What are you reading?

[Sharecrow]

Time for another brief update!

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson: This is a super short novel about a spacecraft that loses control and continuously get closer and closer to the speed of light (they miss their exit too, which was to allow those fifty members to propagate on a planet without intelligent life). Great writing, great, believable science fiction, and incredible story. If you dig scifi, stop what you're doing and read this book!!!

King's Blood by Daniel Abraham - This was the second book in the Dagger and Coin series. Classic pulp fantasy. Lots of fun and some neat twists. Not quite as much fun as book one but still pretty good.

Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin - My second read of this one and I actually rather liked it. Was pleasantly surprised. It's also neat to see what's advanced about our understanding of the science beyond this. Kudos to him for being among the first to propose this without fully getting it. For example, his over emphasis assumption about losing parts not frequently used and his not knowing about genes (to be fair, no one knew yet). Good stuff and I'm glad I reread it.

Lost World by Michael Chriton - my first Chriton book. It was pretty fun - I enjoyed some of the science chatting and the chaos talk. Overall a pretty silly book. I want to read his Jurassic Park as well as Sphere. Someday...

Conversations with Professor Y by Louis Ferdinand Celine - Second read here. Super short but fun read. Céline vents a lot about his perception of literature as an art and his own writing style (which is quite unique and effective btw). Several hilarious scenes as well.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - not sure if I'd read this before so this is either a first read or a second. Incredible book. Lots of fun. Consider this one if you want a great, older American novel.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King - First read here as well. Pretty good book. Had to toss it after I was done as it was in terrible condition and falling apart in my hands. Seemed more sad than creepy to me, though.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Into the Fire by Dick Couch and George Galdorisi - Was in the mood for spy and war stuff and this fit the bill. It's about a hypothetical and pretty realistic conflict between North Korea and the US. Fun book.

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov: First read of a book I wrongfully but understandably mistook for the sequel to Foundation. Oh well. I loved it though. Asimov at his best.

Am also nearly through with Stephen King's Insomnia and also started my fourth read of Wishsong of Shannara - my favorite in that series.

[Kong Wen]

I finally dug up Musashi and finished reading it. Great book. It was long, and it felt long at times, but Yoshikawa had an interesting way of tying events from the early book back into the concluding paragraphs. Some of the characters in this book have hard lives. It's pretty sad. Musashi's fabled evolution from a ruffian into a philosopher who happens to be good at fighting is very well-executed.

I also pounded through Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in a couple days by the pool. I knew I was going to like it because the subject matter is interesting and I love Adams, but I didn't think it would be quite as good as it was. I mean, it's essentially a travelogue penned by a sci-fi comedy novelist. But this book made it clear to me that Adams was successful as a sci-fi comedy novelist, not because he was able to fill that particular niche in his particular way, but because he's a genius and a brilliant writer. He could have written in any genre, if he had wanted to. Here's a passage that stood out as an example, where Adams describes an encounter with a gorilla. Please read it:

The most disconcerting intelligence seemed to be apparent from the sudden sidelong glances he would give me, prompted not by any particular move I made but apparently by a thought that had struck him.

I began to feel just how patronising it was of us to presume to judge their intelligence, as if ours was any kind of standard by which to measure. I tried to imagine instead how he saw us, but of course that's almost impossible to do, because the assumptions you end up making as you try to bridge the imaginative gap are, of course, your own, and the most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making. I pictured him lying there easily in his own world, tolerating my presence in it, but, I think, possibly sending me signals to which I did not know how to respond. And then I pictured myself beside him, festooned with the apparatus of my intelligence—my Gore-Tex cagoule, my pen and paper, my autofocus matrix-metering Nikon F4, and my inability to comprehend any of the life we had left behind us in the forest. But somewhere in the genetic history that we each carry with us in every cell of our body was a deep connection with this creature, as inaccessible to us now as last year's dreams, but, like last year's dreams, always invisibly and unfathomably present.

That is some impeccable craftsmanship right there.

[Jordan]

Currently reading That Noble Dream by Peter Novick, which discusses historiography paradigm shifts between relativist and objectivist stances.

[FD]

This summer:

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon. My first experience with Pynchon. The man's mind is incredible; rivals Joyce in terms of its scope. No doubt that Pynchon is one of the greatest American minds (literary anyway) of the past century. This one is of particular interest to me, as it follows Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as they survey the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. I live in Northern Maryland, and it was definitely a trip to see these characters moving through my neighborhood. The novel's plot climaxes in my city, and ends with them fleeing to Pennsylvania on the road I've taken to work and school every day all my life. Written in the style of an 18th c novel such as one by Fielding. Hilarious. Incredibly dense. Long. Philosophically rich. Definitely deserves a second read when I get around to it.

