So you are reading what? v. 2016

Discussion in 'Books' started by Ismitje, Jan 1, 2016.

  1. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    though i'm very far from having read all of even Trollope's major novels I think the Eustace Diamonds are second best so far, and Lucinda is my favorite character in it.
     
  2. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth by A. O. Scott (2016), a better book than I thought it was going to be. While generally concerned with the sloppiness of most internet "criticism" and "reviewing," Scott is committed to the idea that criticism is NOT best left exclusively to the professionals. The chapter "How To Be Wrong" is especially interesting. It could be read as self-serving, but whatevs.
     
  3. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    The Europeans: A Sketch - Henry James

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    Far from James's best, but he certainly knows how to turn a phrase:
    "His collegiate peccadilloes had aroused a domestic murmur as disagreeable to the young man as the creaking of his boots would have been to a house-breaker."
     
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  4. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    A House of My Own: Stories from My Life by Sandra Cisneros.Non fiction pieces, mostly autobiographical, some bits of lit crit and appreciation of writers who've influenced her.
     
  5. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    Patrick Dearen -- The Big Drift

    Winner, 2015 Spur Award for Best Western Traditional Novel.
     
  6. guignol

    guignol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 28, 2005
    mermoz-les-boss
    Club:
    Olympique Lyonnais
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    histoire chicago.png

    a history of chicago published in france in 2013 (though some chapters were originally written in english for academic periodicals).

    the advantage of such a work is that since it's aimed at a french public it doesn't require any particular background to digest despite being a very serious and scholarly work. it also benefits from that regard lointain, the "outside look" which can be very useful in the social sciences.

    the authors are not just anybody: Andrew Diamond is an american professor at the Sorbonne. Pap Ndiaye is a Franco-senegalese professor at Sciences-Po. both are researchers at CERI, CNRS, EHESS... it would probably be impossible to find two men in france better qualified to harness themselves to the subject.

    the two have crossed destinies - one a white american of whose personal biography i have no information but who has specialized in race relations since his undergraduate days, the other a mixed-race frenchman who grew up in an entirely white (his father left when he was three) and very privileged environment and only later in life took stock of his négritude (but one african and not afro-american).

    the book, as one might expect from such authors, puts large but probably not undue emphasis on the black experience in chicago. but their backgrounds also serve them well in examining the importance of german, irish, polish, lithuanian, italian and latino immigrations without which there is no possibility of understanding chicago.
     
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  7. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    Walking Home: A Poet's Journey by Simon Armitage, though I like the English subtitle better in the picture.. Armitage, an English poet and Huddersfield Town supporter walks the Pennine Way, giving poetry readings at various venues to pay for the trip. He's a damn funny writer. There's a sequel called Walking Away that, alas, doesn't seem to be published in the US yet.
     
  8. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    9781594743306_p0_v1_s192x300.jpg

    Signing Their Lives Away -- Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese

    This book is written more as an almanac of the lives of the signers rather than with an over-arching narrative, but three things really jumped out at me.

    1. The British must not have kept a copy of the Declaration because the Signers were not particularly hunted by them. A fair number of the Signers lost their farms and a couple lost their fortunes but this was mostly a by-product of the war, not of their signing. Those who lost farms, well, everyone in their town lost their farms when the British occupied, they weren't singled out for the most part.

    2. Funny to read this in the time of anti-Washington, Donald Drumpf, tea party fervor, but these men were pretty much career politicians. They spent the colonial period in their respective legislatures or as governors, after the Revolution, they did the same, serving at the national level or as ambassadors, several became judges and/or had cabinet posts. Sarah Palin thought Paul Revere was a Founder, so she doesn't count, but I wonder if any other tea partiers have much of an understanding of the Founders.

    3. The myth of Caesar Rodney is a relatively new creation. He was largely forgotten until the 1950s when the whole riding-to-Philadelphia story was exhumed. He did ride 80 miles through thunderstorms in one night (and that was one helluva feat) and he was sick, but he wasn't as close to dying as has been mythologized. He died in 1784...

    All in all, a fun read, and a good book for the nightstand.
     
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  9. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    Henry James -- Confidence
     
  10. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea - Noah Andre Trudeau

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    A well-done, day-by-day account.

    "The consequences of this march were felt all over this country. All acknowledged that when Savannah should be taken the road to Richmond was clear, and that the war was at an end." - W.T. Sherman
     
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  11. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I think the only person I know who has actually read that one was the founding editor of The Henry James Review.




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    Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities by James Turner. Interesting intellectual history (seriously, this could have been narcoleptically dull, but Turner is an exceptional writer) of language and textual studies from the Greeks to about 100 years ago.
     
  12. RitztotheRubble

    RitztotheRubble Member+

    Apr 15, 2011
    [​IMG]

    18Q4 - Haruki Murakami

    Have to say I was a little disappointed with this.

    The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

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  13. RitztotheRubble

    RitztotheRubble Member+

    Apr 15, 2011
    [​IMG]

    At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig - John Gimlette

    Part travel account, part history. Even though some of this is a little repetitive and unnecessary, overall it's pretty good.
     
  14. Emperor Adriano

    Emperor Adriano Member+

    Jun 17, 2009
    Utica NY (the refugee city)
    Club:
    Santos FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    I might have to read this during the summer.
     
  15. Emperor Adriano

    Emperor Adriano Member+

    Jun 17, 2009
    Utica NY (the refugee city)
    Club:
    Santos FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
  16. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    The Strangers in the House by Georges Simenon (not in this edition, alas). Great sort-of thriller by the prolific Belgium-born French novelist. (I'm pretty sure 193 novels under his own name, and over 200 more under 18 pseudonyms, qualifies as "prolific.")
     
  17. RitztotheRubble

    RitztotheRubble Member+

    Apr 15, 2011
    [​IMG]

    Tribal - Diane Roberts
     
  18. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Pretty good writing, curious to see how he's going to pull it all together. Haven't seen the movie, not going to look into it until I finish to avoid spoilers.
     
  19. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

    Aug 19, 2012
    The Lubbock Texas
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    [​IMG]

    Fun little book from the guys at Google Ventures on how to block out a single week and get some genuinely useful insight into your product or service. I'm already considering ways I might incorporate the elements over the course of a full semester.

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    Fun continuation of Stieg Larsson's fantastic trilogy. Draws just enough on the originals without the author losing his unique voice. A moderately different spin on the characters and it worked for me. Looking forward to book 5.
     
  20. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    Harlan Ellison -- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
     
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  21. RitztotheRubble

    RitztotheRubble Member+

    Apr 15, 2011
    [​IMG]

    Letters on England - Voltaire

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    Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari
     
  22. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen. Damn, Mystic River was bleak. This is damn funny si far.
     
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  23. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    Harlan Ellison -- The Glass Teat

    Essays of Opinion on the Subject of Television
     
  24. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
    The Palouse
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Because I so enjoyed Ready Player One I wanted to give Ernest Cline's new book Armada a whirl. Not on par with his first book, but still enjoyable, Armada plays off of movies such as Last Star Fighter and the development of video games as part of a worldwide training program by the Earth Defense Alliance to get the average citizen ready to fight an alien invasion.

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    This is book one of my "30 books in three months" reading goal. Too many 70 hour work weeks over the past several months to do much reading at all. And working 40 hours plus taking a couple of weeks off will be truly wonderful.
     
  25. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Crossing - Michael Connelly
    [​IMG]
    I've read a bunch of Connelly's stuff. I'm 88 pages in.
    It moves along nicely.
     

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