booklist April 2011
since books is all what I'm going on about anyway and since this month (again? like always?) I'm apparently trying to read my brains out, I'll turn this into a book-journal to keep track. and because it's fun ^^
downwards from the last one I bought:
1. T.C. Boyle - Wild Child and other stories
- can't really say what drew me to this one. the Wild Child story seeemed pretty catchy but what really made me buy it were a few line at the beginning of Ash Monday: "His mother was a teacher. His father didn't exist. His grandmother was dead. And this house, high in the canyon with bleached boulders all around like the big toes of a hundred buried giants, was his grandmother's house. And this piece-of-shit `97 Toyota Camry with no front bumper, two seriously rearranged fenders and the sun-blistered paint that used to be metallic gold but had turned the color of a fresh dog turd, was his grandmother's car."
2. H.G. Wells - The Door in the Wall
- again, there was this line and then I couldn't resist^^° "He leant over the table to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as he spoke: 'Thrice I have had my chance - thrice! If ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in, out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This time I will stay... [...]'"
3. Roberto Bolano - 2066
- as with the other two, I didn't plan on buying that^^° I'm still not sure what did it - one thing, I instantly liked the way it's told and then it started with a story about translation and books and then it was too late already :D
4. Richard Brautigan - Dreaming of Babylon (and two others stories)
- the Babylon story definitely did it : D C.Card, a shady private eye detective, who has been broke for months on end and has his own private dreamland, Babylon - he sounds like a mixture of the narrator in Catcher in The Rye and Nicholas D. Woolfwood and those are always the ones I love best :3
5. Peter F. Hamilton - The Dreaming Void
- haven't started yet. there's definitely somethinh about it - a few really interesting characters I stumbled upon while skipping through it. man, I must start reading...
6. Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings
- in one word: EPIC. the thing in itself takes up really much space but that's fine with me^^. great cover. story caught me from the very first sentences and everytime I have to force myself to put it down^^°. the tension is really killing... in the whole, it's not as high up there as Malazan Books of the Fallen but I'm sure it's still gonna be one of my faves
7. Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep
- gawd, love old SF. writing style is not my fave but the story and characters are great so far
8. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
- sooo great : 3 I love Crowley, he's so cool - once again, he sound so much like Wolfwood. even looks like him o.O and of course I had to pair him up with the Angel :DD not that the writers made that a hard thing to do actually...
9. Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice (Malazan Books of the Fallen Vol.3)
- it's M.B.F., what more is there to say? definitely the best Fantasy I've read ever. and Vol. 3 has this really great dark and secretive atmosphere... I only hope that my current favorite character won't die - as it was the case in Vol.2 °! damn it... Kulp, you'll always be in my memory....
ebooks:
well, that changes all the time. right now there's Arthur Machen - House of Souls and H.P.Lovecraft - Dreams in the Witch House
university:
1. Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
- through. I was actually faster than I thought I would be - and it was also much more pleasant than I thought : D ok, writing style - not my type for sure, what read from an analytical pov regarding political structure and satire it's really pretty interesting. as was the secondary literature:
2. Monk - The Pride of Lemuel Gulliver
- great text, thought through to the last and still an easy read. great quotation of Pope, but I'll post that later
3. E.A. Poe - Fall of the House of Usher
- hm, not sure. think I like his poems much better. or mabye all old Gothic Novels are just cliched from our pov today? what I liked was the reference - or at least I took it as one - to King Arthur. "Usher" instantly reminded me of "Uther" and the book the protagonist reads later is a Knight Tale by an imaginative author named "Lancelot" (spelled slightly different but I can't remember right now)
4. Freud - The Uncanny
- a bit confusing (ok, it's Freud) but still intersting. and I swear CLAMP read the part about doppelgangers!
