I know about Wizard Knight, but the thing about a boy being transported to medieval times and turning into an adult turned me off. It struck me as odd that such a highly considered writer would opt for such a lame frame for his plot. If it's really good, though, I'll read it.

As for Malazan, I think I'll have to read it so I can really judge for myself whether it's good or not.

Well, that's the entire point of the duology, really. Wolfe intentionally tackles genre tropes such as a regular kid getting transported to a medieval setting, a la "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", and many others (elves, dragons, ogres, giants, etc.), but has new and interesting takes on all of them. Believe me the setup does sound a bit lame on paper, but the books are among my all-time favorites.

Yeah, for sure. Nietzsche makes some comments about ones lineage having importance insofar as one's capacity to be a 'master' or 'high in spirit' and as far as environment goes, I think Heidegger and Sartre both would agree that you're essentially born into a determined familial setting. For Heidegger he would describe this as an initial "fall" into everydayness, an absorption into society and inauthentic being that one must climb out of after a moment of estrangement from society or an epiphany, if you will, thus reclaiming themselves. Sartre also talks about Existential Psychoanalysis and how one must stand outside themselves, as it were, and face the objectivity of who you are and why. I recall from one second in Being and Nothingness where he's talking about a particular psychologist that said after all his years of practice, in most cases, the patient was aware of their psychosis and the same sort of thing applies for Sartre. Bad faith, being simultaneously the deceiver and the deceived, becomes built into us and we have to shed this pattern of behavior in order to move forward with a more lucid consciousnesses that is more in touch with the choices we make.

He also talks some about the labeling of a child that steals, calling them a 'thief' and how labeling can affect them with certain attitudes and in this case, perhaps becomes a phenomenon, a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts where the child might struggle to overcome this negative connotation and so on. It can get pretty complicated, understandably.

Considering language and reality can hardly be divorced, that last bit is certainly reasonable.

Has anyone read Coetzee? I wrote a paper in my senior seminar lit class last semester over Waiting for the Barbarians. Nutty book, nutty author. Brilliant and frustratingly ambiguous in some aspects.

going for the 'classic poets' buy just then. Hopefully I actually enjoy a few of them. Got:

The Complete Poems by Keats
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
The Collected Poems of W.B.Yeats
The Waste Land, Prufrock, and Other Poems by TS Eliot
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck

$40 including shipping, not bad. Cheaper prices at Amazon but they rape you hard for shipping over here. Steinbeck's good value based on the Pearl, rather looking forward to that.

At the very least, I can put the books first and foremost in my bookshelf so I look classy

I've read Foe, which is a bit difficult to grasp in its narrative structure upon a first reading but is otherwise quite an innovative, sobering take on Robinson Crusoe. It doesn't sound quite as 'nutty' as I've heard Waiting for the Barbarians is, though I suppose the enjoyment partly stems from the way he takes characters from this early period of fiction and places them into modern political and social context, whilst retaining the time and place of their original conceiving -- a sort of metaliterature. I might well snag more of his work to read now you've reminded me of him.

Gonna take a lot more poetry books than that, bud.

Well that's a nice list caspian, should make you look real smart. TS Eliot confused me and gave me a headache. I think poetry sucks the big one but one thing I learned in Brit Lit is that Tennyson is awesome! I'm aiming to get a book or two of his stuff to actually read, then it can make my bookshelf look smart.

Just finished American Pastoral. It was brilliant in some places and really drawn out and boring in others. The framing didn't really work in my opinion. All in all I've mixed feelings towards Roth. I own and have read this one, The Plot Against America and Portnoy's Complaint and all of them swing back and forth between brilliance and utter dullness (is that even a word? You know what I mean).

I wrote some comments about Portnoy's COmplaint a couple of pages back. I'm kind of mystified that Roth has earned all the acolaides he has. I don't hate him either, though.

Just read what you wrote (p. 48) and I pretty much agree. It's funny sometimes, over the top, and he IS a good writer, but too have problems hailing him as one of the new(er) literary masters.

I dunno, I've read all of Poe's poetry and loved it and I thought Keats' Hyperion (yeah I read it after I read the sci fi book) was pretty excellent. Generally helps if I'm drunk too. All in all cheap buy + stuff I'll probably enjoy = a worthwhile purchase

you liked Poe's poetry?

I do too I suppose, really I can't think of anything of his that I don't like. Flawless use of language and a very creepy vibe, he's popular for a reason. I usually never think of him as a poet but more as a fiction writer who dabbled in poetry.

I love his prose but his poetry is stale and a little generic to me

Maybe part of that is looking at it from the 21st century though

So... Slaanesh and caspian are looking at it from the the... 19th? 20th? century?

yeah, like his imagery and his use of language. Maybe it is stale, but I'm not exactly a poetry expert so I can't really say I'd know. Sounds good to me so I'll run with it for now.

failsafeman, does James Branch Cabell recall Dunsany, in your opinion, or is it more like Tolkien? By that I mean, is the prose intricate and exact, or rather subtle and witty?

Others may answer my question too if they know.

I have to thank any user in this thread who mentioned The Idiot by Dostoevsky. I loved it and now I'm on to Crime and Punishment and after that I'll be reading The Brothers Karamazov.

