Merry Christmas! It's December and I am reading...

I loved that too. I'm reading something by a Moldavian writer who recently received Romanian citizenship.

Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen. It's good so far.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait.

Stephen King's Different Seasons

I am extremely jealous and quite intimidated by how quickly Irina flies through books

Both are very short books, and I'm trying to make up for November when I read TOO little.

You still read very quickly and frequently add to conversations about books you've read.

Usually (from my experiences), people who read slow (like me) retain a lot of the information while quick readers retain little.

You seem to be an exception to that rule. I'm envious.

I'm trying to read again but haven't been successful. I read about 2 pages of Company by Max Barry. I'm too distracted.

That book is effing great!

But, you should go get - You Can Make Him Like You by Ben Tanzer. It's really good. Easy to get into. Funny. Fast paced. Etc!

And it's the book club selection.

And Ben is going to be checking in.

I finished reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Murakami, despite being a memoir mainly about running and writing, it was better than I expected. Here's a quote I retained from the novel:

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of different people. Other people have their their own values to live by, and the same holds true for me. These differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disgreements can give rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized.

I think it's true. People will often assume something about you that may not be true, but rather than trying to appease everyone, it's best to just do what makes you happy. Life's too short.

Anyway, if reading too fast is a crime, than lock me away and throw away the key, cause now I'm readng Bronson by Charles Bronson.

Started The Glass Bead Game by Hesse. So long, fast reading.

This was sooooooo good. It's a book I'll remember forever.

I'm not sure what I'll read next though.

Here I thought Chopper Read was the baddest, craziest mofo alive, when he planned to spineshank all of the prisoners of H Division and turn them all into jelly sandwiches. But after reading about Bronson holding Category A prisoners hostage and demanding a blow-up doll, two Uzis and 5,000 rounds, I now believe that title belongs to Charles Bronson!

Now I'm ducking off to read Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn. I found this listed in NY Times' 100 Notable Books of 2011.

So that Bronson book was pretty badass then? I've thought of giving that a go a few times, but I don't know anybody that's read it.

I've read it. Had high hopes for it, but meh, I don't know. I got so frustrated with Bronson while reading the book that I couldn't "enjoy" it.

Explain more please Imke.

The choices he made annoyed me, which somewhat ruined it for me. You could also say it's a great book, because it managed to get under my skin so much, but yeah.

Well that was the whole thing about Bronson. He obviously made a lot of poor choices if he was sentenced to 7 years and ended up serving, what, 14 years? lol

I finished You Can Make Him Like You a few days ago. It's great. I think most of the people here would love it. And I'm not just saying that because it's the Book Club book. It was just a really good book.

Starting The Marriage Plot now.

Yeah, I know. It just bothered me too much, haha.

Yeah. To say, Bronson has a tendency towards violence is an understatement. He brings to mind fighters who compete past their prime and war junkies (soldiers who serve numerous tours of duty).

I felt frustrated with Bronson too. He'd talk about how depressing long periods of solitary confinement was, only to clock a screw over the head when he was let out for no good reason.

Finished The Glass Bead Game last night (much earlier than I expected), and I'll start Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. This is a short one, so I MAY even be able to do the 200/1001 thing.

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. I'll read The Rum Diary in January because I liked the movie.

The Rum Diary is one of my fav. from HST, I'm glad someone else liked the movie as well! Right now I'm bidding on a pair of sunglasses similar to the ones Johnny Depp wore in the film

Just finished reading "Big Sur" from Jack Kerouac. Now reading Helter Skelter, can't wait! Heard a lot of good things about this book.

After The Quake by Haruki Murakami.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This is the 200th off the 1001 books to read in a lifetime list.

*proud*

NICE!

Now what's your goal for next year?

Spiral by Koji Suzuki.

I'll make a literary resolutions thread closer to the end of the month.

Good call. And something new. The book club really hasn't been getting much in the new threads department. ha

According to Goodreads, I am currently reading 17 books. Kindle says I am reading 11. There is some overlap there, but not a lot. They're all things I want to be reading, but I can't focus on anything long enough to read more than a few pages.

Annoying and Frustrating.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

A Dance With Dragons - George RR Martin. Finally!

My boyfriend got me Pocket Notebook by Mike Thomas (which I had been wanting to read!) yesterday, so I'll start reading that today.

The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford.

Most will know it as "Full Metal Jacket". He has an interesting and fairly unique writing style; very punchy, sharp, and terse. I'm calling it Viet Noir.

Hehe. Viet Noir.

game of thrones, the first book. it's good.

it's been a while since i've read a book that i can't wait to see what happens next.

I've been slowly reading Grendel by Gardner and I started one of the pdfs Irina sent me Las travesuras de la nina mala

I just started The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami.

I always feel weird posting what I am reading. Like it is too intimate or something.

Anyway. This weekend I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

I don't think I can recommend it enough. I had to keep rechecking that it was a man who wrote it. It goes into the depths of what love, in all of its forms, means to a woman. The suffering and the offering of what it means to love as a woman.

I usually won't recommend books. But I just have too with this one.

I loved that book.

That book was so beautiful, Amber.

I'm seriously considering writing a letter thanking the author for writing it. It was just so thoughtful and beautiful and heart wrenching.

Snow Angles by Stewart O’Nan.

Finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which was amazing, and starting 1Q84 by Murakami later today.

Short. Brutal. Amazing.

Hasford wrote three books, now all sadly out of print. He was also a bit of a criminal lunatic.

In 1988, shortly before the Oscar ceremony, Hasford was charged for theft after campus police from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, found nearly 10,000 library books in his rented storage locker. At that time, he had 87 overdue books and five years of the magazine Civil War Times checked out from the Cal Poly-SBO library; the materials were valued at over $2,000. Hasford's book collection included books borrowed (and never returned) from dozens of libraries across the United States, and from libraries in the United Kingdom and Australia. Others were allegedly taken from the homes of acquaintances. Among them were 19th-century books on Edgar Allan Poe and the American Civil War. He had obtained borrowing privileges at Cal Poly-SBO as a California resident, but submitted a false address and Social Security number. In 1985, he had borrowed 98 books from the Sacramento, California public library, and was wanted for grand theft there. Hasford initially denied the charges, but eventually admitted possession of several hundred stolen books, and pled "no contest" to possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment (of which he served three months), and promised to pay restitution from the royalties for his future works. Hasford claimed that he wanted the books to research a never-published book on the Civil War. He described his difficulties as "a vicious attack launched against me by moral majority fanatics backed up by the full power of the Fascist State."

In 1990 he published a second novel, The Phantom Blooper, a sequel to The Short-Timers. Hasford's final novel was A Gypsy Good Time, a detective story set in Los Angeles. It was published in 1992, and received little notice. Hasford, suffering from diabetes, moved to the Greek island of Aegina and died there of heart failure on 29 January 1993. - Wikipedia

Now reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It's better than you remember.

Good so far, moving on to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy next.

Made a start on

The Virgin Suicides

by Jeffery Eugenides.

LOVED that book, Sarah.

Yeah, The Virgin Suicides is very good. As is Middlesex. Has anyone made it through The Marriage Plot yet? How does it stack up?