I need to read it!
Station Eleven was a fantastic read, though a little “on the nose” with the events of the past two years. It’s essentially about a pandemic that destroys society as we know it, and contains many themes I tend to enjoy: dystopian future, non-linear storytelling, converging narratives, etc. I picked it up because the TV show (Hulu) looked interesting so we’ll see if it does the book justice.
I was not surprised to come across author Emily St. John Mandel 's “recommend reads” in the appendix and discover a few books I’ve read and loved (The Dog Stars and The Road, as well as The Stand, which I am familiar with because of the miniseries, though I never read). She has a new book coming out this year that I am already adding to my list.
Rectify this. With the unabridged version. It is FAR superior to the old miniseries, and the less said about the new one, the better.
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I was given Ready Player Two for Christmas and I don’t know how far into this I can get. All the nostalgia in Ready Player One made me forget just how terrible his prose is.
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A movie never did its written source material as many favors as Ready Player One.
RP2 was the worst book I read last year and it didn’t have a close second. Just awful in almost every way.
I loved Station Eleven but have heard nothing but flame about her other work (from people who also loved it).
The director was no slouch.
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Ready Player One had the advantage of a great plot, but it left a decent sequel almost impossible.
I think the initial premise was fine for the most part. But he completely ruined Wade as a character (just awful throughout), and the slog of visiting the Prince and John Hughes worlds made me equally cringe, roll my eyes, and hope for them all to die.
The first book was written for a very specific generation of games and gamers, and if you didn’t know the games inside out - much less play them at all - then it’s very hard to appreciate the slog. My older sister loved the book; I thought it was meh.
Station Eleven is a mini-series on Netflix now…anybody watched it yet?
It’s HBO.
I think it’s pretty good. There are some bad episodes and dumb moments, but it’s enjoyable overall. I read the book years ago but don’t remember it enough to say whether the show stays true to the book.
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I’m now three episodes into the show and it’s made quite a few changes from the book, which is to be expected, but a few of them have been head-scratching/unnecessary IMO. I’m lukewarm on the show thus far.
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I finished it and am so pissed that I took the time to do so.
Need a bit of fishing advice (I can’t find the recent thread about flyfishing, so here’s good enough).
Remember you saying you were in Taos, I have friends there but they’re not fisherpersons. Any recommendations on locations, guides, etc… would be appreciated. Heading there for a couple of weeks in late April, early May-ish, catching the snowmelt for a proper 2 day whitewater trip on the Rio Grande but I absolutely want to do some fishing while I’m there.
We were there in July and fished the Cimarron and the Rio Costilla. My guess is that in April, the Rio Costilla may still be snow-bound. The upper Rio Grande is actually supposed to be great fishing, but it was too hot in July, and I’ve never fished it. Part of the problem is that snow melt can ruin the fishing for a couple of weeks.
We also crossed over into Colorado and fished the Conejos, which is very good. It may be fishable at lower elevations. In New Mexico we fished with Shane Clawson at flyfishnewmexico.com. He was a really nice guy, and I’m sure would be glad to visit, whether or not you fished with him. The guides in Taos generally have good reputations.
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Thanks so much!
Well I finished The Mezzanine a little while back. It was odd and funny to start and stayed that way. Very strange book. My next read from Baker is going to be The Anthologist, and I’ll probably pick it up and start today.
Since then I’ve read 2 short books by Max Porter, Lanny and Grief is a Thing With Feathers. Both were good but Lanny was the better of the two by far. They’re unusual books, neither is anything like a traditional narrative. I thought Grief was almost Joycean. For some reason Lanny reminded me of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, another fantastic book.
I’m also lining up some Nobel Prize winners to read this spring, Haldor Laxness and Abdulrazak Gurnah to start with.
I keep track of books I want to read by adding them to my Amazon Wish List. It’s turning into quite an unwieldy list.
Has anyone read Lincoln in the Bardo?
I bailed after about 60 pages when I tried to read it a few years ago. It’s been on my list to get back to but I haven’t done so.
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