Is anybody else reading the book yet?
Interesting choice of reviews to highlight on the back cover – but that’s probably more a function of the publisher rather than the author.
I hope he gives some sort of an explanation somewhere in the book for his curious dedication to his family – “the perfect-enough immortality symbol”…
January 3, 2008 at 8:56 am
Bonnie is reading it. I suppose I will when she finishes.
January 3, 2008 at 10:31 am
I bought it but haven’t read it yet. In all likely-hood I probably won’t for a while. I got a lot of reading to do for school and ministry stuff and want to maintain my fiction outlet so my free reading time will go there.
January 3, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I’m reading it. So is Bonnie Kate.
January 3, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I know Danny is reading it also… and Chris has already read it.
Ben and Tato – well, I hope you guys manage to find some spare time to read it, however reluctantly
January 3, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Just to clarify/be concrete, I am not going to read it for this discussion, but may come around to it later. And I will once again state my preference for the NOBC to be a group that meets in person and discuss works of fiction.. with only one (maybe two) women present.
Please take that last comment in jest.
January 3, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Then why do you keep repeating it? Inquiring minds want to know.
January 4, 2008 at 9:47 am
It’s a quick read.
Tato, you need to get into the 21st century. No one meets in person anymore.
January 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm
It is a weak point in our society.
January 4, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Tato – if you feel that way, then it sounds like you’d be interested in Mohler’s post from yesterday on cell phones – the NPR audio report he provided a link to (on the 3 generations and their use of cell phones) is particularly fascinating – or possibly disturbing, depending on your view point.
I heard a story on NPR last year where the reporter (essayist? I don’t remember…) described seeing two college-aged women talking to each other on their cell phones, trying to find each other in a crowded plaza. They found each other… and then continued to converse, face to face, on their cell phones!
January 7, 2008 at 9:59 am
It is kind of obvious with the rise of the internet and social networking sites (facebook, myspace, etc) that our society is heading in a direction where genuine relationships and community have less value than they should. It is true that things like this make things “easy” however the connection isn’t as great. I do a lot of communication with my youth staff via e-mail and stuff… which makes thing easy… except sometimes you feel isolated. Part of me kind of wishes this sort of stuff didn’t exist.
January 7, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Oh, I see where you’re coming from, especially from your perspective being in ministry. However, for the NOBC, and for reasons we’ve already gone over, I think most of us (who have been participating) prefer the blog…. But (and again, as has been mentioned before, I believe), you’re free to organize a breakfast or whatever for a book discussion on the side!
January 17, 2008 at 10:52 am
hey everyone…I am back in the blogging world.
http://thecaptainsquarters.wordpress.com
I also think I am going to try to jump back in to the next book we read. If that is allowed. I am feeling much more adventurous.
January 17, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Justin – woohoo! And you can absolutely jump back in…
Speaking of the next book, I’ll have to check, but I think the 2nd place book from the last vote had enough votes to be the next in line – I’m not sure… I’ve been real busy w/ other stuff this past month, so I haven’t been putting a lot of time into this blog…
January 30, 2008 at 9:20 am
RE: Suburb
I got bored, there were a couple interesting points (like how people look to “nature” to find God, where that may not be the place to really seek him out) but mainly I felt like “yeah – this is why I live in the city” sorry, but I had to stop reading because I was having a bad reaction to it. I would really like to read something by someone who isnt middle aged, male, and white having to do with a spiritually dead society that thinks its ok.
I have since read: anna karinina, the four loves, I am America – and so can you, and am now on the order of the phoenix.
I will try to go back to it after finishing HP-5, interested to hear other opinions.
January 30, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I had to put Anna K. down… I got half-way through and just OD’d on Russian literature. I have heard great things about it though.
February 3, 2008 at 3:09 pm
So, it’s pretty quiet around here…. Is our discussion on DBS supposed to beging today, having had December and January to read it? That also means we start reading the next book, right? But what is it? Dracula? (Still my vote….)
Oh yeah, and we were supposed to remind you, Lee, to set up the voting about the reading list bylaws. (Shame on you for forgetting to remind us to remind you!!
)
February 3, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I’m afraid I haven’t finished it, either :-/ Bad, I know. I just haven’t done a lot of non-Bible study- (or Bible-) related reading for the past month or so, and I also had a hard time with some aspects of DbS, to be honest.
Yes, the discussion is open – I’ll try to organize some initial impressions soon, I guess, since I haven’t finished the book yet…
The next book is indeed Dracula – 5 is at least 50% of the current membership!
Oh, yes – the voting… ok, I’ll see what I can do with that!
February 4, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Yay for dracula.
oh, and Tato – I actually listened to ak – it went really fast that way. I didnt totally get what all the fuss was about – I mean – interesting characters but ak was awful!
February 4, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Dostoyevfsky>Tolstoy in my opinion.
I started Dracula a couple weeks ago and read a chapter then haven’t picked it up. I now have incentive to do so.
February 4, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Maybe it was a translation issue? My second crack at Crime and Punishment did go better than my first because of the translation. (Though I never did finish it.) I did find Tolstoy’s Confessions quite intriguing, but that wasn’t a 1,000 page novel
On the other hand, though it was probably the most challenging novel I have ever read (to completion), I did find Nabokov’s The Defense to be ultimately quite interesting.
February 4, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I think there’s a bit of Stockholm Syndrome involved with these long, challenging reads — if it’s long enough, and challenging enough, you just have to find deep meaning in it or else face the fact that you’ve subjected yourself to 70 hours of mental duress for nothing
February 4, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Too funny, Ben! You may be right.
On the other hand:
1. Though I slogged through 150 pages (~1/3) of it, I just couldn’t finish Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh. In the end, I just couldn’t take the 2-3 neologisms or “inspired phrases” per page….
2. Heart of Darkness
February 4, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Heart of Darkness and Rasselas were both slogged through by me. (And by slogged through I mean that I head an incredible urge to skip ahead).
February 5, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I liked Rasselas. I’ll acknowledge that I was perhaps predisposed to appreciate it given who wrote it – but I think I would have liked it regardless.
February 6, 2008 at 9:14 am
Challenging as they might be (I personally found both to be an easy read), neither Rasselas nor Heart of Darkness is all that long. I was thinking more along the lines of “big” novels like Anna Karenina or Les Miserables.