A little place to just chat about Books.

[McCulloch]

A little place to just chat about Books. What are you reading? Would you recommend it?

[justifyothers]

I am reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollen.
It's excellent - gobs of info!

[cnorman18]

I've been writing - here - more than reading lately, but here are a few favorites from recent years:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, by Susanna Clarke. A very literary novel about the revival of "traditional English magic." Fantastic. Think Harry Potter for intelligent grownups.

Possession, by A. S. Byatt. Also literary, and a masterpiece. A romance that puts "romance novels" to shame, an adventure, and a historical mystery, with an ending you will never forget. If you like poetry, this is a novel not to be missed.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. Forget the movie. The book is a historical mystery par excellence and a literary tour de force.

Old faves: Mary Renault's The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea, together the "autobiography" of Theseus. What could the legends have been based on? These books tell you, and it's a hell of a ride.

She also wrote Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games. A trilogy about the life and legacy of Alexander the Great - the most brilliant, charismatic, dynamic, and enigmatic leader in human history. Stunning and exciting beyond measure.

And if you've actually never read The Lord of the Rings, do it. You're missing one of the greatest experiences in the English language after Shakespeare. It's not just the story - it's the magnificent language and the breadth of imagination. Tolkien all but invented fantasy, and most of what has followed him is cheap imitation by comparison.

And just on principle, The Five Books of Moses; The Schocken Bible, Vol. I, translated by Everett Fox. The only English version of the Torah that gives a sense of the rhythm, the flavor, and the wordplay of the Hebrew. You will find puns and jokes and connections and beautiful lyricism that you never saw before.

[OnceConvinced]

I'm a collector of Biggles books. Maybe not that well known in the USA, but huge in the UK (a movie was done in the 80s loosely based on the characters from the books). I recently sold one for 350 British pounds. I probably could have got way more for it too if I had waited a little longer and built up a reputation on Ebay UK!

I have all but three (and one of those was the one I sold). There are about 80-90 of them.

The other books I am reading are "God is not great" and "Breaking the Spell".

[Fallibleone]

I am addicted to books. I'll read anything as long as it's not a western or a romance. I have just finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and am currently reading Nineteen Twenty-One by Adam Thorpe.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, by Susanna Clarke. A very literary novel about the revival of "traditional English magic." Fantastic. Think Harry Potter for intelligent grownups.

Ha! The first time I tried to read this, I got about 200 pages in and then gave up. It came across as unrelentingly dull. I thought to myself 'how can a book about magic and supernatural creatures be so boring?' I put it aside for more than a year. The second time went much better. I finished it, and was actually slightly sad that it had come to an end. On reflection I did rather enjoy it after all.

Possession, by A. S. Byatt. Also literary, and a masterpiece. A romance that puts "romance novels" to shame, an adventure, and a historical mystery, with an ending you will never forget. If you like poetry, this is a novel not to be missed.

Oops and I just said I won't read romances. Well as you say, this puts romance novels to shame.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. Forget the movie. The book is a historical mystery par excellence and a literary tour de force.

Agreed. And if you want your mind turned inside out and back to front, try Foucault's Pendulum. When I had finished it I had a very strong sense of having enjoyed it immensely, but I couldn't say for the life of me why.

And if you've actually never read The Lord of the Rings, do it. You're missing one of the greatest experiences in the English language after Shakespeare. It's not just the story - it's the magnificent language and the breadth of imagination. Tolkien all but invented fantasy, and most of what has followed him is cheap imitation by comparison.

Agreed. You think the films were too long as it was? Heh - they actually left loads out. Poor old Tom Bombadil, for example. The man constructed an entire mythology and language virtually alone.

Some recommendations for others:

Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake, Alias Grace and loads more.

Anything by Michel Faber, but especially The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin.

Sarah Waters - The Fingersmith, Affinity and The Night Watch.

Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch and The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

David Mitchell - Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas, Number 9 Dream and Black Swan Green.

Albert Camus - The Outsider (The Stranger)

Chuck Palahniuk Lullaby, Choke, Haunted.

Henry James The Turn of the Screw.

Sheridan Le Fanu Uncle Silas, Green Tea.

E.M. Forster A Room With a View, A Passage to India.

Evelyn Waugh A Handful of Dust, Vile Bodies.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby.



I have more.

[OnceConvinced]

You know, I've never read LOTR either and I find it hard to get excited about reading about hobbits, elves and dwarfs and things like that. I like to read books with characters I can identify with. Characters that are more realistic. I guess fantasy is not really my genre.

[Fallibleone]

For me it depends what kind of mood I'm in. I rarely read sci fi for example, and I feel that the fantasy genre is saturated with dross, with a few notable exceptions. But when I want pure escapism, I do sometimes feel like reading something unrealistic. When I want something more rewarding, I tend to go to old classics with a difference or contemporary writing, also with a difference. I'm all about the difference, you see.

[cnorman18]

I am addicted to books. I'll read anything as long as it's not a western or a romance. I have just finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and am currently reading Nineteen Twenty-One by Adam Thorpe.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, by Susanna Clarke. A very literary novel about the revival of "traditional English magic." Fantastic. Think Harry Potter for intelligent grownups.

