
Easy read, and to be honest I loved it. My wife kind of said "all those rock n roll books are the same" which maybe true in terms of what one did/does in a band, but that's only a small part of someones life.
nausearockpig wrote:that was a really good read.
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Clearly history (and Kate Atkinson) have plans for her: In Ursula rests nothing less than the fate of civilization.
Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best, playing with time and history, telling a story that is breathtaking for both its audacity and its endless satisfactions.
I like having a couple of books on the go at the same time.Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Canada's Governor General's Literary Award, a breathtaking feat of storytelling where everything is connected, but nothing is as it seems....
It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky.
Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bus, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner. It is a thrilling achievement for someone still in her midtwenties, and will confirm for critics and readers that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament.
I saw/heard J. Courtney Sullivan who sat with a panel of writers at one of the events at the Boston Book Festival (back in Oct.), and she sang the praises of Atkinson and her book. It is on my list!Artemis wrote:I bought two new books today. One of my resolutions this year is to read more books. In 2013 I didn't read a single book...not even a short story!
![]()
It's excellent so far. Years ago I tried to read The Satanic Verses and failed miserably, mostly because I found the writing tedious, but I'm not sure why, because Midnight's Children and Shame (so far) I've found extremely easy to read, and I think Rushdie may be the best writing in English since Shakespeare.Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983. Like most of Rushdie's work, this book was written in the style of magic realism. It portrays the lives of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Iskander Harappa) and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (General Raza Hyder) and their relationship. The central theme of the novel is that violence is born out of shame. The concepts of 'shame' and 'shamelessness' are explored through all of the characters, with main focus on Sufiya Zinobia and Omar Khayyám.
Shame discusses heritage, authenticity, truth, and, of course, shame and shamelessness, as well as the impact of all these themes on an individual, the protagonist Omar Khayyám.
Rushdie wrote Shame after his second novel Midnight's Children.
Reza Aslan is kind of a douchey character, but that interview he did with Fox News about that book had me laughing so hard: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski ... as-ever-doguysmiley wrote:A People's History of the United States. By Howard Zinn. Should have read it in college. Also a book called Zealot. I found it to disprove most of Christianity and show how bias history is. I love history.
try Conrad.Adurentibus Spina wrote:
It's excellent so far. Years ago I tried to read The Satanic Verses and failed miserably, mostly because I found the writing tedious, but I'm not sure why, because Midnight's Children and Shame (so far) I've found extremely easy to read, and I think Rushdie may be the best writing in English since Shakespeare.Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983. Like most of Rushdie's work, this book was written in the style of magic realism. It portrays the lives of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Iskander Harappa) and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (General Raza Hyder) and their relationship. The central theme of the novel is that violence is born out of shame. The concepts of 'shame' and 'shamelessness' are explored through all of the characters, with main focus on Sufiya Zinobia and Omar Khayyám.
Shame discusses heritage, authenticity, truth, and, of course, shame and shamelessness, as well as the impact of all these themes on an individual, the protagonist Omar Khayyám.
Rushdie wrote Shame after his second novel Midnight's Children.