Grand unified books thread

[FunkMonk]

I'm just disappointed that hardly anyone here (maybe except the gays, Savonarola, Brazen and Malthus) seems to be reading fiction anymore. History books are all fine and dandy, but they are (with some notable exceptions) all about information, rather than literary skills.

I get enjoyment out of both fiction and non-fiction, but when walking through a bookstore fiction doesn't attract my eye as much as the other.

I read McCarthy's The Road late last year and absolutely loved it, but I haven't any fiction since.

[Martinus]

I read fiction, though I don't have much time to do so anymore. If I have time to read I'm usually reading history in order to prep myself for the next era we're going to go over in class.

So you are just one chapter ahead of your class?

[Ed Anger]

Hide Tim's teacher editions!

[jimmy olsen]

I read fiction, though I don't have much time to do so anymore. If I have time to read I'm usually reading history in order to prep myself for the next era we're going to go over in class.

So you are just one chapter ahead of your class?

I'm not reading their text book, I could do that in 5 minutes. I'm reading scholarly works on the subject. I've read at least 4 books on the Civil War in the last two weeks.

[garbon]

Bought Cammy P's Vamps & Tramps.

One of the first lines in the first chapter:

"The penis. Should we keep it? Or should we cut it off and throw it away?."

:diaryfactory:

[Queequeg]

It's funny how you guys ridicule me for liking "gay books" whereas all you read apparently are books about some obscure wars. 

Books about Frederick are gay books about obscure wars.  How bout them apples.

I'm just disappointed that hardly anyone here (maybe except the gays, Savonarola, Brazen and Malthus) seems to be reading fiction anymore. History books are all fine and dandy, but they are (with some notable exceptions) all about information, rather than literary skills.

Seems more like you are consciously ignoring certain posters.  Besides, this is still a child of Paradox, you'd expect history nuts.

[Kleves]

I just finished Fred Anderson's Crucible of War about the French and Indian War. I thought it was excellent.

[Sheilbh]

Update: Finished The Swimming Pool Library, one of the most gripping, wonderfully and richly written modern books I have read in years. Thanks for an amazing recommendation, guys. I really enjoyed that one - now can't wait to get my hands on Alan Hollinghurst's other books (which, I am led to believe, have received an even greater critical applause than his debut). Delicious.

The Folding Star and The Line of Beauty are excellent.  The Spell isn't.

I don't have an issue with gay books, so long as they're well-written and I think Hollinghurst's one of the best prose authors around. 

The best comparison I can think of is someone like V.S. Naipaul.  He's very 19th century in my opinion.

Edit:  And I'm halfway through Dubliners.  So far there's some incredibly poignant stories here, whcih surprises me.

[Martinus]

I'm reading Berek ("The Game of Tag") by Marcin Szczygielski, a Polish author. The protagonist seems to frequent the same club in Warsaw that I do every Friday, and he seems to be having the same tendecy to fall in love with the wrong kind of men (with his latest 'He-must-be-The One'-who-didn't-call-after-a-one-night-stand having actually the same name as my "failed bf"). I feel bizarre.

Especially as I have already invited my mum to a play based on the book (before I read it).

[AnchorClanker]

Marty,

I think you are purposefully ignoring that a good many historians are talented writers. 

[Martinus]

Marty,

I think you are purposefully ignoring that a good many historians are talented writers. 

I do not deny you are right. I just find fiction more entertaining, despite (or indeed, due to) its frequent incongruence and emotional appeal, whereas any writing, however good, of a non-fiction author (be it a historian or otherwise) always must follow the cold iron logic of facts and is judged from that perspective first and foremost. When art takes the back seat to science, it always suffers, so I prefer to separate the two. Reality is tedious.

[AnchorClanker]

History, well written, can and will equal fiction in elegance and depth of human emotion.

[FunkMonk]

History, well written, can and will equal fiction in elegance and depth of human emotion.

Gibbon comes to mind.

[FunkMonk]

Reading All Quiet on the Western Front again for my Ethics class. Also I've read through some of the beginning of The Third Reich at War.

[Valmy]

I do not deny you are right. I just find fiction more entertaining, despite (or indeed, due to) its frequent incongruence and emotional appeal, whereas any writing, however good, of a non-fiction author (be it a historian or otherwise) always must follow the cold iron logic of facts and is judged from that perspective first and foremost. When art takes the back seat to science, it always suffers, so I prefer to separate the two. Reality is tedious.

Nonsense.  Fiction is much more predictable and more tedious than history.  The facts of history are very rarely logical.  I mean the King of France giving his army over to a teenage girl?  WTF?