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Post by jimmalone on Jan 8, 2021 13:31:54 GMT
Philip Roth: The Plot Against America
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 9, 2021 20:27:34 GMT
well... everything going on these past few days has completely distracted me from anything other than watching news. Was not able to finish Grapes of Wrath under two weeks so had to return it. Got about halfway through. Plan on finishing it as soon as possible. Baker's narration was out of this world. He seemed to legit be trying to channel Fonda in the Tom Joad scenes, giving him an accepting casualness and ending all his statements on a downward inflection, but Baker's voicework for the entire cast of characters has been fantastic. I think what I'm liking most are the stream-of-consciousness interludes between chapters in which Steinbeck describes the hardships of these people as a put-upon collective. These passages are incredibly poetic and powerful and read like nonfiction. Truly beautiful and revolutionary. I didn't know this was a Marxist text. next on deck is Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited narrated by Jeremy Irons(!), which is shorter.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 9, 2021 20:36:20 GMT
from one of those Grapes of Wrath interludes:
"And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history."
Prose, poetry, polemic. And I promise all of this sounds even better when Dylan Baker is reading it to you.
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Post by jimmalone on Jan 10, 2021 12:20:49 GMT
from one of those Grapes of Wrath interludes: " And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history." Prose, poetry, polemic. And I promise all of this sounds even better when Dylan Baker is reading it to you. Steinbeck really was a wonderful writer. I adore his style and his descriptions of the life of the often underprivileged and how he can write in more than one way about it. On one hand the hardship of their lives (as for example in Grapes of Wrath), but also he can write humourous about it and how they make the best of their lives like in Cannery Row. And he most of the time really picks interesting topics and has to tell something.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 11, 2021 2:06:23 GMT
Steinbeck really was a wonderful writer. I adore his style and his descriptions of the life of the often underprivileged and how he can write in more than one way about it. On one hand the hardship of their lives (as for example in Grapes of Wrath), but also he can write humourous about it and how they make the best of their lives like in Cannery Row. And he most of the time really picks interesting topics and has to tell something. I can't believe I've never read any of his work before but better late than never I suppose
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Post by jimmalone on Jan 11, 2021 9:18:10 GMT
Steinbeck really was a wonderful writer. I adore his style and his descriptions of the life of the often underprivileged and how he can write in more than one way about it. On one hand the hardship of their lives (as for example in Grapes of Wrath), but also he can write humourous about it and how they make the best of their lives like in Cannery Row. And he most of the time really picks interesting topics and has to tell something. I can't believe I've never read any of his work before but better late than never I suppose Yeah, you can't read everything at the same time. I've read, estimated, about 1500 books, but am still missing out some famous novels and authors like E.M. Forster, Gustave Flaubert, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Eliot or Ivan Bunin.
For Steinbeck I can recommend basically everything, especially Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row, which are also pretty short if you don't have much time now. East of Eden is also great, but a long read.
In Dubious Battle is probably the one that is closest to Grapes of Wrath in terms of topics. The Moon is Down is excellent and is a bit different from his usual stuff as it deals with the resistance in Norway against Germany in World War II.
Actually I prefer every book I mentioned to Grapes of Wrath.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jan 11, 2021 21:14:35 GMT
I have finished the first chapter of I, uh... was expecting a slow burn, creepy horror novel and instead I have encountered something that is already absurdly over-the-top. I'm digging it, but I'm already wondering how long Ito can maintain this mad energy. I don't think I've ever read a novel that so quickly hits batshit insanity after its introduction. Hell of an attention grabbing opening, I've gotta say.
