Author Topic: Book Thread  (Read 41560 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #70 on: February 16, 2010, 04:05:12 pm »
Someone was asking what ONE book a global person could read to give them an understanding of the US. The one I would choose would be the excellent book with a gay theme, among others, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The reason is because there are actually at least four Americas: the South, the Midwest, and the two coasts. If you read a book set on one of the coasts, then you don't understand the other three. The South is rapidly becoming just like the other parts of the country, losing its distinction. But the Midwest is the true melting pot of the US, and that is where The Corrections is set. It's about a midwestern family, a chef daughter who is gay, a schoolteacher son, and a mother and father who go on a misguided cruise.

What would be your choice for the one US book the rest of the world should read? How about Canada?
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #71 on: February 19, 2010, 06:47:12 pm »
Speaking of London,
I was in London for an academic year, experiencing depression.  The second apartment I lived in -- after I moved from a nicer one to save money -- was truly squalid: no heat; little furniture; fleas; ...the only thing I liked about this apartment was that in the kitchen there was a cupboard crammed with books.  The previous tenant had left them.  During the winter I got the flu -- of course I got the flu.  So for a week I was so feverish and achy and miserable that I skipped all my classes and didn't leave the house, but I read and read of the books of the magic cupboard, huddled by the space heater in the kitchen.  I read five books in five days and they were:

1984 (Orwell)
A Thousand Acres (Smiley)
Moo (Smiley)
Breathing Lessons (Tyler)
A Patchwork Planet (Tyler)

Other cupboard books I remember were Couples (Updike) and a dated, sexist nonfiction book about sex... And a book of stories by Katherine Ann Porter which I left on a train.  I read so many other books in London, not necessarily cupboard books.  The World According to Garp and A Widow for One Year, The Handmaid's Tale, West with the Night and Out of Africa, Rabbit, Run, The Corner, Wicked Women, Horse Heaven.

Moo is such a delight.  Speaking of Updike, I also recommend In the Beauty of the Lilies

I'm a little late with this but I'm just now reading Moo and loving it! A friend of mine met Jane Smiley and stayed at her house. She has a winning style of writing, pithy insights, and a rapier wit!!
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Offline Lynne

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #72 on: February 19, 2010, 07:14:19 pm »
This is a great thread.  I must get back to reading.  I was an avid reader before BBM, but somehow that led to learning about a zillion fabulous movies I'd never seen, so I became a DVD person.

I love getting lost in a good book.  I read the short story before I saw the movie.  And I have a stack in my to-be-read pile.  Maybe tonight...no DVDs and I'll get started on the Sarah Waters book that was a gift from Amanda.
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #73 on: February 19, 2010, 10:33:52 pm »
Someone was asking what ONE book a global person could read to give them an understanding of the US. The one I would choose would be the excellent book with a gay theme, among others, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The reason is because there are actually at least four Americas: the South, the Midwest, and the two coasts. If you read a book set on one of the coasts, then you don't understand the other three. The South is rapidly becoming just like the other parts of the country, losing its distinction. But the Midwest is the true melting pot of the US, and that is where The Corrections is set. It's about a midwestern family, a chef daughter who is gay, a schoolteacher son, and a mother and father who go on a misguided cruise.

What would be your choice for the one US book the rest of the world should read? How about Canada?

I don't know of one good book that would cover everyone.  The Midwest is definitely NOT the West Coast or East Coast or the South or the Southwest for that matter, much less Hawaii or Alaska.  We're large enough to have distinct differences.  The attitude and people of North Dakota are not the same as those in West Virginia.

One book couldn't possibly represent 'everyone'.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #74 on: March 17, 2010, 09:43:23 pm »
I'm a little late with this but I'm just now reading Moo and loving it! A friend of mine met Jane Smiley and stayed at her house. She has a winning style of writing, pithy insights, and a rapier wit!!

