July reading list (a tad late)
I've been meaning to get back to posting monthly reading lists for a while, especially after seeing how interesting
rebness makes hers. So here we go again - the ones that have been registered on BookCrossing at this point have my reviews (username there is InvisibleAng) linked, otherwise it's Amazon.
Sorry it's not behind a cut, but since I need to use bold etc., that would be a rather unsafe option. :S
So, here's what I read in July...
Old School, by Tobias Wolff - I adored this; it earns the rare accolade of joining my permanent collection. It's also responsible for the classics bender that followed. (You can get it on Amazon.co.uk, by the way; I just linked to the .com because it is the one with a detailed review.)
The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene - this is another book I will have great difficulty giving away, though I feel that I must for the simple reason that you can find modern classics anywhere. I fell in love with the Neil Jordan film a few years ago, and I'm ashamed it's taken me so long to get around to the book. It's very astute on the subjects of faith, lust and love, and the situation depicted was close to the author's own heart.
The Girls of Slender Means, by Muriel Spark - this didn't appeal to me as much as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It was hard to care about the characters until the devestating final events...
Out of my Time: Poems 1967 - 1974, by John Hewitt - okay, a primer for the Norn Ironly challenged: This is John Hewitt, a poet from Northern Ireland who had much to say about the nature of the place and the people. This is the bar, named after him, which is the Belfast BookCrossers' usual meeting venue. But the reason I have this book is more personal: it contains a poem about my father and his linguistics work, which I intend to transcribe here one of these days...
Nine Stories, by JD Salinger - when stories here are good, they're more fun than The Catcher in the Rye. When they're bad, it's because the society the characters inhabit renders them shallow, and/or because the stories are snapshots rather than being fully formed.
Dubliners, by James Joyce - I approached this with trepidation because I remembered having to get my head down and dash through Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in order to have any hope of reaching the end. But it was much easier, stylistically, to get through, if a mixed bag enjoyment-wise.
X-Men: Days of Future Past, by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and John Romita - well, it's a classic within its fandom. ;) It's interesting to read stuff from that era now, years after I was fully immersed in X-Men stuff, and to find it relatively unsophisticated compared with later works. Which isn't to say that it's not good, or that it doesn't offer a reasonable dose of time paradox and alternate future. (Don't buy from that link, though; it is available more cheaply. This page is linked for the review.) I'm curious as to how the hard-hitting God Loves, Man Kills reads now...
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad - I wanted to like this much more given that it's a classic and all, but the restraint vis-a-vis Kurtz just seems plain out of place in light of how Conrad goes into rhapsodies of description over everything else...
Postcards from the Edge, by Carrie Fisher - I love Carrie Fisher to death, and there are lots of good things here in her first novel, including a female protagonist who, unlike those in many other contemporary novels, actually has something to say about life and an insight into herself. But for me, nothing beats Delusions of Grandma, and if you only buy one Fisher book, it should be that.
The Books of Magick: Life During Wartime, vol.1, by Si Spencer and Dean Ormston - this collects issues 1 - 5 of an ongoing series which was cancelled after 15 issues. The series was an alternative take, with adult-oriented content, on an existing series, The Books of Magic (note the lack of a 'k') which had originally been conceived by Neil Gaiman, who continued to act as advisor/Brit-picker to the writers who followed. Confused yet? Well, that is a sign that you should definitely not buy Life in Wartime until you've got a passing familiarity with the original. C'mon, get there before the movie adaptation does...
rebness makes hers. So here we go again - the ones that have been registered on BookCrossing at this point have my reviews (username there is InvisibleAng) linked, otherwise it's Amazon.
Sorry it's not behind a cut, but since I need to use bold etc., that would be a rather unsafe option. :S
So, here's what I read in July...
Old School, by Tobias Wolff - I adored this; it earns the rare accolade of joining my permanent collection. It's also responsible for the classics bender that followed. (You can get it on Amazon.co.uk, by the way; I just linked to the .com because it is the one with a detailed review.)
The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene - this is another book I will have great difficulty giving away, though I feel that I must for the simple reason that you can find modern classics anywhere. I fell in love with the Neil Jordan film a few years ago, and I'm ashamed it's taken me so long to get around to the book. It's very astute on the subjects of faith, lust and love, and the situation depicted was close to the author's own heart.
The Girls of Slender Means, by Muriel Spark - this didn't appeal to me as much as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It was hard to care about the characters until the devestating final events...
Out of my Time: Poems 1967 - 1974, by John Hewitt - okay, a primer for the Norn Ironly challenged: This is John Hewitt, a poet from Northern Ireland who had much to say about the nature of the place and the people. This is the bar, named after him, which is the Belfast BookCrossers' usual meeting venue. But the reason I have this book is more personal: it contains a poem about my father and his linguistics work, which I intend to transcribe here one of these days...
Nine Stories, by JD Salinger - when stories here are good, they're more fun than The Catcher in the Rye. When they're bad, it's because the society the characters inhabit renders them shallow, and/or because the stories are snapshots rather than being fully formed.
Dubliners, by James Joyce - I approached this with trepidation because I remembered having to get my head down and dash through Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in order to have any hope of reaching the end. But it was much easier, stylistically, to get through, if a mixed bag enjoyment-wise.
X-Men: Days of Future Past, by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and John Romita - well, it's a classic within its fandom. ;) It's interesting to read stuff from that era now, years after I was fully immersed in X-Men stuff, and to find it relatively unsophisticated compared with later works. Which isn't to say that it's not good, or that it doesn't offer a reasonable dose of time paradox and alternate future. (Don't buy from that link, though; it is available more cheaply. This page is linked for the review.) I'm curious as to how the hard-hitting God Loves, Man Kills reads now...
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad - I wanted to like this much more given that it's a classic and all, but the restraint vis-a-vis Kurtz just seems plain out of place in light of how Conrad goes into rhapsodies of description over everything else...
Postcards from the Edge, by Carrie Fisher - I love Carrie Fisher to death, and there are lots of good things here in her first novel, including a female protagonist who, unlike those in many other contemporary novels, actually has something to say about life and an insight into herself. But for me, nothing beats Delusions of Grandma, and if you only buy one Fisher book, it should be that.
The Books of Magick: Life During Wartime, vol.1, by Si Spencer and Dean Ormston - this collects issues 1 - 5 of an ongoing series which was cancelled after 15 issues. The series was an alternative take, with adult-oriented content, on an existing series, The Books of Magic (note the lack of a 'k') which had originally been conceived by Neil Gaiman, who continued to act as advisor/Brit-picker to the writers who followed. Confused yet? Well, that is a sign that you should definitely not buy Life in Wartime until you've got a passing familiarity with the original. C'mon, get there before the movie adaptation does...