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Post by jimmalone on Jan 12, 2021 16:48:31 GMT
Maxim Gorky - The Mother
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Post by Joaquim on Jan 18, 2021 22:36:22 GMT
The twelve caesars
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Post by jimmalone on Jan 19, 2021 9:53:59 GMT
Walter Scott - Ivanhoe
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jan 21, 2021 8:39:07 GMT
For Christmas, I got Jerry Seinfeld's new book which is a collection of all his stand-up material over the course of his whole career. It's organized by decade, so you can see how he progressed as a comedian starting from the 1970s until today (it even has current stuff on the pandemic). On the page, the jokes are formatted in a way that looks almost like poetry where you can get a sense of the cadence and timing of his delivery. I've basically been making my way through it by reading aloud a couple bits every day, trying to do my best Jerry impression. I'm still on his 1970s stuff, which isn't always gold, but there are still a lot of laugh-out-loud bits. He's said that even he doesn't always love his earlier stuff, but included it anyway to be fair to his younger self since it's what got him to where he is now.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 21, 2021 19:19:30 GMT
I finished Brideshead and Grapes of Wrath. Liked them both but Brideshead became draggy when twink Sebastian leaves the picture, and as much as I loved most of Grapes of Wrath, I really was bummed by the ending. Tom Joad is introduced as the protagonist but he leaves with a really stirring Marxist speech and we never see him again, and the final chapter just has the Joad family suffering through yet another catastrophic situation. The hopeless of their circumstances contrasts sharply against the Marxist rallying cries in Tom's final words and which run throughout the book's prosaic interludes. There's a sense that these downtrodden people can and someday will rise above if they stick together and organize, but even that promise is stifled in the final chapter. next on deck: trying to knock out some really short items: Zadie Smith's Intimations (Essays), and Chris Hayes's A Colony in a Nation.
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Post by wilcinema on Jan 25, 2021 12:45:14 GMT
I've been a number: One of the most chilling, brutal, devastating memoirs I have ever read on the Shoah. Every time I read or watch something about the Holocaust, I still struggle to understand how that happened, it was the epitome of evil and abomination.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 25, 2021 14:56:06 GMT
Very curious about this one by British journalist Caroline Criado-Perez. Feminism from a statistical perspective. Should be interesting!
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 29, 2021 16:00:48 GMT
Great Book Alert - Mattsby , stephen and other noir peeps. I got this early I guess and this is a classic in the making - this will either be a film or mini-series - I think I got it early because I saw something online saying a Feb 23rd release for hardcover and I have the hardcover (um) We Own This City : A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption Justin FentonThis is basically like The Wire crossed with Prince of the City - it's a true life Scorsese or Lumet movie and the level of reporting on corruption this book is utterly amazing.......it reads like fiction like Ellroy or Pelecanos - this is great stuff like REALLY REALLY great modern noir (but real) stuff.
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Post by wilcinema on Jan 31, 2021 11:33:48 GMT
La città dei vivi (City of the living): It has been called the Italian In Cold Blood by the Italian press, although I would say it's more In Cold Blood by way of Heart of Darkness. It is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, one I won't easily forget.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 31, 2021 21:23:23 GMT
Invisible Women is staggering. A a brain-crushing infodump. Will have to read it again and take notes next time but the data she collates is stunning and disturbing. Hugely important read. next up, another short one: Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Nickel Boys
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 1, 2021 12:28:25 GMT
I read two books I really liked recently and two that did not much for me.
The good ones: Leo Perutz - Saint Peter's Snow - A book set on the edge between reality and nightmare with a strong voice against careless research and experiments. A doctor comes into a small german town in the late 1920s, meeting the girl, whom he'd loved and a baronet, who is obsessed of the idea that his protege should be Holy Roman Emperor. At least that is what the doctor remembers, as he lies in hospital after what the attending doctors tell him was a car accident.
Gaito Gazdanov - An Evening with Claire - A russian emigrant in Paris recounts his childhood, youth and way through the russian revolution. It's much about his inner thoughts, observations and reflections and therefore quite similiar to Proust, but also with a bit of Tolstoy. As all of Gazdanov's books I've read it's also a bit nebulous and metaphysical. I read three so far and he has become one of my favourite writers of the 20th century.
The not so good ones: D.H. Lawrence - The Trespasser - The love affair of a young woman with a married man with the latter one after this epsiode feeling that another life would be senseless and finds it hard to live with his wife and children again. The last chapters with Siegmund in his desparation are quite interesting, but most of the book and love affair is just corny.
