Reading and stuff.

[cp]

I never think to post about what I'm reading, but now and then I see posts of what people have read in the past year, and I think how cool it would be to do that. So I'm going to start keeping track of that, I think. Maybe movies, too. To go along with this plan, I am totally and unashamedly ripping off goblue and instituting a new 64-point rating

Comments

[goblue]

Haha!! Awesome, I consider it an honor to have my rating scale put into use by someone else!

Like I mentioned in my post, I have been on a mission to read all of the Ian Fleming written Bond books in order (I'm about halfway through) and they are generally pretty good (much better than most of the movies). I liked the couple of Dashiell Hammett books I've read and Fleming's writing style is a little (just a little) reminiscent of Hammett, so maybe you'd like the Bond books as well?

Probably the best book I read last year was Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude. Really well done and I also liked his most recent novel, Chronic City. Given what you said here, they seem like books that you might enjoy, especially if you found an inexpensive used copy.

[cp]

The rating scale just makes good sense! The usual 4- or 5-star systems, even a scale of 1-10, there's just not enough wiggle room. Granted, the 64-point scale has a distinct element of arbitrariness to it, but that's part of the subjectivity of rating art in the first place. And I can pretend that I'm incorporating more nuance into it. Maybe a 44 was perfectly enjoyable but has little to recommend a repeat viewing or reading, while a 48 was juuuust good enough to merit a second go-around. :)

I'd never really considered Fleming because I don't consider myself a big Bond fan. I've only seen a few of the flicks (mostly the late-80s/early-90s ones) and appreciated them but wasn't sold on the whole mythology, I guess. GoldenEye on the N-64 remains one of my all-time favorite video games, but the fact that it's a Bond game is only tangentially relevant to that love. The books are worth a try, though--and probably pretty easy to.. er, borrow a copy on the Net to check out. :)

Never heard of Lethem, I will look into him too--thanks!

[loxthebox]

"There's an app for that..." walking the fine line between intellectualism and the evil black hole that is the internet, is a website called goodreads.com if you're at all interested - it's basically a social online bookshelf where people can recommend things to you without the burden of needing to remember titles/authors or needing to write it down, it's just there and as easy to add to your 'to-read' list as a mouse click. Plus, the more books and ratings you've given them the better it can recommend books to you. If you're interested

[cp]

Yeah, maybe that was it--in college I felt like I was supposed to be learning, and of course I also had my first real exposure to the academic world where it felt like I could never possibly learn ENOUGH. :) So fiction felt like wasting time on silly stories, not feeding that impulse to learn. I guess since my life is far less academic these days, fiction has resumed its role as the bit of escapism I need. Especially since I don't get to watch as many movies as I'd like to these days. :)

I have indeed heard of GoodReads, may even have signed up for an account at some point. I should check that out again, especially if it can provide recommendations based on stuff I've liked in the past.

As for recommendations of my own, I don't mean to imply that I'm particularly broadly read. :) As with movies, I like to discover new stuff, but I'm just as apt to re-read or re-watch something that tripped my trigger the last time. But what sort of fiction have you enjoyed in the past, and how brainless are you willing to go? ;)