I give up
posted by Tim Walters @ 3:23 PM It's just been too long, so I'm not going to even try to do actual reviewlets. Just a list, not even in order.Douglas Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach (re-read)
Steven R. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner: Freakonomics*
John Crowley: The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines
Bernard Wolfe: Logan's Gone
Greg Egan: Schild's Ladder
John Scalzi: Old Man's War
Daniel Dennett: Freedom Evolves (re-read)
Colin Wilson: The Outsider
Poul Anderson: Fantasy
Peter S. Beagle: Tamsin
Milan Kundera: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood
Philip Pullman: Lyra's Oxford
Robert Charles Wilson: Spin
T.J. Bass: The Godwhale
John Varley: Red Thunder
Pat Cadigan: Tea From An Empty Cup
Currently I'm reading a very long multi-volume work, very slowly. Maybe when I finish that I'll something to say. After that I need to work through the Hugo nominees so I can cast informed votes.
Which brings up an interesting ethical question: do I need to read George R.R. Martin's A Feast For Crows? I've read the first two in the series, and decided not to continue--it's not bad, by any means, but there's way too much of it. Now the fourth doorstop is nominated, which means 2300 pages of reading just to make absolutely sure I don't think it's Hugo-worthy. I'm inclined to take a pass.
*Okay, I do have to mention one thing about Freakonomics: I don't think I've ever read another book where the epigram for each chapter was taken from one co-author's puff piece about the other co-author. That's just embarrassing.
3 Comments:
I have not read Feast of Crows yet, but I did read the first three. The main reason I'm waiting is because I've heard that not all that much important happens in it. Still, I love the series. If you read the second but not the third, I can see why you might be hesitant about continuing, as the second is the worst of the first three. A lot happens in Storm of Swords though and was well worth it, I thought. But you're right, sometimes it's all a bit too much to absorb - another reason I haven't brought myself to read the new one is because I'm having trouble remembering what happened in the last one.
I'm not sure I have that much of a taste for dynastic/political intrigue in the first place; I tend to tune it out after a while, even in otherwise good books like Green Mars and The Snow Queen. I love Fletcher Pratt's The Well Of The Unicorn, though, which is clearly one of Martin's influences; maybe it's because there's a steady viewpoint character, and he's of lowly origin and only gradually gets involved. Also Pratt just rocks.
Nice list, eclectic and substantial. I feel like I've read a couple of issues of READER'S DIGEST in the same time. What did you decide about the George Railroad Martin?
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