What are you reading? - Page 7

Elle · 01-29-2005, 03:10 PM

Well, at the moment, I am reading The Poisonwood Bible , by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , by Douglass Adams.

I have to seriously reccommend the Kingsolver novel. Three-fourths through it, and it has really changed my perceptions of a lot of things.
The story itself is about a Baptist minister who takes his wife and three children into the Belgian Congo in the early 1960's, which, if you learned this in history, is during a time when USA and Belgium were trying to make the country democratic, while at the same time, pulling their strings and stripping the country bare of everything it's worth. A lot of the events that occured I can strangely tie into the Iraqui situation, but only on the level of the novel.

Long story short--It's a must-read! It looks big, but seriously, it moves so fast. It's hard to put down!

Happy reading, all.

Rose · 01-30-2005, 09:30 PM

Currently I'm reading
The Lovely Bones
The DaVinci Code
Petshop of Horrors #10
The Lemony Snickets series
Hard Love
Fight Club (only 2 chapters left though)
Dearly Beloved
Tithe

IM trying to read one at a time, but Im impatient and want to finish them all and it all depends on my mood, so i never know what ill want to read on a certain day. But all those books are REALLY good and i reccomend them all.

Elle · 01-30-2005, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rose
Currently I'm reading
The Lovely Bones
The DaVinci Code
Petshop of Horrors #10
The Lemony Snickets series
Hard Love
Fight Club (only 2 chapters left though)
Dearly Beloved
Tithe

IM trying to read one at a time, but Im impatient and want to finish them all and it all depends on my mood, so i never know what ill want to read on a certain day. But all those books are REALLY good and i reccomend them all.

I hear that DaVinci Code rocks very muchly. Nice set of books you got there!

Rose · 01-31-2005, 02:11 PM

Thanks ^^
The davinci code it REALLY good
I learned why the pentagram gets confused with the pentacle so much and how the pentagram came to be seen as a satan sybol.

J A Eyers · 01-31-2005, 05:53 PM

Well, I finished The Da Vinci Code the other night and am already 130 pages into Dan Brown's previous book, Angels & Demons. There are... certain similarities. This one's about a scientist recreating the Creation in a lab, and both the church and an anti-church organisation clashing over the discovery.

shirbz · 01-31-2005, 06:36 PM

Blurgh, I thought 'The Da Vinci Code' was pretty average. Clever in its way, but also very contrived and some of the characters were totally ridiculous. Many of the supposedly remarkable plot twists were fucking obvious too.

Elle · 01-31-2005, 08:47 PM

Well, I finished Poisonwood Bible on Sunday night. And I cannot press how wonderfully important that book is to anyone. I seriously reccommend it to anyone! It's captivating in so many ways and I haven't met anyone in my class who didn't like it.

Melina · 02-06-2005, 09:06 PM

Johnny Got His Gun...For the second time

BullpupDFWM · 02-09-2005, 03:02 AM

Almost finished The Pinnochio Syndrome and I'll soon be starting The DaVinci Code

Everlong · 02-12-2005, 10:40 AM

I'm most of the way through Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh. I've read 'The Acid House' as well as 'Porno' (the follow-up to 'Trainspotting') by him, all have been very, very good.

Melina · 02-17-2005, 05:19 PM

Irvine Welsh novels are impossible to get through, haha...I've tried Trainspotting and Glue..But I can't get past the fact that he writes in an accent, my mind won't process it...

Anyway, I'm reading Catch-22 now..Joseph Heller

J A Eyers · 02-18-2005, 05:36 PM

I felt the same way, but then in my first year at university one of my tutors said it really helps if you READ it in a Scottish accent. It works!

Everlong · 02-19-2005, 06:01 AM

@JA: I agree, it was very difficult to understand for the first couple of pages but if you get a word you can't understand say it out loud and it should be easier. After the first chapter or so you should have gotten used to it.
I find his writing in dialect made it more realistic, I could imagine the voices in my head much easier that way. IMO It's worth 'translating' his books because they're so good. I'm not a natural-born reader but I found his books very easy to get through.

