My Year of Reading Dangerously 2010--Discussion thread

[Reggikko]

Here we go, year 3!

[eevilcat]

Looks like I get to kick off 2010, having just completed Charlaine Harris - Dead Sight. We picked this up by chance over Christmas on a vist to Hay-on-Wye, the place with all the bookshops. I already like her Sookie Stackhouse books and this one doesn't disappoint in introducing a new heroine, Harper Connelly. It's a little cheesy and formulaic, but also a fun read so recommended for all the Sookie fans amongst us.

[KellyQ]

I tried reading Charlaine Harris' Aurora Teagarden series last year but didn't get past the first book. I think I will try the Harper Connelly ones at some point this year.

[Reggikko]

Kelly! Yay!

I can stalk you better here. Less rabble.

[Rainne]

For anyone who likes adventure/romance/sex, I highly recommend the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  Currently at 7 books and counting, it's really excellent stuff.  High-quality escapism, if you will. 

[KellyQ]

For anyone who likes adventure/romance/sex, I highly recommend the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  Currently at 7 books and counting, it's really excellent stuff.  High-quality escapism, if you will.  

I read the first four many years ago and keep meaning to re-read them so that I continue the rest of the series. Too much time has passed and I wouldn't remember them well enough to just pick up, say, book 5, and keep going.

@reggikko-I'm always up for a good stalking!

[Reggikko]

I tried the Highlander series years ago and determined they are not my thing. But I know they are wildly popular and lots of people enjoy them. What's great about reading is that there are so many books and genres to choose from. If something doesn't appeal, there are probably thousands of other things that do.

Speaking of which, I am taking a critical theory class with 20th century American fiction as its focus this coming semester. This means that I have to read what's on the syllabus, which looks interesting, but has stuff that I wouldn't necessarily have read on my own.

The required books:

Gertrude Stein, Three Lives
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
Octavia Butler, Dawn
Lucy Corin, Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls
Don DeLillo, Falling Man
William Gibson, Spook Country
Kathleen Stewart, Ordinary Affects

The only one of these I've read is Lolita.

Oh, in my Latin American Studies class we will be reading:

Krik!Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

[witch]

I've read some cracker books this year already. One of my colleagues loaned me a bag of books to read when I broke my foot and I'll just about have them all finished by the time I go back to work on 24th.

Lambs of God by Marele Day.

Sister Iphigenia looked up, 'A man', she said, bringing her chopper down on the lamb's leg. 'A priest'.

Grammar aside: The quote on the back of the book was all in capitals; would you write 'A man' or 'a man' in the above quote?

Three nuns have been left undisturbed on their island for many years, the 'rhythms of nature and the rituals of the Church have joined to make an encompassing whole'. A young priest stumbles across this idyllic place and the Sisters decide to protect their world. More alien than Avatar - and also very funny.

Cloud of Sparrows and Autumn Bridge by Takashi Matsuoka.

Because they say it better than I could:

Transporting readers to the beauty and intrigue of nineteenth-century Japan, Takashi Matsuoka has crafted a dazzling epic in two parts, Cloud of Sparrows and its sequel, Autumn Bridge.

A magnificent adventure in the tradition of James Clavell's Shogun, the journey begins in 1861, when a beautiful American missionary arrives on the shores of Edo Bay and enters an exotic world of noblemen and geishas, samurai and Zen masters. In Cloud of Sparrows, Emily Gibson and Genji, Lord of Akaoka, begin a nimble test of wills in the midst of an invasion that threatens their most cherished beliefs. With spies and chilling omens lurking at every turn, Genji must flee to the spectacular Cloud of Sparrows Castle. The undertaking brings together an unlikely band from West and East, including Lady Heiko, whose prowess in the romantic arts is equaled by her capacity as a ninja.

Autumn Bridge presents an overwhelming revelation that links prophesies of the past --- as far-reaching as the fourteenth century --- to Lord Genji's improbable alliance with Emily. In the year 1311, while tumult rages outside Cloud of Sparrows, a beautiful woman sits down to write an extraordinary tale. Her words will not be uncovered for another five hundred years, when Emily will translate the troubling Autumn Bridge scrolls and see unmistakable threads of her own life woven into these ancient premonitions. Revealing historical details about the pivotal figures introduced in Cloud of Sparrows, Matsuoka presents a stunning finale that encompasses not only their origins but the empire's fate --- and beyond.

[Reggikko]

I am still struggling through Gertrude Stein's Three Lives. Oy vey. Has anyone read this? Comments?

This book is downright painful to read. I love me some literary experimentation, when it works. This is Stein repeating herself and repeating herself and repeating herself. For example, in approximately 100 pages of text, the word "always" is used at least a couple hundred times. All the characters sound the same and they all (along with the narrated portions) have the same convoluted speech patterns. Example:

Always now Jeff had to go so much faster than was real with his feeling.  Yet always Jeff knew how he had a right, strong feeling.  Always now when Jeff was wondering, it was Melanctha he was doubting, in the loving.  Now he would often ask her, was she real now to him, in her loving.  He would ask her often, feeling something queer about it all inside him, though yet he was never really strong in his doubting, and always Melanctha would answer to him, “Yes Jeff, sure, you know it, always,” and always Jeff felt a doubt now, in her loving.

Always now Jeff felt in himself, deep loving.  Always now he did not know really, if Melanctha was true in her loving.

All these days Jeff was uncertain in him, and he was uneasy about which way he should act so as not to be wrong and put them both into bad trouble.  Always now he was, as if he must feel deep into Melanctha to see if it was real loving he would find she now had in her, and always he would stop himself, with her, for always he was afraid now that he might badly hurt her.

Always now he liked it better when he was detained when he had to go and see her.  Always now he never liked to go to be with her, although he never wanted really, not to be always with her.  Always now he never felt really at ease with her, even when they were good friends together.  Always now he felt, with her, he could not be really honest to her.  And Jeff never could be happy with her when he could not feel strong to tell all his feeling to her.  Always now every day he found it harder to make the time pass, with her, and not let his feeling come so that he would quarrel with her.

And it goes on and on and on that way. It has never taken me so long to read a book of 120 or so pages.

[witch]

Jeff feels a bit tetchy.

And it goes on and on and on that way. It has never taken me so long to read a book of 120 or so pages.

Good god. Why do you have to read this? Is this going to be an example of a bad technique?  

[Reggikko]

Heh. I like your summation of the text. I told my professor that this story could have been written in five pages. 

We're studying 20th century American fiction. Stein is apparently attempting, in this work, to transfer the concepts of cubist painting to the page. Oh, and I didn't even mention how blatantly racist the story is, either. After this, we move on to Nabokov and Lolita, so it gets better.