Books The BOOK thread

Skip the most recent one Colorless Tsukuru. It is one of the few that don't really have supernatural if you don't count the suppositions of the characters, I also found it boring with a not surprising plot.

I would say Norwegian Wood is the other one I read that doesn't have supernatural, it's one of the popular Murakami.

But most of his books have supernatural but some are weirder than others. One of the weirdest is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

I could also recommend South of the Border, West of the Sun and After Dark.

I like most of Murakami's books but Kafka on the shore is the only book I recommend to my acquaintances that don't read a lot. It's also my favourite and first Murakami.
 
Thanks both for the info. I decided to go for "South Of The Border, West Of The Sun" first, and then "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" as it was recommended to me by another friend.

I like weird for maybe i will read "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of The World" after that.

The joy i feel when reading his books brings me back to when i was little and fell in love with reading, through Jules Verne´s books.
 
Received a Kindle for christmas and looking for good books to read. Ive bought Inferno from Dan Brown as I really enjoyed Da Vinci Code. I like books that are thrillers with good plot twists or any thing that is fairly thought provoking. Any ideas?

Also id like a good strength training book. Anyone read Rippetoes or can recommend any others?
 
Got myself a Kobo e-reader for Christmas, first book I bought and read is "Richest man in Babylon". Thought is was really good, the author uses examples from ancient Babylon to highlight the must-do's in order to get rich or improve your finances.

My next book is "Influence: The psychology of persuasion", it has received raving reviews and I look forward to digging into it.

Come to think of it, I never read fiction, it's always books for self educating.
 
I just finished Disgrace by JM Coetzee. Not the transformative experience I was expecting. You might need to be South African to fully appreciate it.

Next up is Out Stealing Horse's by Per Petterson. More Noggie navel gazing.
 
Easily the best new novel I read last year was AM Homes' 'May We Be Forgiven'. Oldies is a draw between Singer's 'Enemies, a Love Story' and Ballard's 'Concrete Island'.
 
Best nonfiction I read this year:
Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest ~

‘The price of life is death’

For Mallory, as for all of his generation, death was but ‘a frail barrier that men crossed, smiling and gallant, every day’. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived, and the moments of being alive.

While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture, it ended as a mission of revival for a country and a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history and adventure, Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest, but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day.
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Into-Silence-Mallory-Conquest-Everest/dp/0099563835/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419906077&sr=1-1&keywords=into the silence. the great war mallory and the conquest of everest' by wade davis
 
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I finished the last of my football and music biographies today and now I need something new to read.
I have Game of Thrones on my iPad but I'm reluctant to read it in case it ruins the TV show for me.
I have access to a lot of Sci-fi and fantasy books. Any recommendations?
 
For sci fi you could try JG Ballard or China Mieville. I enjoyed The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss if you're looking for some fantasy.
 
Reading The Psychopath Test at the moment and enjoying it.

Any really standout non-fiction recommendations?
 
marukomu said:
I finished the last of my football and music biographies today and now I need something new to read.
I have Game of Thrones on my iPad but I'm reluctant to read it in case it ruins the TV show for me.
I have access to a lot of Sci-fi and fantasy books. Any recommendations?
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Check this thread:

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/fantasy-reads.373168/

It is very active and quite a lot of posters post what fantasy books they are reading, the opinions on them, recommendations etc.
 
Thesiger's Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs are two of the finest pieces of travel writing you'll find, he's a bit of a hero of mine.
 
Sucker for punishment that I am, I have just started reading the 39 Piers Anthony Xanth books.
This is to go with starting to watch every episode of every series of Star Trek last week.
 
BootsyCollins said:
Just finished with some books by Haruki Murakami and i really enjoyed it. Actually i more than enjoyed it, i was hooked from beginning to end.
"Kafka On The Shore" might be my favorite book ever.
"1Q84" was great also. All three of them.

Going to buy some more books from him today. Anyone got any recomondations on wich books i should read next?
Dont know to much about him. Are all his books like the one i mentioned, with a "supernatural" touch?
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That's called magical realism.
 
Donaldo said:
Finished it?

I just started with it. Reminds me of when I started Gravity's Rainbow....took me a couple of years to finally finish it, largely due to the fact that I would go from 0-96, put it down, then rinse and repeat a month or so later. Total mindfeck sometimes. But immensely rewarding.