Melina · 02-19-2005, 01:08 PM

I've read chapters and chapters into Welsh novels and my mind just won't process it, I couldn't get used to it. It's not as if I don't know what he's saying, I can translate it..It just takes me twice as long to get through one page as it normally would have and I get bored with it.

Vincent_Vodevil · 02-19-2005, 04:15 PM

Currently desperately trying to juggle:

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers (for school)
"Why I Am Not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell
"The Nazi Doctors" by Robert Jay Lifton

The first I'm not too far into, but it's looking to be pretty boring. The second I'm reading as an alternative to Nietzsche as catharsis for religious disgust, and the third (which is pretty captivating) I'm reading as a source for a term paper on social darwinism and it's impact on organized cruelty.

BorderCollie-san · 02-20-2005, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by shirbz
Blurgh, I thought 'The Da Vinci Code' was pretty average. Clever in its way, but also very contrived and some of the characters were totally ridiculous. Many of the supposedly remarkable plot twists were fucking obvious too.

Also it was horribly written. His prose style is without a shred of artistry.

The Drunkk Machine · 02-20-2005, 05:59 AM

Just finished "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. Basically it's a series of letters sent by a teenager struggling to cope in school after his friend's suicide. Funny and touching. It's also very easy to read; I'd completed it in under a day.

Melina · 02-20-2005, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Interpol
Just finished "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. Basically it's a series of letters sent by a teenager struggling to cope in school after his friend's suicide. Funny and touching. It's also very easy to read; I'd completed it in under a day.

Rocky Horror is mentioned in that book

We just lost BOTH of our theatre's here in AZ..So now we're a homeless cast. Sorry, just a bit of griping.

J A Eyers · 02-21-2005, 04:53 PM

Nietzsche's "Antichrist" is more interesting than Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian", if only because Nietzsche doesn't hold himself back simply to maintain a veneer of intellectualism. He goes for the jugular, and doesn't stop until he gets his teeth around the spinal cord. Indeed, if he was alive today I suspect he'd be prescribed a hefty dose of Valium. He's more fun.

Or wasn't that the Nietzsche book they wanted you to read?

I am currently reading The Player Of Games by Iain M Banks. I finished Angels And Demons by Dan Brown. It wasn't as good as The Da Vinci Code.

Vincent_Vodevil · 02-23-2005, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by J A Eyers
Nietzsche's "Antichrist" is more interesting than Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian", if only because Nietzsche doesn't hold himself back simply to maintain a veneer of intellectualism. He goes for the jugular, and doesn't stop until he gets his teeth around the spinal cord. Indeed, if he was alive today I suspect he'd be prescribed a hefty dose of Valium. He's more fun.

I agree, Antichrist is alot more colorful. Nietzsche is a blast, especially when he's doing some serious playa-hating. I'd re-read it if I hadn't lost my copy.

EDIT: I just got through The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers after much procrastination, and my initial expectations have been dramatically reversed. It's a very beautiful, painful book. Mostly about isolation and the madness that comes along with being passionate about something and not being able to express it. At least, that's what I got from it. Highly recommended.

J A Eyers · 03-07-2005, 05:08 PM

I've started the much-lauded The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon. It's a very easy read, very funny, and insightful. I wonder if Trekmaster has read it, seeing as it's about Aspergers...

Seifer · 03-12-2005, 11:24 AM

I'm working my way through Ethan Hawke's Ash Wednesday and then I will be on to White Noise by Don Delillo.

J A Eyers · 03-12-2005, 04:59 PM

I've just started Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, the semi-autobiography of Thatcherite lesbian Jeanette Winterson...

BullpupDFWM · 03-21-2005, 12:18 AM

Finally read The DaVinci Code.
It was a good book. Definately not the greatest of all time, but still pretty good. It was nice to finally know what all the hype was about. And I'm surprised Catholics/the Vatican are all pissed and annoyed at the way the Church is portrayed. People already knew that the church/religion is responsible for millions of deaths throughout history didn't they?

