What are you reading now?

[Absorbine_Sr]

The second volume of Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler.

[Chekhonte]

and maybe a little bit of

You might really like the castle and the trial, very similar stories. They are both so goddamned exceptional and not only two of my favorite kafka stories but two of my favorite stories period. They are both, like all of kafkas writing very challenging to read and may be a little daunting but so fucking worth it.

[humanflyz]

oh my, The Castle and The Trial are must read pieces. i never found Kafka to be that particularly challenging, but i read enough German to make my way through them (if slowly), so i usually have English translations and the German right next to each other when i read his work (i usually go to the German when a passage seems to be convoluted in English), which really helps. i do the same thing when i read Mann (i love Mann's work).

I have never found Kafka hard to read from a stylistic/linguistic perspective, since he doesn't really write in a convoluted style or use unusual syntax. But I find him difficult to read because after reading Kafka, I feel like suffocated, spiritually, and that's most likely the effect he intended anyways.

[Dusty Chalk]

I love the fact that Jacob can go from Tolstoy to Buffy to Kafka without even a misstep.

[postjack]

But I find him difficult to read because after reading Kafka, I feel like suffocated, spiritually, and that's most likely the effect he intended anyways.

wow. reminds me of how I felt after reading Burroughs, except dirtier.

[Thelonious Monk]

I have to write a book report on this...

or this:

[saint.panda]

anyone here who hasn't read Mann, needs to, now. i'd suggest The Tin Drum before trying The Magic Mountain.

Mann is fucking great. Best German writer ever. Well my favourite at least with Kafka a close second and then either Nietzsche or D

[Chekhonte]

Mann is fucking great. Best German writer ever. Well my favourite at least with Kafka a close second and then either Nietzsche or D

[Thelonious Monk]

Goethe and Hesse are as good as Mann, IMO.

[saint.panda]

Goethe and Hesse are as good as Mann, IMO.

Hesse is cool. Goethe is a bit too old-fashioned for me. Faust is great though.

[krrm]

I love Mann just for the beatiful language, and luckily I have a few more books of him to pick up.

As for Kafka I like the Castle better then the Trial. To me there is a lot of humor in Kafka, but it isn't written in big letters, more of a very subtle British understatement thing.

A German language author that might have some relavancy here is the Austrian Thomas Bernard, and in particular with The Looser (Der Untergeher), which tells the story of two would-be piano virtuosos whose dreams of glory are dashed by their meeting Glenn Gould as students in Salzburg. http://www.thomasbernhard.org/cousineautbintro.shtml.

[saint.panda]

I'm re-reading Patrick French's "Tibet, Tibet", a very balanced and personal account on the Tibet issue. I brought it to China in case I would get bugged from all sides about the current events, which is exactly what happened.

It's funny how you get shown quite different footages on CNN and Chinese TV, which says something about both.

[aardvark baguette]

^^ Reminds me of a quote I like about the newspapers: If you don't read the paper, you're uninformed;if you do read the paper, you're misinformed". (Mark Twain)

[riceboy]

Reading these two books

[Contrastique]

[Dusty Chalk]

That's not reading, you're just looking at the pictures, aren't you?

[Contrastique]

That's not reading, you're just looking at the pictures, aren't you?

That's what I did the first time. Now I'm actually reading between the pictures

[Voltron]

Reading these two books

How is The Ninety Days? WWII is fascinating to me.

I just started this, speaking of world wars:

[riceboy]

How is The Ninety Days? WWII is fascinating to me.

I just started this, speaking of world wars:

I just started reading it and I do like it. It helps reinforce what I read recently which I enjoyed as well:

I still have to read the Churchill books eventually.

[kpeezy]

Finally started getting through Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky.

[riceboy]

Finally started getting through Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky.

Nice and enjoy.

[Dusty Chalk]

http://www.dccomics.com/sites/essential30/

From this list:

All Frank Miller Batman stuff (I've only read Year One and DKR, but both are excellent -- but then again, I'm of the mind that Frank Miller can do no wrong, including Ronin and Robocop).

Grant Morrison & Dave McKean, Arkham Asylum is especially fun because it comes with the script, so you can see just how much Dave McKean contributed to it.

Neil Gaiman, Sandman the entire series is probably my favorite comic ever, I've been getting the Absolute editions.

I've enjoyed what I've read of Ex Machina (which is up to vol. 5 or 6 of the trades), it's a really good anti-super-hero comic.

I just bought Watchmen.

Y: The Last Man is amazing, and not just because of all the lesbians.

[Dusty Chalk]

So out of that list, the only one you hadn't heard was Y: The Last Man? I'm actually not terribly up on comics, so I don't know offhand which of those it rules out.

[grawk]

Given the above limitations, I'll obviously have to recommend cerebus

[Smeggy]

I love good comics though It's been years since I last read any. We had a great s/h comic store locally back in England full of old treasure.