Juno's Bibliophiles...

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Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Knivesout no more
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...or, 'What are you reading this June?' the old 'what are you reading' topic is quite huge by now, and I figured it would be nice to do this thing on a monthly basis, as the other topic tends to get lost, plus I've discovered that people are holding back on telling us what they're reading!!!:eek:

OK, not really, but here goes. A 'now reading' topic in nice month-sized chunks.

Right now I'm reading House of Chains, the 4th book of Steven Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen. Erikson makes me do a lot of uncharacteristic things - I'm feveredly following an epic fantasy series in geekly detail, touting the series everywhere I can and actually enjoying militaristic settings and extended battle scenes! This 4th book once again covers a lot of geographical and conceptual ground, with peripheral characters from past volumes stepping into the foreground and host of new people and episodes as well. Excellent stuff, so far.

I'm not actively reading anything else right now, but I do have a half-finished copy of Mack Reynold's Equality: In the Year 200 lying around, and intend to start out on Matheson's I Am Legend and Larry Niven's The Ringworld Engineers (the sequel to Ringworld, natch) this weekend.

OK, over to you.
 
Well, I'm looking forward to reading "I Am Legend" - if my library gets it to me in time.:(

I like a good true-crime book every once in a while, so right now I'm reading something called "Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story", by Steve Hodel. He's a former Los Angeles Police Department detective who came upon evidence that convinced him that his father was actually the murderer of Elizabeth Short, called The Black Dahlia by the media at the time of her murder in Los Angeles in January of 1947. It has become a legendary unsolved case, with nonfiction books, novels, films, and websites devoted to the subject. Interesting book, but I'm not convinced yet that the evidence is conclusive. Still, he is making some interesting points.

Other than that, I'm not reading anything at the moment. Wish I could find some good fiction. I can't find anything on my to-read list at the library at the moment.:mad:
 
"Travels With My Aunt", by Graham Greene. Touching, and slightly challenging to my sensibilities for no particular reason. I'm broad-minded, and this book contains nothing I don't really agree with, and yet it has the effect on me. That's good writing for you.
 
Have you finished the book yet? I found it very entertaining and even surreal at times. Wordsworth (if I recall his name right) is such an inspired creation. And the fate of the narrator's mothers ashes is another great comic touch. I agree that it is very well written - Greene was a master of the sort of prose that does not intrude between the reader and the story, I think.
 
Got it this afternoon and up to page one hundred. It's excellent at showing the immensity of what goes into constituting a life.
 
I'm not reading anything now :(, I've finished all the books I had and since I had to work all day yesterday mom was going to return what I had and pick up some others. She forgot so I'm reduced to perusing magazines. I'm hoping to start on The Confusion which is the sequel to Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson as soon as I can get it from the library. I have to wait on I Am Legend as they only have one copy and it is currently at another branch.

BTW, knivesout, thanks for doing this thread - it is something I should have thought of long ago :).
 
Well, I finished yesterday "Moreta" and am now on to "Nerilka's Story" both by Anne McCaffrey. Actually, I'm reading them in French, because this wonderful library has, although it's really large, no Dragonriders of Pern in English. For me this a kind of a dream come true, because I always wanted to read them, but didn't want to afford to buy the whole series.

Besides that, I'm in the middle of "To Green Angel Tower 2" by Tad Williams. This one in English language. I've already read the whole series in German, but reading it in English after a rather longish interval, is like discovering a completely new book. Well, almost.

After that I'll probably start on "Dragonsdawn" another Pern book. I only have June and July left before moving out of the town with this wonderful library...
 
I just finished the Harper Hall Trilogy by Anne McCaffrey. I have Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley checked out from the library, but I haven't been in the mood to read it yet. I have to make a trip back for I Am Legend and the rest of the Pern series. So we'll see what happens from there.
 
At the moment I am reading The Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques. It is one of his Redwall books. They are usualyy a good light reading.;) I haven't checked yet to see if my library has the June book club book, guess I'll check sometime today.:D
 
Barely qualifying as a June read, I finished Contact (Carl Sagan) yesterday. Although I liked most of it and appreciate its attempt to package nibbles of astronomy and mathematics in user-friendly format, I also find that I like the movie a lot more since I found it more focussed because of it's lone protagonist format. Also I found Sagan too caught up in describing the whole 'world coming together in the name of science' thing,and he does it IMO in a very Reader's Digest fashion, which gets old for me.
 
