hey estela guess what

my stepdad likes to tell stories about hanging out with his wife. what a name dropper, to his own stepson even!

wait what does that make me

his wife = your mom?

i want to find this book, estela http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swan_(novel)

what books did everyone get for xmas

my mum sent me two of tove jansson's books for grown-ups (because i'm a grown-up)

thank you for participating jabba, no one else will. i got:

i am a fugitive from a georgia chain gang! by robert e. burns (no my mom didn't just find this, it was on my wish list lol)
sherlock holmes selected stories
middlemarch

i don't think i got any books but i did get an envelope full of recipes.

my mum sent me two of tove jansson's books for grown-ups (because i'm a grown-up)

― jabba, Tuesday, December 29, 2009 12:07 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

ari just read one of these, the one about the girl who cons the older woman, or something

i got books i may or may not ever read

and books i have already read

i get books every xmas because my mom makes me ask for things (or will buy things i don't want if i don't) but it takes me 2-3 years to read them after i get them because i read other books i have or library books. so i'll read middlemarch in 2012 maybe

if the world doesn't end

reading 'portraits from an institution' by randall jarrel, it his actually, genuinely hilarious, i feel like i am reading a book by estela

jarrell

started brothers karamazov again. i'll never really read this book, it's too long.

i am still on a jane smiley kick, but am taking a break to read neuromancer by william gibson (i hardly ever get round to reading sci-fi so it makes a nice change)

also i am pulling a sickie today, for maybe only the second time ever

<3 neuromancer

ive probably read it a dozen times

i finished the piano teacher and i didn't think it was so great

the only other gibson i've read is burning chrome, which i liked a lot

yeah neuromancer is basically a 300-pg version of the burning chrome short story, but better

will make you disappointed at how boring the internet turned out to be

it's funny, but reading it (altho i'm not v far in), it doesn't seem as dated as i would have imagined

neuromancer so amazing and so prescient....doesn't he even anticipate poopsocking at one point??!

both the tove jansson books were really good, esp the short story collection 'a winter book'

poopsocking?????

u know.....poopsocking

yeah, poopsocking

started brothers karamazov again. i'll never really read this book, it's too long.

― spite n ease (harbl), Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:01 AM (3 weeks ago)

yeah i keep reading other books instead of this

i think i am gonna read all day. i have been watching movies all day every day this week due to unexpected winter vacation but today i will read, estela

I'm way farther into War and Peace than I've ever been - didn't make it past the first party last time. It's surprisingly engrossing.

i have that too and i know i would love it but i'm always afraid of long books

and now you can go - vendela vida. it was okay i guess. a quick read. not exactly remarkable, but sort of interesting.
love invents us - amy bloom. i liked this. but this is the kind of stuff that most people i know, hate. it's very 'female' and emo but she's a really good writer. on the same lines as mary gaitskill.
babel-17 - samuel r. delany. terrible writing but mindblowing ideas. really made me ~~think~~.
girl with a dragon tattoo - steig larsson. not sure what all the fuss is about tbh.

have just bought a couple of henning mankell books on max's recommendation, since i felt like some more crime fiction after the larsson book.

i was thinking about this thread!

larsson sucks

which mankell did you buy smoove? i just read his most recent one--something abouta red ribbon? and it was terrible. the wallander series is pretty reliable but the rest of his stuff can be pretty ehhhhh

i'm reading the collected stories of alice adams, i think you might like her, ruby.

i prefer her short fiction to her novels, but i am pro short fiction as you know.

i got the fifth woman and sidetracked. yeah the larsson was just... average? i mean, it kept me turning the pages, but the writing itself wasn't particularly good. i really don't get why the series has become such a huge thing.

estela, i'll put alice adams on my book list! i'm on a bit of a search for new author with a decent back catalogue i can get into. oh, i meant to ask you (have i asked you this already??): have you read any fiona kidman? she's an amazing wellington writer, reminds me a little of alice munro.

i have, but it was so long ago i don't remember properly. but i know i liked her.

have you read/heard the wellington poet kate camp? I like her.

thinking about her [fiona kidman] made me decide to email her and ask if she'd be interested in publishing something small with us. i probably won't hear back, or at the most i'll get a polite 'no thanks' but i figured it was worth a shot.

i don't know kate camp, but i never really got into any nz poetry, i'll check her out.

oh, i also just read the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. it was okay, but seemed pretty juvenile to me. the writing was very good, in that it at least seems to capture the voice of an autistic teenager pretty well, but the plot and the intent made it seem like it was an educational book for children to teach them about asperger's.

hey max, the fifth woman was pretty rad, gonna take a break with something totally different tho before i read the next one. super unusual style of writing: short precise sentences, few adjectives, lots of minute detail... but it all works, somehow.

sweet, glad you liked it--it takes a bit getting used to the prose style, which is weirdly... i dunno autistic? it seems very disconnected but also quite direct, focused on odd things. but its worth it, imo. love those crazy scandos.

i am reading black boy by richard wright. it's very very good.

xp i just read the other one i got, 'sidetracked', which was good too, but written differently - more 'flowery' in comparison.

so i am at comic con for the next couple of days bc i am a good wifey - so i spent about 4 hours today in the middle of the convention at a table, guarding about 100lbs of books for ytth so he could go off and get shit signed and come back and leave it with me. so i took along the alice adams collection i just got, and it is GREAT, estela!

pretty sure i was the only person there with an actual book containing words

:D i'm glad you like her, ruby!

hey estela, i finished two books this weekend, and i started crash by j.g. ballard! i can't decide if i like it. all this boring sex crap. i'll finish it though. i finished a nabokov book that made me cry.

did you finish crash.

i like your condemnation of boring sex crap, i condemn it also.

oh i didn't even remember writing that. i have like 40 more pages of crash. i don't think i'll finish it, i kinda hate it. but i should just to do it. i am now reading "the warmth of other suns." it's about the great migration. i heard about it on npr. lol. it's very good!