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What Was the Last Book You Read?
85AKbN posted a thread asking for your recent movie viewings, but I'd rather know what you've been reading! Let us know the last book you finished and whether or not you would recommend it.
The last book I finished was Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World which is one of the last Murakami books I still had to read. I thought it was an excellent read is definitely in my top 3 favorite Murakami books.
Next I'm going to pick up The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon which I hear is supposed to be excellent.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Just finished Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. Reading an older Dean Koontz book now, and listening to Donna Tartt's Goldfinch. A very unusual but good book so far.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I love Murakami. I've recently taken a break from fiction and just finished Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence. I am nearly done with Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard too. I highly recommend both to anyone interested in reflective and insightful travel writing.
What are your other Murakami favorites?
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I'm currently sifting through short story collections -- Hellgoing, the 2013 Giller Prize winner, by Lynn Coady, a couple of Alice Munro books, and a giant tome called The World Of The Short Story, A 20th Century Collection edited by Fadiman.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
sixmr
I love Murakami. I've recently taken a break from fiction and just finished Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence. I am nearly done with Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard too. I highly recommend both to anyone interested in reflective and insightful travel writing.
What are your other Murakami favorites?
I don't think there's a Murakami book I don't love. But in order my top 5 would be...
1 The Wind-up Bird Chronicles
2 Kafka on the Shore
3 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
4 1Q84
5 Norwegian Wood
I still have to read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and Dance Dance Dance which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of months now.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Haha. Good answer. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is great. I was a bit biased as a runner though.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Born To Run - A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Christopher McDougall.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
manoeuver
Hope to finish the Issacson biography of Benjamin Franklin this week. Also read the Franklin autobiography simultaneously. Read Steve Martin's
Born Standing Up on my phone over the last coupla weeks too. next up is
How to Read a Book.
The Adler and Van Doren (How to Read a Book) is brilliant. While I have some issues with their list of "great books" (because it is so Euro-centric -- though in that it only reflects the era in which it was written), the strategies and methods they advocate are simply wonderful. Their methods require discipline to follow, but if you let it, it can teach you to read in new ways: quicker, more efficiently, and more deeply (greater comprehension and retention). I wish I had been given this book when I was just starting college -- I didn't find it until already almost done with grad school -- it distills some lessons I learned on my own through years of trial and error, and many things I had never thought of. I now strenuously recommend it to my students, though only a few listen.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
'Mansfield Park' by Jane Austen. A brilliant novel first published 1814.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
The last book I read was 'The Woman in the Dunes' by Kobo Abe...and I'm now reading 'Norwegian Wood' for the second time Another Murakami fan here.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science by Jim Al-Khalili and Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists by Michael Morgan
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"Pen Repairs" given to me by Jeph a member of this forum.
Once again thank you very much Jeph.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I just finished Allegient by Veronica Roth, it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. Right now I'm slowly making my way through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
caribbean_skye
I just finished Allegient by Veronica Roth, it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. Right now I'm slowly making my way through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
I am a huge fan of Bradbury. I think Fahrenheit 451 reads best over a short period of time, so pick up that pace. :whip: Treat yourself to a tea/coffee/adult beverage and a several hour reading session. I find the short rhythm of his writing in that book so engrossing.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
caribbean_skye
I just finished Allegient by Veronica Roth, it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. Right now I'm slowly making my way through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
I read the first book in this series, a while ago. I never got back to the other two (they weren't out at the time). How did you feel about them? Worth the read?
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
MarneM
Quote:
Originally Posted by
caribbean_skye
I just finished Allegient by Veronica Roth, it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. Right now I'm slowly making my way through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
I read the first book in this series, a while ago. I never got back to the other two (they weren't out at the time). How did you feel about them? Worth the read?
I find it difficult to rate second and third books in a series such as this as because the novelty wears off during the second book. That being said, I did enjoy the second and third books, especially with how the 'divergent' part was handled. However if you didn't enjoy the first, you may not like the others.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter. Loved it. Just a huge fan of Bob Lee Swagger, politically incorrect as he may be. No explaining it. :cool:
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
sixmr
Haha. Good answer. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is great. I was a bit biased as a runner though.
I am anything but a runner, but I'm going to give it a go anyway :)
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
caribbean_skye
I just finished Allegient by Veronica Roth, it is the third book in the Divergent Trilogy. Right now I'm slowly making my way through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
Fantastic novel. I sometimes find the classics don't hold up to their hype over the years, but Farenheit 451 is still brilliant.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I just finished reading Tip and the Gipper, When Politics Worked, by Chris Matthews.