Let's hope IJ is similarly satisfying.
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Completed IJ and didn't think much of it. Great at parts but the endnotes were tedious and there were many dry parts. Gravity's Rainbow is on another level. I can't get past 50 pages.
 
marukomu said:
I have just started reading the 39 Piers Anthony Xanth books.
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I think I read these many years ago as it seems a bit familiar. There's a bit of dodgy shit in it to be honest. A woman transforms into a 14 year old to try to 'interest' the guy. I don't remember being offended the first time I (maybe) read it but I suppose times have changed. No such stuff in the 2nd book so far but I may drop them if he continues in the same way. I have read online that Piers Anthony has written some pretty uncomfortable semi-pedo stuff.
 
Everest Red said:
Completed IJ and didn't think much of it. Great at parts but the endnotes were tedious and there were many dry parts. Gravity's Rainbow is on another level. I can't get past 50 pages.
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Pynchon's prose is fairly hideous, in my opinion. Reads like a crazy person's scattershot stream of consciousness. It's a shame because his dialogue is good.
 
TooBias said:
Pynchon's prose is fairly hideous, in my opinion. Reads like a crazy person's scattershot stream of consciousness. It's a shame because his dialogue is good.
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How do you think Pynchon will go down in history? I don't shy away from difficult books, I reread Faulkner and Joyce to comprehend their work. And in both cases, the book 'clicks' after a certain point. Same with 'Paradise Lost,' which I found dull at first but incredibly beautiful after a point.


Another reason is I'm not too fond of 'encyclopedic fiction,' and 'maximalist' writings. The concept is amazing but only a few can pull it off elegantly.
 
Everest Red said:
How do you think Pynchon will go down in history? I don't shy away from difficult books, I reread Faulkner and Joyce to comprehend their work. And in both cases, the book 'clicks' after a certain point. Same with 'Paradise Lost,' which I found dull at first but incredibly beautiful after a point.


Another reason is I'm not too fond of 'encyclopedic fiction,' and 'maximalist' writings. The concept is amazing but only a few can pull it off elegantly.
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I think, as a postmodernist, he's already secured his place in history. For me, I just find his writing too, for want of a better word, loose. I prefer structure, especially when reading for pleasure. Academically, however, his novels are well worth their salt.

Paradise Lost is fantastic. Requires a considerable amount of energy and time, but great nonetheless. The only piece of fiction I can think of that really delves into the psychology of the Devil - Milton creates a three-dimensional character out of a force whose appearances in the Bible are, considering his emphasis, surprisingly sparse.
 
Everest Red said:
Completed IJ and didn't think much of it. Great at parts but the endnotes were tedious and there were many dry parts. Gravity's Rainbow is on another level. I can't get past 50 pages.
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I've just started Gravity's Rainbow. Think I'm enjoying it... so much is insanely hard to follow or passes me by that I end up re-reading sections three or four times to understand what's going on (and that doesn't always work - couldn't figure out what the 'oven' they kept referring to with Katje and that horrible German soldier meant. Was he planning to kill himself, her and Gottfried? Does it matter?). But there are also sections that are so fun to read that it all becomes worthwhile. Loved the part where Slothrop goes through the Harvard toilet - reading it on the tube a few days ago I've never felt more self-conscious about people peeking over my shoulder. :lol:

For those who have read it, how important is it to always understand the plot? Will I lose out if I 'give up' on chapters, not fully getting them? It gets stupidly tiring having to keep trying to decipher what I'm actually reading.
 
I read The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin. It was a meaningful and powerful reading. And a short one even if one of the main characters is an annoying character.

I have read before The Dispossessed. OK reading but a bit boring/slow, sometimes it really felt more like a kind of preaching with comparisons between two systems to give the reader things to think about our systems. I have now half of the Hainish Cycle left to read but probably the less well-known.
 
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I want to read something new and completely different from what i usually read, so i found out this writer, David Mitchell. His main book is "the cloud atlas", would you recommend him? Is he any good?
 
I finished The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. Interesting book about some people making their whole life a single carpet made of humane hair. But I was disappointed by the last chapter.
 
celia said:
I finished The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. Interesting book about some people making their whole life a single carpet made of humane hair. But I was disappointed by the last chapter.
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Did you lose the thread?
 
