Seems like it's been a while since we did one of these. Time to remedy that.

Just went to Maui and plowed through six books while I was there. It was all easily digestable stuff, but I enjoyed some of them quite a bit:

A Catskill Eagle by Robert Parker - Never read a "Spenser For Hire" novel before. Heard this one was good. Dialogue and the references are a bit dated, but plot moved just fine. Some decent action. Solid, if unremarkable.

Savages by Don Winslow - Really enjoyed it, even though it's clearly been marketed as one of those books for the "YouTube generation" or whatever.

Fear Itself and Fear of the Dark by Walter Mosley - Each as good as many of Easy Rawlins novels, even though the intricacies of the plots are often close to inpenetrable. Really wish Mosely would write another one of these.

Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson - I liked the first 2/3 of it, before it fell apart, plot-wise. Dialogue was always extra clunky, but I cared about at least some of the characters. Then it ended up focussing on characters that didn't interest me nearly as much. I can see how Spielberg is gonna turn this into a blockbuster tho.

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn - A mess. Read it because I liked Thumbsucker a lot and thought the movie had an interesting concept. A few kernels in it, but mostly Kirn is crawling up his own ass here. Long passages of it in the final third were insufferable. I think the movie version of it was flawed, but in this case, the movie>>>the book.


And now reading:

The Handle by Richard Stark. Eighth of the PArker novels, started it before I left and forgot to take it with me.

Darkness, Take My Hand by by Dennis Lehane. Started it on the plane back. Reads fine so far.

Telegraph Avenue.

Recently reads include

Superman For All Seasons (Loeb and Sale) - Was pretty good. Liked the sentiment, but the last chapter fell a little flat to me.

This Is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz) - Some of the stories were a punch to the gut. Reminded me of being 'that guy', or watching friends do the same shit (get messed up in relationships). The Pura Principle was my favorite story.

Y: The Last Man (Vaughn) - Got as far as the 3rd collection and then stopped. Really hated this.

>This Is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz) - Some of the stories
>were a punch to the gut. Reminded me of being 'that guy', or
>watching friends do the same shit (get messed up in
>relationships). The Pura Principle was my favorite story.



was some sort of sick nostalgia going on

he has women side eyeing him hard
me included

but damn if those stories didn't remind me of morons back in the day


~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

>
>
>This Is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz) - Some of the stories
>were a punch to the gut. Reminded me of being 'that guy', or
>watching friends do the same shit (get messed up in
>relationships). The Pura Principle was my favorite story.
>
>
>

I feel you so much on that.

But I'm good on reading anymore stories from Junot from the perspective of Dominican young men. He's a great writer so I'd be interested in seeing what else he's got.



"I halfway hope people put "btw, rappers lie and shit" on CD covers, like a parental advisory sticker." - OKP Villain

www.twitter.com/lexlamont

>But I'm good on reading anymore stories from Junot from the
>perspective of Dominican young men. He's a great writer so I'd
>be interested in seeing what else he's got.


he did mention sci fi up his sleeve for the next one
i keep forgetting to read monstro

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

he's said on numerous occassions he's TRYING to write

incredible story about a woman or women in him.i also think he has that sci-fi joint in him as well. i hope he completes it

remarkable pieces of writing I've EVER come across. the way Junot submerges the horrid experience of cancer (in the hood at that) through comedy is a stoke(s) of genius. touched on religion, immigration, scandalous hustles, masculinity and emotional abuse. the range of that chapter i will use in lit classes when i teach creative writing in a couple of years. that nigga is my writing idol.

but overall i do have criticisms of the book (still got two chapters left), or more so where Junot chooses to focus the scope of writing interest

Somethings were perfect, somethings else...

Full disclosure: I'm not the biggest fan of Chabon's work from Cav & Klay on. His inability to write a simple sentence gives me a headache. And yes, I'm aware of the 10-page sentence in this book.

YPU was, for me, his best book because of how vividly he painted it and how he twisted Jewish folklore and culture into a noir crime drama in a really bizarre setting.

He steps back from the fanciful in this one and goes for a more familiar setting and story and doubles down the riskiness by writing for primarily black characters. He mostly misses on the race-relations portion of the book, but you forget pretty quickly (at least I did) that that was a dynamic at play. His focus on music, film, pop-culture and fatherhood come off fairly authentic but, as usual, it's his descriptive, scene-setting prose that's most enjoyable. I've never set foot in North Oakland, but I can see it.

