The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle. It's a novel about an American and a Mexican who meet after a car accident. I hear that it ends in tragedy. This is the first time that I've read Boyle. So far, so good.
Marking my first foray ever into science fiction by a Chinese author, The Three Body Problem, a novel about, eventually, aliens who seem to want to take over earth. First contact is made (I think, I still have about 180 pages to go) through a computer game called "Three Body" which is meant to make players more amenable to the culture of the Trisolaris people. Cixin Liu is one hell of a writer... or his translator is one hell of a writer. I don't really dig hard science fiction as a rule (there's actually math in this!), but his is really good.
Good thing CGI etc. us getting cheaper. That could be damn expensive. I hope they don't skimp on the Cultural Revolution scenes that open the book.
You know it's a trilogy, right? Without giving away spoilers, it's completely impossible to put this on the screen IMO. It would be like making a movie about Aristotle's cave.
Given how busy I'll be between Thanksgiving and turning my grades in, it's not a trilogy until December 17th or 18th.
When I first read "Sapiens" many years, I thought that Harari was brilliant. Then, I read "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" (while skipping "Homo Deus" until now), and it was thought-provoking. Finally, I got to "Homo Deus" this week. Oh well, I am disappointed.
Farewell, My Lovely and The High Window - Raymond Chandler My new project -- read all Chandler novels in the order written. The writing gets better with each one.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. It's a memoire about Abbey's work as a park ranger in the desert Southwest in the 1950s. It has been compared to Thoreau's Walden. Abbey was pretty controversial. Seems interesting.
Lord of the World a futuristic (for 1907, when it was written) vision of the world in which appears the Anti-Christ by British author and recent (in 1907) Catholic convert, Robert Hugh Benson. If you read one Edwardian novel about the Anti-Christ, make it this one. . . unless there's another I haven't found yet. In which case, let me know. This isn't bad, but it isn't great, either.
Tremor: A Novel from 2023 which I read to consider assigning for a class. I likely won't because Teju Cole is pretty damn cerebral and would make a lot of demands on undergraduates (I'm not sure what's going on in a few places) since the books shifts perspectives pretty rapidly with no notice. I mean, it starts with a couple of Harvard professors (both born in Africa) antiquing in Maine and the next thing you know there's a transcript of guest lecture on art and imperialism, followed by a chapter in which 35 random people from Lagos talk about their lives for a paragraph or two. Cole's a damn good writer, though. Even when lost, the trip is still worthwhile.
Totally agree--I loved Playback and was always puzzled that it doesn't have near the cache that the earlier books do (and yes, I recognize that being made into classic movies helped).