Kevin's Watch

Orlion wrote:

Orlion wrote:
Now to read Almost Moon by Alice Seabold. Yes, I'm only thirty pages into it. Yes, I can tell it's complete and utter crap. Yes, I'm reading it for a book club.

Twenty pages later, and my assessment remains the same. Except I'll add that Alice Sebold can not write stream of conscious. She's not a good enough/talented enough writer for that. Also, I do not think she spent a lot of time writing this book.

Well, hopefully I can get it done by Thursday... and if not, into the dust bin!

Finished it and book club got canceled

After 93 pages of the most atrocious prose I've read in a while, Ms. Sebold decides to change her style and write a coherent story which was fairly good. Those first 93 pages, though That's about a third of the book.

Now I'm free to read something good!

Irvine Welsh - Porno. The sequel to Trainspotting, ten years on.

--A

I dislike it when book clubs do that.. I read (much of) "Devil and the White City," and then the book club for it got cancelled...

Mine reads a lot of stuff I'm just not into; so I skip lots of months. There are too many good books, and I'm not that fast of a reader...

I just finished reading The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, a collection of about 20 years of the comic strip by Alison Bechdel. Was entertaining, and a little educational (since the comics were so frequently plugged in to current affairs).

I think what especially stood out was the treatment of differing viewpoints - the majority of the characters are left wing and very liberal, but the character of Cynthia was a stark contrast, starting out as a stereotyped, very vocal evangelical republican, and later coming out as a lesbian but not compromising on her ideology. Rather than take the route of having this character grow by learning to overcome her conservative views, she maintains them, staying true to her established character, and although in the context of the artist's and other characters' views she can come across as naive or deluded, she is neither marginalised nor used as a straw man.

Two work-related books.

Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran. It's all about self-publishing. I'm just getting to the info about marketing. I want to know how he's selling enough books to pay his rent (which he recently said on his blog).

Oglala Religion by William K. Powers. Found it used over the weekend.

I'm reading the Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay. He's not the best writer to be honest. I hate to say but the series I've seen, (the first 2) were better than the books. I'm on book 3 now, and this one is particularly meh... Got 2 more of them to go.

--A

Yeah, I tried reading Raylan by Elmore Leonard. Just couldn't get into it.

Murrin - used to read Bechdel's cartoon in Out magazine. loved the graphic novel. here is an interview with her.

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/05/09/ ... %E2%80%99/

Linna - "Devil and the White City," is a great book.

Just began "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, lent to me by my sister in law last year. Only read three chapters, but it is becoming interesting. Set in Barcelona, it is a book about a book! Has anyone else read this?

Never heard of it.

I'm just starting something called The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.

Know nothing about it...reading it because the GF wants to know if its worth reading.

--A

Iolanthe wrote:Just began "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, lent to me by my sister in law last year. Only read three chapters, but it is becoming interesting. Set in Barcelona, it is a book about a book! Has anyone else read this?

I read it a few years ago. I liked it, though I don't remember it very well.

Holsety wrote:

Iolanthe wrote:Just began "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, lent to me by my sister in law last year. Only read three chapters, but it is becoming interesting. Set in Barcelona, it is a book about a book! Has anyone else read this?

I read it a few years ago. I liked it, though I don't remember it very well.

Liked it??? I can't put the damn thing down. Read it on the bus home and then non-stop till 1.30 this morning. Didn't get any work done last night at all!!!

Avatar wrote: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

So it was pretty good. Unusual. Did not expect the ending at all.

--A

Iolanthe wrote:"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Excellent, both the story and the way it was written.

Murrin wrote:I just finished reading The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, a collection of about 20 years of the comic strip by Alison Bechdel. Was entertaining, and a little educational (since the comics were so frequently plugged in to current affairs).

I think what especially stood out was the treatment of differing viewpoints - the majority of the characters are left wing and very liberal, but the character of Cynthia was a stark contrast, starting out as a stereotyped, very vocal evangelical republican, and later coming out as a lesbian but not compromising on her ideology. Rather than take the route of having this character grow by learning to overcome her conservative views, she maintains them, staying true to her established character, and although in the context of the artist's and other characters' views she can come across as naive or deluded, she is neither marginalised nor used as a straw man.

I saw on your blog (yes, some Watchers visit! ) that you were reading Fun Home and meant to ask you about it. I loved that book, brilliant in many ways. I've also read The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and enjoyed it a great deal, mostly for the same reasons you state. I really enjoy the political references she fits into the background of her comic frames and the humour in the progression of frames, even the way she moves pets around, it's so cute and yet so real and tender. For a non-American, I also enjoyed the way it acted as a kind of historical-political timeline.

I pre-ordered her new book - Are You My Mother? - a while ago and The Book Depository emailed the other day to say it's on its way, so I'm looking forward to that.

On topic, I'm reading.... too much. Does anyone else find the Kindle (or other ebook reader) encourages channel-surf reading. I find myself flicking between books. Anyway, I'm flicking between:

Trauma and the Avoidant Client: Attachment-based Strategies for Healing, by Robert T.T. Muller.
The Impossibility of Sex: Stories of the Intimate Relationship Between Therapist & Patient, by Susie Orbach.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: and other stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook, by Bruce D Perry MD.
The Psychopath Test, by John Ronson. (He wrote Men Who Stare at Goats)
The Spinoza Problem: a novel, by Irvin D. Yalom.

And a stack of books on the coffee table that mysteriously found their way into my bag when I passed the evil $5 book store in Wollongong

I do not have a problem. I do not have a problem. I do not have a problem.

Woops, bloody long post. Sorry!

Yeah, Fun Home was a really excellent book. I liked the way it was structured: non-linear, revisiting the same pivotal events in her early life repeatedly with increased layering of context.

I almost bought Are You My Mother? in Canada, but then I worked out the exchange rate. Turned out when I got back it wasn't released here yet, but I think it came out yesterday. I ordered it on Sunday, so I'll have it soon.

Those bastidges at Amazon sent me an e-mail saying The Prague Cemetery is a bargain book this month, so I clicked, thinking, "They wouldn't discount the Kindle version, too, would they? What would be the point? It's not like they have inventory to reduce...." But sure enough, the Kindle version was discounted too. So of course I had to buy it. It's now added to the burgeoning list of Kindle books on my phone, and my bank account is that much lighter.

I don't swap back and forth too often between one ebook and another. Altho I find I'm more likely to bail on an ebook that doesn't grab me.

That's the new Umberto Eco book, right?

Speaking of splurging, the local book store had The Translator by John Crowley, and I decided to get it I am a John Crowley fan, after all... even if I've only read one of his books

Orlion wrote:That's the new Umberto Eco book, right?

That would be the one, yes. Kindle version was just $3.17, which was comparable to the dead-tree version. Who knows why?