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[V-Adore]

... because there wasn't one on the first page, and I'm curious what y'all are reading.

A few days ago I read the entirety of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in pretty much one sitting (doctor's appointment with a long wait). I don't frequently have intense emotional responses to books, but this one left me sobbing by the end. I don't want to speak too much about the plot, at risk of spoiling it, but I found it powerfully sad and affecting. It's also interesting because it takes a stock plot that's generally executed very poorly (which one, I won't say) and proved it could be done well -- paradoxically, in making the stock plot more understated, it made it substantially more disturbing.

I've also been trying to get into more comics lately. Most of it has been manga obscurities, but I also got the first two volumes of Sandman. I'm on Volume 2 now -- I'm a bit embarrassed about it, but I actually skipped much of Volume 1 because I wasn't really engaged. 2 is better so far, but I'm still not quite engrossed. Ah, well.

[linnea]

The last books I read are Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and William Gibson's Neuromancer. I love them for plane flights because I could read and reread them forever. I need to branch out and find other books of that caliber.

The other stuff I do on airplanes is knit on the same scarf I've been working on for ages, since I can never find time in my actual life to work on knitting projects. I also like to listen to my iPod.

[AugustWest]

The last books I read are Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and William Gibson's Neuromancer. I love them for plane flights because I could read and reread them forever. I need to branch out and find other books of that caliber.

I reread Crypto a few weeks ago.  I feel the same way, it's one of those I'll be reading the rest of my life.  If you haven't read the Baroque Cycle, I recommend it, especially if you like Stephenson.  I'm about halfway through my second reading of it now. 

[Limmo]

I just finished John Burdett's new Thailand police procedural, Bangkok Haunts.  It was pretty damn good, though not as good as Bangkok Tattoo, which I would commend to anyone. 

[theinevitable]

I love Stephenson, but i have trouble keeping characters straight. thus, I never got beyond the first book in The Baroque Cycle.
Yesterday I finished "Tortilla Flats," so I might read some more steinbeck. I love him. I read his well-known stuff when I was in 10th grade or so, I should probably read it again. I have a half-read book containing several speeches on Linguistics by Noam Chomsky-- very engrossing, but very hard to follow sometimes. Also to read:
A book my dad lent me called something like "America: 1968." I can't find it.
A biography of Einstein my parents gave me for my birthday
A Farewell to Arms
possibly other "classics" that I loved when I read them the first time, but now remember very little about. Mostly Steinbeck.

[RMJ12345]

I am currently reading:

Closed Chambers (a book on the history and workings of the Supreme Court, one of my great fascinations since childhood)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
A compilation of feminist criticism from Bitch
A couple of Stephen King books: 'salem's Lot and Cell

All are pretty good.

[KeithHernandez]

Man, I like The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls, but I couldn't finish A Farewell to Arms.

Also, I was born in Oklahoma, so i am forced to hate Steinbeck.  I have never actually read any (I probably should), but I already have an unnatural hate for him that my granddad created. 

True Story:  The Oklahoma City Council invited Steinbeck to the 50th year celebration of Oklahoma's statehood.  The Oklahoma congress passed a bill shortly after saying that if Steinbeck comes to Oklahoma he can be arrested.

[RMJ12345]

Also, I was born in Oklahoma, so i am froced to hate Steinbeck.  I have never actually read any (I probably should), but I already have an unnatural hate for him that my granddad created. 

Why does everyone in Oklahoma hate Steinbeck? To the best of my memory, he rags on CA as much as OK in TGOW. Which, incidentally, I found to be boring and pretentious.

I do actually love Steinbeck though, specifically East of Eden. As with your hate, my love is borne of my recently deceased granddad, who wrote a book about him.

[KeithHernandez]

I don't really know.  I just know they do. 

I don't actually hate him (as I said I have never read him) but my granddad sure tried to make me, and that is most likely the reason I have never read him.

[theinevitable]

how did he rag on OK other than "people were poor during the depression, and had to leave?" I am obviously forgetting something.

[Nabubrush]

I just read Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. Not sure how well known it is - it's a telling of the Wicked Witch of the West's story, from her perspective. Pretty damned entertaining.

[RMJ12345]

how did he rag on OK other than "people were poor during the depression, and had to leave?" I am obviously forgetting something.

He doesn't rag on it so much as not portray it flatteringly, same as his beloved California.

[KeithHernandez]

I kind of thought that it is where the term "Okie" became widely used, and that was a pretty derogatory word for Okies.  Beyond that I haven't read the book and my granddad has been dead for 10 years, so I can't ask.

[AugustWest]

I just read Wicked[/, by Gregory Maguire. Not sure how well known it is - it's a telling of the Wicked Witch of the West's story, from her perspective. Pretty damned entertaining.

I listened to it last year.  I think it's pretty well known and the subject of a broadway musical. 

I thought it was pretty well done, but wondered how much relation it had to Baum's Oz.

[V-Adore]

Wicked was pretty hit-or-miss with me. I think it would have been more satisfying if it had either been more faithful to the source material or risen above it -- Baum's world is a fabulously well-realized one, and Maguire's attempts to make it more "realistic" fell kind of flat. That said, there were parts that were lovely, although I think I'm a soft touch for anything about college and the end thereof.