I'm busy flitting between two books right now - The Invisible Man by HG Wells and Panzer Leader (the autobiography of Karl Heinz Guderian - architect of the Blitzkrieg). I seem to be going through a rather strange phase right now when it comes to my book choices :D
 
I've just finished reading Talisker by Miller Lau, I'd not read any of her works before and quite enjoyed it. The plot can get a little confusing at times but the characters are very well written :)

I am now reading a book from one of my favourite series Summer Knight by Jim Butcher, it's the 4th book from the Dresden Files and I'm loving it :D
 
The Honorary Consul by Greene. I love any author that can mix emotional complexity and intrigue. Then maybe The Raj Quartet by Scott.
 
I've just finished Erikson's House of Chains. It was quite a read, not the very strongest in the series so far, but particularly notable for its depction of Karsa Orlong, and the amazing transformations he goes through. This character starts out as a rather despicable barbarian raider, and through a series of amazing reverses and experiences transforms into something much bigger. It is hard to ever really like him, but by the end I felt a certain awed respect in his eventual path.


Other elements of the story followed the more usual course of these books with the Malazan Empire besting yet another adversary. This time however, there was no grand moment of victory for the Malazans but a sense of compassion for the defeated, especially the former Malazan lass who became the leader of the rebellion.

Like the other books in the series, it's loaded with sub-plots and mystification, which is an Erikson trademark. The book delivers a satisfactory resolution as a stand-alone, although I doubt you'd really want to read it without following th erest of the series through. Erikosn's handling of romance continues to be his weak point, with the relationship between Lostara and Pearl merely annoying me.

A worthy contribution to this series. I've been on an Erikson marathon for a while now, and I won't deny that I am quite glad to take a break but I do look forward to that mmpb of Midnight Tides hitting these shores sometime soon.

Picked up two non-fic books that seemed intriguing:

Civilizations by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin Rees

If anyone has read either of these, I'd be interested to hear what you thought.
 
I've just gone on a major Jane Austen binge:

Emma
Pride and Prejudice
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility

Yes, I'm insane! Not sure which one I like best, possible Persuasion or Northanger Abbey.

My brother's just leant me 'Charlotte Grey' to read. I can't say I'm terribly impressed with it so far- the style doesn't seem that brilliant to me, nor does the general quality of writing. And I've been giggling over 'Just William'.
 
What's 'Charlotte Grey'?

The William books are just great - in fact I recently picked up a nice old hardback edition of 'Just William'. Planning to complete my William collection over the next few months - lately I've been buying copies of books I remember enjoying when I was younger but do not have a copy of anymore.
 
'Charlotte Grey'- it's a sort of war story, I think, by Sebastien Faulkes. My brother and mum have both been raving about it, but I don't think its really especially good.

I sit and laugh openly over the William books. I just can't help it- they're so funny! I heard on the radio that one of the reasons why the author is so popular and the books are so good is because she was a classicist and she used Latin technqiues etc. On rereading them lately, I can see that she actually does use those techniques.
 
What techniques are these Esioul? I have never delved much into Latin literature (apart from a few of Horace's randier odes!) so I'd be interested to hear more on this.

I think another aspect of Richmal Crompton's appeal is that she does not prettify things - William is just so scruffy and wilfull, it is a delight reading about him. The dialouge is admirably realistic too.
 
Horace... I hate, hate, hate Horace. No offence meant if you're a fan, of course.

Rhetorical technqiues can best be seen in Cicero, I think. Things like tricolons (list's of three) and clever structure's like chiasmus e.g. 'Pleasure is a sin, but sin can be pleasure'. And anaphorae, which is a repeated structure, e.g. 'You hear about this man, whose wicked face you do not look upon, you hear about this man, who has paid his debts to nature and to the laws, you hear about this man.....'etc.

Yes, William himself is wonderful.

Here is a passage wirh some rhet techs:

'Bandages were used as weapons to trip up, to gag, to tie up, to flick, and generally to obstruct ,harass and annoy. [Tricolon] Old scores were wiped off, new scores were accumulated [chiasmus]..' (William and the A.R.P)
 
Wow, that was quite an eye-opener, and thank you! I actually find myself using tricolons quite often in my professional writing (our services are efficient, effective and reliable yada yada:rolleyes: ) and anaphorae in some of my own descriptive writing. Now I know the technical terms too! There are many ways to infuse rhythm and movement into prose, and I hadn't realised that the Romans had classified them to this extent. Is there a good book you can suggest, about this sort of thing?

As regards Horace - I don't have the t-shirt so I guess I'm not quite a fan. :p I did enjoy a lot of his shorter poems though - why do you hate him?

Hmmm. I'm full of questions today.
 
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