The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. My second time reading All the Pretty Horses—not as sublime as I remembered, but still incredibly beautiful. Feels a little shallower than it did upon a first read. The Crossing is incredible. Deeply melancholic, long, philosophical. Some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. Cities of the Plain seems to me to be obviously the weakest of the trilogy. There just didn't seem to be much going on here. Almost feels cliched at points. Still a beautiful book. The ending is something else. Maybe this one will benefit from multiple readings, I don't know. It just seems to lack the scope of the first two parts of the trilogy.

The Snopes Trilogy by William Faulkner. The Hamlet is just barely lesser than Faulkner's greatest. The section dealing with Eula Varner ("The Long Summer" I believe) is lush, dense, and beautiful. Ratliff's allegory of Flem Snopes' taking Satan's throne gave me goosebumps. Hilarious. The Town and The Mansion were kind of a blur for me. While Faulkner doesn't seem to be nearly as inspired for those as he was with the first volume of the trilogy (and I think 25 years had elapsed before he began work on the second), this is still great literature. The humor is even more prominent in both of these than it was in The Hamlet. But I understand why this is under-studied Faulkner.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje. My professor gave me this one. Really short—only takes a couple hours to read. Prose, poetry, and images all present and prevalent. Really incredible, if a little confusing at first. I almost don't know what to say about it other than that it's fascinating, and I'm very grateful to have been turned on to a new author.

Now reading Lattimore's translation of the Odyssey. Next up: Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner. Or maybe Sister Carrie.

[Kong Wen]

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje. My professor gave me this one. Really short—only takes a couple hours to read. Prose, poetry, and images all present and prevalent. Really incredible, if a little confusing at first. I almost don't know what to say about it other than that it's fascinating, and I'm very grateful to have been turned on to a new author.

Billy the Kid is a crazy book. Fascinating is the best way to describe it. The English Patient probably gets the most widespread discussion among Ondaatje's works—and it's good, don't get me wrong—but I greatly preferred its predecessor, In the Skin of a Lion, and I think you would too. It has the same kind of geographical specificity that you enjoyed about Mason & Dixon (although it obviously wouldn't be as close to home for you), and it's remarkable study of how the various dominoes in a human life fall.

[Kreegs]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Its a play script, so its different than reading a traditional HP book. The plot so far is a little disappointing, as it uses time travel to revisit parts of past books. Wished they had kept it recent.

I love Harry Potter, but you can tell that this book was not written by J.K. Rowling, as the dialogue between the characters seems just a tad more "slangish" compared to the original series (and because its a play remember, not a novel).

[The Shoemaker]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Its a play script, so its different than reading a traditional HP book. The plot so far is a little disappointing, as it uses time travel to revisit parts of past books. Wished they had kept it recent.

I love Harry Potter, but you can tell that this book was not written by J.K. Rowling, as the dialogue between the characters seems just a tad more "slangish" compared to the original series (and because its a play remember, not a novel).

It definitely feels a bit like a fan-fiction, from the snippets I've seen. I always thought bringing time travel into the third book was a bit of a risky move, and this one seems to go even further with it. I hear the play is cool though, from acting to effects.

I actually started re-reading the Harry Potter series since it has been about 10 years since I have done so. I was surprised how... amateur the first book felt. Odd pacing, characters all over the place... maybe it's just because it was meant to be a children's book. The second book is an improvement in terms of pacing and character, but the writing style is still either amateur or more suited for children. Interested to see how it improves with each book.

[Kong Wen]

It definitely feels a bit like a fan-fiction [...] I actually started re-reading the Harry Potter series since it has been about 10 years since I have done so. I was surprised how... amateur the first book felt. [...] The second book is an improvement in terms of pacing and character, but the writing style is still either amateur or more suited for children.

I'm glad you went there, because I was going to say, the main series feels a lot like fan-fiction too.

[The Shoemaker]

It definitely feels a bit like a fan-fiction [...] I actually started re-reading the Harry Potter series since it has been about 10 years since I have done so. I was surprised how... amateur the first book felt. [...] The second book is an improvement in terms of pacing and character, but the writing style is still either amateur or more suited for children.

I'm glad you went there, because I was going to say, the main series feels a lot like fan-fiction too.

Lol, yeah! Though I was say the main series feels that way in terms of writing quality, Cursed Child feels like it tries to cameo as many characters as it can into one book. Of course the shear idea of picking up on a story after it has finished has fan-fiction written all over it

When it comes to the first two books, I feel fine saying the movies were better. I think actually a big part of the first couple books is the awe of reading about a magical world and all the strange things that happen, which translates much better in a visual medium. But from what I remember, the Harry Potter movies in general pretty faithful adaptations.

[Kreegs]

Books 5 and 6 rock my socks off every time. I continuously go through all 7 of them and am currently on book 6.

The writing is so much different than the first two books. The 3rd book was where I started to notice a difference.