| User | Comment |
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| Biggles | | posted 13-Oct-2007 4:18pm |
Recently I've read:
Blood, Sweat and Tea by Tom Reynolds, based on his blog about life as a London ambulanceman.
In Stitches - the Highs and Lows of Life as an A&E (ER) Dr. by Nick Edwards - also based on a blog.
I was getting bored waiting to start medical school...  |
| llamamama | | posted 13-Oct-2007 7:47pm |
A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Excellent book. |
Otter    | | posted 13-Oct-2007 8:00pm |
I've never read a book to others, I only read to myself. |
| ultamate | | posted 13-Oct-2007 8:45pm |
"A child called it" It's about a boy severely abused by his mother. ( if this book doesn't make you cry you have no heart)
"The lost boy" It's about the boy's life in foster care.
" A man named David" It's about the man who was abused by his mother who lived in foster care and how he has used his experience to help others. |
Enheduanna  | | posted 13-Oct-2007 8:53pm |
Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. It's about a group of children who were all born at midnight on the day that India and Pakistan were created. It's narrated from the perspective of one of these children and focuses primarily on his family and friends. As with Rushdie's other books, it uses magical realism. |
Galomorro  | | posted 13-Oct-2007 10:24pm |
"Cultural Whiplash" (The Unforeseen consequences of America's crusade against racial discrimination) - by Patrick M. Garry, J.D., PhD. (2006) and
"The Elephant in the Living Room" (Make television work FOR your kids) - by Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH and Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD. (2006) |
| Melf | | posted 14-Oct-2007 3:21am |
If you like stuff that's a bit 'out there', Ulysses. I'm reading it at the moment, now I see why it's such a classic. |
| mrmarm | | posted 14-Oct-2007 3:42am |
I've read to others, could it also be a book I've just read to myself? I guess I liked Watership down if anyones read or heard of that before? |
bill  | | posted 14-Oct-2007 10:34am |
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk - One warning, it's kind of gross at times, but not too bad. Otherwise, it's a fun and clever and ultimately much cooler than you might expect it to be. It also reads really fast, perhaps because of the format which is a series of short interview segments by various characters. |
| bill | | posted 14-Oct-2007 10:36am |
Watership Down is a great book! Have you seen the animated movie version of it? It's pretty good too. |
LindaH  | | posted 14-Oct-2007 12:23pm |
Laurel Canyon |
| BenSimpleton72 | | posted 14-Oct-2007 4:11pm |
Anything by Ayn Rand. |
| RGirl | | posted 14-Oct-2007 9:18pm |
My Happy Life by Lydia Millet. It is my favorite contemporary book. |
| RGirl | | (reply to llamamama) posted 14-Oct-2007 9:18pm |
Definitely. |
| llamamama | | (reply to RGirl) posted 14-Oct-2007 10:56pm |
Have you read any of his other stuff? |
| RGirl | | (reply to llamamama) posted 14-Oct-2007 11:36pm |
Yes. World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules. All great. |
| mrmarm | | (reply to bill) posted 15-Oct-2007 7:39am |
I haven't no. |
| FauxLo | | posted 15-Oct-2007 2:17pm |
FoxTurtle likes A Tale of Two Turtles, so... |
| cerealkiller | | posted 15-Oct-2007 2:44pm |
I've never read a book to others. |
| Jody | | posted 15-Oct-2007 2:47pm |
The Thirteen Clocks, a marvelous short fairy tale by James Thurber. |
| llamamama | | (reply to RGirl) posted 15-Oct-2007 9:44pm |
I've read the World According to Garp..and started the other two. I've gotten further on Cider House..but could never seem to finish it. The fourth Hand is good, too. He's definitley my favorite author. |
| MacGregor | | posted 15-Oct-2007 10:16pm |
A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
About a Boy (Nick Hornby)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (I hope I got that title right -it's told from the perspective of an autistic boy. Very touching and funny.)
Perfume: The Story of a Murder (by Patrick Suskind about a man who can distinguish any smell and goes about making the ultimate scent)
The Omnivore's Dilemma (neat look at where our food comes from)
Yes Man (Danny Wallace - a guy says yes to just about every request for 3 months, I think)
Freakonomics
The Kite Runner
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| RGirl | | (reply to llamamama) posted 16-Oct-2007 12:21am |
Definitely awesome. |
| they | | posted 16-Oct-2007 8:51am |
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| they | | (reply to bill) posted 16-Oct-2007 8:52am |
Did I tell you that I read "The Road"?
My mom kept telling me not to read it because it's depressing.... I kind of liked it though. What did you and Jen think of it? |
| they | | posted 16-Oct-2007 8:53am |
Pretty much anything by Alice Hoffman is a good bet.
I especially liked Practical Magic.
