pontalba

We are not alone. Regarding Didion...I just received the Dec/Jan 2014 issue of Book Forum magazine and there is a great article comparing Didion and Nora Ephron. I've read one book by Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck, and truly enjoyed it. I just have to quote something here from the Book Forum article, written by Heather Havrilesky Lack of feeling is exactly what bothered me about Joan Didion's book.....she was frozen. Which is one way some people handle grief. But to write a book in that vein is just.......wrong. I've lost close loved ones, and I know the stages of grief very well. Didion's book simply did not ring true for me. I don't mean to hijack the thread.....but I thought you'd enjoy reading the excerpt above. I tried linking the online article, it's worth reading, but it isn't online yet. Back to your regular programming.......

Very interesting, willoyd. Refined sugar/fructose et al is a killer, no question about it. All the unrefined glop we put into our systems is just awful.

LOL Where do they get the nerve?? Wowee!

Glad to hear the good news muggle.

Good luck with the new one. Hmmm interesting. Just received The Penultimate Truth in the mail.../fingers crossed/ Very interested in your reactions/review of The Luminaries. LOL re Circuses...

I wanted to give it up at 20 pages, it didn't get better. Well, momentarily. /sigh/

frankie, I don't see that the Didion was difficult, not a bit. And, I didn't cry either. I thought she was rather dry about the whole thing. Actually, I have to say I didn't care for it, or her by the time I finished.

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes * Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy ** Moby-Dick, Herman Melville * Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace ** J R, William Gaddis Finnegans Wake, James Joyce The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner ** Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust ** Alphabetical Africa, Walter Abish Geek Love, Katherine Dunn Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh Pet Sematary, Stephen King Coin Locker Babies, Ryu Murakami Battle Royale, Koushun Takami House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski * To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf **** The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosinski Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad **** Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar Out, Natsuo Kirino * 2666, Roberto Bolaño ** Tampa, Alissa Nutting War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy * The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon * The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer Underworld, Don DeLillo Almanac of the Dead, Leslie Marmon Silko Cosmos, Witold Gombrowicz The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer Sophie’s Choice, William Styron Clarissa, Or the History of a Young Lady, Samuel Richardson The Unfortunates, B.S. Johnson The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, Lydia Davis * The Tunnel, William Gass * The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion **** The Demon, Hubert Selby Jr. The Royal Family, William T. Vollmann Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift The Castle, Franz Kafka The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn **** are ones that I've read all the way through ** are ones I've read partly and abandoned for a variety of reasons * they're on the shelf

I haven't read it yet, it's glaring at me from an upper shelf..... Agree re the actors. All fantastic.

Great film. I have the book, unread. Have you read it? We've still watching series 2 of Lewis. Probably switch over to the second series of Wallander (Swedish version). I have it on order, should arrive tomorrow.

That is always good advice, in any case. One I, all to often, don't follow. You said earlier that this is a marmite book, and I absolutely agree.

I'm inching toward serious though. We've discussed at least slowing the purchases to absolutely invaluable reads. Sometimes, instead of clicking on the purchase button, I'll click it onto the (Amazon) wish list.....that seems to satisfy my clicking finger, and quite often I don't follow through. I have a few things on my wish list that go back to 2007.

I'd only heard of Good Reads on that list. Which I find not to be as user friendly as, for example Library Thing. Interesting. Thanks for posting.

Yippee! That is wonderful to have accomplished. Oh, Gaia! When I first saw this title, and the beginning of the synopsis I thought........Oh my goodness! It's a time travel book. Must be the protagonists found a way to s-t-r-e-t-c-h time, this'll be fascinating! And, it is interesting, just not in the way I imagined at first glance. Good reviews, all.

Added to my wish list on Amazon too.

Bloody awful. I've been reading the reports.

Lovely, Steve. Thank you.

I never feel guilty about the unread stacks around here. Now, the dust bunnies, full dishwasher, stacks of stuff about.....that might make me momentarily feel a fleeting bit of guilt.....but never the books! Oh, doesn't bother me, if I can come up with an accurate count....asking husband what he thinks................ There are at least three four categories of books here. 1. Ones we've actually read. 2. Ones we really, really want to read and would be very disappointed if we don't read. 3. Then, there are the ones that we are a bit "ennh" about, or don't actually count in the TBR stacks. 4. Abandoned, banished to the land of Uck. I can't give figures on all categories, but in the second, ones we really, really want to get to ASAP.....conservatively, I'd have to say about 2,700. Give or take.

Ahh, well, we can't all be as bad as pontalba, that bad girl!

We do have TBR pile(s), doesn't help much. Husband has threatened to only read first paragraphs, to get through all of them. Might work.........

I've tried to start the book twice. I haven't gotten very far. I can certainly imagine Javier Bardem in it! We recently saw him in The Counselor.....man, he is good!

Er, maybe one or eight.......

Oh, lovely trip, muggle. I love D.C. Ennh, 4 or 5 pounds isn't anything to go ballistic over, easily lost. Super Doc, eh? Able to leap tall hospitals in a single bound, Look!! It's a bird! It's a plane! NO, it's Supermandoc...!!!!!!! Sorry muggle, just couldn't resist........... Tut, tut.....these things are important! Don't downgrade the importance of, especially, reading! Hooray! Looking good!

Yeah!

Loved it! I read it earlier this year...I think this link will get my very short review.... http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/11186-pontalbas-2013-reading-list/?p=332023 Replay!! Hey, hey!