J A Eyers · 03-21-2005, 05:05 PM

Ssssshhh!!! (Answer: no).

I am currently reading the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Subtle Knife (might have had the title changed in the US), which is another Christianity-baiting book. The third book even got Pullman derided as "the most dangerous author in Britain" by a Christian critic.

nemarsde · 03-21-2005, 06:09 PM

I've read His Dark Materials trilogy. Didn't enjoy it after Northern Lights, which is a shame because I thought that was an enjoyable read.

And I really didn't see any religious subversion. I mean, not at all. J A Eyers, don't suppose you could point out some story elements that might've angered Christians for me? That'd be great.

Currently reading Hargan Coben's Back Spin. It's a lot of fun, revels in its own flimsiness. I'd recommend it.

Next up after that is Martin Cruz Smith's Rose.

J A Eyers · 03-24-2005, 10:44 AM

Because the message of the story is "God is a shithead so lets go kill him". How can you possibly have missed that? I haven't even read the third part yet but it's introduced in the second book even if it's only hinted at in the first. Lord Asriel wants to depose the Authority (i.e. God) and needs the Aesthaetter (the Subtle Knife) to do it. The Magesterium (i.e. the Church) believes that Dust is equitable to Original Sin (i.e. the Fall in the Garden of Eden). Lyra is the new Eve, and after the next war in Heaven, humanity won't be doomed to suffer because of ONE person's mistakes. I mean, come on, the last sentence in the third book (I flicked ahead) celebrates the idea of a Republic of Heaven i.e. one where God has been overthrown and the people put at the heart of it.

nemarsde · 03-30-2005, 09:50 AM

Oh. I got all that. But it's not as if it's any more blasphemous than, well, lots of sci-fi/fantasy stories.

I guess I just don't understand why it caused a stir, whereas other books haven't... at all.

e.g., May's Saga of the Pliocene Exile, Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy.

J A Eyers · 03-30-2005, 01:22 PM

Well, you've got to understand the people who find it blasphemous are the same people who find Jerry Springer: The Opera blasphemous. I mean, it IS about killing God.

nemarsde · 03-31-2005, 04:50 AM

Yeah. Probably to do with readership as well, I guess. If the Saga of the Pliocene Exile or Coldfire Trilogy had been as popular as His Dark Materials, we may have had some controversy over them as well.

01-29-2005, 03:10 PM	#181 (permalink)
Elle Registered User Forum Fodder Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Michigan Posts: 14	Well, at the moment, I am reading The Poisonwood Bible , by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , by Douglass Adams. I have to seriously reccommend the Kingsolver novel. Three-fourths through it, and it has really changed my perceptions of a lot of things. The story itself is about a Baptist minister who takes his wife and three children into the Belgian Congo in the early 1960's, which, if you learned this in history, is during a time when USA and Belgium were trying to make the country democratic, while at the same time, pulling their strings and stripping the country bare of everything it's worth. A lot of the events that occured I can strangely tie into the Iraqui situation, but only on the level of the novel. Long story short--It's a must-read! It looks big, but seriously, it moves so fast. It's hard to put down! Happy reading, all.

01-30-2005, 09:30 PM	#182 (permalink)
Rose The Stage Abomination Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Hellaciousness Posts: 2,171	Currently I'm reading The Lovely Bones The DaVinci Code Petshop of Horrors #10 The Lemony Snickets series Hard Love Fight Club (only 2 chapters left though) Dearly Beloved Tithe IM trying to read one at a time, but Im impatient and want to finish them all and it all depends on my mood, so i never know what ill want to read on a certain day. But all those books are REALLY good and i reccomend them all.