RedRevenge said:
Received a Kindle for christmas and looking for good books to read. Ive bought Inferno from Dan Brown as I really enjoyed Da Vinci Code. I like books that are thrillers with good plot twists or any thing that is fairly thought provoking. Any ideas?
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I thought inferno was pretty awful. Some lovely references to Dante and Inferno but on a whole it came across more like a history book or travel guide for Florence than anything else. If you liked Da Vinci Code, then you should definitely read Angels and Demons, a far superior book if you can ignore the daft and obvious ending. And if you like Dan Brown then Deception Point is also a good read. Digital Fortress is pretty poor though.

A good thriller I stumbled upon a few years ago is The Day After Tomorrow. Nothing to do with the film of the same name, or the weather. But a great thriller.

I'm currently rereading through all the Rebus novels. Great crime thrillers.
 
langster said:
I thought inferno was pretty awful. Some lovely references to Dante and Inferno but on a whole it came across more like a history book or travel guide for Florence than anything else. If you liked Da Vinci Code, then you should definitely read Angels and Demons, a far superior book if you can ignore the daft and obvious ending. And if you like Dan Brown then Deception Point is also a good read. Digital Fortress is pretty poor though.

A good thriller I stumbled upon a few years ago is The Day After Tomorrow. Nothing to do with the film of the same name, or the weather. But a great thriller.

I'm currently rereading through all the Rebus novels. Great crime thrillers.
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Only 'Angels and Demons' and 'Da Vinci Code' are worthy to read from Brown books IMO. The other four are from average (Deception Point) to poor (the other three). I found Inferno one of the worst books I've ever read.

The other problem is that his books are basically all the same book. Which gets kind of annoying after you read some of them.
 
So far this month I've read Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H.P Lovecraft. Man, I love me some Lovecraft.
 
Revan said:
Only 'Angels and Demons' and 'Da Vinci Code' are worthy to read from Brown books IMO. The other four are from average (Deception Point) to poor (the other three). I found Inferno one of the worst books I've ever read.

The other problem is that his books are basically all the same book. Which gets kind of annoying after you read some of them.
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I agree, I said pretty much the same except I did enjoy Deception Point. The Langdon books are definitely all the same for sure. Mind you, I really like Clive Cussler. I think I have read every book he has written (except the Fargo adventures) I've read all the Dirk Pitt novels, all the NUMA files, all the Oregon Files and all the Isaac Bell novels, and they are pretty much all the same books. Isaac Bell has a slight variation but not much. The rest could all be the same book with pretty much identical characters, yet I absolutely loved every single one of them. Strange really.
 
I liked Inferno. It was not as gripping as Angels and Demons, but I found the moral/ethical questions the book poses quite intriguing. Can you label Zorbist as a evil, when he had the future of humanity as his objective. Lesser evil for Greater good, may not be morally or ethically right, but if it means extinction of human race in itself, should it still not be considered? The good/bad is not as clear cut as previous novels. The ending was quite innovative as most affected people would be not even be aware that they are pawns in a greater game.


The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
- Dante
 
SteveJ said:
Did you lose the thread?
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XD Nope. Mostly because the last chapter was partly a cliché. The author doesn't seem to know how to write a
romance in the making
and should get far from female characters. It felt like a cheap novel unlike the rest of the book. Fortunately there's an epilogue.

I'm currently reading the Sundial by Shirley Jackson. I think it's supposed to be a fun novel but it doesn't even amuse me at all. I'm quite surprised since I have enjoyed some of her other novels. True there were no really any humor in the other novels I read, I only found amusing one of her biographies that was supposed to be fun.
 
Perhaps she set the bar so high with her classic books that anything else fails to compare? Even years after I first read WHALitC, I'm still wondering if there's much more to the story than meets the eye.
 
Finally got round to Ibrahimovic's opus. What a cock. I felt like punching the book. Entertaining in it's own way, though. Even an ego that size has room for the Special One. No insight on anything other than Zlatan, and even then, it's hardly insight. Bemused as to the critical acclaim. Sure, it's different from a ghosted Michael Owen/ Frank Lampard/ Stevie G tome but the entertainment seemed entirely unintentional.

Got The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler out as a counterpoint. Very enjoyable.
 
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