I think it's worth a go if for anything than to comment on how a white middle aged successful author attempts to parse a largely African American story.

...about it. As in, I've spent A LOT of time on Telegraph Ave. and I've spent a lot of time in the type of used record stores that he describes (In fact, I'm pretty sure I know/have spents lots of money in the spot that served as his inspiration for the store in the book). And Chabon kind of displayed the uncanny ability to make me hate about reading things I love (e.g. comic books and baseball), so I don't know if my psyche can take if he makes me hate reading about used record stores. It also makes me wary that, from what I've heard, this is a novelized version of TV show that he unsuccessfuly pitched to TNT.

On the other hand, full disclosure, I haven't read YPU, and I hear it's a lot more readable than the other stuff he's written in the '00s. I also hear his book of essays was quite good.

sort of strange thinking about it, but the record store itself isn't as central as you would think though it is the thrust of one of the main plot lines: it's impending doom at the arrival of a big-box style shopping development.

Werewolves in Their Youth is pretty good for small doses of the gimmicks he clearly gets enamored with but couldn't cram into a novel.

but I can't say I was a huge fan of it either.

>Y: The Last Man (Vaughn) - Got as far as the 3rd collection
>and then stopped. Really hated this.



"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

Shoot me in the face.
Reading TESS OF THE D'UBERVILLES, MIDDLEMARCH, and JANE EYRE as research.
After that I'm reading something short, that doesn't star an adolescent girl whining about an older man.



"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

Great short (really short) novel.

Check it for MORE late 19th century romantic lit, or check it because it's the antithesis?
Because I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'm ever gonna read another novel starring a precocious adolescent girl ever again after this.


"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

It's about a day laboror in the early 20th Century American West. I hesitate to say any more than that and spoil any of the plot. The writing is really good ... Such a short book (you'll finish it in an afternoon) yet it feels epic.

"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

Reading now:

-Ever Is A Long Time by W. Ralph Eubanks
A coworker's reading it for class and highly recommends it, so I ordered it.

In queue:

-Life Of Pi by Yann Martel
-more Y: The Last Man
-Unholy Ghost: Writers On Depression
-Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
-If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes

Any recommendations?


"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

>Any recommendations?

Well I'd say start with If He Hollers, because that's what I'm starting with, lol. This is my first time reading Himes.

very impressed so far, the mix of grand scope and detailed family plotlines is really well done, even if some of the Indian mythology has been going a little over my head

recent reads:

Boomerang (M. Lewis): was surprised how 100% pro-capitalism this tome was, for someone who's been pretty scathing in his criticism of Wall Street previously (not that these things are exclusive). He basically flies into these countries affected by the financial crisis, and metes out a very cliched assessment of where they messed up. Anyone who's read even a minimal amount of reporting on these countries will learn absolutely nothing. Even Mitt Romney's campaign would come up with a more varied analysis. Well OK, probably not but IMO Lewis is veering dangerously close to Thomas Friedman territory in his need to explain everything away in as little space as possible with this one

A Hologram For The King (D. Eggers): a breezy plane/beach read, this felt more like a (long) New Yorker story than an actual novel. Nothing bad about it but it's tough to recommend it to anyone except Eggers superfans

A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovitch (A. Solzhenitsin): both epic and mundane, this short book is about exactly what the title says. Even without the historical nature of it, this was a powerful read

and tons more, I've been able to stick to my reading resolution (target: 50 books by the end of the year) so it's been fun trying on a ton of different authors/subjects

I'm actually reading Joseph Anton - A Memoir by Rushdie right now. It's his memoir of life during the fatwa. Makes me want to give The Satanic Verses another try because I could never get past a hundred pages

I really love the book. It took me a few chapters to get into it but Michael Chabon is a really great writer.

My only real complaint is sometimes what happens is extremely vague, like he'll allude to it and the characters will take a step past it already. I think sometimes clarity falls behind to his talent.

finished this is how you lose her

may need a break from all this after go back to my usual
aiming for finishing up the Acacia Trilogy
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

???

