May's (Mostly) Marvelous Literary Musings

[Nesacat]

Have just finished two books.

Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
... In Bercelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortune-telling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-president of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.

There are twelve tales here about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe and they reflect all the many things it means to be an immigrant.

Shelf Life - Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores edited by Greg Ketter. The book contains the following tales:
From the Cradle by Gene Wolfe
A Book, by its Cover by P.D. Cacek
The Hemingway Kittens by A.R. Morlan
Lost Books by John J. Miller
One Copy Only by Ramsey Campbell
Pixel Pixies by Charles de Lint
Blind Stamped by Lisa Morton
Ballard's Books by Gerard Houarner
Books by David Bischoff
Escapes by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
"I Am Looking For A Book..." Patrick Weekes
The Glutton by Melanie Tem
In the Bookshadow vy Marianne de Pierres
Non-Returnable by Rick Hautala
The Cheese Stands Alone by Harlan Ellison

 

[Taltos]

So much about my commitment to a book - Stross Glasshouse is shelved right now.
Instead read through Butcher Proven Guilty - usual Dresden affair which provides chuckles here and there, a lot of action - where Dresden has to think on his feet as he is usually the one in disadvantage, and some things to think about - all together an excellent read - which ends too soon.
Now reading PKD Maze of Death - about 1/3 through it and I still don't know where this is going Interesting anyway. PKD and Strugatsky brothers are similar in this - you can read through most of the book, wondering where this is taking you and most of the time things are cleared up at the end - but sometimes it takes more than one reading to understand most of the details.
After this one will be PKD Penultimate Truth and/or back to Stross - but thats the thoughts before finishing this book.

 

[Lenny]

I finished The Bonehunters by Erikson last night, and I'm about to move onto the final stretch of my Malazan Marathon and start Reaper's Gale (though if I find some cash lying around, I might get online and order Toll of the Hounds, the three novella's, and Esselmont's Night of Knives, just to keep things going).

 

[Connavar]

Im reading Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler.

Its ironic that i dont have as much time as before for reading since today was my first workday in a chain bookstore. Selling books 8 hours a day will kill atleast half of my reading time hehe

 

[Pyan]

today was my first workday in a chain bookstore.

Do you get a staff discount, Conn?

 

[nj1]

currently trying to get through KNIGHTS OF THE BACK AND WHITE by JACK WHYTE, A historical fiction on the founding of the Templar Knights and the first crusade. Bit grim at the moment so am finding it tough to wade through it.

Congrats on the new job Conn, hope it works out for you .

 

[Stenevor]

Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I read this a couple of months ago, bit of a mixed bag I thought though I liked The Saint, Maria Dos Prazares and one or two others. Ive also recently read In Evil Hour, Leaf Storm, No One Writes to the Colonel and Chronicle of a Death Foretold all of which I prefered. Ive also got Autumn of the Patriach but I have to say it looks extremely intimidating and I cant bring myself to start it. Has anyone read it? Is it a struggle and if so is the struggle worth it?

Currently half way through The Rum Diaries by Hunter S Thompson, its great.

 

[woodsman]

currently trying to get through KNIGHTS OF THE BACK AND WHITE by JACK WHYTE, A historical fiction on the founding of the Templar Knights and the first crusade. Bit grim at the moment so am finding it tough to wade through it.

Congrats on the new job Conn, hope it works out for you .

I quite enjoyed this actually(possibly because it was £1.50 from t'market), but yeah the style's not the greatest and it takes a while to get to the point.
Would be interested to hear what your final opinion is!!? I think there's a couple of follow-ons, but haven't laid eyes on them as yet.

 

[Talysia]

Next in the anthology, The Elves, by Johann Ludwig Tieck, translated by Thomas Carlyle.

 

[AvoidingReality]

Finished Exile's Return by Kate Jacoby a couple of days ago. 'Twas good, for a book I picked up rather randomly, though as it's part of a series it didn't exactly have a decisive ending. Might look at the sequels once I get past a rather long to-read list.

Now reading The Family Trade by Charles Stross, which is looking very good so far. I think I'll get through this one quickly.

 

[Connavar]

Do you get a staff discount, Conn?

Im not a regular worker yet. Even i was i wouldnt spend the money on the dark side ie the big chain bookstore, i have my favorit bookshop who i love. Small enough and perfect for me

 

[Nesacat]

Finished Milan Kundera's Farewell Waltz
... set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an unillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward.

Stevenor ... I've read all the ones that you have along with One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera and Memory of my Melancholy Whores. Have not got The Autumn of the Patriach and have never read it either. However, am curious about how you go with it.

 

[Nikitta]

I'm now done reading Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said and want to thank those who recommended it to me in another thread - I liked that.

Now I'm starting in on The Lies of Locke Lamora - the dice told me to do it!

 

[Stenevor]

Stevenor ... I've read all the ones that you have along with One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera and Memory of my Melancholy Whores. Have not got The Autumn of the Patriach and have never read it either. However, am curious about how you go with it.

Ive also read One Hundred Years of Solitude and as well as The Autumn of the Patriach ive also got Of Love and Other Demons and The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor to read when I get around to them.

I dont know if youve ever seen a copy of The Autumn of the Patriach but Ive never come across another book like it. There are no paragraphs, and no inverted commas. My copy has 230 very dense looking pages split down into 7 chapters(paragraphs) and page long sentences look common. It looks as though it will need a serious amount of concentration to get through it!

 

[Talysia]

After an impromptu library visit yesterday, I'm taking a break from my anthology to read Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms.

 

[Ragnar]

Ken MacLeod's Cosmonaut Keep. Its a second attempt as it didn't really grab me the first time.

 

[iansales]

Finished Lawrence Durrell's Reflections on a Marine Venus ("a companion to the island of Rhodes"). Definitely a good one. About to start Capacity by Tony Ballantyne.

 

[HoopyFrood]

For me this week, 'tis Cymbeline by William Shakespeare.

 

[j d worthington]

For me this week, 'tis Cymbeline by William Shakespeare.

Not my favorite Shakespeare, but it has some very good stuff to it. Incidentally, if you look around, you may find an old Caedmon recording of the play, with Karloff in the cast. Now, that was a very good bit of casting, I thought....

 

[Zubi-Ondo]

*Big sigh* ...
I finally finished "Hammerfall" C J Cherryh. I like her style, although it is really not my kind of book. It was in the SF section at the library, but it's mostly a romp in the desert with warring factions, family troubles, opposing goddesses and the like. IMO it rambled on quite a bit with all of the trekking through desert storms and such. There is an interesting twist which has now more or less twisted my arm in to reading "Forge of Heaven" which is the sequel. It's told entirely from the point of view of the desert dwelling clans, in fact it's more or less 3rd person omniscient from a single character named "Marak". But there is a meddling going on from an alien race which is all I'm going to say so I don't over-spoil it. I may not get to "Forge of Heaven" right away, because I've now started "Child of the River" by Paul J. McAuley, which is also the first of a series, and I finally got "A Fire Upon The Deep" - Vernor Vinge, which is a sequel to "Deepness in the Sky", and I had been waiting almost a month for it.

- Z.