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cloudhugger  | | posted 16-Oct-2007 1:07pm |
"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz
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| cloudhugger | | posted 16-Oct-2007 1:10pm |
I know you can't see what the book says, but that's the distinguishable cover. Excellent tool for getting along with others and yourself. Very easy read, and yes, I read it often. life shouldn't be so hard. |
| bill | | (reply to they) posted 16-Oct-2007 1:31pm |
I liked it. I didn't love it. I thought the writing in parts of it was really great (I put some quotes from it in my blog). But, overall, I wanted a little more from the story. It wasn't really clear to me what the point was or perhaps I missed some deeper meaning that was implied. Or, maybe there was no point. I guess I prefer more of a point.
I also kind of hated the little boy for most of the story, though I think I wasn't suppose to. He was annoying, being compassionate to strangers and scared all the time when they were just trying to survive. Also, I don't think most little boys are really like that, so it didn't seem realistic. I suspect that may have been the point, though. The kid was a representation of some higher moral ground that the father had lost somehow and the end was wrapped up in that too. Jen read it before me, but she hasn't said much about it (that I can recall).
I kind of liked the headless BBQ'd baby too! Also, there was a scene where he used the word, " catamite". I had to look it up and when I did it was much more disturbing than I was expecting. I read another book by Cormac McCarthy last year (Blood Meridien) and it was filled with lurid, disturbing, violent scenes too. Combining vivid, well-written descriptions with such things is an odd thing. I'm not really sure what to make of all of it. But, I think the disturbing things are part of what I like about it. |
| Biggles | | (reply to MacGregor) posted 16-Oct-2007 3:20pm |
I read The Kite Runner a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it. The first half especially was really well-written. Have you come across all the trouble over the film? I'd like to see it, but it's starting to look like it may never get released, and if it does and the accusations against it are true, I'm not sure that I actually *do* want to see it. |
| Lilyellowduck_e | | posted 16-Oct-2007 3:58pm |
A child Called 'It' By Dave Pelzer |
| Amanda | | (reply to ultamate) posted 17-Oct-2007 4:48pm |
I read those. That was so sad and messed up. His mom needed some serious help. You know, his brother claims he made all of it up. But, how could someone make all of that up? Pretty sick to begin with. Even sicker if it only happened in his mind. |
| MacGregor | | (reply to Biggles) posted 17-Oct-2007 5:21pm |
What have you heard? I thought it was coming out in November. |
| JessicaWoman99 | | posted 17-Oct-2007 9:26pm |
The bible I recommend |
| they | | (reply to bill) posted 18-Oct-2007 1:04am |
What I really liked about it was the style it was written in. My brother read the book right after me and mentioned he thought it was written strangely... but it was the same thing I'd noticed and liked. I've always had a huge problem creating believable dialog.. and the way he did this book really intrigued me. I could write dialog that way.
The little boy touched me. You didn't think he was believable, but I did. If society broke down like this tomorrow, Mary wouldn't be very stable. She's an anxious child anyway... I think she would act just like him. I'm reading a book now by Jodi Piccoult about a little boy who experiences trauma... and he makes me think of Mary too.... how she would be in that scenerio... I tend to compare kids in stories to my own I guess.
I liked the BBQ baby scene too. I loved when they found the stash of goodies... and was disappointed that they had to leave. I can't remember a reference to catamites.... what part was that? I would have liked to hear more about the people in that basement.
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| bill | | (reply to they) posted 18-Oct-2007 3:34am |
You might like Blood Meridian, it's written in a similar way. It actually gets a lot of critical acclaim too. It's suppose to be like Moby Dick, but it's a western. Yeah, he doesn't quote his dialog, which isn't as confusing as you might think. Sometimes, that seems pretentious to me, like he thinks he's so special that he doesn't do his dialog like everyone else. Other times it seems brilliant, a kind of blending of narration, internal thoughts and talking. I agree that writing dialog is really hard.
Yeah, I don't know kids that well, so... I guess I was thinking about little boys from my childhood being fairly devoid of conscience. Also, I tend to think that when people get into a survival situation, they quit whining and focus, especially people who have survived for a while, since I'd assume the people who don't deal well would end up dead.
The catamite thing was just a brief scene where they had to hide because some people came along the road. It was a caravan with lots of people, and he described them all. Some were slaves and such. It was kind of like Beyond Thunderdome. He tends to throw in rarely used words here and there. He did it a lot more in Blood Meridian. Again, that can seem a little pretentious to me, but mostly I don't mind. In this case, I wrote the word down to look up later. Actually, I think I may have also asked Jen what it meant when I read it, but she didn't know. So, later when I looked it up, it was kind of surprising. |
| they | | (reply to bill) posted 18-Oct-2007 9:53am |
So maybe writing dialog that way isn't brilliant.... maybe it's just the easy way out. I did like it though. I felt like I was there with them... and it is easier to follow I think... than "he said this", "she said this". Better flow.