01-31-2005, 02:11 PM	#184 (permalink)
Rose The Stage Abomination Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Hellaciousness Posts: 2,171	Thanks ^^ The davinci code it REALLY good I learned why the pentagram gets confused with the pentacle so much and how the pentagram came to be seen as a satan sybol.

01-31-2005, 05:53 PM	#185 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Well, I finished The Da Vinci Code the other night and am already 130 pages into Dan Brown's previous book, Angels & Demons. There are... certain similarities. This one's about a scientist recreating the Creation in a lab, and both the church and an anti-church organisation clashing over the discovery.

01-31-2005, 06:36 PM	#186 (permalink)
shirbz ZORG Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 4,294	Blurgh, I thought 'The Da Vinci Code' was pretty average. Clever in its way, but also very contrived and some of the characters were totally ridiculous. Many of the supposedly remarkable plot twists were fucking obvious too.

01-31-2005, 08:47 PM	#187 (permalink)
Elle Registered User Forum Fodder Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Michigan Posts: 14	Well, I finished Poisonwood Bible on Sunday night. And I cannot press how wonderfully important that book is to anyone. I seriously reccommend it to anyone! It's captivating in so many ways and I haven't met anyone in my class who didn't like it.

02-06-2005, 09:06 PM	#188 (permalink)
Melina Registered User Forum Fodder Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 31	Johnny Got His Gun...For the second time

02-09-2005, 03:02 AM	#189 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	Almost finished The Pinnochio Syndrome and I'll soon be starting The DaVinci Code

02-12-2005, 10:40 AM	#190 (permalink)
Everlong Man up. Have a wank. Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: London, England Posts: 5,616	I'm most of the way through Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh. I've read 'The Acid House' as well as 'Porno' (the follow-up to 'Trainspotting') by him, all have been very, very good.

02-17-2005, 05:19 PM	#191 (permalink)
Melina Registered User Forum Fodder Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 31	Irvine Welsh novels are impossible to get through, haha...I've tried Trainspotting and Glue..But I can't get past the fact that he writes in an accent, my mind won't process it... Anyway, I'm reading Catch-22 now..Joseph Heller

02-18-2005, 05:36 PM	#192 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I felt the same way, but then in my first year at university one of my tutors said it really helps if you READ it in a Scottish accent. It works!

02-19-2005, 06:01 AM	#193 (permalink)
Everlong Man up. Have a wank. Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: London, England Posts: 5,616	@JA: I agree, it was very difficult to understand for the first couple of pages but if you get a word you can't understand say it out loud and it should be easier. After the first chapter or so you should have gotten used to it. I find his writing in dialect made it more realistic, I could imagine the voices in my head much easier that way. IMO It's worth 'translating' his books because they're so good. I'm not a natural-born reader but I found his books very easy to get through.

02-19-2005, 01:08 PM	#194 (permalink)
Melina Registered User Forum Fodder Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 31	I've read chapters and chapters into Welsh novels and my mind just won't process it, I couldn't get used to it. It's not as if I don't know what he's saying, I can translate it..It just takes me twice as long to get through one page as it normally would have and I get bored with it.

02-19-2005, 04:15 PM	#195 (permalink)
Vincent_Vodevil Grand Guignol Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2003 Location: Hicksville USA Posts: 1,801	Currently desperately trying to juggle: "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers (for school) "Why I Am Not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell "The Nazi Doctors" by Robert Jay Lifton The first I'm not too far into, but it's looking to be pretty boring. The second I'm reading as an alternative to Nietzsche as catharsis for religious disgust, and the third (which is pretty captivating) I'm reading as a source for a term paper on social darwinism and it's impact on organized cruelty.

02-20-2005, 05:59 AM	#197 (permalink)
The Drunkk Machine see you - GET ME A ♥♥♥♥ING CURLY WURLY Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 3,354	Just finished "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. Basically it's a series of letters sent by a teenager struggling to cope in school after his friend's suicide. Funny and touching. It's also very easy to read; I'd completed it in under a day.

