Freewheeling Andy Posted August 10, 2005 Share Posted August 10, 2005 Is this the great big huge monster pile of books by my bedside? If it is, it's (largely) as follows: Shake Hands With The Devil by Gen. Romeo Dallaire The Final Solution by Michael Chabin Snow by Orhan Pamul A Short History of Tractors In Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka Travels with Myself And Another by Martha Gellhorn Oracle Night by Paul Auster The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger In The Shape Of A Boar by Lawrence Norfolk Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murukami Vineland by Thomas Pynchon and the unfinished half of London - a Biography, by Peter Ayckroyd. Apart from that my bedside is empty... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 Why magical? :? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted October 25, 2005 Author Share Posted October 25, 2005 Because, well, they're magical books. Some of them seem to be taking a while to read... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 Freewheeling Andy"]Because, well, they're magical books. ...............still lost :? :agree: . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 Freewheeling Andy"]Because, well, they're magical books. ...............still lost :? :agree: . Are they all of a magical theme? Sounds intersting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 I think it was just put into the title to make it sound more interesting....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 quote"Michelle"]I think it was just put into the title to make it sound more interesting....? :agree: See - we already posted some 5 answers to it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted October 27, 2005 Author Share Posted October 27, 2005 Ah. Michelle has me understood. It was just a bit more interesting than Andy's Books would have been. The list has been slowly depleted and not added to. There's quite of lot of substantial books on the list, and I've not had much reading time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted October 29, 2005 Author Share Posted October 29, 2005 As if by magic, it's changed (which is what comes from visiting the second hand book market under Waterloo Bridge): The Final Solution by Michael Chabin Snow by Orhan Pamul Travels with Myself And Another by Martha Gellhorn Oracle Night by Paul Auster The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murukami Vineland by Thomas Pynchon and the unfinished half of London - a Biography, by Peter Ayckroyd. A Traveller's Life - Eric Newby Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey Fragrant Harbour - John Lanchester The Age Of Kali - William Dalrymple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle Posted October 29, 2005 Share Posted October 29, 2005 The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger This definitley needs to be our next Reading Circle book.. it seems alot of people have it. Can you wait until after Christmas, or shall we start it soon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted November 29, 2005 Author Share Posted November 29, 2005 Damn. I was trying so hard to read books faster than I bought them, but the remainders/discounts section of my local Waterstones sold me: How The Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin and Monturiol's Dream:The Submarine Inventor who Wanted to Save The World by Matthew Stewart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 but the remainders/discounts section of my local Waterstones sold me: ...oh how much did you cost then? Were you on Christmas offer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted November 29, 2005 Author Share Posted November 29, 2005 I'm worth less than the books. The books, together, cost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 nah...i'm sure that's not so......!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 A right good bargain you got there, Andy. Way to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 1, 2006 Author Share Posted May 1, 2006 Well, my birthday has added so much to this list. Quite a lot of it looks like heavy, serious, factual reading, too. Orhan Pamuk's memoirs of Istanbul, the 1812 book, about Napoleon's march on Moscow, Marco Polo's travels, a book on the Persians, a strange looking Indian novel, the new Ismael Kadare novel, so much stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maureen Posted May 1, 2006 Share Posted May 1, 2006 Andy, Happy Birthday - even though this must come a bit late. There isn't your date in the birthday thread though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 In The Shape Of A Boar by Lawrence NorfolkDance Dance Dance by Haruki Murukami Andy, How was In The Shape Of A Boar by Norfolk? I've tried to read his first novel, Lempriere's Dictionary, but like Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow I found it damn near impenetrable. Perhaps because I've not read many of the Greek classics. Is this novel samey in this respect? Also, Dance Dance Dance...what did you think of it? I remember reading it, finding it good until a certain point (perhaps because of a difference in our cultures) until I found out it was a sequel to another Murakami novel, A Wild Sheep Chase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 23, 2006 Author Share Posted May 23, 2006 Actually, Stewart, I've still not read Dance, Dance, Dance. Have you read Wild Sheep Chase yet? I reckon Wild Sheep Chase is a fantastic book. But then I love Murukami. Wild Sheep Chase and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are my two favourites. You might struggle with them, given your reviews, because of the way he treats his characters. He's really really cold, particularly about sex, but it works with the rest of the treatment, to me. All of the books I've read of his (apart from Norwegian Wood) have this weird feeling of being something close to cyberpunk novels, except they're set in middle class, quiet respectable modern Japan suburbs, rather than a strange discordant high tech future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 23, 2006 Author Share Posted May 23, 2006 In The Shape Of A Boar was dreadful. I really enjoyed both Lempriere's Dictionary and The Pope's Rhinocerous (although I can see where you come from about their impenetrability - it took a while for me to click into both books, and the same was true of the one Pynchon I've read - Mason & Dixon). But Shape Of A Boar was all of the pretension without any of the fun, none of the entertainment and worthwhile stuff. It was a slog of first 1/3 fake(ish) epic poem, 2/3 story of author in 1960s Paris. It really did very little for me. There were moments when it felt like it was going to become a good story but it just failed miserably. And it was utterly dominated by pointless footnotes. If you want a book full of irritating footnotes, you're better off, far better off, with Paul Auster's Oracle Nights, which is a deeply interesting book (although I don't actually know whether I enjoyed it, still). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 If you want a book full of irritating footnotes, you're better off, far better off, with Paul Auster's Oracle Nights, which is a deeply interesting book (although I don't actually know whether I enjoyed it, still). I read it last year and, looking over my 2005 reading list, I see that I gave the book four stars out of five. So, I must have liked it, although I would struggle to recap the story now other than guy decides to leave his life to fate and travels across the country to live a different life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 Actually, Stewart, I've still not read Dance, Dance, Dance. Have you read Wild Sheep Chase yet? I reckon Wild Sheep Chase is a fantastic book. But then I love Murukami. Wild Sheep Chase and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are my two favourites. No, I've not read A Wild Sheep Chase. I started The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles but after the first page I was holding my head and screaming, "Oh no, not more spaghetti!" I will get round to it one day, I know, but I don't feel he's a priority right now. His introduction to Ryunosuke Akutagawa in the new Penguin classic is an interesting read by him and I can't help feel that if Murakami has essays published in English that I would enjoy them more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted May 23, 2006 Author Share Posted May 23, 2006 I find the focus on food in the books (and for some reason it's normally spaghetti and beer) is part of the fun. But I can see how it would grate (like parmesan, perhaps?). He's definitely a love-hate author. Many people I know are completely obsessed by Murukami and reading all his stuff at the moment. But others are left utterly bemused by the attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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