I hadda look up the reference to Thunderdome... I'm always interested in stuff set in the future.... whether they be apocalyptic or just extremely modern.. like The Fifth Element (I'm not really recommending that, btw)... I think Kevin Costner has a thing for it too.... He spent a lot of his own money on Waterworld I think.... and he did The Postman (that one was unfortunate). I LOVED Waterworld though.
I think you're right. People that didn't deal well would end up dead. But the kid was being protected by his father. If he was on his own, he wouldn't make it. I think that's what made the book so scary. What did you think of the ending? I wish I could go back and read the end over but it's back at the library. Towards the end, the father told the son that he thought they were being followed... and they seemed to have a mutual understanding of who was following them. Do you remember that?
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| bill | | (reply to they) posted 18-Oct-2007 12:56pm |
Beyond Thunderdome was kind of the epitome of cheesy post-apocalyptic stories (in my opinion). Grubby gangs of people dominated by some evil warlord who likes to hold Roman coliseum style fights, etc. My mentioning that was kind of a dig at "The Road". I think McCarthy could have come up with some more original imagery.
I actually liked "The Fifth Element" for the most part. I liked the zany future world it portrayed. Maybe the ending was little contrived though. But, for a Sci-Fi movie, it's pretty good anyway. I've seen The Postman and Waterworld, but I don't have a clear recollection of either. I suspect I didn't particularly like them. I think you mentioned The Postman before to me, as well. I actually read that book (technically, listened to it on tape, but it was unabridged). Waterworld got a lot of negative press, I think. I think it went way over budget then bombed at the box office. I think when I saw it on video a couple years later, it didn't seem that bad to me. It is kind of cool project the future with most of the land being underwater.
Yeah, I'm not really sure about the ending either. My suspicion is that the boy's father had actually become semi-evil himself. In his drive to protect his son and stay alive, he lost his conscience. So, while there were people around that would help them, they knew it was too dangerous to approach the father because he would very likely try to kill them. But, perhaps, they just followed him at a distance instead. Or, maybe it's more symbolic than that. But, when the boy gets found by the reasonably nice guy after his father dies, it seems like his father really had to die, for the boy to move on to a better place. But, we knew the father was dying from very early on in the story anyway.
The part where the father made the guy who robbed them strip off all his clothes, then left him... that seemed like a moment where we see that father has lost his humanity. Maybe it had happened long before that, but from that scene, we know. The boy seems to clearly understand this too.
But, I'm not sure McCarthy really had a point either. |
| ausfox | | (reply to llamamama) posted 18-Oct-2007 4:50pm |
I love John Irving |
| llamamama | | (reply to ausfox) posted 18-Oct-2007 5:06pm |
Yeah me, too. Awesome writer. |
| Biggles | | (reply to MacGregor) posted 18-Oct-2007 5:22pm |
There's been a major controversy because of the rape scene - the parents of the child actors say that they weren't told that such a scene was going to be filmed. I believe it's put a complete halt on the film's release. |
| ultamate | | (reply to Amanda) posted 18-Oct-2007 7:15pm |
I have no doubt that at least some of it was made up or at least exaggerated partly to sell the book and/or perhaps partly it was a child’s recollection exaggerated. I think as a young child he may have seen things much worse than it really was. Take for example his mother stabbing him, I don’t believe he wouldn’t have ended up with at least an infection that would have need antibiotics.I know there were incidences with my mother abusing my brother that I recall as much worse than either my brother or sister remembers.
I seen that too where his brother says he made it up. He claims though that he was also abused after David was taken away. I would like to read Richard’s book too just to compare their stories. |
| Amanda | | (reply to ultamate) posted 19-Oct-2007 2:27pm |
His brother has a book, too? I wasn't aware of that. Do you know the name of it? |
| ultamate | | (reply to Amanda) posted 19-Oct-2007 10:19pm |
It's called "A Brother's Journey" by Richard B. Pelzer. I never get off work in time to go get it or when I do get off in time, I don't want to drive across town to go get it. If you read it let me know how it is. You might be interested in reading this excerpt from his book. http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books/12/04465... |
| Amanda | | (reply to ultamate) posted 20-Oct-2007 1:09am |
I'll have to see if I can get my hand's on it. I'd be interested in reading what he's got to say. |
| Iseult | | posted 21-Oct-2007 1:24pm |
Anything by E.M. Remarque. I personally loved Black Obelisk, but it can be discouraging because it doesn't really have a plot. |
| thecomic22 | | (reply to FauxLo) posted 7-Nov-2007 10:38pm |
> FoxTurtle likes A Tale of Two Turtles,
> so...
 |
