Besides my crummy assigned books, I am currently reading: Caught in the Crossfire-Biography of Stevie Ray Vaughan Crossroads-Biography of Eric Clapton The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection.
I think this is his best novel. Too often in his earlier novels, you could just about spot the sentence in which deadline pressure overwhelmed inspiration and it was just the amphetimines talking. The novels he wrote after Flow my Tears... were so far out there that the necessary exposition got in the way of the story. I'll have to add it to my re-read list, along with A Scanner Darkly.
i'm starting to read this, i've heard from both extremes on how good or how bad it is but i figure i will try it myself
Just finished it. Damn creepy. I didn't want to read it at night (usually I don't have that problem) and I had to put my plants outside for a couple of days because I felt like they were watching me.
and... From the Preface: "In this treatise, Compassion, excluding, as it does, every egoistic motive, whether direct or indirect, is presented as the sole remedy, as the one fount of all true virtue, as the only force capable of lightening the world's suffering."
Saw the mini-series on DiscoveryTimes and decided to give the book a go. It's interesting to see how it's marketed in different places. Here's the UK cover:
Last night I finished The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyden literally in an hour and a half. It is fan-tastic. Tells the story of a boy whose father is the Auschwitz camp commandant but told through the eyes of said boy who forms a friendship with one of the Jewish prisoners. I was gobsmacked at what happened at the end. This was meant to be a children's book I think, targeted at secondary school students in any case as it was recommended to me by a 17-yr old cousin who was assigned to read it for school. But I would recommend it to anyone. And I'm guessing Hollywood's already knocked on Mr. Boyden's door to get the movie rights.
I finished it and liked it very much. But I wasn't a fan of the Epilogue. There was no need for it. It's better without. Just started re-reading:
Arrogance will get you nowhere. Well, it failed the Brits at least. Is anyone surprised that the Feds refused to pay Lafitte for his munitions and goods after the danger passed? Just started recommended
Last week's vacation reading, part two: I found great chunks of the plot rather familiar (from Christopher Moore's Coyote Blue and Grimus, an early Salmon Rushdie novel) but that pretty quickly ceased to be a problem. Nearly as good as American Gods, which I really, really, really liked.
You would be better served to pick up any of his earlier novels. Found this one quite poor. Try "A Drink Before the War" as an apertif so to speak.
I put the book based on this description. I'm about half way through it and 'damn creepy' feels like an understatement. This is what I'm reading at bed time. Partly because it's a fascinating and important story and partly because there's nothing quite like ancient intellectual history as an antidote to The Ruins.
I hope you've got some time set aside, because you're not going to want to stop until you've finished Book 7. Roland is a fascinating character. Which isn't to say there aren't a few "what the heck does King think he's DOING?" moments in there...