What BOOK are you reading right now?

Pemerson, I tried to read Dragon Tattoo and got about halfway through before realizing that I didn't care about the key players, nor was I interested in the denouement, and finally put it aside. There was a lack of character development in the book, which makes the difference between a good author and a great one (think J M Coetzee,) and the work was plot driven. I enjoy plot-driven stuff as a distraction but not as literary meat and drink.

Post script. My roommate loved the Stieg Larsson books....as did almost every one else in the world, it seems.

just started it. i'm liking it so far

This is the perfect beach book...not too deep, not too shallow.It might even squeeze a tear out of you. One thing for sure...books are marketed nowadays...for sure

really enjoying this too, love merge records



Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
By John Cook with Mac MacCaughan & Laura Ballance (Paperback, 320 pages)
Published by Algonquin Books

Merge Records defies everything you’ve heard about the music business. Started by two twenty-year-old musicians, Merge is a lesson in how to make and market great music on a human scale. The fact that the company is prospering in a failing industry is something of a miracle. Yet two of their bands made the Billboard Top 10 list; more than 1 million copies of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible have been sold; Spoon has appeared on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show; and the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs is a contemporary classic.

In celebration of their twentieth anniversary, founders Mac and Laura offer first-person accounts"with the help of their colleagues and Merge artists"of their work, their lives, and the culture of making music. Our Noise also tells the behind-the-scenes stories of Arcade Fire, Spoon, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Lambchop, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Butterglory. Hundreds of personal photos of the bands, along with album cover art, concert posters, and other memorabilia are included.

"One of the most respected imprints in an often disreputable industry, Merge has defied the odds by releasing some of the finest rock and pop music of the last 15 years."
--Chicago Tribune

"The fact that they exist and that they've survived is really kind of amazing these days. It's really difficult and they've done really well."
--David Byrne

Great pick! I'm on it deej

I love my library system. I put a hold on the book George, and it should be delivered to my library next week!

This sounds good. On my list now

I tend to like swedish crime procedurals but am not right away attracted to the trilogy. I'll read them if I run across them.

Just started it meself.

As my duty as an editor of the Urban Dictionary, I felt this submission would be relevant:

Funny and true!

My son did say, while he was reading Larsson's first Dragon Tattoo novel, that he didn't like it at some point, almost didn't finish. Now, he's reading (I think he said) the third in the series, and raves about all three. Go figure.

I think I'll read, next, the one suggested by Panzade (The Art of Racing in the Rain?) I need something touching, warm, sad, and funny. Then, maybe TATTOO.

tsar,

How very true. Cloud Splitter must have been terrific. Maybe I'll try that. But my post novel depression wasn't from reading a good novel. You know how it is when you see a very shallow movie? You just have to see a good one to know that quality still exists.

That's Post B-Movie Depression. Quite dangerous indeed! Thousands of film buffs suffer from this disease every day.

I know exactly what you mean, tsar. After reading the final page of A Suitable Boy (all 1349 fabulous pages!) I felt totally bereft! I kept wanting more! But there wasn't any. It was awful, just awful ...

msolga, I felt the same way after finishing that remarkable book. Those people became my family, and suddenly I was alone and they were back at home in the India of fable and tradition.

I know, I know, Kara!

What was the next book after that, which came anywhere near filling the gaping hole in your life?

Can you remember?

I think it might have been Paul Scott's Raj Quartet for me. (But then I went through terrible withdrawal symptoms after that, too! )

Pigtopia