Interesting, reasonably balanced narrative.
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I just finished The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton, a wonderful novel which took me forever to finish due to my crazy schedule and its 848-page length. But it was so enjoyable that I actually miss reading it, now that I've finished it. I gave it as a Christmas present because it's one of those books that I think a lot of people on my list will enjoy.
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I'm obviously on an entirely different page if not in a different space-time continuum. Just finished Tiffany Reisz's The Siren.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
Laura N
I just finished The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton, a wonderful novel which took me forever to finish due to my crazy schedule and its 848-page length. But it was so enjoyable that I actually miss reading it, now that I've finished it. I gave it as a Christmas present because it's one of those books that I think a lot of people on my list will enjoy.
Oh good to hear, that is one on my list of books that I keep. The only decision to be made is whether to read it myself or go audio so I need to go listen to the voice narrating and decide. Thanks for mentioning this one so positively.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I just finished Little Golden America by Ilf and Petrov, documenting a 2 month roadtrip that the authors took across the US in 1935. I'd read their two best know novels, Twelve Chairs and The Little Golden Calf, so I thought I'd give this non-fiction book a try.
It's very interesting. Keep in mind that these are two Soviet writers acting as special correspondents for Pravda during one of the most repressive periods in their nation's history. Naturally, there is a fair amount of criticism of capitalism, and an assumption that communism is the future. They even conclude (at least for the record) that they wouldn't really want to live in America when they have such a worker's paradise at home. For all that, they are amazingly upbeat about the virtues of the United States and its people, so much so, in fact, that I can't help feeling that we no longer deserve such praise.
Setting that aside, it's an interesting look at a country which has since changed almost out of recognition. They were out there on the road (with a couple of American guides) actually meeting people and seeing how they lived. As foreigners, their perspective, political bias aside, is often thought provoking.
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Having listened to Marc Maron's interview with Dr. Phil Stutz on his WTF?! podcast, I bought Stutz's book The Tools (co-written with Barry Michels). After that I started to read Barbara Ueland's classic, If You Want to Write, then figured I'd be better off just writing already, sheesh, so I started reading Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? I'm about a quarter through it, enjoying it very much, taking note of familiar themes and such.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I just finished P.D. James' book The Private Patient. I am now working through the short stories in Otto Penzler's The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries (I bought it for the Christmas break, but never got to it.)
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Just stared Blindness by José Saramago. Excellent so far.
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Currently in the middle of The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe by Douglas Adams.
Hoping to get through the 'trilogy' (all five books...) and then crack on with his Dirk Gently series.
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Just finished Still Alice by Lisa Genova and about to start Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
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Just finished Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. It was pretty intense on the olde noggin.
David
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Patrick Leigh Fermor's The Broken Road. It was a bittersweet read, being posthumously published. Currently ploughing through the Anabasis as my paperwhite experience barometer.
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Last night I started Voyage to Alpha Centauri by Michael O'Brien.
The storyline--of a Nobel Physicist travelling with a small colony to a planet in the Alpha Centauri system on a spaceship he himself designed--explores human nature and the cosmos, man's image of himself, and where he is going-and why he seeks to go there.
Our hero Dr. Hoyos has signed on as a passenger because he desires to escape the seemingly benign totalitarian government that controls everything on his home planet....
A long, fascinating read, like many of his books.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Hi
Just started Michael Connelly's The Reversal and at the same time working my way through Laurence Oldfields new Pen Repair book, but that don't count.
Paul
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
Paul-H
Hi
Just started Michael Connelly's The Reversal and at the same time working my way through Laurence Oldfields new Pen Repair book, but that don't count.
Paul
This book turned out to be quite a coincidence as on page 157 there is reference to a Lawyer throwing his pen down on the desk and how this showed disrespect to his Montblanc Pen. Product placement gets everywhere these days ;)
Paul
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Recently finished "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Great Gatsby." Getting ready to work through "Great Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe," and looking forward to "Macbeth."
The joys & tribulations of being an English teacher...
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Just finished Sherlock Holmes. I loved all the many references to writing in the Victorian era.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Just finished Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood', I'd forgotten just how beautiful this story is...and now getting into Agatha Christie's 'The Labours of Hercules'.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Finished Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle and have to say liked 1Q84 so much more. Will take a break before reading A Wild Sheep Chase. Rereading Justin Cronin's The Passage before diving into The Twelve.
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
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Originally Posted by
Dreck
Recently finished "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Great Gatsby." Getting ready to work through "Great Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe," and looking forward to "Macbeth."
The joys & tribulations of being an English teacher...
"Once upon a midnight dreary, ....."
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Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?