Post about books.

[cruiscin_lan]

I'm a voracious reader, and so I'm going to talk about books for a little while now. You know how much of a bookworm I am? On Wednesday I picked up Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan at the library in the morning and returned it that afternoon when I finished it. The only thing that keeps me from reading more is that it's impossible to read and drive at the same time.

I often go on what I call "author binges" where I go to the library and get out everything they have that a particular author has written, even if it means straddling genres (fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and sci-fi, etc.). Recent author binges have included a slew of women authors, particularly Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, and Bharati Mukherjee, as well as J. M. Coetzee and David Sedaris (for funsies). I seem to be shifting into a more modern/post-modern science fiction theme, since I checked out stacks of Vonnegut and C. S. Lewis yesterday.

Reading right now: The Master of Petersburgh by J. M. Coetzee. I'm nearly done with it now and then I'll have to figure out what I'd like to start next. I think it's seriously affecting my writing, because whatever I set down is in the present tense.

One book I always carry with me is Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, because even in translation it's the most beautiful prose I've ever read.

What are your favorite books? What are you reading? What would you recommend?

Comments

[psycho-llama.livejournal.com]

Reading: Fast Food Nation and The Memory Keeper's Daughter (it's a Jodi Piccoult-style brick which usually wouldn't be my thing but I've seen the movie and it's got tiny bit of genetics in the background so I thought I'd give it a go).

Favourites: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard I can read over and over again. Same for Kane and Abel by Jeffry Archer. I've got a LOT of Clancy, Crichton, Archer, Grisham and Matthew Reilly (Aussie action writer) on my bookshelves.

Next: Our Town, because I had to read it in high school and I've been thinking about it all this past month. Then maybe some non-fiction. Depends what catches my eye.

[superkappa.livejournal.com]

I'm going to read Arcadia later this quarter, I'm pretty excited. I loved Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead and I've been meaning to read more by Stoppard for a while.

I read Our Town last quarter, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was much better than I had remembered it to be when I had seen it on stage.