A few notes on MOO...
"Most of the students sat upright but removed, like horses asleep on their feet in a field." p. 68
"He can have her pregnant by Christmas if they get on with the ceremony," p. 98
"Fornication never surprised him, he had fornicated himself before truly accepting Jesus, and he had drunk intoxicating liquors, and he had laid blows upon some of his fellow men--he was a man, wasn't he?" p. 212
"Meanwhile, Joy could hardly feel the cold. Listening to Dean was getting more and more like receiving muffled blows, let's say being hit over and over with a sofa pillow. It didn't hurt, it didn't raise bruises, and you could go on letting it happen for weeks, until you realized that the experience was numbing, and probably meant to be numbing." p 297
"He had moved out of the Lady X's house with only the wallet in his pocket and a change of clothes in a brown paper bag." p. 304
"He had told her that nothing suited him better than shucking all of that bullshit. 'Including your toothbrush?' she had challenged." p. 304
"Some people do wait their whole lives for something, and it's only when that thing arrives that they find out that they've been waiting rather than living." p. 308

I see Brokieisms!!
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #75 on: March 17, 2010, 10:20:38 pm »
Someone was asking what ONE book a global person could read to give them an understanding of the US. The one I would choose would be the excellent book with a gay theme, among others, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The reason is because there are actually at least four Americas: the South, the Midwest, and the two coasts. If you read a book set on one of the coasts, then you don't understand the other three. The South is rapidly becoming just like the other parts of the country, losing its distinction. But the Midwest is the true melting pot of the US, and that is where The Corrections is set. It's about a midwestern family, a chef daughter who is gay, a schoolteacher son, and a mother and father who go on a misguided cruise.

What would be your choice for the one US book the rest of the world should read? How about Canada?

I loved The Corrections and think it would be an excellent choice as a book to represent the U.S. It's not entirely set in the Midwest, though. The parents live in St. Louis, and the kids are from there, but they have moved to the East Coast. As I recall, the daughter and elder son live in Philadelphia, and the younger son lives in, I think, New York.

I think The South still does have its own distinct character, but sadly it, like everywhere else, is becoming more indistinguishable from the rest of the country.

What a great idea it would be to write a novel involving lots of different regions of the country. I have lived in the West (Idaho), the South (Louisiana), the Midwest (Minnesota) and the East Coast (New York City), so I've tried a few. They all do have their own distinct characters.


Offline Andrew

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #76 on: October 26, 2010, 09:58:55 pm »
A few weeks ago, when BrianR stopped in Boston as part of his big tour, he and Paul and I went to the Boston Public Library to hear Michael Cunningham read from his new novel, By Nightfall.   Paul and I got inscribed copies at the end of the reading.  I have since read it and actually could not believe how much I came to like it.  I had read the first part of A Home at the End of the World (1990); I had not read The Hours (1998).  Frankly, the first chapter of By Nightfall even as read by the author was not strongly inclining me to read it, but following an instinct I re-read that chapter myself, persisted with the rest and was rewarded with a story that kept drawing me in more and more.  Now that I have finished it, I am at the stage where I am going back to reread different places and think about how concentrated it is, how he makes everything contribute to the whole, how there is a new thought or effect on every page, how involving and plausible and thought-provoking it all is.  

The story of A Home at the End of the World was spread over years, and I know from reading about it that The Hours is juxtaposing the lives of three women in successive generations.  Cunningham is attempting something new with each novel, and By Nightfall is short, unified, and linear.  It takes place in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Greenwich CT over just a few days, with only three central characters.  His subject is a kind of experience many middle-aged people go through, though Peter Harris' version of it is very specific to who he is as an individual, and what he is expecting (and not getting) from life.  I was at page 50 before I got in tune with the theme and started to see how every part of the novel was connected, how all the symbols drove the story into a single course while being completely ordinary, realistic parts of his life at the same time.  In the end, the story was only limited by the realism of the outcome, which is no limitation at all.