Only 2 chapters in and already the mind-fuckery is about on par with the latter half of A Scanner Darkly. Excited/worried to see where it goes from here. Digging it so far though

finished "This Is How You Lose Her" a few weeks ago. really liked it and probably my favorite of his works. for those that haven't read it yet, it's worth hunting down the short story he wrote in the New Yorker recently called "Monstro," which is a sci-fi/zombie story. I believe he has hopes of turning it into a novel, but apparently, the story published is all that currently exists of it. and if a sci-fi story from Junot Diaz sounds kinda weird, worry not: there are still descriptions of women's bodies.

currently reading:
Haruki Murakami, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running": re-reading this since I recently started to run. I dig the comparisons between writing and long distance running.

Chris Ware, "Building Stories": I fucking love this shit, but it's taking me a long time to read because I can only handle it in bit-sized chunks. his stories are so sad, so depressing, so quiet, and it takes a lot out of me just to get through them. the narrative ambition and the technical expertise are second to none though. definitely worth a purchase, and at only $30 on Amazon, it's a fucking steal.

David Mitchell, "Cloud Atlas": I got through half of it a few years ago, but since the movie is about to come out, I thought I'd give it another shot. I forgot how funny it was; Mitchell is a clever dude.

I feel like he wrote this book for me personally.
I've yet to be discouraged from this thought.

>currently reading:
>Haruki Murakami, "What I Talk About When I Talk About
>Running": re-reading this since I recently started to run. I
>dig the comparisons between writing and long distance
>running.



"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

I'm one chapter in. Don't know what to think so far.

I finished Kasher in the Rye too, Moshe Kasher's story about his childhood/adolescent years where he went to rehab and therapy. Fascinating stuff.

"V" by Pynchon is next, but been kinda weary to start (I gave up on "Gravity's Rainbow" after about 80 or so pages. I understood little while reading those pages.). I hear "V" is an easier Pynchon read, and apparently that's what my dumb ass needs.

After that is "Universe from Nothing" by Krauss. sp? This'll be my second cosmology book following Hawking's "The Grand Design," which I really enjoyed.

read The Brothers Karamazov this year and it was tremendous. Maybe my fave Dosto so far, and definitely one of those books that, as soon as I finished it, I'm already looking forward to re-reading

... "The Idiot" or "Karamazov," which are first and second, respectively, on my personal FD list.

The novel's introduction is a bit jarring, with way too many characters being introduced. The novel will be a splendid reread, though.

"Demons" also features one of the most vile literary antagonists I've ever encountered: Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky. You'll see what I'm talking about.

I would recommend scooping up a copy with the formerly-censored chapter, "At Tikon's." I was pissed my translation (Pevear & V) had it as an appendix and not in the novel's body, as the chapter has serious implications concerning the book's ending.

I'm now reading "The call of Cthulu" by lovecraft.

I loved Diaz's book from beginning to end. Slaughterhouse snuck up on me. We'll see what's up with this lovecraft choice. I'm only so far into it. I don't like it too much so far.

Love it so far. About halfway through.

sounds like I need to add that one to the pile

I'm reading too big to fail and Outliers.

I need some black nerd fiction or something with a contemporary black male as a protagonist. Any suggestions?

Other than that, I got nothing.

It's a little over 10 years old now, but I think it qualifies. Very well written, clever, and absolutely hilarious.

I'll keep an eye out for that.

So, yes, I'm an idiot.

good call
people LOVE that book with a passion

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

though i can appreciate what it does or attempted to do. i had a good exchange with kayru i believe a while back about it

Is the protagonist of Michael Chabon's latest, Telegraph Ave.

There's also an ex-professional football player who's black and one of the main characters.

I'm not sure who the main character is (and I forget the title), but his two previous books featured black male leads.
I'd personally recommend his book THE ECSTATIC.


"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

i feel like i missed something at the end
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Didn't like this one.

a little too style-y for me.

So Nathan killed Felix, and Keisha convinced Leah that she has it good because her man loves her. I think that's how it ended.



>i feel like i missed something at the end
>~~~~
>When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so
>that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
>~~~~
>You cannot hate people for their own good.

