Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowperson
I've gone through the thousands of pages of Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson a couple of times.
I've liked Steinbeck and Hemingway a lot . . . . . but the 1930's must have been pretty depressing to produce stuff like that. "A Farewell To Arms" is the only book I've tossed across a room in disgust/anguish as I neared the end. Thanks Hemingway!!!
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I haven't read the Mars trilogy yet, but I just finished
Fifty Degrees Below, Robinson's 2nd novel in his trilogy about extreme climate change. Kim Stanley Robinson is the heir apparent to Michael Crichton. I really want to read his
Years of Rice & Salt which is an account of the European population being completely wiped out by the Black Plague and the continent colonised by the Mongols, while the Japanese colonise the Americas and the Chinese do something cool also.
I read Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises this summer before I went to the Sanfermin in Pamplona. I'm glad I did, it was a great primer and good also to see that the fiesta hasn't changed much in 85 years (i.e. copious amounts of red wine, dancing in the streets, hangovers, bulls).
I am currently finishing the 2nd knot in Solzhenitsyn's magnum opus, the Red Wheel. 1000 pages of small print in this volume,
November 1916, alone. I'm looking forward to reading the next volume (which has been divided into four tomes) in French because it has never been translated into English.
For those who want a book recommendation, one of my favourite books of all time remains Alex Haley's
Roots. A real page turner, heartrending but not all sad. Great for history buffs and lovers of storytelling alike.