This is the kind of story Ang Lee has such a genius for turning into unforgettable films.  There are so many projects I wish he would do, darn it!   But the book has some remarkable passages which, even if they inspired the director to come up with some amazing visual/aural equivalent, also need to be appreciated just as writing.

Offline Monika

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #77 on: October 27, 2010, 12:41:37 am »
For my class in detective fiction that I´m currently taking, I´ve been reading detective stories lately. I´ve also joined the town´s book club although I still feel like Luke from The Gilmore Girls everytime I go there. But it´s nice to read again. I almost stopped completely after Brokeback because I compared everything to it. I still haven´t gotten around to watch movies as much as I did before BBM.

I enjoyed Tony Hillerman and his two tribal police officers Chee and Leaphorn. He writes about a people somehow stuck in limbo on a reservation they don't want to live but at the same time find it impossible to live on.From what I understand Hillerman lives in the Four Corners area himself, so he nails the description of the empty, desolete area too.

I hated Margarete Crombie´s novel A Finer End. A detective story written in a very distinct Brittish style set in a small town in the countryside. The perspectives change between different characters and we find out about extramaterial affairs, unwanted children and old enemies. I had no idea who the killer might be up until the very end when the author explains it all in half a page. And it's the most unbelievable explanation ever. I felt like throwing the book out the window.

Then it was Leonie Swann´s Three Bags Full - a detective story revolving around the murder of George the shepherd and his flock of sheep. The sheep are trying to solve the case themselves, you see. In the best way that sheep can. The entire book is built on the notion that the reader will find all this hysterical funny. And it works - mostly anyway.

But out of these three, Hillerman was my favorite.

Offline Andrew

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #78 on: October 31, 2010, 08:31:35 pm »
A few weeks ago, when BrianR stopped in Boston as part of his big tour, he and Paul and I went to the Boston Public Library to hear Michael Cunningham read from his new novel, By Nightfall.   Paul and I got inscribed copies at the end of the reading.  I have since read it and actually could not believe how much I came to like it.  I had read the first part of A Home at the End of the World (1990); I had not read The Hours (1998).  Frankly, the first chapter of By Nightfall even as read by the author was not strongly inclining me to read it, but following an instinct I re-read that chapter myself, persisted with the rest and was rewarded with a story that kept drawing me in more and more.  Now that I have finished it, I am at the stage where I am going back to reread different places and think about how concentrated it is, how he makes everything contribute to the whole, how there is a new thought or effect on every page, how involving and plausible and thought-provoking it all is.  

The story of A Home at the End of the World was spread over years, and I know from reading about it that The Hours is juxtaposing the lives of three women in successive generations.  Cunningham is attempting something new with each novel, and By Nightfall is short, unified, and linear.  It takes place in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Greenwich CT over just a few days, with only three central characters.  His subject is a kind of experience many middle-aged people go through, though Peter Harris' version of it is very specific to who he is as an individual, and what he is expecting (and not getting) from life.  I was at page 50 before I got in tune with the theme and started to see how every part of the novel was connected, how all the symbols drove the story into a single course while being completely ordinary, realistic parts of his life at the same time.  In the end, the story was only limited by the realism of the outcome, which is no limitation at all.

This is the kind of story Ang Lee has such a genius for turning into unforgettable films.  There are so many projects I wish he would do, darn it!   But the book has some remarkable passages which, even if they inspired the director to come up with some amazing visual/aural equivalent, also need to be appreciated just as writing.

There is a three-part video interview of Michael Cunningham by James Franco at Amazon, on the page for By Nightfall.  A little is about the novel but a lot is about writing in general.

http://www.amazon.com/Nightfall-Novel-Michael-Cunningham/dp/0374299080/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288569621&sr=1-1

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Book Thread
« Reply #79 on: October 31, 2010, 08:38:26 pm »
Andrew, I will definitely try By Nightfall. Buffy, are you going to be studying Sherlock Holmes in your detective fiction class?
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