I'm reading a good bit of Pat Conroy stuff. I may begin the Great Santini this week. I try to read a book a week, but I often get lazy after the summer.

Ok, I devoted a whole topic to The Lost Symbol, and it just wasn't worth it, so I deleted that. A MAJOR disappointment!! And reviewers seem to agree with me. Not sure what happened; I love Dan Brown's other stuff so much. Even after two readings, I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars. I mean, there were some good parts, where you got your hopes up, but overall, it was very disappointing. I read somewhere that he wrote it more like a screenplay, assuming there would be a follow-up movie. Well, it's one of my collection of first edition books.

I missed out on Da Vinci Code. I was already pretty familiar with the jesus/magadalene theme from Holy Blood, Holy Grail ( whose authors unsuccessfuly sued Brown for plagarism)and its treatment in Harry Harrison's Hammer and the Cross trilogy ( excellent alternate history.)
I finally found the time to finish Thomas Pynchon Against The Day.
Wow! His best, imo.

I just read Nabokov's "The Eye" and it was great little book. Nabokov's language is pure poetry to me. Even the finnish translation works like a charm. It is almost baroque stuff but I like it, somehow it fits me like a glove. Not the greatest mystery but really funny stuff. Reminds me also of my own teenage angsts with the opposite sex, hilarious memories

Now I'm reading "Pale Fire" in english, and I'm in awe. It is rare for me to read lines again and again while reading a book, just because they work so well.

I finished Anne Rice's latest book, "Angel Time," and it was absolutely wonderful!! If you're a huge AR fan, it takes you back to the vampire chronicles. The main character even looks like Lestat and just happens to be from New Orleans. And no preachy stuff in it, either. Thank goodness, she took a break from the Jesus books. I can't wait for more in this series, "The Songs of the Seraphim."

I am currently reading The Physics of Superheroes.

Hey, I almost got that book for my nephew, who is going into astrophysics in college!

I'm currently reading Glenn Beck's Common Sense, or rather listening to it on CD. I've become a diehard fan of his, so go ahead and make fun of me!

I am reading "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, and will start his other book "Katherines" soon.

I read Alain Robbe-Grillet's In the Labyrinth in finnish translation. Now that was something similar like Lynch films. He wrote it just before he did the script to The Last Year at Marienbad and it was very similar in style. I'm still not sure what really happened in the very end, was the painting even there or whose faces were in it or was it perhaps painted little later...

In the snowing town, where all streets and houses remind each other there was a soldier with a parcel. He was looking for someone, but he wasn't sure who. There was a boy too. And a perhaps a barmaid... and a painting that said "Defeat of Reichenfels". Was it always the same? (I'll admit I didn't check it)

Actually the writer breaks his style little bit towards the end when he kind of gives answers to some mysteries, but is that the whole picture? And how long it takes for dust to really settle, and form patches similar to snow, to be exact?

Oh, and the crippled fooled me

Really interesting book. I actually ordered his Erasers and Voyeur in english translations (I'm illiterate when it comes to french) as they are not available in finnish...

I made an exception to my 'no translations' rule and read ( in translation from Spanish) Adolpho Bioy Casares The Invention Of Morel. This is on the Lost reading List, not really a novel so much as a long story. Its influence is sometimes cited on the film Last Year In Marienbad, but I can not really see why. Subtle, non-pulp Sci-Fi, circa 1940. I think many will find it,as I did, entertaining. My wife rates it 'brilliant, a classic.'
**Phillip K. Dick The Divine Invasion, short novel #2 in the unfinished Valis trilogy. Not as staggering as Valis itself, but still excellent. Gnosticism, esp jewish style( kabbala: lotsa ways to spell that).Weird and wonderful.
***Trying to read Henry James The Turn Of The Screw. Heavy going. I do not like this author. I do not blame myself.

I'm reading a few books...

Night
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood - Janice Ray
Paper Towns - John Green

The last book I finished was Beach Music by Pat Conroy.

I've just finished Anthony Burgess 'One Hand Clapping'.
I found it an entertaining read, especially since it demonstrates even normal people are capable on insanity.

Recently finished J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition and I highly recommend it. Possibly one of the most disturbing things I've ever read and the prose has all the cold precision of a surgeon. A strange, often difficult read but extremely interesting (The chapter, "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", is pure gold).

I've got some Calvino and Borges to finish now.

J.G. Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun' and 'Running Wild'.

Both very good books.

With all the 'tree ring circus' about global warming, this would seem a logical time to film J. G. Ballard The Drowned World.
As to his early prose style, maybe a 'surgeon wearing boxing gloves' would be an apt description.
I noted Crash on the bookshelf of teen Ian Curtis in Control, along with Naked Lunch.
Also, in that film, the brilliant songwriter/singer's health problems struck me as very relevant to the whole Health Care 'Reform' discission here in the USA. The care ( or lack of the same) he was given in the UK for epilepsy is a frightening preview of what rationing by the government actually can entail.