I also finished The Magus in the summer and I absolutely loved that as well.

Anybody looking to get into Philosophy should start with Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. It details the more famous philosophers from Socrates to Dewey. It was issued in the 1920s but it has really jumpstarted my interest in Philosophy. One uncommon philosopher that I found intriguing was Schopenhauer. Anybody read his work or books dealing with his views?

Quite possibly, although I don't know their reading habits.

Well to be fair I really do enjoy 19th Century writing, it's so proper and thorough. I think the English language has deteriorated (or evolved) to a point where it's like reading a strange dialect when you read something by Poe or Dickens or even something English from later on like Arthur Conan Doyle. I can see how 19th Century poetry might be diminished by the fact that you're reading it 150 years after it was written so it doesn't seem as visceral or to the point by your standards of language, so I see what Nahsil is getting at.

I've only read Jurgen, but definitely very far from TOlkien. Not much like dunsany either, but closer to that I suppose. WItty and clever and at times really funny and a little bit ribald...

Almost done with TS Eliots Four Quartets. I liked the first two. The second two were a little less interesting to me.

Read the first few pages of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. I think I'm going to like it.

Agreed. Cabell (rhymes with 'rabble' by the way) is basically his own man, but probably closer to Dunsany or Vance in terms of style. He wrote a lot and was actually quite well-known in his time, due to a widely-reported obscenity trial with Jurgen singled out for its sexual content, but he was just not really interested in commercial appeal and so gradually faded from view. However, he was highly regarded by contemporaries like Mark Twain and H L Mencken, and was a clear influence on Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance, Neil Gaiman, and many others.

Check this page on him out if you want a better picture of his work. It also includes brief excerpts.

For the official record, you can get Jurgen here in a few formats, including epub:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8771

Anyone read Mustaine's book? Dude's so full of himself it's unbelievable. Of course this isn't news to anyone here, but it's still an amusing read

I agree that "The Hospice" is unassailable. Out of curiosity, where did you encounter the story? I first read it in the very fine Marvin Kaye-edited collection Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural. Unfortunately the Aickman stories I've read are scattered around many such collections. I would love to see a book compiling his works with a reasonable print-run.

I read it in the Aickman collection Cold Hand in Mine, which honestly had a number of clunkers. Painted Devils was probably a better collection overall, so try looking into that one instead; if you've already read "The Hospice", you've already read the best story in Cold Hand in Mine. There were a few other excellent stories though, like "The Same Dog". That one was classic Aickman. Neither collection was expensive when I bought them used.

I've never been really into books, but right now i want to start reading, I though it would be nice to begin with something like The Dark Tower or A Song of Ice and Fire series... or maybe they are to complex/deep for a starter? Which other books would be nice to read?

ASOIAF isn't too complex, it's quite easy to read. I'm a French speaker and i had no problems reading them in English, the style is not very poetic. You should read them if you have the chance.

I read a passage from that in a lit class, intense stuff. I need to read it someday.

also, bought Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and Alan Watts' The Book yesterday. Fun times ahead. Love the NotR movie, though I'm sure the book is very different.

Then, thats the one i will get!

I love Invisible Man. Much more than The Stranger, imho.

Oh, Name of the Rose is so, so much better as a book. The film is quite excellent, really, (ranks up there with The Human Stain as one of the best literary book-to-screen adaptations) but Eco's florid vocabulary, his detailed descriptions and his positively intimidating knowledge on his subject material make it one of the most thoroughly worthwhile novel's I've ever read. An absolute joy from cover to cover.

I have to second this! I saw the movie of NoTR first and hated it - too much mud. But the book is awe-inspiring! If you like it, I recommend reading some of Eco's non-fiction, especially about art history - it's in a similar style, and just as layered; check out his two-volume history of beauty/ugliness, which not only have incredible images, but a lot of great observations about religion/death/fear/horror.

"The Invisible Man" is also one of my favourites - it just sears itself into your consciousness.

Invisible Man or The Invisible Man?

Because they are very, very different.

Typo, dude. "Invisible Man". Although the Wells isn't bad either...

just started reading Kim Newman's latest novel and it's even better than I already expected.
This author is a total genius!!!!

Kim Newman - "Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles"

I'm starting to dig into Beat literature/poetry, and as maddening as it can get, I find it to be completely brilliant. Sometimes it can get, well, pretty incoherent, and even downright nude sick, but I really like what I've read so far. I have Kaddish and Other Poems by Ginsberg, Kerouac's Scattered Poems, Pictures of the Gone World by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Beat Poets ( http://www.amazon.com/Beat-Poets-Everym ... 184159749X ).

Ferlinghetti is, by far, the most honest and sane of them all. However, I've just begun to really get into the Beat Generation. Howl is on my list to read and I'm currently in the beginning chapters of On The Road. Any other essentials that I should read?

My favorite lit professor's specialty was beat stuff. I wish I'd taken his class on the period.

The little bit of Ginsberg I read last semester was pretty damn cool despite being whacked out to all hell. Or rather, 'BECAUSE OF being whacked out to all hell.'