I do not think I am gonna make it through Mason & Dixon. I've started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which is approximately the same bloody length, but a joy to read. Stylistically, it's only a hundred years younger, but that makes all the diff. Well, that and the magic.

I'm reading "Miss Wyoming" by Douglas Copeland and "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

The Wizard Knight - Gene Wolfe. It's hooked me like no book for a while: not flashy, almost pedestrian in the telling, but compelling enough to keep me reading late into the night and keep me off the computer in the morning.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference By Malcolm Gladwell

Very interesting study on viral marketing, connectivity, and the transfer of ideas with case studies written in 2000.

Chapter Six discusses a female 'Cool-Hunter' named Gordon who worked for an advertising agency to leverage the sales of Airwalk sneakers. (Sound familiar?)

Hostile Takeover - Fairly wretched sci-fi story about an ambitious young corporate thing sent to audit shady stock market dealings on a colony in the asteroid belt... or something. Reads as a cross between an Anne McCaffray novel (plucky young woman makes good) and a Dan Brown novel (characters spend a lot of time in internal monologue explaining things to themselves so the audience can keep up).

Finally reading the unbearable lightnesof being. Actualy quite good, althouh hasn't relly knocked my socks off yet.

Also reading Nuanua Anthology of Literature of the Pacific since 1980 edited by Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri (both my current profs), Turning Tide: the Ebb and Flow of Hawaiian Nationality by Nikolaus Schweizer ('nother prof)

Just finished Perez-Reverte's CAPTAIN ALATRISTE. Read it based on JRE's pointing out the upcoming movie and my love for THE CLUB DUMAS. Pretty good, though not fantastic. It probably helps to be a Spaniard, as there's quite a lot of rumination on things old and Spanish. But overall a nice introduction of an admirable character. Several admirable characters, actually.

Next on the list is THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL. Bumped into it at the library.

quote:

Malmont sets the pulp era's biggest stars--Shadow scribe Walter Gibson and Doc Savage writer Lester Dent--on intersecting adventures rivaling anything their signature creations ever encountered. With an annoying L. Ron Hubbard in tow, Gibson sets out for H. P. Lovecraft's funeral only to discover that the horror writer may have been murdered while working on an antidote to a military nerve gas prized by a vengeful Chinese warlord. Meanwhile, Dent and his wife stumble on a dangerous thread from the same story while exploring an abandoned theater in Manhattan's Chinatown. But what's real and what's pulp? As Gibson's pal Orson Welles puts it, "It's all about the lie. The big lie. . . . Our audiences want the big stories about the great things." While it's more a gripping yarn than a literary masterpiece, Malmont's story certainly delivers on Welles' dictum.

Sounds entertaining.

Simultaneously reading some nonfiction as usual. Gerges' THE FAR ENEMY, etc. Smart fella.

A reprint of The Romance of Piracy: The Story of the Adventures, Fights, & Deeds of Daring Pirates, Filibusters, & Buccaneers from the Earliest Times to the Present Day by E. Keble Chatterton (1914). I don't know how accurate it is (apparently citing sources came into vogue after 1914,) but I'm still enjoying it.

Sounds like rippin' yarrrrrrns!

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:
Sounds like rippin' yarrrrrrns!

You animal.

quote:

I don't know how accurate it is (apparently citing sources came into vogue after 1914,) but I'm still enjoying it.

My book cites fictitious sources. They are more enjoyable than I'd've thought.

Concerning the Wizard Knight, it has to be remembered that Wolfe's first person narrators lie on occasions and dissemble quite often, and Able is not an exception. Makes rereading much more interesting.

I do not like the Alatriste series much. Fluffy and light (so much that the script writers had to add some additional material to the published five books to round up the movie). So far the film is such a big hit in Spain that I have not been able to get to see it. Maybe on Thursday.

Filled one page in the moleskine with Sun Tzu's sayings designed to confuse wargame opponents. With that accomplished I am mixing Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad (I dislike her style, but this looked different enough, and short enough) and rereading the autobiography of Captain Alonso de Contreras, a real XVIth century character (and a pirate!) that was one of the inspirations for Alatriste.

José

various non-fiction by A. Jean Ayres

I finished Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby, and found it absolutely beautifull. It also struck a bit of a chord with me

I've finally gotten around to reading The Watchmen. Yeah, yeah, it's brilliant. But forget that it's groundbreaking for a minute, and appreciate the craft. That's the best *told* story I've read in a long time.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadoth:
I've finally gotten around to reading The Watchmen. Yeah, yeah, it's brilliant. But forget that it's groundbreaking for a minute, and appreciate the craft. That's the best *told* story I've read in a long time.

its the density and layers that moore puts in to it. vendetta and from hell are up there as well, but watchmen was the first of those landmarks i read, and i've re-read a load of times as well.

This just means that I'm going to have to read From Hell and Vendetta, now. Like I have that kinda time.

Also, I don't think his peculiar, baroque narrative density would work as text. He really is working in the perfect medium for his style.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadoth:
This just means that I'm going to have to read From Hell and Vendetta, now. Like I have that kinda time.

they are both definitely worthwhile, i read them both fairly recently having put them off for some ill concieved reason.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadoth:
Also, I don't think his peculiar, baroque narrative density would work as text. He really is working in the perfect medium for his style.

yeah he is a master of his form. most of his stuff that would just count as knocked out by anyone else is still worth reading. he does have a novel - a voice of fire (?) - which has apparently the most impenetrable first chapter ever. he also has a handful of spoken word CDs, which are actually pretty cool, there is just something about his voice and the way he tells the stories!

How accomodating y'all are. I just saw this yesterday and was wondering how I'd work it in:

What if Stan Lee had written Watchmen?

quote:

Originally posted by Shadoth:
Also, I don't think his peculiar, baroque narrative density would work as text.

I disagree. I've always heard that Stephenson originally wrote Snow Crash as text for a graphic novel, and that translated pretty well to a conventional novel. Maybe even better than his other works.

I'm not saying that stories written for comic books can't translate to straight prose. I'm saying that Moore's particular way of telling stories wouldn't translate that well. That his style is uniquely suited to the form.