02-21-2005, 04:53 PM	#199 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Nietzsche's "Antichrist" is more interesting than Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian", if only because Nietzsche doesn't hold himself back simply to maintain a veneer of intellectualism. He goes for the jugular, and doesn't stop until he gets his teeth around the spinal cord. Indeed, if he was alive today I suspect he'd be prescribed a hefty dose of Valium. He's more fun. Or wasn't that the Nietzsche book they wanted you to read? I am currently reading The Player Of Games by Iain M Banks. I finished Angels And Demons by Dan Brown. It wasn't as good as The Da Vinci Code.

03-07-2005, 05:08 PM	#201 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I've started the much-lauded The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon. It's a very easy read, very funny, and insightful. I wonder if Trekmaster has read it, seeing as it's about Aspergers...

03-12-2005, 11:24 AM	#202 (permalink)
Seifer Registered User Forum Fanatic Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: East Coast Posts: 187	I'm working my way through Ethan Hawke's Ash Wednesday and then I will be on to White Noise by Don Delillo.

03-12-2005, 04:59 PM	#203 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I've just started Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, the semi-autobiography of Thatcherite lesbian Jeanette Winterson...

03-21-2005, 12:18 AM	#204 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	Finally read The DaVinci Code. It was a good book. Definately not the greatest of all time, but still pretty good. It was nice to finally know what all the hype was about. And I'm surprised Catholics/the Vatican are all pissed and annoyed at the way the Church is portrayed. People already knew that the church/religion is responsible for millions of deaths throughout history didn't they?

03-21-2005, 05:05 PM	#205 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Ssssshhh!!! (Answer: no). I am currently reading the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Subtle Knife (might have had the title changed in the US), which is another Christianity-baiting book. The third book even got Pullman derided as "the most dangerous author in Britain" by a Christian critic.

03-21-2005, 06:09 PM	#206 (permalink)
nemarsde Large and Moving Torb Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: UK Posts: 8,781	I've read His Dark Materials trilogy. Didn't enjoy it after Northern Lights, which is a shame because I thought that was an enjoyable read. And I really didn't see any religious subversion. I mean, not at all. J A Eyers, don't suppose you could point out some story elements that might've angered Christians for me? That'd be great. Currently reading Hargan Coben's Back Spin. It's a lot of fun, revels in its own flimsiness. I'd recommend it. Next up after that is Martin Cruz Smith's Rose.

03-24-2005, 10:44 AM	#207 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Because the message of the story is "God is a shithead so lets go kill him". How can you possibly have missed that? I haven't even read the third part yet but it's introduced in the second book even if it's only hinted at in the first. Lord Asriel wants to depose the Authority (i.e. God) and needs the Aesthaetter (the Subtle Knife) to do it. The Magesterium (i.e. the Church) believes that Dust is equitable to Original Sin (i.e. the Fall in the Garden of Eden). Lyra is the new Eve, and after the next war in Heaven, humanity won't be doomed to suffer because of ONE person's mistakes. I mean, come on, the last sentence in the third book (I flicked ahead) celebrates the idea of a Republic of Heaven i.e. one where God has been overthrown and the people put at the heart of it.

03-30-2005, 09:50 AM	#208 (permalink)
nemarsde Large and Moving Torb Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: UK Posts: 8,781	Oh. I got all that. But it's not as if it's any more blasphemous than, well, lots of sci-fi/fantasy stories. I guess I just don't understand why it caused a stir, whereas other books haven't... at all. e.g., May's Saga of the Pliocene Exile, Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy.

03-30-2005, 01:22 PM	#209 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Well, you've got to understand the people who find it blasphemous are the same people who find Jerry Springer: The Opera blasphemous. I mean, it IS about killing God.

03-31-2005, 04:50 AM	#210 (permalink)
nemarsde Large and Moving Torb Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: UK Posts: 8,781	Yeah. Probably to do with readership as well, I guess. If the Saga of the Pliocene Exile or Coldfire Trilogy had been as popular as His Dark Materials, we may have had some controversy over them as well.