What are you reading?

juniper

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Just finished "Zone One" by Colson Whitehead. It's a literary zombie novel. I'd never read any of his stuff but I heard an interview with him on NPR and decided to get it from the library.

Hah. Everyone else in the area must have thought the same thing ... our county library system has 84 copies, and there was a waiting list of over 300 for it. That was a few months ago, finally got the book, wasn't thrilled at first but then picked it up again and became engrossed.

Definitely not genre zombie, "literary" in the MFA sense. Not an easy afternoon read, but I'll look for more of his stuff. He's got quite the CV. Bio from Amazon:

"Colson Whitehead is the author of the novels Zone One; Sag Harbor; The Intuitionist, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award; John Henry Days, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Apex Hides the Hurt, winner of the PEN Oakland Award. He has also written a book of essays about his home town, The Colossus of New York. A recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a MacArthur Fellowship, he lives in New York City."
 

pinkrobot

I poke badgers with spoons
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I just finished reading "An Invisible Sign of My Own" by Aimee Bender. I was very skeptical for the first 15 pages or so, and then it became one of those books that would have caused me to claw someone to pieces had they tried to take it away from me.
 

heyjude

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Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi. Incredible book. She does amazing things with voice and word choice. The crossing-out got on my nerves a bit in the beginning, but it calmed down near the middle.
 

bearilou

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The New Devil's Dictionary by Rhoda Koenig. I read Ambrose Bierce's version a long time ago and this is a pretty good remake, updated for modern times.

*clings to Ambrose and hisses at you*

:)

I'm about half way through Among Thieves by Doug Hulick as part of my 2012 goal of reading a book a month.
 

blacbird

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Double Indemnity - James M. Cain

Cain is the single most underappreciated great American writer of the 20th Century. DI is one of his trinity of magnificent classics, the other two being The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce. But even his lesser known things, like Serenade are fine reads. Please let us know what you think of it. I believe I read DI in a single evening many years ago.

Me, I'm reading A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick. I've read at least half of Dick's work, but hadn't got round to this one. It's one of his later works, sharp and funny and has a lot to say.

caw
 

Ruriworm

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Currently reading Lolita by Nabokov...it makes me feel guilty that I actually find it entertaining, and that I'm often subconsciously rooting for Humbert.
 

swgamble

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The Litigators-John Grisham and rereading American Gods-Neil Gamin, a family member got me a beautifully done hardcover edition from Barnes and Nobles.
 

HarryHoskins

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Cain is the single most underappreciated great American writer of the 20th Century. DI is one of his trinity of magnificent classics, the other two being The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce. But even his lesser known things, like Serenade are fine reads. Please let us know what you think of it.

Yup. He's good. I think the writing is clean and has aged better than what I've read of Hammett & Chandler. There were points when the melodrama was a bit much for me, but then again, I loved Curtiz' film version of Mildred Peirce so what am I complaining about?

The best part, in fact, the thing that, in my opinion, really raises the book up and shows the quality of the writing is the page an a half where Cain, very simply, deconstructs the insurance racket, gambling and the corruptive nature of knowing and thus exposes the ease -- and perhaps more bleakly -- the inevitability of the corruption of ones soul through experience, knowledge and weltschmerz.

On a brighter note, he does give us Keyes as a sort of incorruptible everyman and agent of restorative moral equilibrium. On a darker note, film noir. :)

ETA - When I said its aged better than Hammett & Chandler, I don't mean they've aged badly -- its just Cain is a cleaner writer.
 
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DahlELama

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Just finished The Art of Fielding and am now working my way through To the Lighthouse. After reading something like fifty YA books last year, my reading resolution for 2012 is to try to read a few more titles meant for actual adults ;)
 

Macca

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Half-way through The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horovitz. Really enjoying it too. Also hope to begin later this week Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
 

Ari Meermans

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Finally getting around to Grisham's THE BRETHREN. Also, reading RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS OF THE STONE AGE: And Their Influence Upon European Thought, by G. Rachel Levy.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Julia Knight's Ilfayne's Bane. Yes, simultaneously.

Also having an inner debate as to whether it's okay to break my resolution to buy Luke's new one.