hey estela guess what

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!

HEY GUESS WHAT ILY

i read 200 pages of the warmth of other suns and i couldn't renew it because it was on hold at the library. need to reserve it again. i didn't finish crash still. i started bleak house but i'm too tired to read so i've read 14 pages in 4 days.

ily too

oh lordy, bleak house. it took me forever to read that. in two sessions separated by a year. i dragged that tome over the ocean and never opened it once.

ilyboth

i like bleak house a lot so far but i wonder if i have the endurance to read 900+ pages when i read so little during the week. i had a nice time reading in bed the last 2 mornings and got to page 65 or so.

i have been on an amy bloom kick and just read the last of her books. i do this, i find an author i really like and then read all their stuff in quick succession and then get really bummed when there is no more left to read. i did this with siri hustvedt and jane smiley also. the only person i didn't do this with was alice munro, who i paced myself on for like 3 years but i finally just finished the last one ;_;

now i'm obsessed with jonathan dee.

i am never goign to finish a book, i just read parts of multiple books. i'm back to the warmth of other suns. only 190 pages to go. i have a borders gift card, what should i buy?

an itty bitty book light and a tin of mints.

lol. i randomly selected 3 of those nyrb books.

never you read books?

new york review of books! there is a thread on them http://ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=55&threadid=74055#unread
i wonder if i will succeed at finishing more than 12 books this year. i've already finished the warmth of other suns, that's one for 2011. and a couple i read almost all of in 2010 and never did. i can do that. i'm just too tired most of the time.

there are 5 books that i read about 80% of, including crash. i need to just suck it up and finish that awful thing.

i wouldn't, i never force myself to finish books i don't want to read, it's a waste of reading time. reading time is finite and there are millions of books out there.

i don't know why i have this hang up. i tried to get rid of it and tell myself that very same thing. but i feel like i wasted time reading most of it and the time would become unwasted if i would finish.

i'm with estela on this one. ditch it if you don't like it.

The 50 page rule rules.

ok ok ok

lol, did we browbeat you into abandoning all 5 unfinished books?

not all 5. there is one i just re-borrowed. our library doesn't give enough time for slowpokes. i have like 100 pages left.
i just finished the true deceiver by tove jansson!!!

i read the first kurt wallander book and the first martin beck book, they were ok

ruby, i'm reading amy hempel's collected stories and finding her brilliant. if you have not read her i think you would like her.

that is the one i have, too! i started reading it a while ago, but then i got distracted. i think i liked it??

i got a library card last weekend btw

i did that too-- started reading, liked it, got distracted, and now i'm loving it.

i bet you have a good library there.

it's super tiny bc our city is super tiny. also i now officially live in contra costa county, not alameda county, so i guess i can't access berkeley's library with my card.

estela i am reading a novel right now, and the female protagonist's nemesis is the spitting (word) image of your 'friend' you told me about.

how lovely

hey e-stale-a

hey estela and what

^^ a good thread for a parallel ILX was mentioned repeated ages ago
kinda like the when pato met estela thread but with a sharper foil

hey t.skilaviver<3