What are you currently reading?

[epilogue]

I'm reading 'The End of the End of the World' by Franzen. It's an essays collection. I like it so far. But the guy needs to shut up about birds. I just don't care, Jon.

Yeah, his love for birds used to offer a unique lens or perspective through which he would find some way to tell a bigger story or convey an abstract concept. A lot of the essays in that book are just about birds. No higher levels. No layers. He just loves birds

Word. I'm really enjoying the ones that don't mention birds, though.

[Simple Torture]

The AV Club put together a list of some of the most anticipated books coming out this year: https://aux.avclub.com/the-15-most-anti ... 1831486491

Some personal highlights:

Birthday by César Aira (February 28, New Directions)
Sing To It by Amy Hempel (March 26, Scribner)
Orange World And Other Stories by Karen Russell (May 14, Knopf)

I wasn't even aware of the Hempel and Russell, so that's some really good news.

[Simple Torture]

The AV Club put together a list of some of the most anticipated books coming out this year: https://aux.avclub.com/the-15-most-anti ... 1831486491

Some personal highlights:

Birthday by César Aira (February 28, New Directions)
Sing To It by Amy Hempel (March 26, Scribner)
Orange World And Other Stories by Karen Russell (May 14, Knopf)

I wasn't even aware of the Hempel and Russell, so that's some really good news.

Also coming on February 5th is Roberto Bolano's The Spirit of Science Fiction. Less than a month now!

[epilogue]

The AV Club put together a list of some of the most anticipated books coming out this year: https://aux.avclub.com/the-15-most-anti ... 1831486491

Some personal highlights:

Birthday by César Aira (February 28, New Directions)
Sing To It by Amy Hempel (March 26, Scribner)
Orange World And Other Stories by Karen Russell (May 14, Knopf)

I wasn't even aware of the Hempel and Russell, so that's some really good news.

Also coming on February 5th is Roberto Bolano's The Spirit of Science Fiction. Less than a month now!

Oh man!

[Malloy]

[lennytheweedwhacker]

nobody gives a sh*t

[Simple Torture]

The AV Club put together a list of some of the most anticipated books coming out this year: https://aux.avclub.com/the-15-most-anti ... 1831486491

Some personal highlights:

Birthday by César Aira (February 28, New Directions)
Sing To It by Amy Hempel (March 26, Scribner)
Orange World And Other Stories by Karen Russell (May 14, Knopf)

I wasn't even aware of the Hempel and Russell, so that's some really good news.

The Millions has a much more extensive preview, although it only covers the first half of the year (haven't even begun to delve into it yet): https://themillions.com/2019/01/the-gre ... eview.html

[epilogue]

Malloy!

[Simple Torture]

In Our Time is doing Beckett next week on their show/podcast, and I'm very excited.

[epilogue]

In Our Time is doing Beckett next week on their show/podcast, and I'm very excited.

IN!

[Simple Torture]

Hannah is a fiercely intelligent young women, daughter of a powerful family's black sheep son, and raised to question who has been, is, and will be damaged by business deals meant to protect and maintain the dynasty. A devastating wrong is done to her when she opposes a family scheme and her response is a battle cry of astounding violence and beauty. As haunting as Shelly Jackson or Thomas Bernhard, as enthralling as Nabokov or Joyce, Leland de la Durantaye's debut novel is a radical departure from contemporary storytelling. At once the story of a terrific act of vengeance and of a lifelong love, Hannah versus the Tree Hannah presents a new literary genre, the mythopoetic thriller

[lennytheweedwhacker]

i don't like that cover...not going to read

[Simple Torture]

Are you a cat person?

[Simple Torture]

Hannah is a fiercely intelligent young women, daughter of a powerful family's black sheep son, and raised to question who has been, is, and will be damaged by business deals meant to protect and maintain the dynasty. A devastating wrong is done to her when she opposes a family scheme and her response is a battle cry of astounding violence and beauty. As haunting as Shelly Jackson or Thomas Bernhard, as enthralling as Nabokov or Joyce, Leland de la Durantaye's debut novel is a radical departure from contemporary storytelling. At once the story of a terrific act of vengeance and of a lifelong love, Hannah versus the Tree Hannah presents a new literary genre, the mythopoetic thriller

I was actually disappointed in this one; I read the author's books on philosophy between grad schools and was a fan, but this book reads as sophomoric and simplistic, primarily.