Ha! The first time I tried to read this, I got about 200 pages in and then gave up. It came across as unrelentingly dull. I thought to myself 'how can a book about magic and supernatural creatures be so boring?' I put it aside for more than a year. The second time went much better. I finished it, and was actually slightly sad that it had come to an end. On reflection I did rather enjoy it after all.

I thought it was wonderful, but I tend to take books as I do people - I accept them for what they are and expect them only to be that. I thought it was great fun from the start.

Possession, by A. S. Byatt. Also literary, and a masterpiece. A romance that puts "romance novels" to shame, an adventure, and a historical mystery, with an ending you will never forget. If you like poetry, this is a novel not to be missed.

Oops and I just said I won't read romances. Well as you say, this puts romance novels to shame.

I'm about to break your aversion to Westerns, too. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Trust me. I don't do Westerns either, but this book is in a class by itself.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. Forget the movie. The book is a historical mystery par excellence and a literary tour de force.

Agreed. And if you want your mind turned inside out and back to front, try Foucault's Pendulum. When I had finished it I had a very strong sense of having enjoyed it immensely, but I couldn't say for the life of me why.

I agree there too. I don't think it's as accessible as the other - it expects a lot of the reader - but it's worth the effort.

And if you've actually never read The Lord of the Rings, do it. You're missing one of the greatest experiences in the English language after Shakespeare. It's not just the story - it's the magnificent language and the breadth of imagination. Tolkien all but invented fantasy, and most of what has followed him is cheap imitation by comparison.

Agreed. You think the films were too long as it was? Heh - they actually left loads out. Poor old Tom Bombadil, for example. The man constructed an entire mythology and language virtually alone.

Agreed on all points, but I think the movies were magnificent and virtually flawless. Tolkien would have loved them - probably. I understand that he himself did not much like one of his most beloved characters, Sam Gamgee. A strange man, but most towering geniuses are.

Tom Bombadil would have been so wildly out of place in the movie, such a bizarrely different "separate reality," that it would have destroyed the flow of the story at the very start. In the book, that weird little island of peculiarity that surrounded Tom was rather the point; in a movie, I don't think it would have been workable. Tolkien had pages to explain who and what Tom was. A movie would have minutes. No doubt the screenplay adapters decided the effect wouldn't be worth the time or contribute enough to the final product.

Other than myriads of small incidents, I can't recall any other major sections or characters that were deleted, but it's been years since I read the book.

Well, maybe the Barrow-downs, and Old Man Willow, and Namarie, and . . .

Never mind.

Some recommendations for others:

Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake, Alias Grace and loads more.

Anything by Michel Faber, but especially The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin.

Sarah Waters - The Fingersmith, Affinity and The Night Watch.

Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch and The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

David Mitchell - Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas, Number 9 Dream and Black Swan Green.

Albert Camus - The Outsider (The Stranger)

Chuck Palahniuk Lullaby, Choke, Haunted.

Henry James The Turn of the Screw.

Sheridan Le Fanu Uncle Silas, Green Tea.

E.M. Forster A Room With a View, A Passage to India.

Evelyn Waugh A Handful of Dust, Vile Bodies.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby.

I have more.

I'm off to Half Price Books.

I have been asked what I, personally, hope Heaven will be like, if there is one. My answer is always, "Half Price Books, but everything is free and there is infinite time to read."

Have you ever heard of a book or story called "The King in Yellow"?

[msmcneal]

Most of my reading is religious and philosophy based. I don't get much into anything else. There are a few classics that I've enjoyed, though. My all-time favorite is probably Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I've read it probably about 30 times or so since high school, which was about ten years back. I love the fantasy genre, but I don't care much for the books or movies. I like the video games, because I like the feeling that I'm taking a part in the story. In this regard, I love the Final Fantasy games. There are dozens of others, too. But mostly just religion and philosphy as far as books go. I'm currently reading one I got for Christmas about the Dead Sea Scrolls (sorry I don't remember the name right off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy at the moment to go look). It is quite interesting, however, and comes from the point that the texts really do a great disservice to the traditional claims of Christianity. I'm also reading a few things from the Islamic perspective, but I won't go into those, it'd just bore you all. Maybe. I used to like reading volumes out of the encyclopedia collection we had in high school. My mom used to brag that I'd just grab a volume, and start reading. You learn alot that way. Like how much your mind can hold before it starts to lose things.

[QED]

I've just put down a rather clever book that seems to be the first of its kind: Radiant Cool A Novel Theory of Consciousness by Dan Lloyd.

Dan Lloyd is Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College in Connecticut, and winner of the first New Perspectives in Functional Brain Imaging Research award, given by the Functional MRI Data Center and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

The book is in two halves, the first half is a fiction framed as a metaphysical thriller in the noir style. I found it a gripping suspense story worthy of a more experienced author of this kind of material, but Lloyd's professional know-how also comes into play and made my head spin much more than usual. But this story is followed in the second half of the book by Lloyd's professional insights into consciousness studies and in it he sets out his identification of temporality present in fMRI data. This is, I think, a very important discovery for understanding the mind/brain issue.