Fiction

[pontalba]

I'd vote for any Nabokov that was put up....Pnin or The Gift would be fine with me.

[Furphy]

I like your name. It so happens I'm planning to spend the summer with Monsieur Proust in Combray, Balbec and Paris.

(No, that doesn't mean I'm leaving town, not physically.)

If I was going to read anything by Kingsolver it would likely be her new book on eating locally. I have a hate/hate relationship with food and yet go right on eating. Any book that could help me learn to eat rationally would be a boon to me.

Awww, after finishing the book on Pocahontas, her dad & uncle that was discussed in the Amer. Hist. forum, I just went back to John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor for a follow-up re tobacco tie-in (hey, it's better than Tobacco Road!) and rollicking romp it is, too. 

However, if others are in favor, I'd certainly relish re- reading & talking about The Poisonwood Bible (maybe without using the author's name for those worried about the risk of causing the thread to disappear). 

If someone is observing formalities, please count that as a VOTE.

[Lhoffman]

It so happens I'm planning to spend the summer with Monsieur Proust in Combray, Balbec and Paris.

Sounds like a summer well-spent to me.  Are you planning to read all the volumes or begin the first?

I have a hate/hate relationship with food and yet go right on eating.

Not sure there's any way to get around that.

[Furphy]

I've read the thing "through" two or three times....but not since I turned fifty. I expect the years will have added a little salt to the dish.

I have a friend who has volunteered to go down "Swann's Way" with me but after that I suspect I'll be on my own for the other six volumes.

It so happens I'm planning to spend the summer with Monsieur Proust in Combray, Balbec and Paris.

Sounds like a summer well-spent to me.  Are you planning to read all the volumes or begin the first?

I have a hate/hate relationship with food and yet go right on eating.

Not sure there's any way to get around that.

[Charles]

The only way I have even partially won the food battle, was to look down at the plate and tell myself quite deliberately: "Charles, this is trying to kill you."  And that worked for quite a while, because I really knew why and really believed it.

[pontalba]

Furphey,
One day I will read Proust, have it but too many others crowd ahead for the moment.  Not sure it that is good or bad, but is the case.

Charles,
Looking at food that way does help, but it's a con job all the way. 
But I succeeded giving up soft drinks that way, so it will work on occasion.

[Donotremove]

Ya'll, I've read a lot of Kingsolver (I'm not superstitious) non fiction and right now am reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," her most recent book, which is about food.  I have never read any of her fiction.  But I would be up for reading "The Poisonwood Bible" if her fiction writing is two feet solidly on the ground as is so in her non fiction.  I'd have to find a copy.  I mean, you could start without me and I'd catch up.

[Admin]

If you guys want, whenever you want to poll for a book to review, shoot me a private message with the books that you are considering and the date that polling should end and I will post a poll so that you can track results.

[thekid]

This is my first post here so bear with me if I do something wrong.

I noticed that another Exiles members is named NewKid.  I'm not him/her and haven't chosen a name so much like his/hers to be confusing. 

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's novel, Blood Meridian, and I guess identifying with the main character who is referred to as The Kid.

[thekid]

Probably not, pardner.  Isn't that about missionaries and religion?  I'm tryin' to stay away from anything that would lead me into a religious discussion.

[madupont]

I like your name. It so happens I'm planning to spend the summer with Monsieur Proust in Combray, Balbec and Paris.

(No, that doesn't mean I'm leaving town, not physically.)

If I was going to read anything by Kingsolver it would likely be her new book on eating locally. I have a hate/hate relationship with food and yet go right on eating. Any book that could help me learn to eat rationally would be a boon to me.

Awww, after finishing the book on Pocahontas, her dad & uncle that was discussed in the Amer. Hist. forum, I just went back to John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor for a follow-up re tobacco tie-in (hey, it's better than Tobacco Road!) and rollicking romp it is, too. 

However, if others are in favor, I'd certainly relish re- reading & talking about The Poisonwood Bible (maybe without using the author's name for those worried about the risk of causing the thread to disappear). 

If someone is observing formalities, please count that as a VOTE.

Dear nytempsperdu,

That was the part of my transfer from notes to post that disappeared yesterday which began with how I discovered Kennett.   The Bayard Taylor always had the best selection process on current books as well as not mistakenly tossing from their collection what must be retained. They had the complete --A la recherche du temps perdu.

As we all know, it is about several families from Normandy, exactly which is anybody's guess.

[thekid]

Re:  Orhan Pamuk.

I recently read Snow and I've made several unsuccessful atempts at The Black Book.  Having thought long and hard about it I have decided -- right or wrong -- that Pamuk doesn't really add up to all that much.  Does anyone who might be visiting this forum have anything to say in response?  I don't expect you to prove to me that Orhan Pamuk is a great writer or even that he deserved his Nobel Prize.  It's more that I am struggling to come to terms with him, as a reader, and could use some help.  Parts of Snow, by the way, I thought were terrific, but only parts. 

[Lhoffman]

Kid...It seems to me that you either like an author or you don't, and some authors you dislike at one period in your life, but find you can't read enough of an another.  Even the best books can only speak to us where we are. 

Do you know what it is you dislike about Pamuk?  I've not read "The Black Book", but "Snow", "The White Castle", "My Name is Red", and "Istanbul" all have a similar sense of pace.   To me, it has seemed that Pamuk is more about the journey than about the arrival.

[weezo]

Got the Poisonwood Bible on Thursday. Started reading it last night, and couldn't put it down all day. Hubby is expecting that I will finish it before I got to sleep tonight. Fascinating book! Love it! I won't give it away til more have gotten into it.

[thekid]

lhoffman . . . I think you may have a point about Pamuk, i.e. it's more the journey than the destination.  When I finished Snow my first thought was something like "You mean that's where this has been going for 400 pages or so?"

The Black Book, on the other hand, sounds really intriguing -- I like books that play with identity -- but I haven't been able to get more than 70 pages in before my mind begins to wander.  I'll keep trying.