So, What Are You Reading These Days? (besides comics)

[Alan M.]

Just bringing this discussion over to ning...

What books are you reading right now that don't have a narrative driven by images as well as words?

[Kent Allard]

Just finished La Brava (Elmore Leonard) by way of refresher for Road Dogs

[The Baron]

Heimskringla, or, The Lives of the Norse Kings, by Snorre Sturlason.

This ought to hold me for awhile.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

Mickey McLaurin said:

Working on Moby Dick. I know it's a classic, probably the greatest novel in American literature. But it's not an easy read, lemme tell ya.

That's on my "classics I've never read" list, too. I hope you persist!

[Figserello]

Mark Sullivan said:

Mickey McLaurin said:

Working on Moby Dick. I know it's a classic, probably the greatest novel in American literature. But it's not an easy read, lemme tell ya.

That's on my "classics I've never read" list, too. I hope you persist!

It's well worth it.

That last page will blow you away.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've recently read "The Haunted and the Haunters: Or the House and the Brain" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill.

The former is a well-known haunted house story. I didn't find it at all creepy, but there are some good details in the ghostly manifestations sequence, very much like special effects you might see in a movie. I'm not familiar enough with Victorian ghost stories to know how original these are. The tale is often reprinted without its original ending, in which the narrator talks with the magician responsible for the haunting. For me this ending didn't add to the story's effectiveness at all.

The latter is an early locked room mystery novel. I've seen Zangwill's basic solution used well elsewhere, but I thought he cheated deploying it. Otherwise the story is one of the better mysteries I've read from the era, with good characterisation, a background of radical politics in its period, and an element of humour.

[The Baron]

Inspired by Masterpiece Comics, I took a break ffrom the Heimskringla to read Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've just finished The Haunted House at Latchford, a.k.a. Fairy Water, by Mrs. J.H. Riddell. This is a ghost story, but the ghost element is very understated. It's really a subplot used to resolve a story about a couple who are impeded from marrying.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Well, it's October, so it's time to pick out my spooky reading for this month. I toyed with some minor Lovecraft, but I think I'm in the mood for that old standby, Dracula. I think it's been a couple of years since I last read that one.

[Howard Bagby]

I am currently reading The Seven Days:The Emergence Of Lee. I am a big Civil War buff.

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

Doctor Hmmm? said:

Well, it's October, so it's time to pick out my spooky reading for this month. I toyed with some minor Lovecraft, but I think I'm in the mood for that old standby, Dracula. I think it's been a couple of years since I last read that one.

The big annotated edition with the intro by Neil Gaiman is fantastic...

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

New Michael Chabon non-fiction today!

[doc photo]

Just finished "Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book" which offers a very even handed analysis of Stan's career in comics. Have to admit feeling a bit sorry for Stan though, he never seemed satisfied with his success in comics and has spent the past thirty years trying to make a career in Hollywood, where he is well liked for his comic work but never taken seriously as a writer/producer.