[faerietails]

nope, haven't started female chauvinist pigs yet. it might be a while before i can get to it.

[oxfordassassin]

I get most of my book recommendations from this thread (thanks ladies!) and I'm always very very pleased. Someone here recommended the book The Cheese Monkeys, which I finished last night.. and I think my brain shorted a fuse after I read the last page.. guh?! Anyone else read it and ended up similarly perplexed?

[punkerplus]

*Jumping back in after slight bust hiatus*

From lurking here I went a little bit crazy at the weekend and bought tons of books.I bought Rape- A love story, The Shadow of the Wind, The Name of the Rose, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Anansi Boys and Gender Trouble.

I read "Rape. A love story" in one sitting and it tore me up inside. I find her work so depressing (not the right word but I can't think of a better one right now) but brilliant. I'm definitely going to get onto We Were the Mulvaneys. Has anyone read The Tattoed Girl by her? I loved that book but it left me with the same heavy heart.

And I've just started Shadow of the Wind.

Did The Historian spur you into reading Dracula, mornington? It did me, not that I've actually got around to it yet....

Erm, I'm terrified of the idea of the "His Dark Materials" films, I don't really read much sci-fi, and I'd love to start up a feminist book group but I don't know enough feminists... and thats about it for now!

[mornington]

I'm read a fair bit of sci-fi/SF ... David Eddings is fantastic, I really loved Stephen Donaldson's the mirror of her dreams and its sequel - and his sci-fi books are good too. Trudi Canavan writes brilliantly - the magician's guild trilogy is unputdownable (everyone who's read it loves it). Chris Wooding's braided path trilogy is brilliant (I loved the female characters) and Juliet E. McKenna writes decent stuff too. Oh, and John Wyndham - day of the triffids, midwich cuckoos and all that. Ian M. Banks again.

I'm currently reading Bram Stoker's Dracula and I can't believe it's taken me this long to get round to it. it might be because of the huge pile of books on the floor.

[WasabiNinja]

Ah Middlesex, it's one of those books that are so good that you start getting very morose as the end draws near. I remember when I finished it and I couldn't get into another book for awhile. I think I felt that way when I finished The Kite Runner too.

bunnyb- Thanks for putting Garth Nix on the top of my list. That is exactly what I'm in the mood for. I am just beginning to get myself immersed in the fanasty/scifi genre. I did love Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and I've got Stardust sitting around here...somewhere.

Just close your eyes and imagine me at a desk literally covered in unread books. Big stacks are always falling on my head or feet. I have alot of time on my hands right now but it' still not enough.

[crazyoldcatlady]

i just started female chauvinist pigs, and i gotta say, i'm disappointed. so far the main problem is that it's porrly organized; she skips from anecdote to history citing to randomness, and it takes away from her main argument.

as far as SF/Fantasy, i have a friend who got into Terry Goodkind via her husband, and she swears it's hot shit ("You know I don't read these kinds of books... but I can't put it down.") He was on the NYT Bestseller, so I'm curious if anyone else reads him?

[bunnyb]

ah wasabininja is in such good company liking Ann-Marie Macdonald (I recently read FoYK and think TWtCF is next on my reading agenda). As for The Dud Avocado, I started reading it a year ago -I think- after recommendations in this thread but life took over, I really need to pick it up again as I was really enjoying it.

His Dark Materials trilogy is fantastic and I'm looking forward to the film adaptation. Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy is on my mammoth to-read list too.

I never considered myself into fantasy/SF and will admit I was a bit of a literary snob but the boy started me off a few years ago with David Eddings and I've become a Pratchett fan since. The SF not as much but I find pigeon-holing texts difficult: many can cross boundaries and what I may consider as SF, someone else may not and vice versa.

I finished reading Gaiman's Stardust over the weekend; it took me a little while to get into - it isn't American Gods - but I enjoyed it. It reminded me of a lot of fantasy and children's lit: LOTR meets Chronicles of Narnia in the land of fairytales.

I am now, at long last, reading ... Middlesex! So far, so good.

[WasabiNinja]

I'm fit as a fiddle and ready for love. How bout you SuperScience? Just recently unearthed an old mixtape from you and it's now back in my rotation. Good music to listen to while I read voraciously. I'm glad your still around!

A few more recommendations: Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy and anything by Anne-Marie MacDonald. Really liked Fall on Your Knees and The Way the Crow Flies.

[superscience]

Holy canneloni! MissRisk! How the heck are you?

I just requested The Girls from the library. Sounds up my alley.

The His Dark Materials trilogy is on my list. I have the first two books; I just need to move them up in the rotation.

I have to echo the sentiment of lovin', lovin', lovin' the good book discussions and suggestions that come from this thread. Right on, right on.

[sybarite]

This is a fly-by, but had to come in and say I love decent SF... which as you say vesica is hard to find. For now, I'll recommend two scots: Iain M Banks and Ken McLeod. Both produce very (sometimes too) dense and convincing other worlds, usually in space and in the future. Banks in particular does good characters.

