The Book Thread Book • Page 43

This book is incredible. I want to read it again soon.

 

The Long Walk is a favorite of mine, so good.

 

Just finished All the Light We Cannot See. Really enjoyed that. Now I'm onto:

Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
I am Brian Wilson
Scrappy Little Nobody
The Half Blood Prince

Can't remember the last time I had so much in my book queue.

 

Smoke City by Keith Rosson was my first read of the year. Now I'm reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle.

 

Started The Cider House Rules this morning. First paragraph talks about baby penises and circumcisions. That'll grab your attention!

 

I read this years ago and really enjoyed it! John Irving has a style of storytelling that is really engaging even when he's giving like two-page summaries of a town's history... I like the way he uses the setting as almost another character.

 

Got a bunch of nonfiction books for christmas but also got a B&N gift card which I used to pick up a couple Murakami books as well as Lincoln in the Bardo. Haven't read fiction for pleasure in a while, I read so much for school that I never really time or inclination to read for pleasure and when I have recently its been nonfiction for whatever reason. Excited to dig in over what remains of my break

 

Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany is so beautiful.

 

Murakami is the man! although he writes sex scenes like someone would for an anatomy book or something. wish he would quit including those in his works.

 

about 75 pages in and really enjoying it. the book / writing has a bit of a quirky humorous / sly *wink wink* type feel to it that i did not expect but am appreciating.

 

I love Murakami so much. I don't think I've read anything of his that has a sex scene since Norwegian Woods though, still relatively new to his work

 

I'm about to start reading War and Peace with some coworkers. Has anybody read it?

 

Colorless Tsukuri has some REALLY vivid ones that are super detailed. almost awkwardly so. luckily they only last a few sentences but man, it's like a total shift change (i think).

 

I read Hard Boiled Wonderland and a couple from his recent story collection. I picked up his latest, The Colorless... whatever it is, and Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I don't remember noticing that in Hard Boiled Wonderland but its possible, it seems like a thing a lot of authors have trouble with

 

read this past summer. enjoyed it more than i thought i would. A LOT of characters (duh) with A LOT of nicknames which is standard for Russian books. bring a notebook and pen to keep track. take your time, don't rush through it. i tried to do like 20 pages a day just so it wasn't so daunting and so i could soak up what was happening. enjoy!

 

i don't think one can write a sex scene and people not think it's described weird and i think part of that is just how we as a culture perceive sex. i think the middle ground is to describe it as matter of fact as possible if you wanna include it. like "yep this is happening." but idk i haven't thought about it much

 

Murakami also has a somewhat creepy trend of having a lot of male protagonist in their 20's / 30's meeting teenage girls that he begins to like or fawn over or relate to their mothers. which... is always creepy, but at like, 65 is REALLY starting to become an issues. especially after a trend of 15+ books.

Hard Boiled didn't have that, i don't believe. that was just such a wacky tale (in a fun way) - although, again, young female friend that the older male becomes kind of fixated reliant upon.

Wind-Up Bird is what a lot of people consider his best work. i really loved it. some really haunting writing in it (in a good way, not a creepy sex / young girl fetish way).

Colorless Tsukuri - haha, just posted about that. yeah, that one immediately came to mind. 1Q84 also was awkwardly written with sex scenes and those are two of his newer works.

 

I think I'd love War and Peace if I made the commitment. I love the period

 

I love love love Owen Meany.

 

Love me some Tolstoy, though i've only read short stories

irt the period

 

I read a decent amount for my Russian history course. Death of Ivan Ilyich, Hadji Murat, Sevastopol Sketches. He's great

 

i read a little less bc it was a world lit class for me, but death of ivan ilyich is one of my favorite things i've ever had to read for school

 

I should expand into Russian literature later this year.

 

For some reason my family really digs that I read. My mom mentions it to family and friends as if telling people I have a PhD or something. "Oh yes, my son reads! Reads quite a bit! Tell them what you're reading now! And how many books you have- oh so many! And he reads 2 or 3 at a time can you believe it?"

And then, inevitably, they ask what I'm reading and stare at me blankly as I list off titles and authors. Like, there's thousands of books and even if they did read (which they don't) it would be pretty surprising if they knew what I was talking about.

Although it was super cool when my grandma and I connected over books as we talked about preferring actual books to kindles. That was fun seeing her get all fired up about it.

 

Currently reading this random Danish author's Jens Peter Jacobsen's short story collection Mogens and Other Stories. Thoroughly enjoying it, though I've read this dude's novel Niels Lyhne and it's nothing short of a masterpiece in my eyes. The prose is just incredibly beautiful throughout. Discovered this author by reading the book Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.