CFP wrote:

JUburton wrote:Do not know why The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao won the pulitzer. Well written and engaging but felt off and hollow, especially given the allegations surrounding Diaz.

Wow, WTF are the chances of two BSGers reading the same book at the same time? I just finished this last week and felt the same way.

Moved on to A Prayer for the City in the last few days. Bissinger is a friggin' weirdo but this is really well done so far.

I loved "Wao," but read it years before I know much about Diaz fwiw.

Loved A Prayer for the City back in the day.

Grotewold wrote:

CFP wrote:

JUburton wrote:Do not know why The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao won the pulitzer. Well written and engaging but felt off and hollow, especially given the allegations surrounding Diaz.

Wow, WTF are the chances of two BSGers reading the same book at the same time? I just finished this last week and felt the same way.

Moved on to A Prayer for the City in the last few days. Bissinger is a friggin' weirdo but this is really well done so far.

I loved "Wao," but read it years before I know much about Diaz fwiw.

Loved A Prayer for the City back in the day.

Yeah, it was just hard to read all of the descriptions of women and women chasing and it being in dominicans' blood, etc. without thinking about allegations of him forcing himself on women (kissing, touching etc.)

Noted that he was a victim of child rape which...complicates things. The world is just bad, man.

Sapiens is absolutely blowing my mind

Alright you sexy mother fuckers, give me your best recommendations. I’m in a reading rut

if you're into this sort of thing, Michael Collins book (non-fiction) is incredible

https://smile.amazon.com/Carrying-Fire- ... 129&sr=8-1

I loved Sapiens. Factfulness was also really good.

Not a recommendation, but just the Oscar Wao post reminded me that I just recently read Less by Andrew Sean Greer without realizing it had won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. I enjoyed it, it was entertaining throughout and often very funny, but overall very slight. the ending seemed wrongheaded, but some people get caught up in the traditions of the comic novel and feel they have to go in that direction, I guess. he was sometimes caught short trying to write with a maturity and erudition he didn't really have. But you could do a lot worse.

in a similar vein to Less, Patrick DeWitt's French Exit was really good. starts out like a modern take on Wodehouse with rich people behaving badly and making quips about it but gradually becomes something more emotionally involved and affecting. it was also kind of weird to finish it and see David Berman topping the acknowledgements a few days after he took his life

Houshphandzadeh wrote:in a similar vein to Less, Patrick DeWitt's French Exit was really good. starts out like a modern take on Wodehouse with rich people behaving badly and making quips about it but gradually becomes something more emotionally involved and affecting. it was also kind of weird to finish it and see David Berman topping the acknowledgements a few days after he took his life

Oh, I really want to read that. I gave it to my mother and she's promised to bounce it back to me (which I admit is more than half the reason I buy books for people). I may have to send in the goon squad.

is that book about elmer fudd singing a doors song

People are strange

*stwange

swishnicholson wrote:Not a recommendation, but just the Oscar Wao post reminded me that I just recently read Less by Andrew Sean Greer without realizing it had won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. I enjoyed it, it was entertaining throughout and often very funny, but overall very slight. the ending seemed wrongheaded, but some people get caught up in the traditions of the comic novel and feel they have to go in that direction, I guess. he was sometimes caught short trying to write with a maturity and erudition he didn't really have. But you could do a lot worse.

I pretty much agree with all of this.

Trent Steele wrote:Alright you sexy mother fuckers, give me your best recommendations. I’m in a reading rut

I liked Milkman a lot but that is going to be extremely hit or miss. My brother rarely stops books and he just quit after 60 pages. While we're talking Man Bookers, I absolutely loved The Luminaries and The Sense of an Ending, though they're...extremely different from one another.

Favorites of the past five years or so include: Station Eleven, The Bone Clocks, Homecoming, Lincoln in the Bardo, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Manhattan Beach, There There, Evicted, and Bad Blood.

I'm reading Wolf Hall right now and let me tell you I don't give a shit about British royalty.

Finally finished War and Peace. Definitely a great book people should read, even though Part II of the Epilogue does drag a bit. (and I generally enjoyed the philosophy aspects of the book.) It's long, so you really need to make time for it, but it's worth it.

Nerd.

this Lockwood review of Updike is hilarious

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n19/patricia- ... -sex-robot

I liked black swan green a lot. Probably my second or third favorite Mitchell...behind The Bone Clocks and close with Cloud Atlas, though completely different so hard to really compare.

finishing up the blackwater saga. Reminds me of Dark Shadows, genre wise.

Participated in a 25 hour marathon reading of Moby Dick sponsored by The Rosenbach and held at the Seaport Museum. Realized I hadn't read the thing since I was , what, 16? tons of jokes (along with whale facts) that I had either forgotten or missed that first time so long ago. Have to fill in some other chapters besides 87 in the coming months.