Tanstaafl 2009

Talk75 Books Challenge for 2009

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Tanstaafl 2009

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2drneutron
Jan 22, 2009, 4:38 pm

Nice list! Welcome to the group.

3tanstaafl
Jan 22, 2009, 5:02 pm

Thanks it looks like a really cool group.

4ladydzura
Jan 22, 2009, 5:08 pm

Hello and welcome! What did you think of You Suck? I've taken a liking to Christopher Moore, but I haven't yet read that one.

5alcottacre
Jan 22, 2009, 11:57 pm

Welcome to the group! Always nice to have another Michael Connelly fan around.

6tanstaafl
Jan 23, 2009, 10:48 am

I love Christopher Moore. And I have never read a book of his I didn't like. And I have read them all I think unless he has just published one that I missed. But that said . . .

It was far from my favourite. I would have preferred he had done a sequel to pretty much anything other than Bloddsucking Fiends, whoch was also not one of my favorites.

So although I liked it, and if you have taken a liking to Moore you probably will too, don't expect a Lamb or a Practical Demonkeeping or a . . . ;-)

7tanstaafl
Jan 23, 2009, 10:51 am

Thanks, and yes I love Micheal Connelly. I don't know how I missed reading Echo Park until it was in the bargain bin and his new one had come out too. (But my wallet is glad)

I wish Connelly could go over to James Ellroy's house and teach him how to write books quicker.

8aquascum
Jan 30, 2009, 2:45 pm

9tanstaafl
Feb 18, 2009, 4:01 pm

11. Anathem - Neal Stephenson
12. The Sky So Big and Black - John Barnes
13. Never let me go - Kazuo Ishiguro
14. Rich Man, Poor Man - Irwin Shaw
15. Beggerman, Thief - Irwin Shaw
16. Q & A - Vikas Swarup
17 Neuromancer - William Gibson
18 The Secret Founding of America - Nicholas Hagger
19 Bernard Cornwell - The Pale Horseman
20. The Namesake -Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Up Country - Nelson DeMille
22. An Insider's View of Mormon Origins - Grant Palmer
23. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol

10ronincats
Feb 18, 2009, 5:59 pm

So what did you think of Anathem? And Neuromancer, although it's been ages since I read it. It sounds like I need to check out Christopher Moore's work. Does it come in mass paperbacks? I looked for him at Mysterious Galaxy last weekend, and only saw trade paperbacks of his stuff.

11tanstaafl
Feb 19, 2009, 4:11 pm

Everything I own of Moore's is either hardback or trade PB, so Im pretty sure thats all there is. You might want to try Adams Ave Bookstore and see what they have in stock - if they do have some of his stuff in stock, it will be cheaper than the 7.99 you would pay for a mass market anyway.

I loved Anathem. But its not a beach read, if you know what I mean. Have you read Stephenson before? If so you know what I'm talking about - its back to more pure SF, but it still has plenty of philosphical and historical meanderings along the way, it's just that the history is not of Earth. ;-)

Neuromancer has been sitting on my bookshelves for about 25 years and I never got around to reading it. I was dissapointed. It's not that I didn't like it, but that it was nowhere near as good as I was expecting. I may have liked it much more than I did reading it now if I had read it 25 years ago. What was bold and visionary then seemed to me to be a rip-off of the matirx or something. Yes I know, it was the matrix that ripped off neuromancer, but that is what it seemed like while reading it.

12ronincats
Feb 19, 2009, 5:55 pm

good idea! I have some credit at the Adams Avenue Bookstore I need to use up anyway. I must confess, it has gotten so easy to mooch or swap books online, I do not get out the the used book shops that much. Actually, I never had the time to get there that often except in the summer. But I digress. I will check for Moore in the USBs around here--Adams or Wahrenbrocks or Nina's up on El Cajon and College.

I have read Stephenson, but haven't tackled Anathem yet. Maybe this summer? But not at the beach!

I hear that reaction to Neuromancer a lot from people who have only read it in the last 10 years. I think the timing does have a lot to do with it. When it first came out, and that's when I read it, it WAS the first and was fresh and novel and exciting. It set the groundwork, and others build on it.