Recently finished books?

[DreamQueen]

The Possibility of an Island, Michel Houellebecq. +

Sigh. I was so looking forward to this one.

[Daniel del Real]

Roberto Bola?o, 2666 ++

[Stiffelio]

Roberto Bola?o, 2666 ++

That was FAST reading. How can you read such a huge book in a week? I envy you for having so much time to read.

[DB Cooper]

Vineland-Thomas Pynchon

[Bjorn]

Dick Harrison, Mannen fr?n Barnsdale (Sweden) . Fascinating attempt to get at the "historical" Robin Hood which ends up making me wish Harrison had taken a few literature classes along with the history ones.

Robert Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated (USA) . It's Robert Crumb drawing the Bible (or possibly the Torah) and sticking to every word of the text but often putting his images as counterpoint. Everyone's either a psycho, a harlot, or utterly horrified at having ended up in this really quite disturbing story. Brings out some aspects not usually covered, plays up the bizarreness of others.

[Bjorn]

That was FAST reading. How can you read such a huge book in a week? I envy you for having so much time to read.

Me too.

Now, Daniel, where's the review?

[saliotthomas]

Daniel is The billion dollars man.

The power of the dog-Thomas Savage +
The power of the underdog author.
You guys should read that, you really should.
I'm sorry i have the unch i'll be preaching in the desert.

[lenz]

Terra Amata, J.M.G. Le Clezio

I liked and admired this very much.

[Loki]

As I said in the other thread, I've just finished Madame Bovary.
To be honest I started reading the book with a strong prejudice, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to enjoy it. But I did, actually. I studied it when I was at school and we read the passage of Rodolphe and Emma in the woods... Anyway, I remember it was soooo boring... Probably the teacher was boring, I don't remember clearly!
I'm not keen on long descriptions and on details, and Flaubert, with his realism, was sometimes frustrating to read!
Apart form that, it's a wonderful book in my opinion and I would recommend it to everybody. The descriptions were sometimes too detailed, it's true, but Flaubert has achieved to literally give life to some characters: I would have liked to enter the novel and talk with Emma, and to Charles too!

[JTolle]

Kinda been on a poetry kick lately...

John Ashbery, A Worldly Country: Expectedly strong stuff from a great poet.
Where Shall I Wander: Again, great stuff but not like Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror was.

Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours: My first introduction to Carson and, despite taking a break after reading the first couple poems, something that I now recognize as untouchably phenomenal.
The Beauty of the Husband: Stunning, deceiving, pure Carson genius.
Autobiography of Red: Totally overwhelming, gorgeous, establishes Carson as among the top five poets writing in English.+

David St. John, The Red Leaves of Night: I'll acknowledge that this may not be his best work, but aside from a couple poems (including a truly exceptional one), very blah, boring and weak.

A.R. Ammons, Brink Road: A man with, at least in his later years (from which time this book largely sprouts), the most absolute and precise control over language. The last poem "Summer Place" is a real crown, long and showing Ammons at his best.

Tomas Transtromer, The Great Enigma: Collected Poems: Wow! I think The Enigma collects most of the poems written up to that point and their combined effect, read one after the other, after the other is staggering. The man has some unbeatable lines of verse, and, admittedly, some poems which must be born along by their better brothers, thankfully few of these. The Baltics poems are unbelievable, my favorite for sure and highly recommended.

[Mirabell]

Kinda been on a poetry kick lately...

John Ashbery, A Worldly Country: Expectedly strong stuff from a great poet.
Where Shall I Wander: Again, great stuff but not like Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror was.

Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours: My first introduction to Carson and, despite taking a break after reading the first couple poems, something that I now recognize as untouchably phenomenal.
The Beauty of the Husband: Stunning, deceiving, pure Carson genius.
Autobiography of Red: Totally overwhelming, gorgeous, establishes Carson as among the top five poets writing in English.+

David St. John, The Red Leaves of Night: I'll acknowledge that this may not be his best work, but aside from a couple poems (including a truly exceptional one), very blah, boring and weak.

A.R. Ammons, Brink Road: A man with, at least in his later years (from which time this book largely sprouts), the most absolute and precise control over language. The last poem "Summer Place" is a real crown, long and showing Ammons at his best.

Tomas Transtromer, The Great Enigma: Collected Poems: Wow! I think The Enigma collects most of the poems written up to that point and their combined effect, read one after the other, after the other is staggering. The man has some unbeatable lines of verse, and, admittedly, some poems which must be born along by their better brothers, thankfully few of these. The Baltics poems are unbelievable, my favorite for sure and highly recommended.

Something's really wrong with a list when a mediocre poet like Ammons, or Carson (Jesusfuckingchrist) is rated more highly than Ashbery.

You're drinking, right?

[Mirabell]

Meine Preise, Thomas Bernhard

[DreamQueen]

Something's really wrong with a list when a mediocre poet like Ammons, or Carson (Jesusfuckingchrist) is rated more highly than Ashbery.

You're drinking, right?

Don't sugar-coat or anything now, Mirabell.

[Stiffelio]

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe. Last book of year 2009. Intense. Claustrophobic. Not easy reading. Kafkaesque. Quite impressed .

[Bjorn]

A E Moorat, Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter (UK)

Very quickly and badly written attempt to cash in on the success of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies. Nowhere near as fun - in fact, the one thing that makes me smile is when the Queen's bodyguards turn out to be named Hudson, Hicks and Vasquez - and a silly comedy that's not even funny really has very little to recommend it.

[Daniel del Real]

That was FAST reading. How can you read such a huge book in a week? I envy you for having so much time to read.

That's why I waited til late December as I knew I had my two week vacation and it was a long book. Well planned after all, the wait was all worth.

Me too.

Now, Daniel, where's the review?

Hold on guys, I'm still at the beach, so my free reading period it's still on .I'll try to do a review next week, but I don't know where to start with such a long and magnific novel. I guess I'll go by parts.

[Daniel del Real]

V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street +
Almost at five, an excellent vision of Port Spain and its reality.

Jos? Saramago, Ca?n +
I'm huge Saramago fan, but maybe he should stop writing now. Good funny moments at times, but no structure or real purpose in the brief novel.

[peter_d]

Ernest Hemingway - Men without women

Collection of wonderful stories. Although of some I couldn't figure out what they were really about... Anybody ever read it and knows what actually happens in the story titled 'Hills like white elephants'?

Just discovered I left my copy in the hotelroom in Ho Chi Minh City, the day before yesterday

[DouglasM]

Last books I finished were Fear And Trembling, by Am?lie Nothomb and The Rat In The Wall, by Hilda Hilst.

Am?lie managed to write a short and light novel, without many ambitions. It has a nice sense of humor, though, which made me enjoy the reading.

Hilda Hilst is a brazilian writer, poet and playwright. I don't think any of her books have ever been translated into english or other languages, but this one's good. It's a play about a congregation of religious women trapped inside a church by a huge wall and they receive visitors 'from the other side', which they spend time trying to figure out the meaning of their appearences while trying to discover a way to get out. Quite a clich?, but a nice reading.

[saliotthomas]

Richard Yates-Easter Parade
Great, the man is an expert in humain failure.