What are you reading?

[practical cat]

Amy Juergens is going to play Tris? That is outrageously good news! I say this as a fan of bad acting and worse movies.

[not ready for prime-time]

Just IMDB'd her and wow! Looks like she's booked Divergent and the Amazing Spider-Man 2 (playing MJ Watson no less) for 2014. Can you say "the next Jennifer Lawrence"? Because I bet Hollywood critics and voters can...

[dazedandbemused]

I was surprised when she was in The Descendants because, having seen a few moments of  Secret Life, I was truly amazed by just how bad acting could get and still be given that name. Also, it just seems like weird casting. As for Delirium, I didn't read it (just didn't look interesting) but I can't imagine how it will become a legit TV show. Then again, the CW has done lots of unexplainable shit.

Edited February 10, 2013 by dazedandbemused

[ProfLorax]

Just finished The Fault in Our Stars. I will process the book tomorrow, as it is after midnight and I am sleepy. But I do have one thing to say:

 

Tomorrow, I will call my little brother who survived cancer twice. When he farts into the phone, as he inevitably will, I'll roll my eyes while feeling immense gratitude that he's still around to be my bratty little brother. 

Edited February 10, 2013 by proflorax

[practical cat]

Just IMDB'd her and wow! Looks like she's booked Divergent and the Amazing Spider-Man 2 (playing MJ Watson no less) for 2014. Can you say "the next Jennifer Lawrence"? Because I bet Hollywood critics and voters can...

No. Jennifer Lawrence is actually talented and makes good choices. The next Blake Lively MAYBE.

[muchado]

Has anyone read Nicole Krauss' Great House? I think it's next on my list. I loved The History of Love, but this one has gotten mixed reviews.

 

Great House is also on my list. I just got it for Christmas along with The Fault in Our Stars, The Casual Vacancy, and a couple of others which I'm dying to have time to read...damn you thesis! The History of Love is one of my favorite books as well, so I'm really hoping Great House holds up. 

[collikl]

Great House is also on my list. I just got it for Christmas along with The Fault in Our Stars, The Casual Vacancy, and a couple of others which I'm dying to have time to read...damn you thesis! The History of Love is one of my favorite books as well, so I'm really hoping Great House holds up. 

 

We're totally on the same reading wavelength (I read both TFiOS and TCV this year). The Casual Vacancy got mixed reviews, but I thought it was fantastic. Rowling's prose was beautiful, powerful, and just incredibly readable, as expected. I think people didn't like it because it dealt with class issues? Or that is was, frankly, horribly depressing? If anything, I think it can be argued that many of the characters don't change or deepen (which is my partner's criticism), but I found the characters to be quite realistic/believable. Reviews be damned; It deserves to be read and lauded. 

 

What else is on your list? I'm always looking for recommendations. (Since I finished my MA thesis last May, I've been devouring books.)

Edited February 10, 2013 by collikl

[It's (Not) About Me]

One of my friends started a book club a few weeks ago, so I've mostly been reading our "assignments." The first book we did was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I hadn't read yet and really enjoyed. We just finished plodding through The Golden Notebook, which I enjoyed a little less--but I'm very glad to have read it. After a small palate-cleanser in the form of Letters to a Young Poet (which I've read before), we're tackling Gravity's Rainbow. Oh lord. The only Pynchon I've read is The Crying of Lot 49 and I just couldn't get into it, but I was overruled. Haha.

 

Any opinions on Gravity's Rainbow or Pynchon in general?

[Datatape]

One of my friends started a book club a few weeks ago, so I've mostly been reading our "assignments." The first book we did was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I hadn't read yet and really enjoyed. We just finished plodding through The Golden Notebook, which I enjoyed a little less--but I'm very glad to have read it. After a small palate-cleanser in the form of Letters to a Young Poet (which I've read before), we're tackling Gravity's Rainbow. Oh lord. The only Pynchon I've read is The Crying of Lot 49 and I just couldn't get into it, but I was overruled. Haha.

 

Any opinions on Gravity's Rainbow or Pynchon in general?

 

[skybythelight]

I just finished A Dance with Dragons yesterday and already feel a huge void. I plucked Love in the Time of Cholera from my bookshelf today, but so far haven't cracked into it due to excessive e-mail checking.

[DontHate]

I'm continuing to read Internet forums. I don't recommend them to anyone ever

[Lycidas]

One of my friends started a book club a few weeks ago, so I've mostly been reading our "assignments." The first book we did was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I hadn't read yet and really enjoyed. We just finished plodding through The Golden Notebook, which I enjoyed a little less--but I'm very glad to have read it. After a small palate-cleanser in the form of Letters to a Young Poet (which I've read before), we're tackling Gravity's Rainbow. Oh lord. The only Pynchon I've read is The Crying of Lot 49 and I just couldn't get into it, but I was overruled. Haha.

