What are you reading?

[Hicks]

Have you read Oryx and Crake?

But of course.

Would you consider that required reading prior to getting into The Year Of The Flood? Would you recommend reading both simultaneously?

Only about 50 pages into The Year of the Flood, but a lot of the stuff that's going on is explained in Oryx and Crake.  However it could be read as its own piece.  Both books go back and forth through time though.

[mbw]

finally getting around to:

finished that a while back.  amazing stuff.

now a little ways into "PHiSH: The Biography"
i will spare you all a cover pic.

[cactusfan]

Crime and Punishment. never read it before. hell of a good book. but i didn't like it as much as i liked The Brothers Karamazov, which is pretty much the greatest book of all time.

[gah]

Crime and Punishment. never read it before. hell of a good book. but i didn't like it as much as i liked The Brothers Karamazov, which is pretty much the greatest book of all time.

Never read Brothers, but yeah, i enjoyed Crime and Punishment greatly. Maybe I'll see if I can't find Brothers at the used bookstore this afternoon. Was going to make a trip anyhow.

[kellerb]

Crime and Punishment. never read it before. hell of a good book. but i didn't like it as much as i liked The Brothers Karamazov, which is pretty much the greatest book of all time.

Those are both pretty good.  Thank God I started C&P first, and it had an explanation of the style and structure of Russian literature in the foreword/intro.  Otherwise I would have been like "Damn, this guy speaks in huge, melodramatic paragraphs a lot! And mostly about vaguely-related philosophy!  Why doesn't this pansy just off that beyotch?"

[sprobeck]

I just tried to read Brothers and gave up after about 100 pages. It just seemed really dated to me. I didn't want to read about some guys sitting around talking about political issues that were relevant in the 1870s. Something more current seemed better. 

[kellerb]

I just tried to read Brothers and gave up after about 100 pages. It just seemed really dated to me. I didn't want to read about some guys sitting around talking about political issues that were relevant in the 1870s. Something more current seemed better.

[cactusfan]

I just tried to read Brothers and gave up after about 100 pages. It just seemed really dated to me. I didn't want to read about some guys sitting around talking about political issues that were relevant in the 1870s. Something more current seemed better.

what amazed me most about Brothers Karamazov was how it wasn't dated at all in the issues it dealt with, be they philosophical, religious, or just human nature. it's like shapespeare in that regard, and is why it's lasted the way it has, and why i think it's the best novel i've ever read. i do recall that it takes its time really getting to the meat of the murder mystery, but if you stick with it, you will be greatly rewarded.

[sprobeck]

I just tried to read Brothers and gave up after about 100 pages. It just seemed really dated to me. I didn't want to read about some guys sitting around talking about political issues that were relevant in the 1870s. Something more current seemed better.

what amazed me most about Brothers Karamazov was how it wasn't dated at all in the issues it dealt with, be they philosophical, religious, or just human nature. it's like shapespeare in that regard, and is why it's lasted the way it has, and why i think it's the best novel i've ever read. i do recall that it takes its time really getting to the meat of the murder mystery, but if you stick with it, you will be greatly rewarded.

Yeah, I don't know the bit about Ecclesiastic Govt was pretty dated. Just wasn't in the mood for a novel where I kept having to go look up annotations in the back. 

[cactusfan]

Phish - The Biography.

what a turd of a book. could not be any more bland or generic. reads like an overly long, boring rolling stone article. it's hard to believe this guy was hanging around the band for so long. he talks about the thousands of hours of interviews he used, yet there's barely any new info in the book at all. any journalist could have written almost exactly the same book simply by referring to all of the interviews already out there.

there's no new insight into anything at all. it's just the same things rehashed. we're told, for example, that Page was upset by Trey's playing at coventry and that they didn't talk for a year. and the author throws out a few suppositions for why this was so. um... that's it? where's the interview with Page? it doesn't exist.

as for the music, the few attempts at discussing and analyzing how the band's music evolved is embarassing. i realize this isn't a book about the music--it's a bio of the band--but nevertheless, for a guy who's been seeing them play for so long, he appears to understand little about the music.

speaking of which, if it's a bio of the band, one might expect a little more insight or information about the band members as people. but there is none. everything in the book skims safely long the surface. there is no depth to be found at all.

basically what this is is a re-packaging of everything that's already out there, but watered down and simplified and shortened into one bland book. who could this book be for? the fans? i guess, yet we already know everything in it. for non-fans? maybe, but if you weren't already into the band, why would you read something so bland and lacking in insight? you wouldn't.

[gainesvillegreen]

These are all reasons I haven't burned tread to the bookstore to buy it. I am always leary of bios of people who are still alive. Sadly, we'll probably have to wait until one or more of the band members dies before we get the biography of Phish that the band deserves. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's recent biography was very much like this (by Gerald Martin, amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Gabriel-Garc%C3%ADa-M%C3%A1rquez-Gerald-Martin/dp/0307271773).

However, for a bio of someone which does not pull punches while they are still around, highly recommend V.S. Naipaul's recent bio (by Patrick French, amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/World-What-Authorized-Biography-Naipaul/dp/1400044057).

[sprobeck]

I'm reading a biography of Samuel Adams that my Dad gave me for XMAS. It's really good.  The title is Samuel Adams: A Life by Ira Stoll. 

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

My major beef with the Phish Biography is that it is basically a shrunken non pictorial version of the Phish Book that has been updated in a shitty manner.

/end rant.

[Gol D. Roger]

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

[mbw]

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

good luck!