What Are YOU Reading?

[Bartwald]

My wife is a Murakami reader but she hasn't yet read Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Her favourite so far is Sputnik Sweatheart and the least favourite - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.

[LivingDeadGirl]

Finally finished Evil Eye. Wow! I think that one is my favorite so far. And the ending caught me by suprise...didn't figure that one out. Great book!

[Bartwald]

I didn't figure that out, either - the ending was a total knock-out! I had one suspect and I thought that my thinking is pretty clever, so nearing the end I was 100% sure that's the man. Surprise!

The Africa showdown was pretty cool, too, wasn't it?

[LivingDeadGirl]

admin said:

The Africa showdown was pretty cool, too, wasn't it?

Yes it was! One of the best parts of the book.

[Fenril]

quorthon said:

Finally finished Straub's Shadowland.

Wasn't nearly the horror story I had hoped for, however, it was well written.

I recently finished reading this very book... which took me a while. I even lay it off for a while to read two other books, then got back and finished "Shadowland" strictly out of commitment.

So far I have read (of Straub) "Ghost Story", "Julia", "Houses without doors" and the nouvelle "Porkpie hat" and loved all of them, but this one was a bit of a dissapointment for me.

Firstly, Quorton is right, this can't be called an horror tale as such, it's more like Dark Fantasy (if we have to give it a label). There are certainly things of interest, like the atmospheric settings (especially the over-the-top Carson school, with its' gothic hallways) and the characters Del, Rose and Tom who are all pretty fascinating and complex to read about.

I had a problem a) with the main villain, who's so eee-vil he's downright cartoonish (as opossed to the villains in "Ghost story" or in "Julia", who came across as seriously evil, people you really wouldn't want to ever meet), and b) the nameless narrator --isn't it convenient how everybody is willing to talk with him and share extremely intimate details of their lives the better to reconstruct the tale in its entirety? I also hated his holier-than-thou attitude when describing his past classmates and teachers. Not that I couldn't identify with his opinions, but I don't see that they added anything to the story, and felt like gratitous ranting.

Quorton, if you're still willing to give Straub a chance some other time and want to read a genuine horror tale, definitely start with "Ghost Story". Don't be foooled by the generic title, it's seriously one of the most disturbing tales ever written, at least according to Bartwald and me.

I have bought Straub's "If you could see me now" and "The hellfire club" to read next, as I heard they are better. Can anybody confirm this or if not, does anybody have any reading recommendations?

[Bartwald]

Haven't read The Hellfire Club but If You Could See Me Now is yet another great ghost story - in my opinion one of his best books. But I loved Shadowland, too.

Right now I'm reading Noel Carroll's Philosophy Of Horror - one part interesting, one part WTF?!

[Phoenix]

Just finished reading, "Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson. 10/10

I picked it up based on a top ten list by Stephen King, it was number one, and then I saw it was on many top ten lists this year. EXCELLENT detective story and facinating characters. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

[Pulpmariachi]

Okay, I finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World awhile ago, it was really good. I haven't read any other Murakami books, so I can't really compare, but I guess see what your wife says Bart. Have her read it. Or see if she wants to. It felt, though, kinda like a Japanese Michael Crichton book, except at the end, instead of having page-turning thrills it falls into beautiful images. But I mean, there's all this brain wave stuff that completley goes over my head (like a lot of the scientific stuff in Crichton's books, except I think it's made up here). And then the second part is very...thrilling. I'd give it a B.

Then I finished reading Eldest, which is the second part of this series by this kid about boys and thier dragons (of course, the first part's movie is coming out later this year [rolls eyes]). Yes, it's cliche fantasy where you can pretty much pinpoint nearly everything to The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and a bit to Harry Potter, but it's FUN, goddammit! And the kid's writing has gotten better since the last one, when he was seventeen. The middle's kinda boring though and the more compelling part with all the action isn't as interesting, but whatever. I'll give it a B-minus: it loses points for cutting and pasting, but it's still fun. Maybe the last one'll be the best.

Now I have this book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson called "Peter and the Starcatchers." It's Dave Barry, man! And he's never failed to make me fall down on the floor laughing.

[LivingDeadGirl]

phoenix said:

Just finished reading, "Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson. 10/10

I picked it up based on a top ten list by Stephen King, it was number one, and then I saw it was on many top ten lists this year. EXCELLENT detective story and facinating characters. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

I'll have to check that one out....that's the kind of stuff I like to read...besides horror.

[Pulpmariachi]

Just finished Peter and the Starcatchers, which is funny and surprisingly thrilling. Apparently co-author Ridley Pearson writes suspence novels, so combined with Dave Barry's humor you get a book that warrants a B+.

Then I read the comic book that came with my Sin City 2-disc edition thing: The Hard Goodbye. It works so well as storyboards. And Frank Miller's book is a great, fun, more violent romp than the movie. Enough so it gets a B+.

Now, I'm reading a series of plays by Ian Pierce called "The Incomplete Philosophy of Hope and Nothings." I've read one play completley and am in the middle of the second. There are six plays.

[Quorthon]

I finally finished my Visions of Heaven book about the Hubble Space Telescope.

I'm not really in a "novel" mood as of late, but for lunch breaks at work, I started one of my last book purchases:

"The Most EVIL Men and Women in History."

I finished Torquemada, and started on Ilse Koch yesterday.

[frankenjohn]

Midnight by Dean Koontz.

[Pulpmariachi]

I just finished "The Complete Philosophy of Hope and Nothings" by Ian Pierce, which is a collection of plays. "The Road and the River," about a girl who has just died and everyone is sad about it, is pretty good, enough to warrant an A-. "Four Clowns and a Bench," an odd love story is also great, another A-. However, the plays kinda go downhill for "The Earthly Burial of a Monologue Box" and "The Box." They're not that great and I kinda got lost in them, and not in a good way. They both deserve C+'s. "An Imaginary Dance of the Fragments" is another odd one there, with jacked up time frames and characters all over the place. I'd give it a B. Then the book bounces back with the last play, "Living in the Present Tense," about a man whose light is on during a blackout. This is an odd and great one. Another A-. I'd give the whole book a B+.

Now I'm reading Michael Crichton's latest technotriller, "State of Fear." Yes, I think he's already written his "masterpiece" ("Jurassic Park"), but he can write a decent thriller, even if I don't know what's going on or what the characters are talking about most of the time.

[Pulpmariachi]

Just finished Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." It was good, some good action-sequences. But I don't have a PhD in Physics or anything so I have no idea what he's talking about a lot of the time. He's a smart one that guy (and what other fiction author has a BIBLIOGRAPHY for his works?) and this is definitley a persuasive novel, with plenty of facts to back up his claim (I won't say more but it deals with global warming). But once he starts, Crichton can make you read. However, this book was a bit anticlimatic and preachy at the end, which really held it down and left me disappointed. Basically, it wasn't as cool as his last outing, "Prey" (which had a great scene with nanotechno things and cars), but it's still decent enough for a B.

Now I'm reading "The Constant Gardener" by John Le Carre.

[Bartwald]

pulpmariachi said:

...what other fiction author has a BIBLIOGRAPHY for his works?...

Michael Slade does, for all his novels - and you'd be impressed with his bibliographies, too!