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Pit Book/Discussion Thread

Just finished reading The Martian. Great read for anyone even somewhat interested in space, astronomy, science, etc. It's pretty short too.
 
Just started A Canticle for Leibowitz over the weekend. I'm enjoying it so far. Anyone else read it? I'd never heard of it until a friend recommended it.
 
Anyone here read "Child 44?" Is the whole series worth reading? I'm about 200 pages into the first book and so far I like it as just a fast paced page turner. I plan on finishing it before the Tom Hardy/Gary Oldman movie comes out in April.
 
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wfudkn said:
Just started A Canticle for Leibowitz over the weekend. I'm enjoying it so far. Anyone else read it? I'd never heard of it until a friend recommended it.
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That's been sitting on my shelf for like 3 years. Let me know how it goes- it came pretty highly recommended.
 
Wake's rare books collection is a real gem that's under-utilized, IMO. Same with Reynolda House. I had a couple classes that incorporated trips to those places, and I'm grateful.
 
Finally got around to Don Quixote last month, and finished it this week. Not my absolute favorite, but I enjoyed it, and can see why it gained the reputation it did. Cervantes was certainly pissed about the spurious part two, which I had no idea existed.

Speaking of which, found this while looking up information about the book.
 
wakephan09 said:
Did you have much trouble with the Spanish?
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Ha. Part of the reason I was waiting so long to read it was that I was hoping to tackle it in Spanish one day (took half a dozen Spanish classes at Wake and was at one time decent at it). Eight years of not practicing the language later, I caved and got the Edith Grossman translation.
 
OldGoldBeard said:
Ha. Part of the reason I was waiting so long to read it was that I was hoping to tackle it in Spanish one day (took half a dozen Spanish classes at Wake and was at one time decent at it). Eight years of not practicing the language later, I caved and got the Edith Grossman translation.
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LOL. Same here. Still waiting and hoping. Spanish not getting any better.
 
Reading The General in His Labrynth now and I wonder what it's like to read GGM in Spanish. His prose is so beautiful, even translated.
 
I was hanging in the meadow yesterday and my buddy was reading some choice passages from Annie Dillard stuff. Man, they really grabbed me. I loved her essay Total Eclipse which I read the other week before I knew a total eclipse was on the horizon -- has anyone read any? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, the collection Teaching a Stone to Talk? It all sounded good, I'm going after it after I read this Thomas Mann collection I'm into now.

PS -- Dharma Bums really fucked with me. My friend and I went on a hike yesterday to meditate and be in nature like Ray and Japhy -- he's prepping for doing some of the Muir Trail this summer and now I wish I was going.
 
El Chupacabra said:
I was hanging in the meadow yesterday and my buddy was reading some choice passages from Annie Dillard stuff. Man, they really grabbed me. I loved her essay Total Eclipse which I read the other week before I knew a total eclipse was on the horizon -- has anyone read any? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, the collection Teaching a Stone to Talk? It all sounded good, I'm going after it after I read this Thomas Mann collection I'm into now.

PS -- Dharma Bums really fucked with me. My friend and I went on a hike yesterday to meditate and be in nature like Ray and Japhy -- he's prepping for doing some of the Muir Trail this summer and now I wish I was going.
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Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder):

AVOCADO BY GARY SNYDER
The Dharma is like an Avocado!
Some parts so ripe you can’t believe it.
But it’s good.
And other parts hard and green
Without much flavor,
Pleasing those who like their eggs well-cooked.

And the skin is thin,
The great big round seed
In the middle,
Is your own Original Nature –
Pure and smooth,
Almost nobody ever splits it open
Or tries to see
If it will grow.

Hard and slippery,
It looks like
You should plant it – but then
It shoots out thru the
fingers –

gets away.
 
Finished Nicholas Nickleby over the weekend. It was a good story, but, like a lot of Dickens's stuff, the characters were so flat. The good guys did good things; the bad guys did bad things; the silly, long-winded characters made silly, long-winded speeches. It really detracts from the book.
 
Just finished In Cold Blood the other day and it's one of the most well-written works of English I've ever read. It works both as a novel and as a true crime story, and remains a page-turner right till the end (with the exception of a bizarre section devoted to psychoanalyzing a letter from one of the killers' fathers).

I immediately jumped into Bitter Blood thanks to tsy's recent thread, but I'm exhausted. It's taking me a little while to adjust to the shift in narrative voice, which fortunately isn't too different in style, but isn't quite as... Piquant? Definitely an interesting story so far.
 
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