[Simple Torture]

This is a re-read, but I haven't picked it up since 2009:

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life.

[4/5]

Okay so I want the perspective of some of the Lit people here.

My high school and college educations didn't expose me to very many classic novels and I mostly chose to read nonfiction in my spare time. Over the last few years I've read a bunch of classic novels and I've often enjoyed doing so. For example, I just read Crime and Punishment and loved it and look forward to reading more Dostoyevsky.

But I browse through this thread and those you of who are avid readers are pretty much all reading stuff I've never heard of and apart from this thread I wouldn't even know where to find out about these types of books. So are the classics overrated? Is it that many of you have already spent a lot of time reading those and have moved on?

Idk why or even really what I'm asking. Just an observation and kinda thinking out loud. I'm reading Great Expectations now (hasn't grabbed me 100 pages in yet) and have Ulysses sitting on my shelf to read soon. Am I just going through like a freshman literature reading list doing stuff like this?

[Simple Torture]

I really do want to help with this, but am at work. Will try to share some thoughts later.

[4/5]

I really do want to help with this, but am at work. Will try to share some thoughts later.

[bune]

Okay so I want the perspective of some of the Lit people here.

My high school and college educations didn't expose me to very many classic novels and I mostly chose to read nonfiction in my spare time. Over the last few years I've read a bunch of classic novels and I've often enjoyed doing so. For example, I just read Crime and Punishment and loved it and look forward to reading more Dostoyevsky.

But I browse through this thread and those you of who are avid readers are pretty much all reading stuff I've never heard of and apart from this thread I wouldn't even know where to find out about these types of books. So are the classics overrated? Is it that many of you have already spent a lot of time reading those and have moved on?

Idk why or even really what I'm asking. Just an observation and kinda thinking out loud. I'm reading Great Expectations now (hasn't grabbed me 100 pages in yet) and have Ulysses sitting on my shelf to read soon. Am I just going through like a freshman literature reading list doing stuff like this?

There are some books that others read in their formative years that I haven't even heard of and reading them now just isn't the same. A good example is Watchmen. I only heard about it while watching a season of a television series and it came up in forum discussion so I basically had the book spoiled for me without even knowing it existed until that point.

OTOH - sometimes it's as easy as going to the library and - *gasp* - judging a book by it's cover. I mean, I just went in yesterday to pick up a book and saw this on the new release shelf:



The cover was a lot of the choice but the blurb at the top truly sold it:

Humanity's last hope...a murderous unicorn

Which, btw, is not the blurb on that image. And reading it now I have to laugh because of...reasons.

Another way I go about picking books is using Goodreads. I see what people are reading and put the interesting ones on my to-read list. I don't like reading articles or reviews about books before I read them so I can't offer any good examples there.

[Blaine Ryan]

Okay so I want the perspective of some of the Lit people here.

My high school and college educations didn't expose me to very many classic novels and I mostly chose to read nonfiction in my spare time. Over the last few years I've read a bunch of classic novels and I've often enjoyed doing so. For example, I just read Crime and Punishment and loved it and look forward to reading more Dostoyevsky.

But I browse through this thread and those you of who are avid readers are pretty much all reading stuff I've never heard of and apart from this thread I wouldn't even know where to find out about these types of books. So are the classics overrated? Is it that many of you have already spent a lot of time reading those and have moved on?

Idk why or even really what I'm asking. Just an observation and kinda thinking out loud. I'm reading Great Expectations now (hasn't grabbed me 100 pages in yet) and have Ulysses sitting on my shelf to read soon. Am I just going through like a freshman literature reading list doing stuff like this?

I was an English major, so I was exposed to a lot of that stuff in college.

I would say that, in general, classic lit just isn't for me. There are some exceptions, of course (I love Steinbeck). And I try to never shut myself off from a specific genre or niche in anything. But I do/did find a lot of that stuff to be fairly dry and, frankly, dull.

As for recommendations, Goodreads is awesome, as bune mentioned. I also tend to find a lot of stuff reading "best of" lists on Amazon or Reddit or what have you. Or just browsing threads like these. As with music, I find that word of mouth (especially from folks whose opinions I trust) tends to be the best way to find new things.