 

Any opinions on Gravity's Rainbow or Pynchon in general?

 

Gravity's Rainbow is very different from The Crying of Lot 49. More digressive, a much larger cast of characters and settings, some extensive detail of the physics and engineering behind the V2 rocket. That said, I thought it was a pretty enjoyable read. But maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Worst case scenario, you will at least enjoy the opening paragraph. I consider it to be close to the Moby Dick class of spectacular opening paragraphs

[muchado]

What else is on your list? I'm always looking for recommendations. (Since I finished my MA thesis last May, I've been devouring books.)

 

Most of my actual 'To Read' list right now is for our Comps (blergh), but my other fun reads I'd like to pursue are the rest of the Song of Ice and Fire books. Basically, it seems as though I'll be finishing my MA then immersing myself in a whole boatload of sad, depressing books. 

[OctaviaButlerfan]

Currently I'm reading Anzaldúa, Barbara Christian, Nellie McKay, and a couple of essays by Audre Lorde. I'm also in the middle of Psion by Joan D. Vinge. I started it on Kindle and am now eagerly awaiting the book in the mail.

[It's (Not) About Me]

Oh, goody! I can't wait to start.

 

Grrrrrrr.

[Lycidas]

Just started in on The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill. Who would've known so many people could manage to hate a group called "The Family of Love"?

[no_foam_cappuccino]

My attention span is at 0%, so Harry Potter and Stephen King...at the same time. 

[Vavasor]

One of my friends started a book club a few weeks ago, so I've mostly been reading our "assignments." The first book we did was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I hadn't read yet and really enjoyed. We just finished plodding through The Golden Notebook, which I enjoyed a little less--but I'm very glad to have read it. After a small palate-cleanser in the form of Letters to a Young Poet (which I've read before), we're tackling Gravity's Rainbow. Oh lord. The only Pynchon I've read is The Crying of Lot 49 and I just couldn't get into it, but I was overruled. Haha.

 

Any opinions on Gravity's Rainbow or Pynchon in general?

That's awesome that you're reading some Carson McCullers. Of all her books I remember really liking The Member of the Wedding.

[DontHate]

Isn't a no-foam cappuccino just a latte?

[thestage]

Gravity's Rainbow is the best american novel since Absalom, Absalom!

 

I'm not qualified to say this.

[Strong Flat White]

If that's true (about Rainbow), then it's next on my list...Absalom rocks. Your modest qualification notwithstanding, thestage, I'd love to hear why you think so (I'm assuming you're a fan of Absalom; my maybe best paper is on this one, proclaimed by Faulkner himself the greatest American novel since Moby-Dick, and whether that's true or not, what's amazing is that it's not crazy to say or consider...definitely in the conversation).

[champagne]

Even though I'm spending most of my extra time studying for the GRE and organizing the preliminary parts of my application, I'm reading DFW's Infinite Jest.

[no_foam_cappuccino]

Isn't a no-foam cappuccino just a latte?

Yes! Spread the word, would you? I'm a barista at Starbucks, and you wouldn't believe what kind of requests I get. 

[Strong Flat White]

Lattes and cappuccinos are a difference of degree, not kind. Technically "no foam" - as in, none at all - wouldn't be even a latte.  It would be naked espresso awaiting its milk. A latte done right (what the Kiwis call a "strong flat white") has a very silky textured foam to it, it just doesn't dome over. This is assuming, of course, that when you steam your milk, you then call it "foam." Of course, you could simply call it something else - "steamed milk" / "less foamy foam" - in which case you have a semantic case to be made that "a no-foam cappuccino is just a latte." Except that it's not. Because to make the latte into a cappa, you just keep pouring the same steamed substance on top until it's bigger and whiter. And, of course, therefore inferior.

 

For a fantastic read involving a hilarious anti-coffee character, I recommend Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case.

[KeelyMK]

my standard: venti black iced coffee, no sweetener, no room please. Just a big black coffee. That's all, thanks.

(on a perhaps-abstractly-similar note, I've been nicknamed Lady Hemingway by 2 different friends unbeknownst to one another)

Haven't read Absolom, but I'll def get on it.

Current: Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff

Also: writing thesis on In Parenthesis, by David Jones - a poet who TS Eliot counted as one of only 4 important modern poets, along with Joyce, Pound, and himself. (maybe this says more about Eliot than it does of Jones, but Jones still should and *will* be in the canon eventually)

Cheers.