William Somerset Maugham - The Moon and Sixpence - The fictional story about a man, who threw away all conventions and becomes a famous painter, but fails at being a human. Obviously this is heavily based on the life of Paul Gauguin. It's better than Lawrence's book, but still just moderate and not really interesting.
Right now I'm reading Istanbul, Istanbul by Burhan Sönmez about four prisoners in Istanbul, who try to overcome their arrest and the time between tortures with telling each other stories. So far it gladly seems that this will fall into the first of the two tiers above.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 2, 2021 4:56:49 GMT
The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitzyn. It is a damn fine book at the moment.
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Post by cheesecake on Feb 4, 2021 2:26:10 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 4, 2021 22:19:48 GMT
here we go just started and already mildly obsessed. Love Claire and I love that it's written in first person so her thoughts/feelings are always in reach, love the eroticism, and I love Porter's narration (so far) which flawlessly alternates between Claire's posh accent and the highland Scottish accents. Very little has happened yet but the first hour has flown by.
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Drish
Badass
Posts: 2,017
Likes: 1,752
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Post by Drish on Feb 9, 2021 14:21:47 GMT
A Thousand Splendid Suns really really broke my heart. I literally bawled my eyes out so many times but that last sentence.. omg, I can't even put into words. It's crazy how art forms like books and movies can evoke such strong feelings in you. This book made me feel so grateful about my privileged life, how we groan that life is unfair to us for some petty problems when in fact we have endured nothing in comparison to what we read in the book. I can't get it out of my mind. A definite must read, my god!
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 9, 2021 18:21:06 GMT
Great Book Alert - Mattsby , stephen and other noir peeps. I got this early I guess and this is a classic in the making - this will either be a film or mini-series - I think I got it early because I saw something online saying a Feb 23rd release for hardcover and I have the hardcover (um) We Own This City : A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption Justin FentonThis is basically like The Wire crossed with Prince of the City - it's a true life Scorsese or Lumet movie and the level of reporting on corruption this book is utterly amazing.......it reads like fiction like Ellroy or Pelecanos - this is great stuff like REALLY REALLY great modern noir (but real) stuff. Apparently going to HBO according to this site anyway, as a series (?)........we'll see though......you could literally get several great feature films from this book......... www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/justin-fenton/work/we-own-this-city#:~:text=In%20a%20tense%20crime%20drama,of%20America's%20most%20dangerous%20cities.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 11, 2021 8:20:57 GMT
A Thousand Splendid Suns really really broke my heart. I literally bawled my eyes out so many times but that last sentence.. omg, I can't even put into words. It's crazy how art forms like books and movies can evoke such strong feelings in you. This book made me feel so grateful about my privileged life, how we groan that life is unfair to us for some petty problems when in fact we have endured nothing in comparison to what we read in the book. I can't get it out of my mind. A definite must read, my god! Yes. All the three first novels of Khaled Hosseini are definitely worth reading. Really heartbreaking stories.
Haven't read "Sea Prayer" yet.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 11, 2021 8:34:51 GMT
Just finished The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk, which is even greater than the film. Certainly a great work of literature and an early "Best-book-I-read-this-year-contender". I was a bit surprised of it's length first (more than 800 pages), but this really allowed not only to detailly depict the scenes on the Caine, but allows to be more ambivalent than the film - which of course is no surprise for books. The whole madness of Queeg is there and as Wouk takes so long to develop it and you can see it mainly through the eyes of main character Willie Keith, but also one or two others, you can really emphasize the brutal life of the men on this boat. But at the same time it takes it's time to explain the difficulty an unstable man like Queeg faced. And in the end it just says that Queeg is the product of the navy. Cause like him the navy can't admit to make mistakes and also it's such a huge body, that they don't even know and can't really judge how their tiniest parts work.
Istanbul, Istanbul by Burhan Sönmez I mentioned before was great as well. It takes something to make a statement about Istanbul's beauty and the magic of culture with the whole book set in a tiny prison cell where four prisoners face probably the last days of their lives. But Sönmez does ist.
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