5. Arthur Machen - The Great God Pan
- really liked this one. ok, the old-fashioned style but a really catching atmosphere through the whole thing. you could argue that it's all pretty forseeable and all but I think that's not the point with this story. " You see me standing here beside and hear my voice but I tell that all these things - yes, from that star that has shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet - I say that all these are but dreams and shadows [...]"
on hiatus: When You Are Engulfed in Flames, God of Clocks, The Left Hand of God, The Book of Flying, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
----------------
Now playing: 星のデ・ジャ・ブー 鹿取容子
via FoxyTunes
downwards from the last one I bought:
1. T.C. Boyle - Wild Child and other stories
- can't really say what drew me to this one. the Wild Child story seeemed pretty catchy but what really made me buy it were a few line at the beginning of Ash Monday: "His mother was a teacher. His father didn't exist. His grandmother was dead. And this house, high in the canyon with bleached boulders all around like the big toes of a hundred buried giants, was his grandmother's house. And this piece-of-shit `97 Toyota Camry with no front bumper, two seriously rearranged fenders and the sun-blistered paint that used to be metallic gold but had turned the color of a fresh dog turd, was his grandmother's car."
2. H.G. Wells - The Door in the Wall
- again, there was this line and then I couldn't resist^^° "He leant over the table to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as he spoke: 'Thrice I have had my chance - thrice! If ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in, out of this dust and heat, out of this dry glitter of vanity out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This time I will stay... [...]'"
3. Roberto Bolano - 2066
- as with the other two, I didn't plan on buying that^^° I'm still not sure what did it - one thing, I instantly liked the way it's told and then it started with a story about translation and books and then it was too late already :D
4. Richard Brautigan - Dreaming of Babylon (and two others stories)
- the Babylon story definitely did it : D C.Card, a shady private eye detective, who has been broke for months on end and has his own private dreamland, Babylon - he sounds like a mixture of the narrator in Catcher in The Rye and Nicholas D. Woolfwood and those are always the ones I love best :3
5. Peter F. Hamilton - The Dreaming Void
- haven't started yet. there's definitely somethinh about it - a few really interesting characters I stumbled upon while skipping through it. man, I must start reading...
6. Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings
- in one word: EPIC. the thing in itself takes up really much space but that's fine with me^^. great cover. story caught me from the very first sentences and everytime I have to force myself to put it down^^°. the tension is really killing... in the whole, it's not as high up there as Malazan Books of the Fallen but I'm sure it's still gonna be one of my faves
7. Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep
- gawd, love old SF. writing style is not my fave but the story and characters are great so far
8. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
- sooo great : 3 I love Crowley, he's so cool - once again, he sound so much like Wolfwood. even looks like him o.O and of course I had to pair him up with the Angel :DD not that the writers made that a hard thing to do actually...
9. Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice (Malazan Books of the Fallen Vol.3)
- it's M.B.F., what more is there to say? definitely the best Fantasy I've read ever. and Vol. 3 has this really great dark and secretive atmosphere... I only hope that my current favorite character won't die - as it was the case in Vol.2 °! damn it... Kulp, you'll always be in my memory....
ebooks:
well, that changes all the time. right now there's Arthur Machen - House of Souls and H.P.Lovecraft - Dreams in the Witch House
university:
1. Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
- through. I was actually faster than I thought I would be - and it was also much more pleasant than I thought : D ok, writing style - not my type for sure, what read from an analytical pov regarding political structure and satire it's really pretty interesting. as was the secondary literature:
2. Monk - The Pride of Lemuel Gulliver
- great text, thought through to the last and still an easy read. great quotation of Pope, but I'll post that later
3. E.A. Poe - Fall of the House of Usher
- hm, not sure. think I like his poems much better. or mabye all old Gothic Novels are just cliched from our pov today? what I liked was the reference - or at least I took it as one - to King Arthur. "Usher" instantly reminded me of "Uther" and the book the protagonist reads later is a Knight Tale by an imaginative author named "Lancelot" (spelled slightly different but I can't remember right now)
4. Freud - The Uncanny
- a bit confusing (ok, it's Freud) but still intersting. and I swear CLAMP read the part about doppelgangers!
5. Arthur Machen - The Great God Pan
- really liked this one. ok, the old-fashioned style but a really catching atmosphere through the whole thing. you could argue that it's all pretty forseeable and all but I think that's not the point with this story. " You see me standing here beside and hear my voice but I tell that all these things - yes, from that star that has shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet - I say that all these are but dreams and shadows [...]"
on hiatus: When You Are Engulfed in Flames, God of Clocks, The Left Hand of God, The Book of Flying, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
----------------
Now playing: 星のデ・ジャ・ブー 鹿取容子
via FoxyTunes