ghostrunner wrote:Had never read Moby Dick, so I decided I'd read it with my 10 year old before bed. I could have sworn I'd heard of kids reading it in school, so I figured why not. We just bailed after getting a third of the way through. Obviously people think highly of it, but wow. It's about 4-5 different books in one. There's a fairly straightforward narrative about a guy going out on a whaling voyage and the odd characters he meets. Next chapter it's a scientist/naturalist diary. Then it's something akin to Proust carrying on about his madeleines, only it's the color white. On to a poetic ode to the ocean and virtues of sailors. Somewhere in there a chapter that reads like extended stage directions. All this told with sailing terminology and some outdated English. We just couldn't hack it.
Reminded more of Pynchon than anything, though I recall liking that more.
I've tried to read it several times as well. I just read In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, which is the story that inspired Melville to write his novel. I enjoyed it (even though I read it while on vacation), especially the parts about whaling history and hunting methods along with the survival story.
Now I'm reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson.
For my summer reads I've chosen books about doomed voyages. I'm not sure what that says about my state of mind, but I've found them both quite good.
Could be worse, I seem to have developed an obsession with post-apocalyptic novels recently. Two of my favorite books of all time are Alas Babylon and On the Beach, both of which I've read multiple times since HS. I've read some good books with similar themes but nothing even close to those two. Not sure why I keep trying.
tlombard wrote:Could be worse, I seem to have developed an obsession with post-apocalyptic novels recently. Two of my favorite books of all time are Alas Babylon and On the Beach, both of which I've read multiple times since HS. I've read some good books with similar themes but nothing even close to those two. Not sure why I keep trying.
I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel a while ago. The author describes it more as literary fiction than science fiction, but I really enjoyed it. It describes a post-apocalyptic future but focuses on a few characters in a traveling show.
tlombard wrote:I use public transportation almost every day so instead of carrying real books (which I do prefer), most of my reading is done on a tablet through either Nook or Kindle apps. I am starting to get rather annoyed with the lack of editing on them though. Has anybody else paid $5 or more for an e-book and noticed constant grammatical errors, misspelled words and just plain extra words all over the place? I cannot stand it!!! I am in the middle of one series and I just want to email the author and offer them my services, they send me the book in advance for free and I'll point out the hundreds (it seems like) of mistakes that somehow get past the editing process. I've noticed it with quite a few books from different authors as well as STLToday and other websites that are supposedly journalists. Are all editors complete idiots these days or have they all been fired? My guess is fired to save money which is pathetic.
My grammar and spelling aren't particularly great but even I can pick out tons of mistakes which is pathetic.
I agree, and it's especially frustrating because it would be nice to support independent authors, but little mistakes just add up and take you out of the story bit by bit. Someday somewhat soon I'd guess computers would be able to do the job of editing fairly well, but at that point the computers will be close to writing the books themselves.
tlombard wrote:Could be worse, I seem to have developed an obsession with post-apocalyptic novels recently. Two of my favorite books of all time are Alas Babylon and On the Beach, both of which I've read multiple times since HS. I've read some good books with similar themes but nothing even close to those two. Not sure why I keep trying.
You read The Passage? It's not nuclear related, but similar theme of apocalypse brought on by military experimentation.
ghostrunner wrote:Had never read Moby Dick, so I decided I'd read it with my 10 year old before bed. I could have sworn I'd heard of kids reading it in school, so I figured why not. We just bailed after getting a third of the way through. Obviously people think highly of it, but wow. It's about 4-5 different books in one. There's a fairly straightforward narrative about a guy going out on a whaling voyage and the odd characters he meets. Next chapter it's a scientist/naturalist diary. Then it's something akin to Proust carrying on about his madeleines, only it's the color white. On to a poetic ode to the ocean and virtues of sailors. Somewhere in there a chapter that reads like extended stage directions. All this told with sailing terminology and some outdated English. We just couldn't hack it.
Reminded more of Pynchon than anything, though I recall liking that more.
I've tried to read it several times as well. I just read In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, which is the story that inspired Melville to write his novel. I enjoyed it (even though I read it while on vacation), especially the parts about whaling history and hunting methods along with the survival story.
Now I'm reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson.
For my summer reads I've chosen books about doomed voyages. I'm not sure what that says about my state of mind, but I've found them both quite good.
We read Moby Dick in 12th grade. Our teacher gave us a list of chapters, and told us to skip all the other chapters, which we did. As you might guess, the parts we were told to read were the actual Ahab-Moby Dick business.
Read "In the Heart of the Sea" a couple of years ago. The part I found fascinating was how limited the knowledge of the captain and his sailors was. If they had just made a not-too-difficult course west, they could have made it to Tahiti, which was so goddamn awesome that the men of the Bounty had mutinied a few decades earlier in order to go back. But the captain of the Essex basically knew nothing other than how to get to the whaling areas, so when the whale sank their boat, he had no better idea than to sail east to the South American mainland. And disaster followed.
Apparently there's a movie coming out soon, directed by Ron Howard, starring Interchangeable Marvel Action Hero #8 (aka "Chris Hemsworth").
tlombard wrote:Could be worse, I seem to have developed an obsession with post-apocalyptic novels recently. Two of my favorite books of all time are Alas Babylon and On the Beach, both of which I've read multiple times since HS. I've read some good books with similar themes but nothing even close to those two. Not sure why I keep trying.
You read The Passage? It's not nuclear related, but similar theme of apocalypse brought on by military experimentation.
I have not read it but I just bought it and downloaded to my tablet. I'll read that after I finish the book I'm currently working on (second book of The Atlantis Plague trilogy). Should have that wrapped up this weekend.
We totally did! I'm straining to remember what else we read. I remember bailing on "The Return of the Native" after one chapter and relying on Cliff's Notes. And for some reason I remember the short story "Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby", which was weird.
