What Are You Reading?

[carrie's younger brother]

I saw that some watched Village Of The Damned during our horror movie marathon. That inspired me to reread the very good little SF novel by John Wyndham it is based on, The Midvich Cuckoos. It is not Wyndhams best (probably The Chrysalids, or The Day of The Triffids, or The Kraken Wakes, or The Trouble With Lichen......) but it is darn good anyway. Most of Wyndham is. Even his weaker novels like Chocky and The Net and The Outward Urge have qualities which makes them worth reading. And he wrote in a time when you told your story and then you wrote The End under it. It didn't matter if it consisted of 150 or 500 pages. So many novels today, in every genre, suffer from elephantaiasis of the words. A book does not get better just because it is longer. So many books today could be better if you took away 200-300 pages. The stories told yesteryear aren't really less complicated than today but are told in a more economic way. Then the story was served to you, now you often have to dig for it among all the words. Sorry, i digress.............

So funny that you say this now as I just started a wonderful novel titled News of the World by Paulette Jiles and it is a mere 224 pages. It seems like every book I pick up these days is 400 pages or so.

The same can be said for movies. I really dislike so many contemporary movies because they are just too long. Give me a classic movie from the 1940s at one and a half hours and I'm happy. So much good storytelling and acting packed into a shorter time frame makes for a much better movie in my opinion.

 

[Spideyman]

Healing vibes kingricefan

 

[Kurben]

I read a book by him not long ago called Re-Birth. I liked it very much!

Which Ive never heard of. So i checked and it turned out that it is the US title of the Chrysalids. An excellent book, one of his best. Do you know why they always, well almost always, used to change even english titles for the US Market?

 

[kingricefan]

Isn't that always the way? Here you have all this time to read just laying in bed, but you just can't concentrate or get interested in it. It's always like that for me.
Get well soon kingricefan!

Thank you! I just called into work to tell them I was still sick and wouldn't be coming in. I'm going to try to get all of this phlegm out of my system today!!

 

[kingricefan]

Healing vibes kingricefan

Thank you!

 

[no bounce no play]

I saw that some watched Village Of The Damned during our horror movie marathon. That inspired me to reread the very good little SF novel by John Wyndham it is based on, The Midvich Cuckoos. It is not Wyndhams best (probably The Chrysalids, or The Day of The Triffids, or The Kraken Wakes, or The Trouble With Lichen......) but it is darn good anyway. Most of Wyndham is. Even his weaker novels like Chocky and The Net and The Outward Urge have qualities which makes them worth reading. And he wrote in a time when you told your story and then you wrote The End under it. It didn't matter if it consisted of 150 or 500 pages. So many novels today, in every genre, suffer from elephantaiasis of the words. A book does not get better just because it is longer. So many books today could be better if you took away 200-300 pages. The stories told yesteryear aren't really less complicated than today but are told in a more economic way. Then the story was served to you, now you often have to dig for it among all the words. Sorry, i digress.............

I read a novel this weekend like that Half of the story was filled with uninteresting and repetitive character thoughts. The author must have had a word goal And what was worse was that the author was so caught up in filling the pages, he forgot to give a reason for why the enemy did what it did... and then he forgot to give the story an ending! This was supposed to be a stand alone novel but I read that the author is working on a sequel - I quess many readers thought the same way I did.

 

[carrie's younger brother]

Which Ive never heard of. So i checked and it turned out that it is the US title of the Chrysalids. An excellent book, one of his best. Do you know why they always, well almost always, used to change even english titles for the US Market?

Market research. Certain words, idioms, etc. don't "translate" well into other languages: even "British English" to "American English." In this specific case, I assume the word "chrysalid" (which is a variation of the word "chrysalis") just did not test well in the US (too scientific). We are more literal than cerebral and when this was published I would suspect "Re-Birth" just sounded more exciting to the American book-buying public.

Another general reason can be that there are existing book(s) with the title in question and the American publisher does not want people getting confused or associating their book with the other book(s).

 

[no bounce no play]

((( kingricefan ))) I hate it when I'm sick and can barely concentrate on even a Nancy Drew mystery I hope someone is making you chicken soup. Get better soon

 

[kingricefan]

((( kingricefan ))) I hate it when I'm sick and can barely concentrate on even a Nancy Drew mystery I hope someone is making you chicken soup. Get better soon

That 'someone' would be my cat and if you had ever tasted her culinary attempts you wouldn't want her to cook for you.

 

[no bounce no play]

That 'someone' would be my cat and if you had ever tasted her culinary attempts you wouldn't want her to cook for you.

 

[fljoe0]

So funny that you say this now as I just started a wonderful novel titled News of the World by Paulette Jiles and it is a mere 224 pages. It seems like every book I pick up these days is 400 pages or so.

