My teacher says I'm breaking books at an eighth grade level: book thread

[JamesSchneider]

If Stephenson is your jam, and he is mine, I would strongly recommend Cryptonomicon over all else. The Baroque cycle was boring as fuck as far as I'm concerned.

Also, Gore Vidal died yesterday. Any fans? I've dabbled in his work on and off, and I've always connected more with his memoir work than any of his fiction.

[fishjim]

Somehow I like the idea of Gore Vidal more than the man, but that's probably just temperament. Someone shared this obit by Jon Wiener today that's pretty great. Made me wish I'd read more GV.

Remembering Gore Vidal

[kyle]

So wait, is Hunger Games just an American version of Battle Royale? I just started reading it because I have a penchant for young adult fiction and it's at the 2nd run theater in town.

[kyle]

Also I went on a sci fi binge earlier this summer, then read some Raymond Chandler (WHO I LOVE), and then bought some weird math theory books... mostly because I felt I didn't know enough about math theory. Anyone had any luck parsing their way through Gödel, Escher, Bach or Excursions in the Number Theory?

They got tough so I started reading Hunger Games. Which I'm nearly half way through in about three days.

[fishjim]

My wife loves YA fiction so I usually just get the storylines from her, but I think it's time I read Hunger Games, too.

The other ones she's raved about are Ship Breaker and The Fault In Our Stars. I'm on my phone so can't look up the authors, but the second one thanks edit0r in the acknowledgements.

Fist pump for Raymond Chandler!

[elpollodiablo]

Anyone here read any Dos Passos? I started The 42nd Parallel on the train this morning and immediately clicked with it. It's strikingly postmodern, considering it was published in 1930--lots of crazy pastiche and de-/recentering of frames going on. There are through-lines but no metanarratives. I know almost nothing about Dos Passos except that there was a time in the world of letters when his politics weren't seen as sufficiently left (there's a really defensive introduction to that effect in this edition I have, published in the early 70s). Formally, anyway, he seems like a transitional figure in the American novel.

[davy]

My wife loves YA fiction so I usually just get the storylines from her, but I think it's time I read Hunger Games, too.

The other ones she's raved about are Ship Breaker and The Fault In Our Stars. I'm on my phone so can't look up the authors, but the second one thanks edit0r in the acknowledgements.

Man, we've had the Hunger Games discussion round these parts before -- I just don't think it's very good. Ship Breaker is a little better, but guys like John Green -- who wrote The Fault in Our Stars -- are on another level. I've read Looking for Alaska by him, and it was fantastic.

I'll also give a shout-out to Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, whose latest book, That's Why We Broke Up, is absolutely wonderful.

[jebreject]

Hunger Games is a total piece of crap

Don't read it

It's awful

[Dick]

Anyone here read any Dos Passos? I started The 42nd Parallel on the train this morning and immediately clicked with it. It's strikingly postmodern, considering it was published in 1930--lots of crazy pastiche and de-/recentering of frames going on. There are through-lines but no metanarratives. I know almost nothing about Dos Passos except that there was a time in the world of letters when his politics weren't seen as sufficiently left (there's a really defensive introduction to that effect in this edition I have, published in the early 70s). Formally, anyway, he seems like a transitional figure in the American novel.

Yeah, I read all three of those books in high school and thought they were really great but what the fuck do I know, I work in manufacturing.

[elpollodiablo]

I've been reading a lot of turn-of-the-century realist/naturalist novels recently, and this seems like a knowing spiritual successor. It's got the interwar disillusionment without the post-WWII cynicism; it evokes both the feeling of boundless expansion at the end of the industrial boom and the nascent malaise in American labor, which was more of a utopian presence in the novels of two generations prior, like The Jungle, Sister Carrie, Hazard of New Fortunes, The Octopus, etc.

[fishjim]

Found this in a $0.25 pile over the weekend. Don't think I'll read it - it might spoil the cover.

[Trousers and Pat]

awesome.
best to take the cover and write you're own book for the inside, I would say

[kyle]

Hunger Games is a total piece of crap

Don't read it

It's awful

Eh... I wouldn't go that far. It's certainly pulpy and simple. I just wanted them to SPOILER: both die at the end, that would've made it a lot better, like Rambo

[Greg Nog]

Hunger Games is pretty good, overall.

I just started Hyperion, and am liking it a lot so far!

[kyle]

Another book I've been putting off starting due to school starting soon and not having time to devote, is Cryptonomicon. It appears to be a doozy. Anyone made it through? Is it worth it?

[slow west vultures]

Anyone here read any Dos Passos? I started The 42nd Parallel on the train this morning and immediately clicked with it. It's strikingly postmodern, considering it was published in 1930--lots of crazy pastiche and de-/recentering of frames going on. There are through-lines but no metanarratives. I know almost nothing about Dos Passos except that there was a time in the world of letters when his politics weren't seen as sufficiently left (there's a really defensive introduction to that effect in this edition I have, published in the early 70s). Formally, anyway, he seems like a transitional figure in the American novel.

i did at one point. the first fourty pages telling feenie mac's story are some of my favorite in literature.  it gets a little frustrating with all the character hopping.  there isn't really a meta narrative like you said, just some of the characters intertwining, which is frustrating.  you should read manhattan transfer first, you might like it more

[davy]

Hunger Games is pretty good, overall.

I just started Hyperion, and am liking it a lot so far!

Simmons is a beast, but strangely, I haven't read his most famous work. Looking foward to it, though. I've got my eye on The OMNIBUS:

[Greg Nog]

I downloaded the sample of Hyperion for my nook, and liked it enough that I subsequently downloaded the whole first part.  The combination of outlandish weirdness and pseudo-medieval structure kinda reminds me of Gene Wolfe, so far.

[Greg Nog]

So I knew Hyperion continued in Fall of Hyperion, but I had no idea that they were basically just two halves of one big book, with nothing like an ending finishing up Hyperion.  Guess that's another 500 pages to go, then.

[davy]

So I knew Hyperion continued in Fall of Hyperion, but I had no idea that they were basically just two halves of one big book, with nothing like an ending finishing up Hyperion.  Guess that's another 500 pages to go, then.

I was under the impression there were like 6 books or something.