|
Post by Liiisa on May 24, 2017 6:56:40 GMT -5
Laughing at my comment earlier in this thread wondering why anyone would want to read Karl-Ove Knaussgard's brick-sized memoirs... a year later I did end up reading the first volume, and loved it!
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on May 29, 2017 18:27:51 GMT -5
um moby dick
so if i were to only read selected chapters, which would you recommend?
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Jun 24, 2017 5:05:58 GMT -5
My having finally finished the sociology text that I described the other day in the book thread reminded me that I could list the book that sparked my acquisition of it here: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, EmpireI had gotten a copy because I read a fantastic quote from it somewhere, but that must have been the one normal sentence. I just don't have the background in whatever it is that they're talking about to understand any of it, and I didn't have the patience to work through figuring it out. So, it was abandoned around page 10.
|
|
|
Post by sophie on Jun 27, 2017 22:29:27 GMT -5
Because I have extra reading time at the moment, I picked up Stuart Woods' Below the Belt. I used read some of his novels way back... This one is plain awful. Simplistic language, non existent character development..on and on. Written for low reading ability. Dreadful.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Oct 5, 2017 8:54:18 GMT -5
Kristopher Jansma, Why We Came to the City
Ugh, I can't continue with this. Young things in NYC struggling artistically, described unimaginatively
ETA: ok, I'm trying to make a go of this after all, but it may not work.
ETA 3 pages later: nope, nope, ugh.
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on Nov 10, 2017 19:31:08 GMT -5
lovely bones i finally gave it away
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Nov 10, 2017 20:59:46 GMT -5
um moby dick so if i were to only read selected chapters, which would you recommend? I don't know which chapters they are! I liked the first 100 pages or so. Then I struggled... there's a chapter where he describes a whale from one end to the other, which some find interesting. And I think I liked that last couple chapters. I remember thinging that if it was up to me I'd cut out about 1/3 of it from the middle.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Nov 11, 2017 8:20:15 GMT -5
I'm also a "The beginning of Moby-Dick is great but the middle is boring" person. (Hey, kind of like The Savage Detectives!) I'l have to try the ending some day... pretty sure I got rid of the copy I was trying to read, though.
|
|
|
Post by weeg on Nov 13, 2017 15:24:19 GMT -5
For the past few years I've allocated myself a classic novel to read as a New Year's Goal ( I don't do resolutions, just goals).
It's November 13th. I still haven't started Sunset Song. Tell me I should?
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Nov 13, 2017 19:24:12 GMT -5
*consults wikipedia since I haven't heard of that novel*
Yikes, that sounds pretty dark! But that said, I think I'd read it if I came across a copy, unless it's like 600 pages long or something.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Nov 14, 2017 3:29:58 GMT -5
*also on Wiki* it does indeed Liiisa!
Do you already own a copy? If so, I'd read the first 100 pages and see how it goes. If you do not own it, buy whatever you want to read :-)
|
|
|
Post by HalcyonDaze on Nov 14, 2017 3:58:19 GMT -5
Sounds bleak. I'd skip it.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Nov 24, 2017 12:13:55 GMT -5
Picked up "PRisoner in Trebekistan" by some guy who's won a lot on Jeopardy as a Bookbub special. THought it might be interesting to see behind the scenes, I guess. But he's trying to be funny, and he just isn't. I've just been reading for a few minutes at night before falling asleep, and last night I thought "oh, good, I must finally be finished the introduction and the book can start now", only to find it was the end of Chapter 2. Bleah. Not bothering to keep going.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Jan 1, 2018 20:15:36 GMT -5
Well, I'm starting the year off right: 10 pages into "Daisy Bates in the Desert" and I can't go through with it. It's more about why Julia Blackburn decided to write about Daisy Bates than about Daisy Bates herself, and her motivations are insufficiently interesting.
The sentence that killed it for me began "A long time ago I visited an astrologer who examined the palm of my hand," and I was like nope, that's enough of this.
So anyway, scratch that. (Why did I even have this book? No idea where it came from.)
|
|
|
Post by Webs on Jan 2, 2018 17:03:23 GMT -5
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante - I just couldn't get into it.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 12, 2018 7:46:22 GMT -5
Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth
I should have known better than to try reading a novel about an outlaw cowboy type who rides a hippo through the marshes of the 19th century Mississippi River delta.
