What BOOK are you reading right now?

here's a little podcast from ABC National Radio (Australia) discussing a book that was mentioned earlier in this thread

Tony Judt's book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is a magisterial examination of everything from the Soviet purges to Scandinavian social democracy, from the Greek civil war to the German film industry, and from the rise of the fridge to the decline of the public intellectual. It also reflects on the interaction of memory and forgetting in postwar Europe, arguing that Europe was able to rebuild itself politically and economically only by forgetting its past, but that moral and cultural definition depended on its eventually remembering and making peace with its past. Originally broadcast on 24/1/2006.

you can listen or download here
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2010/2981062.htm

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley:

Mr Jefferson and the Giant Moose--Is a sur rebuttal to the Post Buffon "Degeneratists" who published about how the Amrican Continent is rife with degenerate biological Forms. Jefferson took on Buffon's original theory and this book is the product. Its by a biologist who misses some major historical figures (like Toucqeville and Cope. (Even though Cope was funnier dodging Indian arrows from faux raids set up by his competitor on Copes expeditions.

Little details of Jefferson and what, today, we might consider more ADD oriented rather than "multifaceted genius" are only hinted on (And the conclusions are mine)

Just starting The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell who, I've read is "one of the most influential people in the world." Twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, NYT's book review called him simply "a genius."

Haven't read any of his books but they all seem to have won various awards. He also wrote Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, Number9Dream, Ghostwritten. He is under 35 and lives in Ireland.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor. Have no idea what this book is about. Have any of you read any of David Mitchell's books? This one was published this year.

Never heard of him, interested.

I'll send it to you when I'm done reading. If it's as great as all that, then I'll have couple more of his books to read.

Ooooh!

Have you read any Evelyn Waugh? I just got finished reading four Waugh novels (in one convenient volume).

Black Mischief: funny
Scoop: very funny
The Loved One: funny
The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold: meh. Could have been a good short story -- not enough there for a novel.

If you like Gogol, you should like Waugh.

i quite liked The Loved One and Love Among The Ruins, tried to read Brideshead revisited but lost interest

Oh yeah, speaking of cynical. He's easily a top five guy for me, right up there with Twain.

I've read Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and Decline and Fall. Like you, it seems, I found Scoop to be his best, or at least funniest. Though Decline and Fall is a close second. I don't know why everyone overlooks it.

A Handful of Dust always makes great novels lists, but it's so, so bleak. I mean, that's something that attracts me to Waugh, but I think he wrote that too much in the wake of his divorce from his wife, this cold-hearted bitch also named Evelyn, hilariously.

So, Geroge Saunders is a really popular guy right now, and you may have read his recent stuff in the New Yorker. But his best work is about ten years old. Check out Civil War Land in Bad Decline or Pastoralia, if you haven't already. He's the only contemporary author I'd mention in a post about Gogol or Waugh.

Dude, you of all people should be reading his early comic work.

i'll have to dig a little deeper

i think the problem i had with Brideshead was having already seen the BBC series, i usually prefer to read the book before seeing an adaptation

I've read about Saunders and it certainly piqued my interest. Based on your recommendation I'll have to check him out.

Note on my previous entry for David Moody's Hater, I thought it was gonna be a generic horror story type of thing and it seemed poorly written at first, but it is a paranoia engine. It does so well at bring the paranoia that the the main character experiences out of the pages and into your mind. Worth the very short read that it is.

Finished listening to the audiobook of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo[/i]. After I finish my quick dinner, I'm proceeding to audible.com to download the sequel posthaste.

posthaste?

i thought the sequel was the girl who played with fire

I didn't read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, saw the movie instead. Incredible movie, once the rape scene was over. Some columnist I read recently praised the books, saying the idea of exposing the high number of sex slaves in this country is good. Don't know, yet, if I'll read the other two. The second has already been made into a movie. Might see that. My son said the sequel is equally awful. But, I guess they serve a cause. He also said that, originally, the writer named The Tattoo "Men who hate women." Yikes

actually all three have been filmed, and american remakes are in the works (boo)

rumour has it that Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame, cut her hair to try out for the Lisbeth Salander role

I just finished Slum Dog Millionaire. I enjoyed it, which is odd to say with various horrendo things happening, but I knew that several pages later....

This is one of those books that I wonder if it was put together after the movie or before - written as screenplay, in either case, in my opinion.

Not that I suggest you not read it. I usually like to read scenarios set in India.