WWW Wednesdays (May 30)

So I don't seem to space out the timing of my posts very well.  Whatever... Time for WWW Wednesdays! (Hosted by Should be Reading)

What are you currently reading?
Right now I'm reading "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski  I'm only about 50 pages in and though I have some issues with the frame narrator (Does every book written in the 90s have to have a slacker protagonist?) it's one of the most engaging books I've read for a while and I have a feeling it could take a twist at any point so I'm crossing my fingers that the frame narrator will turn out more interesting than he first appears.

What did you recently finish reading?
"Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino.  The review will be shortly forthcoming but the book was as brilliant as I hoped it would be.

What do you think you'll read next?
Probably "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pychon.  I've been wanting to read a Pychon book for a while and "The Crying of Lot 49" seems like the most sensible place to get a taste.  After that, I think I'll take a break from the post modern but I haven't decided on a book yet.

Teaser Tuesdays "The Bloody Chamber"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I've been away for a while but now that summer is here I'll be updating regularly once again.  We'll start out with a Teaser Tuesday.  Technically I finished this book, "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter, last night but the prose is so rich it would be a shame to let technicalities prevent me from sharing a quote from it. I'll be posting a full review within the next few days but suffice to say it's the prose that really carries this slim collection of creepy, re-imagined fairy tales.  Regarding wolves:

"They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, grey members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long, wavering howl . . . an aria of fear made audible.

The wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering." ("The Bloody Chamber," 110)

WWW Wednesdays (August 17)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

I don't usually do this "bookish meme" (oh, how I hate the word meme) but since laziness got the better of me yesterday and I didn't do a Teaser Tuesday I decided to give this one a whirl.

• What are you currently reading?

I'm currently reading "Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov, best known for writing "Lolita."  I'm not very far into the book but so far the it's a clever and funny look into a pathetic professor's life.  Humor doesn't normally age well but this 1953 book is still hilarious and I'm looking forward to getting back to reading it.

• What did you recently finish reading?

I recently went on a mini South American writer kick and read "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges (which I loved) and "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho (which I didn't).  The reviews will be forthcoming as soon as I can force myself to sit down and write more than three coherent sentences in a row.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

The next book I'll tackle largely depends on how long it will take to finish "Pnin".  If I finish "Pnin" before Friday I'll probably read "Mao II," a book by one of my favorite authors, Don DeLillo, that has been sitting in my to-read pile and tempting me for about a month.  Otherwise I'll read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac next in conjunction with a long road trip.

Teaser Tuesdays "Ficciones"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

     I'm currently reading "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges and it was very hard to select a quote.  Borges doesn't go for simple, powerful lines but instead weaves a story with slowly growing layers of detail.  This makes for an absolutely fascinating read but does not lend itself to short spoiler free quotes so this is the best I could find:

     "'The work will make no pact with the impostor Jesus Christ.' Buckley did not believe in God, but he wanted to demonstrate to this nonexistent God that mortal man was capable of conceiving a world." --"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges 

artwork by Ben Clarkson

Teaser Tuesdays "My First Summer in the Sierra"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It seems extravagant to spend hours so precious in sleep... Pity the poor beloved needs it, weak, weary, forspent; oh the pity of it, to sleep in the midst of eternal beautiful motion instead of gazing forever, like the stars." --"My First Summer in the Sierra" by John Muir

Teaser Tuesdays "Grab on to me Tightly as if I Knew the Way"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This book has some of the best prose I've ever read and unfortunately two sentences doesn't do it anywhere near justice.  The review I'll be posting in a few days will likely include more quotes, but for now I suppose a small taste of a book filled with memorable lines won't hurt.

"So we go to bed not knowing and wake up not knowing and from dream to dream everything goes wrong.  Someone's sculpting my ice-block heart with a chainsaw." --"Grab on to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way" by Bryan Charles

Teaser Tuesdays "The Enchantress of Florence"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"He would die without telling his story. He found this thought intolerable and so it refused to leave him, it crawled in and out of his ears, slid into the corners of his eyes and stuck to the roof of his mouth and to the soft tissue under his tongue." --"The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie

Teaser Tuesdays "Survival Rates"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 "He thinks the mountains seem close today, particularly inhospitable in the noon light.  The olive green of the saguaros reminds him of a tank's armor, and there's a glare that makes him feel thirsty." --"Survival Rates" by Mary Clyde