It seems kind of odd that there are so many 400 page books given that our attention spans are shorter than ever. When e-books started getting popular, I really thought the the much maligned novella was going to become very popular. I always thought they were unpopular because there was no good place to put them (too long for a magazine and too short for a book). The e-reader seems like the perfect device for them.

 

[MadBoJangles]

I havn't read Shift or Dust. I'm going to wait to see if you like them before I order them

I'm thinking about ordering the Sand Omnibus. I'm not for sure but I think it's a different story - different than the Silo Series.

Well I am 115(ish) pages into Shift and it has it's hooks well and truly in.
I didn't know that it was a prequel to WOOL, I thought it just carried on the story.
I love the world Hugh created in the 1st book and this is a fascinating insight as to how we got there.

His character's are well fleshed out and believable people that draw you in.
Really need to make more time for reading!!
Will post back as I get further in/finish...but so far, yeah it's really, really good!

 

[no bounce no play]

Well I am 115(ish) pages into Shift and it has it's hooks well and truly in.
I didn't know that it was a prequel to WOOL, I thought it just carried on the story.
I love the world Hugh created in the 1st book and this is a fascinating insight as to how we got there.

His character's are well fleshed out and believable people that draw you in.
Really need to make more time for reading!!
Will post back as I get further in/finish...but so far, yeah it's really, really good!

Oh! A prequel should be interesting!

(note: don't bother reading Sand It was a good idea but story wise, it fell through )

 

[carrie's younger brother]

I finished Swamplandia! the other day and like a few others here, was not in love with the book as a whole. As I said in an earlier post, the writing is terrific and some of the chapters are very good as stand alone short stories, but as a whole is drags and there's just something missing. The parts of the story where the family is together and interacting are much better than when they are alone and on their own adventures. I'm glad I read it as I feel Karen Russell has a bright future. I am definitely going to check out one of her short story collections though as I feel that this is where she excels.

 

[Kurben]

Started a book that started really well!! Good characters, great story, well written. Very promising! Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven. It is a dystopian story. Takes place after a superflu has killed off most people. What makes this interesting is its focus, It is not the usual survivalist thing. Our protogonists are a travelling theatre company that travel from a small town to another playing shakespeare plays. Thats how they survive, or rather one way they survive. It is a story that despite its basic dystopian setting has a basis of hope at the bottom. A civilisation may go down but civilized people and art can still survive. If i'm not remembering alltogother incorrectly the author was recommended by Skimom. Thanks! (if i remember wrong take credit the one who did recommend it!)

 

[no bounce no play]

I'm reading Horns by Joe Hill. I'm having a bit of difficulty. That song Puberty Love from the film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes keeps running through my head

 

[AnnaMarie]

I am currently reading a Temperence Brennan novel. Not sure which one, but I haven't been reading them in order so I guess it doesn't matter. I do like the tv series Bones (loosely) based on them, but I like the books better. They mostly take place in Canada. This current one has a lot of Acadian history, so I am LOVING it.

On the weekend I picked up End of Watch. I'm debating if I should reread the first two books. One is lost though. I suspect I loaned it to my sister, but she thinks she bought the copy she has. Since she loans me so many books, this is really not a big deal. It occasionally happens...we both think we bought a particular book. And neither if us ever wants to write our names in our books.

 

[Haunted]

Started a book that started really well!! Good characters, great story, well written. Very promising! Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven. It is a dystopian story. Takes place after a superflu has killed off most people. What makes this interesting is its focus, It is not the usual survivalist thing. Our protogonists are a travelling theatre company that travel from a small town to another playing shakespeare plays. Thats how they survive, or rather one way they survive. It is a story that despite its basic dystopian setting has a basis of hope at the bottom. A civilisation may go down but civilized people and art can still survive. If i'm not remembering alltogother incorrectly the author was recommended by Skimom. Thanks! (if i remember wrong take credit the one who did recommend it!)

I loved this one! Enjoy!

 

[Haunted]

I am reading lost boy lost girl by Peter Straub and memoirs of an imaginary friend by Matthew Dicks. I am struggling with Mr. Straub's book, its a great story but.... Memoirs is told from the point of view of an imaginary friend of an autistic boy, 'tis a very compelling story.*

* These titles are in lower case on the front covers of each book.

Finally about page 200 the story titled lost boy lost girl grabbed me; I even broke my 100 page switch rule and continued to the finish. Memoirs is a very special book, I recommend to all. I have found another favorite author and I am already chasing down Mr. Dicks's other books.

 

[Arcadevere]

for this week, i'm done reading both Proxy and Guardian (actually, i have difficulties to read Guardian due to the final events of its prequel, Proxy). A Great Dystopian Book tho, one of few YA that i did not put down. (i have habits of putting down YA, especially if i did not like it) (and i actually done putting my review of both of these book at my good reads)

Now that i ahve my own copy, i can continue reading Fahrenheit 451 (guess what, it since high school when i last read this, but never finished it due that the owner needs the book because he's transferring at different school. now i have a lot of opportunity to finish this book)