Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#32The Rise of Siri. http://theriseofsiri.com/ It's pretty short, but it reads like it's happening right now. Fun to see stuff we read about on Techmeme fictionalized.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#33For fun:
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
For figure out a web front end for my REST API: AngularJS by Brad Green & Shyam Seshadri
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#34Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I can't figure it out. It seems like it might be terrible. I'm half enjoying it and half sort of hypnotized like a chicken by it.
FWIW, i think it's terrible. There's a few really excellent pieces of writing sprinkled throughout it, but the whole thing felt hollow and self-indulgent to me.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#35The Machinery of Freedom by David D. Friedman.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#36Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I can't figure it out. It seems like it might be terrible. I'm half enjoying it and half sort of hypnotized like a chicken by it.
FWIW, i think it's terrible. There's a few really excellent pieces of writing sprinkled throughout it, but the whole thing felt hollow and self-indulgent to me.
I guess it's a failed experiment the way Catcher in the Rye was a successful experiment. But it's kind of interesting despite that. I like how daringly he injects esoteric religious material into conventional 1950s settings. But it was too hard to pull off. None of the characters is captivating and most of them, especially Zooey, are asses in a way that doesn't feel entirely intentional.
I'm on a Salinger kick, having run across his books for a couple bucks in a used bookstore and never having read him before. He is a singular writer. Catcher was a freak success. Like Kurt Cobain, Salinger would clearly have been happier as an obscure cult artist. But Catcher was the opening bell of the 60s counterculture just as the 50s were getting started. Once it picked up a wave it became a tsunami.
I was surprised at how good the pieces in Nine Stories are, e.g. "The Laughing Man" and "Love and Squalor". He paints childhood and adolescence beautifully, as well as charming interactions between children and sensitive young men. But it all gives an impression of, um, arrested development. Did he write any great adult characters? The pervy teacher in Catcher doesn't count. It seems that adults in Salinger's world mostly just get sour, and the one who is clearly his favorite he has blow his brains out in front of his wife.
More Salinger books are supposed to be coming out now that he's beyond the reach of his fans and the press, and it will be interesting to see on which side of the divide they end up. One hopes they'll be awesome. But I suspect the odds are better that they'll be weird and turned in on themselves.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#37Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3) - James S.A. Corey - Its a pretty amazing series.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#38Just finished http://www.josh.is/rood-a-cyberpunk-novel/
I actually read it a few years back, but came across it the other day, and decided to read it again.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#39Not reading it currently, but I can't let a thread like this go by without suggesting the Silo Saga by Hugh Howey. The first book in the series is "Wool: Part 1", which (last I looked) was a free Kindle book on Amazon, and I'd graduated to purchasing the rest of the series before finishing the second chapter.
It's a phenomenal series, and I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to find it.
Aside from that, I had started (before his passing) an Elmore Leonard marathon with the goal of completing every single novel that Leonard has ever written. If you're ordinarily a sci-fi reader, perhaps this isn't the best suggestion, but I find the wit, terseness and change of pace extremely refreshing.
Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, i think it's terrible. There's a few really excellent pieces of writing sprinkled throughout it, but the whole thing felt hollow and self-indulgent to me.
I guess it's a failed experiment the way Catcher in the Rye was a successful experiment. But it's kind of interesting despite that. I like how daringly he injects esoteric religious material into conventional 1950s settings. But it was too hard to pull off. None of the characters is captivating and most of them, especially Zooey, are asses in a way that doesn't feel entirely intentional. I'm on a Salinger kick, havin…
Could it also be that _Zooey_ was simply read at a different time in your life? I first read _Catcher_ when I was the disgruntled youth that you expect to read it, and found it brilliant. I've re-read it a couple times since then and now find it far less so.
I acknowledge that the writing is still really great, but I'm just not able to connect to it the same way I do other books that I read from the same era.