What are you currently reading?

[LoathedVermin72]

The Shining is a very mediocre novel.

[epilogue]

The Shining is a very mediocre novel.

Yep.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

I've never read anything by him, and someone told me this was a good place to start. I like it so far for its style, and I'm expecting it to get really weird any chapter now.

i liked it a lot more than kafka on the shore

[epilogue]

Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

I've never read anything by him, and someone told me this was a good place to start. I like it so far for its style, and I'm expecting it to get really weird any chapter now.

i liked it a lot more than kafka on the shore

Kafka on the Shore was a strange book. It's not that I disliked it but it didn't wow me. It was bonkers, though.

[bada]

The Shining is a very mediocre novel.

Yep.

Just finished it. I liked it more than you two but prob not as much as Trag.

[epilogue]

The Shining is a very mediocre novel.

Yep.

Just finished it. I liked it more than you two but prob not as much as Trag.

It's totally fine. Just not great. And nowhere near top tier King. Kubrick's film is superior.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bada]

The Shining is a very mediocre novel.

Yep.

Just finished it. I liked it more than you two but prob not as much as Trag.

It's totally fine. Just not great. And nowhere near top tier King. Kubrick's film is superior.

I can't say I find either superior just each good in their own way.

[bada]

I love it, but then I haven't read it since 1994. It was the first King book I ever read and it scared the shit out of me. I can still remember the opening sentence:

"'Officious little prick', thought Jack Torrence."

And that's without my having opened the book since then.

My gripe with all King books is that for all his storytelling prowess, he doesn't understand how people actually talk, even in their own heads. His characters' words are always so writerly.

But yea, I loved that book. I read 'Salem's Lot around 2005, and that was excellent too. I love a good horror story, and when King is on, it's page-turning fiction of a very high caliber. He may not have the linguistic prowess of many other writers, but he spins a yarn better than most.

I liked Salem's Lot a lot. The prequel Jerusalem's Lot sacred the shit out of me and I can't really explain why.

[epilogue]

'Salem's Lot is goddamn brilliant. Don't care that it's a genre book, it's a fucking powerhouse.

[epilogue]

Also, I'm not sure I have the same issues with King's dialogue that you do, trag. Sometimes it's tinny and/or wooden but on the balance I'd say he does a decent job. Probably not his strongest attribute but certainly not something I'd say he sucks at, most of the time.

It helps that I read so many of his books as heightened reality/surreal.

[bada]

[epilogue]

Picked up a couple of books on sale (under $5) at B&N yesterday:



Which I've been wanted to read for like 3 fucking years now. Pretty stoked.

And:



Which I've heard a lot of good things about, too.

But I won't get to either for a while. I'm still reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. And I'm only about 35% of the way through that. It's really fucking good.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

I tried to read Life After Life when I was back in school, but textbooks kept taking precedent. Lemme know hot it is?

Will do. I've been putting the thing off for far too long.

[patrick]

Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

I've never read anything by him, and someone told me this was a good place to start. I like it so far for its style, and I'm expecting it to get really weird any chapter now.

On the whole, I didn't enjoy the book. The first 2/3s, I was on board with all the modern magical realism meta fiction, but once Cinnamon and Nutmeg were introduced, I got tired of the book adding things to the story. He's a great writer and can capture moods and scenes well, but not my cup of tea.

[bune]

I finished The Library at Mount Char finally. Well, I started it Saturday and finished it today so it's more of an "I got around to it finally". Wow. I had an idea about halfway through the book where things were going but I was still suprised at the ending. I really hope that the confrontations teased throughout the closing of the book are brought to bear in a sequel.

[bada]

[epilogue]

All this Dark Tower movie news has be obsessed all over again. So, I started reading The Gunslinger. It's better the second time around.

[bune]