhaps Newt Gingrich does a better job of writing books, given that he's an academic, but I've not read anything by Gingrich yet. Anti-environmentalist books I've read so far have been similarly lacking in their scholarly rigor.

But by reading such books, I might be helping myself to realize that my own writing--on this forum especially---should involve a lot less rhetoric and a lot more rigor.

Posted 4 months ago #