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[Mite]

I have to recommend a book I just started when I forgot to take what I was reading away with me...
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Seconded. The sequel is great, too. There's more to come, as well.

[V-Adore]

The Eyre Affair is the book which involves a pet dodo which goes "plock!", isn't it? Or at least it's from the same series? If so, I need to find it and read it.

[Mite]

It is indeed. And where performances of Richard III are attended and participated in as though it were Rocky Horror Picture Show. Awesome stuff.

[andalucia]

It is indeed. And where performances of Richard III are attended and participated in as though it were Rocky Horror Picture Show. Awesome stuff.

Egad, why have I not read this yet?  It is going on my List.

[V-Adore]

It is indeed. And where performances of Richard III are attended and participated in as though it were Rocky Horror Picture Show. Awesome stuff.

Okay, it just went from "had a decent idea that I should read it" to "MUST ACQUIRE." Whee!

[slink]

Wow, didn't know it was at all known outside the UK. Glad my mentioning brought it to someone elses attention.
And yea, the dodos are rather fine!

[pmcd9]

Ya'll are all like oh yeah, I gotta read this, and i'm thinking man that sounds like a load of rubbish.

~Paul

[V-Adore]

Ya'll are all like oh yeah, I gotta read this, and i'm thinking man that sounds like a load of rubbish.

~Paul

Who has got the party-pooping spirit? Him (Paul has)

[Ben-San]

I found The Eyre Affair and Lost In A Good Book to coast more on 'shiny things' than on solid writing, plotting, characterization, etc. But the shiny things are really quite shiny, so I enjoyed them anyway.

[Mite]

The new one in the series is out! I just bought it - I'll let you know how it is when I finish it. By my estimate, that should be sometime tomorrow.

[Bozack]

I polished off "Fouc*ults Pendulum" on vacation and am nearing the end of "Madame Bovary." However, as much as I kick it old school style with the Flaubert-Dawg, I'm having some trouble because there have been so many crappy books that I've read where they've basically ripped off the premise of "Madame Bovary" (if you're really pretentious and bougeious, you suck), and I've also seen "Reality Bites", so my interest is waining. Also, I rocked the hell out of Rick Moody's book of short stories, and here's something interesting I've noticed: is it just me, or are a lot of contemporary authors basically having an "I'm tragic" competition? Don't get me wrong, Rick Moody is a really good author; however, out of the maybe 10 stories in the collection, at least 4 of them are pseudo-autobiographical, about dealing with his sister's death. He also has written a full memoir about, basically, dealing with his sister's death. But he's a good writer, and I'm cool with that, he's using writing to deal with a very difficult personal subject. The problem I see is, EVERY hot new author is tragic like this. Dave Eggers' parents died, and everything I've read by him deals with dealing with other people die, and that one Fry guy, who called Eggers a "pussy," he was in rehab and did tons of drugs, etc. I don't doubt the quality of their writing (well, in Fry's case, I do, because he is AWFUL), and obviously, when you're a writer, you're going to use really important things from your own life in your work. But I actually get the feeling that the literary estabishment is so in love with these tragic authors (there are a couple of others, it's not just Moody, Eggers and Fry), which makes me wonder if this is a symptom of a cultural lust for "problems" that we seem to have.
Or maybe I'm pissed off because I'm a crappy writer, and I envy their ability to routinely put words in coherent order on a page.
Thoughts?

[slink]

Thoughts?

I'm pretty much with you on that. Although, if I suspect a book is in any way crappy I won't bother starting it. It means that I don't read as much as I'd like, because I'm so very picky, and there's such an awful lot of crap out there.

I really, at this kind of time, having just woken up, and thus not being able to fully get into what I would say in reply without, I don't know, using this many protracted commas, wanted to mention a couple more books related, or at least brought about by what you said.

David Mitchell - who actually has just released a new book, Cloud Atlas.
His first two, Ghostwritten and Number9dream, are splendid books. I rate them this highly, particularly noting his similarity, in a good healthy way, to Haruki Murakami, who if you havn't read - GO READ! Murakami is probably my favourite author now. Despite the other wonderful books, Murakami can write about the protaganist preparing spaghetti and make it beautiful. I'd recommend starting with Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World , which I read first, but then [i}Wind-Up Bird Chronicle[/i] is probably my second favourite. Very Japanese, but stunningly written and involving enough magic and wonderment to just... read them!
But anyway, David Mitchell I was reminded of, because while you could read his books and think he was verging on tragic, that's all he does. He skates along it, but never dives into it. And I doubt that even number9dream is at all biographical.
His writing is joyous, and particularly with Ghostwritten, there are sections throughout that just made me grin as I got to them and realised where he was going.
It's a truly beautiful book and I do look forward to Cloud Atlas.

[PinkStainlessTail]

1) have to agree somewhat with Ben-San that The Eyre Affair was inventive in the construction of its world, but dull and flat in its plotting, characters, etc.

2) Confusion, the follow up to Quicksilver will be out on April 13th.

3) About to start Moorcock's The Skrayling Tree, though I really wish he'd stop digging up Elric and get around to releasing The Vengeance of Rome.

[V-Adore]

(Interesting point about "tragic" authors, our cultural obsession with "problems," &c)

I have to agree -- it all strikes me as mildly silly, if not sort of vaguely unintentionally sad. I am reminded of a poetry selection I saw a girl present once in high school; three of the poems she did were by the same author, and they covered the subjects, respectively, of: a) going to a serial killer's mass body-dump site to identify the mangled pieces of one's wife; b) one's gay son being brutally murdered by large homophobic men; and c) one's sixteen-year-old daughter and her friend being raped and murdered on a school trip. My thought at the time, beyond "can we stop yet?," was "I sure as fuck hope this author doesn't write autobiographical poetry."

[jay-ell]

Inspired by the I, Ro-bot movie trailer, I decided to read I, Ro-bot.  However, my brilliant and insightful husband informed me that I, Ro-bot is, in fact, a collection of short stories, and that the upcoming film is instead based on The Caves of Steel.  So I read it.  Halfway through, I realized that my darling spouse was misinformed.  I think they took the universe in which I, Ro-bot's stories are based and created an original story for the film.  But, by that time, I was hooked.  So I sailed through Caves and The Naked Sun in three days, and now I'm working on The Ro-bots of Dawn.  All the while, I'm thinking: Why haven't I ever got around to reading these before?

Mmmmmm...ro-botic goodness.  

Also: this is neat.