BOOKS THREAD

Has anyone read Sepinwall's book?

Is it worth getting? about $10 on Kindle

 

It's sitting on my coffee table. I'm sure it's worth it. Mine was free, but I do have to take it back to the library eventually.

Just finished the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2013, the Orphan Master's Son. Not sure it's Pulitzer-worthy. It's good, don't get me wrong. I think that since it is a novel set in North Korea, and there are very few of those, it won the prize. Is it a novel ABOUT North Korea? Who knows how much of the subject matter is based on reality and how much the author just dreamed up. It's pretty outlandish in its descriptions of the prison camps, starving people scrounging up food, and people living in fear of saying the wrong thing to get sent to the camps.

 

I've read some bits from JR's copy and like it very much. Will eventually get down to reading the whole thing but definitely $10 well spent IMO (assuming you like Sepinwall).

 

I'm a huge fan of Nelson DeMille, and his book "Up Country" is one of my best reads ever. Set in North Vietnam a couple of decades after the war, it's an intense spy thriller that also gives you a decent look into the communist nation today. Lots of traveling about during the mission, so it's a good little travelogue, too.

Like all of DeMille's books, "Up Country" is hard to put down. Riveting all the way.

 

Maybe this should be another thread but I want to read quality, even if its a slower read. So my research has led me to the following writers, Roth, Delilo, Chabon, mcCarthy and Docktorow. I've read Sabbaths Theater and The Plot Against America.
Give me some reading suggestions, please

 

It's Doctorow, not Docktorow.

 

i no.

 

Pass on him. I read "Ragtime" and "The March." "Ragtime" was decent but overwritten. That said, I appreciate its place in history and its influence over a lot of the historical fiction that I do like (notably, Dennis Lehane.)

"The March" was just trash. Poor plot, poor development of characters ... dreadfully boring.

By all accounts, I should be a great Doctorow fan. But I just can't get into him.

 

Just finished Someone Could Get Hurt (a memoir of 21st century parenthood) by Drew Magary. I'm not even a parent and I still found it hilarious. It also reinforced the whole "I'm never having kids" thing as well, which was nice.

Any parents with a sense of humor should give it a read. He does mix in a serious tone, though, especially when talking about the complications after the birth of his third child. Some scary stuff.

 

I liked "Ragtime" a lot as a story from that time. But it's the only Doctorow book I've read.

 

Rod Stewart's autobiography is highly recommended, very entertaining, funny and honest.

 

'yab:

Try "The Yiddish Policeman's Union." It represents Chabon hitting his sweet spot. Literary, re-imagined history, great characters, but also tethered to a plot that moves the action forward.

If you like it, move on to Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It is much more dense, but moving and effective by the end.