[News] What are you currently reading?

I'm about a third into Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So far, I'm enjoying it. I've always been a fan of him and I'm sure this won't disappoint.

Before this, I read The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. I randomly decided to pick it up at a local used book store and I wasn't disappointed. It took me a little while to get into it and pick up Bellow's writing style, but that's mostly because I had read Hemingway before and it was quite a change. By the end of the book, I felt myself totally relating myself and my own experiences, thoughts and desires to what Augie was expressing. I recommend it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I finished Tender is the Night just the other day. I think that it's a wonderful book, but I probably would have enjoyed it much more if I hadn't kept putting it down, then picking it up and reading it a couple of days later. I'll file it away for rereading later.

I have since started reading The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck, who remains one of my favorite authors. I'm a little over halfway through it and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I really like Ethan Hawley and his thinking, on top of Steinbeck's wonderful ability to capture the idea of American, small town values.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, I finished The Winter of Our Discontent and, true to my love of Steinbeck, I enjoyed the book a whole hell of a lot. It isn't nearly as epic as East of Eden - my all-time favorite book - or The Grapes of Wrath, but it managed to seat itself as my third-favorite Steinbeck, preceded by the aforementioned two.

Today, I picked up a used copy of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, which, from the buzz surrounding it online and amongst people around me, is supposed to be pretty damn good. I read the first chapter on the bus and I like it, although it is a small taste of the book. I've heard Franzen's name mentioned alongside Michael Chabon, whose The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a personal favorite of mine.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I finished reading The Corrections earlier this week. I thought the book was way over-hyped. I was let down, horribly. That's not to say that I didn't like it, but it didn't come close to the expectation I had for it. I liked Denise's and Chip's story arcs, but (I guess this was the point) hated Gary's. As a friend of mine pointed out, Franzen has a knack for getting way too into describing mundane things, it almost detracts from the flow of the narrative. But anyway, I can say that I read it.

I started reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It's not long and pretty easy to get through, so I'm nearly finished with it already. It's more a book about life and one's observations of it, in a weird pseudo-philosopical sense. It's given me things to think about, which, if a book can do, gets a thumbs-up from me.

How ya doing, buddy?

Bringing this thread back from the dead.

I've read a few books since my last post, including Islands in the Stream, A Moveable Feast, and (for the first time, believe it or not) The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway; Watchmen (for the I-lost-count time) by Alan Moore; The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller; Seize the Day by Saul Bellow.

Now, I'm currently reading a giant biography of Steinbeck entitled John Steinbeck, Writer by Jackson J. Benson. As of now, I'm about 200 pages into it and, although it is the first real biography I've read in quite a long time, I'm enjoying it. For as long as I've loved Steinbeck, I've never read anything truly about him. This book is fantastic for not only learning about his life, but also the things that he thought, the backround of his writing, his philosophy, and the ways he was so concentrated and fixated on his writing.

Simultaneously, I'm reading God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Charles Hitchens. I am a Christian, but not one so narrow-minded as to stay away from anything that criticizes the faith. To be honest, the book has given me much to think about and research. A friend lent the book to me along with The Portable Atheist, a collection of writings selected by Hitchens, that is next on my agenda to read.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm reading a hardcover copy that a friend lent to me. I'm not sure if it's out on paperback yet.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

American Gods is fantastic, Atomic. One of my favorites, by far.

FELIPE NO