I have to say too that, um, I'm really not crazy about fantasy. I know a lot of SF fans who like both but for me personally there's a big and uncrossable distinction. If you do like both you may want to check out Julian May's trilogy (or maybe quartet?) which starts with The Many Coloured Land. The mister, also a SF snob, loved them.

[WasabiNinja]

First a quick confession, I read both of The Dexter books by Jeff Lindsey in one week because I couldn't take the suspense. It got to be too much, Sunday could never come fast enough. However, I am findin that it hasn't ruined the show. They were good but I'm not encouraging anyone to spoil the plot for themselves. No, of course I would never do that.

I just finished The Girls by Lori Lansens and loved it. It's a fictional tale told from the perspective of craniopagus or conjoined twins. It was one of those books I couldn't put down. You know it's a good book when the pages are covered in coffee and food stains right?

I'm sure I'm not the only 29 year old woman that still reads young adult literature right? right. Well I gotta say that I was blown away by the Philip Pullman trilogy 'His Dark Materials'. I know that the film version of the first book is in production. Please read the series before that movie comes out. You got at least a year.

Also, I love when this particular thread is busy with brilliant ladies and gents. You've helped me compile a quite long list of books to read and I am up to the challenge.

[vesicapisces]

I don't know how many other fans of fantasy & SF we have here - I am always on the lookout for a good writer, because there's so much CRAP out there. I'm in the middle of the 2nd book of a fantasy trilogy - The Fall of Ile Rien - by Martha Wells, who's one of my favorite authors. It's tied to two of her other books (written in the same "universe"), but up 'til now everything she's written has stood alone - really well done material, with particularly well-written female characters, which in combination will snag me every time. I was a little frustrated getting into the first book (The Wizard Hunters) because there were repeated references to past events, like there was a previous book that told those stories, but there wasn't (unless they were short stories - I know Wells has published several), but eventually I got past that and really got engrossed in the storyline. It's set in a culture which is basically equivalent to the early 20th century in technological development but uses magic pretty extensively (house wards for protection, healing, etc) - they're invaded from a parallel universe by a culture that uses magic only to attack, and get involved with a third culture that only knows of magic as a weapon used against them and presumes all magic-users are evil. Good stuff.

[superscience]

I had my book club last Thursday to discuss The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. The group consensus was that everyone liked it, liked the reverse-time device, liked the characters. And, actually, as we got into the discussion, I found myself liking it more than I thought I had initially.

The next book we chose is Trumpet by Jackie Kay (thanks, mj!).

And, outside the bookclub, I'm still reading Female Chauvinist Pigs--and still loving it. I just haven't had much time to read over the past week. Did you start it yet, fairietails?

[mandolyn]

Novelist William Styron dies at 81

i'm so sad.
sophie's choice was a masterpiece.

[superscience]

Faerietails - I just started reading Female Chauvinist Pigs yesterday, and I am absolutely loving it so far. I'll be really interested in discussing it with you when you read it.

[bunnyb]

faerietales, not that I would be encouraging you to procrastinate ... but Rape is a very quick and easy read (I read it in a day). It is not easy subject matter of course and is one of those that have given me that empty and hopeless feeling.

[faerietails]

I love We Were the Mulvaneys, but you're right. I felt pretty empty after reading it, too. The Joyce Carol Oates book I really want to read is Rape: A Love Story, but I probably won't be able to get around to that until after I finish my thesis. In May.

I just bought Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy and I think it's going to piss me off. I hear people raving about it all the time, but it strikes me as a very conservative book that's being marketed under the guise of feminism. I could be wrong, though.

[bunnyb]

I finished reading We Were the Mulvaneys over the weekend and I feel ... empty. It is a sad, depressing and pessimistic book. It deals with the breakdown of a family following the rape of the teenage daughter and it's so tragic, the happy and ideal family completely disintegrates and everyone becomes a victim. It ends on a relatively positive note years later but it's still bleak; thinking about it, all the books I've read of Joyce Carol Oates are bleak: they tackle dark issues and may attempt a happy ending but it's never very happy. I'm not sure whether I'm put off reading any more of her work ... I've wanted to read Blonde -a fictionalised account of Marilyn Monroe's life- for some time but at least I know that will be bleakish.

[vesicapisces]

Sybarite, it's been years since I read All the King's Men but I thought it was incredible. Robert Penn Warren not only won the Pulitzer for it, but also won two Pulitzers for poetry and was the US's first poet laureate. I heart his work muchly.

[mouse]

"Then I read Valencia by Michelle Tea. It was a quick read. I alternately liked it, and was annoyed by it."

this is entirely my reaction to michelle tea as well, superscience. i've read almost everything she's ever written. she's one of those sneaky writers that seems like a really bad writer but is in fact a really good one--or vice versa.

"morvern callar" the movie was pretty different than the book....i love samantha morton too but i read the book first and the movie left out a lot of things that changed the story entirely.