In The Woods by Tana French. It was fantastic. Best way to describe it is an Irish take on the Richard Price/George Pelecanos "High-End" crime genre. Great prose and really complex characters. I'm going to dive into the other installments in the series after I finish Cronin's The Twelve which I started today.

lucky for you, it's next

They're not really installments or sequels and it's not a series. In each one, there are one or two characters from the immediately preceding book who tell a story from their own experience, and the other characters in prior books more or less don't turn up at all.

So it's Cassie who is the focus of The Likeness, and someone from The Likeness who is the focus of Faithful Place, and someone that I don't even remember from Faithful Place who is the focus of Broken Harbor.

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

The Tao of Islam by Sachiko Murata
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz.

I'm a huge Diaz fan. I was incredibly excited to see that my all-time favorite short story (written by any writer-- not just my favorite Diaz short story) was first in the collection. I had such high hopes. I kept thinking: how in the world can Diaz possibly TOP "The Sun, The Moon, The Stars"???!

The book wasn't what I hoped it would be, but it was still good.

Odd: I felt like the book may have benefitted from more time. Maybe there was a push to keep Diaz on the scene after Oscar Wao or something. "TSTMTS" was published back in the late 90's. As far as I know, that's the oldest story in the book.

I think I'm a bit let down because my inner-reader fantasized that each story I read would get progressively better than "TSTMTS".

I like Drown more than TIHYLHer.

Didn't realize the whole damn board was reading this together. It's like the The Wire of books!

the pura principle

also can you go into more detail with your criticisms about TIHYLH? i still got two chapters left and i have mine and would like to see what other have

>the pura principle

i think it's infinitely better than the pura principle. although besides "tstmts", from what i remember of the book, i think "tpp" is probably the strongest of the stories in it.

my diaz standard for writing is "the brief wondrous life of oscar wao". amazing, brilliant, novel. it took him 11 years to write "oscar." anyway. i mention his novel only to say that when i look at everything he's published--

and when i step back and objectively look at it vs. looking with my googly eyes (i love diaz; if he's proposing to me in an alternate universe, i'm saying YES)--

i think he's had an uneven performance as a writer.

a strong, brilliant, uneven performance.

i read, for instance, an essay (or was it 2 separate essays) that he wrote in the aftermath of the haiti and japan earthquake. as i read it, i kept thinking: damn, did he have an editor?

i don't think he's built to write in quick turn arounds. he gets better when he has time. everybody and his brother is always yapping about wanting to read the next thing from him though. maybe there's more pressure to publish *something* as he begins winning more awards and accolades. he throws the public a bone, here and there.

i actually thought it took a guts for him to publish the earthquake essay. it probably, hopefully, helped with whatever his process is.

i feel like "this is how you lose her" was a pit stop on the way to something else. just an experiment. only time will tell, i guess.

>also can you go into more detail with your criticisms about
>TIHYLH? i still got two chapters left and i have mine and
>would like to see what other have

my *biggest* criticism isn't even really a criticism.

generally, the book felt rushed and uneven to me. the last story was a hot mess. it felt like he was waaaay too close to it. "this is how you lose her" definitely felt like the book that gets written in the heat of a heartbreaking split.

it was too personal-- too personal in the sense that i'm not sure he had perspective about it. not sure he was able to access his gifts and talents in a certain way. nor do i think he even had to. if your heart is smashed and you're working through what part you've played in it, you're entitled to feel however you feel.

i wish the book could've had more time.

i got to the end of the book and was like: "wow. does this guy feel like he's forever broken and dysfunctional?" it was too depressing.

it basically felt like a book written in breakup space. it was raw. nothing wrong with that.

I really want to read Umbrella now and I'm in the headspace for it, but it isn't getting published here until January. Booksellers via Amazon.co.uk that will ship to the states want basically the cost of the book to ship, which pushes the thing up towards the $35 level. Just can't get my spoiled-by-amazon self to go for that.

Any ideas/sources?

you should be able to find a used copy with low-cost shipping. That's how I read the second book of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series -- I read the first when it was first published here & I didn't want to wait to read the second.

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

Just 'cause I'm indifferent to him.
I'll put it on the list, just stop hitting me.


"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams

This shit's a letdown for me so far. It feels like he's reusing the same plot points from The Passage but with different characters. The plot is still entertaining enough that I'll stick with it but I don't think anyone could argue it's better than the first one.