It would make a good comic book, but even that would need a different writer. I think she was trying to imitate the cliché writing of old pulp cowboy novels, but the effect was tedious rather than amusing. Avoid.
|
|
|
Post by HalcyonDaze on Feb 17, 2018 21:03:28 GMT -5
a hippo???
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Feb 17, 2018 21:45:00 GMT -5
Mmm-hm. The central idea was that hippos were being used as pack animals in marshlands and rice fields. Which, in terms of how hippos live in the wild, could be interesting. But sadly, no.
|
|
|
Post by scrubb on Mar 27, 2018 23:37:50 GMT -5
Got a Bookbub special called "I Wish I was Engulfed in Flames". A woman writing humourously about her frantic life with 2 autistic kids. I am interested in special needs kids and have friends and relatives with autistic children, so I thought it might be interesting, and that the light-hearted approach would maybe be fun.
Well, first chapter sounded like a very bitter woman trying to be flippant as she complained about how her husband gets out of the house as often as possible. Then the next chapter she just wrote about a practical joke she and her "whacky" family played on her grandmother, introducing that she considers herself a creative film maker. And whacky. Did I mention whacky?
So that's when I abandoned it. Didn't make it to 50 pages, I don't think.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Mar 28, 2018 5:09:59 GMT -5
That sounds pretty unbearable, scrubb. Waste of a great title.
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on Mar 29, 2018 19:52:49 GMT -5
god, scrubb, that sounds insufferable
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 12, 2018 18:34:43 GMT -5
César Aira, The Musical Brain
But wait, you say, isn't Aira one of your favorite authors? Well yeah, but while a pointless, disorienting novella is a delight, a 300-page collection of pointless, disorienting short stories is just too much. I really liked a couple of the stories, but by the time I got halfway through I realized that was enough, so I dropped it back off at the library on the way home.
|
|
|
Post by Webs on Apr 12, 2018 20:03:46 GMT -5
Caitlin Moran's book started like that and I had to stop.
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Apr 13, 2018 3:35:30 GMT -5
Oh dear. I read yesterday that Aira just published his 100th book. I guess there have to be a few duds in there.
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Apr 13, 2018 4:31:56 GMT -5
Oh dear. I read yesterday that Aira just published his 100th book. I guess there have to be a few duds in there. I think the key is just not reading them all in one go.
|
|
|
Post by sprite on Apr 15, 2018 10:31:57 GMT -5
lovely bones i finally gave it away i read this on holiday. it was a decent holiday read, and i was interested to see how the author depicted a family processing the loss of a child, because this happened (death, not murder) in my family, and there's a lot i haven't asked my parents about. if you like, i can pm you the ending. the end of the murderer's storyline was actually kind of funny.
|
|
|
Post by sprite on Apr 15, 2018 10:34:26 GMT -5
one of the disadvantages of an e-reader is cheating and going to the end. in theory, i should be able to go to the contents page and link to the last chapter, but that always seems a faff.
i'm reading 'flat broke with goats' (started it on the plane) and it is just going on and on and on. i have little empathy for the narrator or her husband, she wants us to feel sorry for them, and i just want to read the last chapter and be done.
really wish i'd renewed either of my other library books i'd had on the phone. pride and prejudice and zombies would have been much better.
|
|
|
Post by tzarine on Apr 15, 2018 18:32:15 GMT -5
thanks, sprite
i read the ending! i am bad
|
|
|
Post by ozziegiraffe on Apr 15, 2018 19:18:57 GMT -5
really wish i'd renewed either of my other library books i'd had on the phone. pride and prejudice and zombies would have been much better. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is awful!
|
|
|
Post by lillielangtry on Apr 16, 2018 2:49:50 GMT -5
Deborah Feldman, Exodus (NB I haven't read Feldman's better known memoir, Unorthodox, the story of her leaving the separatist orthodox Jewish community where she grew up.) I actually got quite a Long way into this on audiobook before I decided it was annoying me too much and sent it back to Audible to get my credit for something else. I found the beginning, in which Feldman travels to Europe to see where her grandmother came from, pretty interesting. But at some Point, the fact that Feldman is neither a brilliant writer nor a brilliant reader (she narrates the audiobook) just started to grate more and more. And once we got on to the stories of her various flings, I didn't care any more.
|
|