lollajames
Canvas Book Club
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@Anonymous: Make sure if you like Dostoevsky you keep going.. Notes From Underground is the beginning of what he would perfect with "Demons" and "The Brothers Karamazov." Also read the stories of Gogol and Tolstoy.
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@Tati5001: I especially recommend Song of Solomon. It seems the author explores similar themes of identity/contrasts often found in Murakami's work.
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Anonymous
@Anonymous: More power to you. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It's extremely short and excruciating, but very fulfilling--so I kind of envy you getting to have that first read of it.
Whatever you do, avoid the Dostoevsky novel Devils...I can't remember which translation I read of it, but it was turgid and painful. You'll be safe with any that are entitled Demons, however. Translators have a huge impact on your experience of the work, so choose wisely! -
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@Anonymous: You're fine! But good advice: if it's called "Devils" or "The Possessed," the translation if mostly inaccurate and clumsily written.
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@PeterPonsil: I have that. It's next after Njall. I need to get The Vinland Saga again. Keep giving it away!
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@Anonymous: Chekhov too of course! Hard to beat him for short stories. Though his novellas are underrated, in my opinion. Particularly The Steppe and The Duel.
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@Tati5001: If Murakami was a box of cupcakes I would totally have eaten all of them and then thrown the box away when no one was looking so they thought maybe it was just their imagination that there was a box of cupcakes that were delicious
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@Tati5001: I'd just be far too terrified of breaking it. If a paperback gets knocked flying off a table onto a stone floor, it doesn't break. If it gets dropped off the side of a boat into the sea, it costs less than £10 to replace. And I've never found summer reading books that big or bulky to carry about. At all other times, the physical dimensions don't even enter into the equation.
Also carbon black on bleached white or parchment-cream is still a lot easier to read than very dark grey on sort-of-light grey. -
i mean its not even as if ebooks are particularly cheap vs the physical variety, even though they obviate the whole "cut down a tree, transport it, process it into paper, transport THAT, apply carbon toner (made in a completely different industrial process), inks for the cover, glue, other binding materials etc in a big factory, box, ship and promote it for sale in a brick & mortar store with staff wages and ground rents to pay" thing.
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What I'm reading in fits and starts, and have been for about two months now. Look at my high tech bookmark btw :-)
It's a good book, as humorous and quietly hard-hitting on social issues as ever (the bit where you suddenly get an idea - if you've any historical knowledge - of what's happening to the Goblins is a real "ouch" moment), and a particular pointer to just how effective you can still be with a degenerative mental illness if you work at it. It's just that I've just been short of time... I will probably have a bath tonight and finish it properly.
What I will probably read next: The last third of the "Love All The People" compilation of Bill Hicks' works that I found myself having trouble keeping up with last year. It's good stuff but requires your concentration.
What I read last: Absolutely devoured the His Dark Materials trilogy, having never read it, only knowing of it vaguely in passing, but then seeing just *part* of the Golden Compass on TV over christmas. Blew my mental socks off. I had to keep pausing to catch virtual breath during TSK and particularly TAS (which started to stretch into "oh god will it ever end... no there's 200 pages left... I don't think my head can withstand this" territory), backtracking by a paragraph or two or even 3-4 pages in some cases just to take it all in.
WORDLIMIT D-: >>>> -
(oh god my poor CPU, i'm going to have to close this site down and let it cool for a bit)
What I'd like to be reading: Books 3 and 4 in a HDM quadrilogy from an alternate universe where Pullman put his hands up partway through book 2 and said "yknow what... this is never going to comfortably fit into just three volumes... I'm going to have to Douglas Adams* it" (TAS =seriously= needed more room to breathe than "just" 550 pages). Snuff & later Pratchett novels from a world where he was diagnosed the same way and therefore raised his game to this level, but it turned out the diagnosis was false so it just got even BETTER.
And I suppose these Hunger Games, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Game Of Thrones etc things that everyone else keeps banging on about, along with a huge pile of various classics both traditional and scifi/fantasy. I even BOUGHT GWTDT but someone borrowed it off me before I got past page 10, and never gave it back...
(* not "JK Rowling it", given that it predates Deathly Hallows after all)
(pictured: me about 2 hours of reading time from finishing the damn thing, using Wasted Talent's "We Are The Engineers" as a suddenly leaf-thin looking bookmark. Totes not my lounge/house, btw :-)
Why I'm not reading? Lol, Internet. I read an awful lot thru my computer monitor. Plus my life is in an awful mess and half the things I have to use on a daily basis are near-broken, so I've been repairing them (where I can afford to - waiting for the next paycheck for the others - might not get a holiday this year, which is where I'd do the bulk of my reading, thanks to being broke) and straightening out the other things, which hasn't left much other leisure time. Plus the overtime I've been doing in order to try and keep the bank balance higher than the credit card one for at least part of the month (before mortgage & other bills go out). Not to mention I've a huge pile of unwatched … -
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@Anonymous: "guys" what?
and WHERE ARE YOUR "0" AND "ENTER" KEYS DUDE? AAAUUGH! the horror! -
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Been thumbing through a gift called Wild At Heart, it has been an interesting read but there are too many religious aspects for my taste. I look up the lectures and scribblings of Mark Twain/Lovecraft/Tesla/Da Vinici all the time online. And I listen to the song of fire and ice series while playing games or doing housework (alreayd read the books). I know I am a boring person and I love it.
