Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Heck yeah! I have loads of catching up to do, myself. I haven't read about 50% of the books I own (used book sales are just too tempting!) and I just got a new library card, so I'm excited to read books for free this year. I have a serious book-buying problem that I'm going to try to only use on cookbooks for a while.

Just finished Nabokov's "Pnin"

I had to get The Orphan Master's Son. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend with it.

I finished Lauren Oliver's 'Delirium' this week, which was pretty readable; I found the premise simultaneously interesting and not terribly believable. I've reserved the next one from the library, but I'm not jumping up and down to get it or anything.

I also reread The Time Traveler's Wife, which made me cry like a baby reading a sad book. Somehow I had a very clear memory of how it ended which actually wasn't how it ended at all... I wonder if the ending I remembered was actually the one from the movie? Was the ending of the movie different?

I'm onto In the Land of Invented Languages which is objectively really well-written, I think, but it's reminding me of the fact that as an almost-fourth-year linguistics student I really shouldn't read pop-linguistics books. I keep disturbing my fiancé yelling at the book about all the little things it has wrong or oversimplified or left out.

I can't remember if I read this book...I read Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician about a year ago and was looking for other books about circus performers. I have the sample of it on my Kindle but not the full download so maybe not, will have to skim through it at an actual bookstore to know for sure.

Just finished The Casual Vacancy. I thought it was really good, and not what I expected.

I want to comment but I don't want to spoil it for you!

I just finished The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and I'm disappointed.
I liked The Shadow of the Wind a lot when I read (a German translation of) it some years ago, but this one felt like a cheap rehash of the same ideas with a slightly different theme and a different ending. Unfortunately the translation wasn't the best either. There were a lot of passages that felt awkwardly worded or as if the wrong word had been used, giving everything a slightly different meaning or weight. And on top of it all, the blurb seemed to describe an altogether different book (that I kept expecting while reading the more disappointing version). As funny as it may sound, I think I would have preferred the book seemingly described in the blurb, consisting of much the same elements but in a different order - hinting at a different story, and (hopefully) a different central theme and outcome.

Now I'm off to find a book I might like better.

I just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower (loved it) and started Wild Grass: China's Revolution from Below.

Aw, jojo! Perks is one of my favorites. I'm glad that you liked it!

So far The Orphan Master's Son is phenomenal, not that it's a surprise to anyone here.

Footface, are you on goodreads?

German Autumn by Stig Dagerman.

I had the EXACT same experience reading The Angel's Game, like "isn't this basically the same book??" I'm glad I'm not alone.

I'm reading The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

No, I don't do goodreads. Should I?

Pines by Blake Crouch, enjoying it so far. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be too scary because I like mysteries as long as they aren't too violent or anything that would give me nightmares. I've read and liked most of the No 1 Ladies Detective Series books.

I just finished reading this, I wouldn't call it fluff, but it was a fun, quirky read. I really liked it!

http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Linings-Pl ... 0374533571

There are lots of good "cozy" mystery series. Pick an interest or hobby, and there is probably a relevant series! I used to enjoy Jill Churchill. The Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody books are set in Victorian England/Egypt.

Yes! I typically take note of your recommendations in this thread. Goodreads would make that process easier for me. Please do!

I'm glad you liked it!

I'm reading Inside Scientology which is just bizarre.

My good literary taste must shine forth!

Did you see the piece on Going Clear in today's New York Times Book Review?

And finished The Psycopath Test last week which was very good.

Exactly! I don't mind jotting your recommendations down from here and adding them to my goodreads though. A co-worker recently complimented me on my to read list and it was a real feather in my cap*.

*not vegan

I just devoured Eye of the World and am now partway through The Great Hunt. Forget who recommended this series in this thread, but this is exactly the kind of book I was craving. I suspect I will have read all of the Wheel of Time books in short order.

Just started 11.22.63, looking good so far.

^I really want to read that Anek. My sister's husband had it on his bookshelf when I visited the Netherlands in the summer but it was written in Dutch, so I couldn't read. I want to read it in English, though.

I was reading some FS.Fitzgerald criticism last night and already feel like rebutting some of the stuff I read. I know his novel Tender is the Night has a loose structure, but I don't think it ruins the whole novel or anything. On one of my undergrad essays, I suggested that the plot structure/DD's movements in Tender is the Night loosely follows the course of the nightingale in the Keats' poem (which would be a loose structure if indeed that was its inspiration of a bird flitting through and out of the garden--the last lines of the book suggest that DD's whereabouts were no longer accurately tracked, just like the bird vanishes from the garden at the end of Keats' ode) from which its title is taken and my prof practically had an orgasm over that observation. But yeah, that was just me speculating and it's a loosely structured novel, but so what. So redeemed by the man's gorgeous stylin' skillz.