Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

I know I've been pushing the hell out of A Little Life, but I really can't stress enough just how good it is. The section of the novel titled "The Happy Years" is so perfectly written, so harrowing, so beautiful, it almost physically hurts to read.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, the novel I posted about below, was just long-listed for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and is heavily favored to win it.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara contains such exquisitely rendered prose - beautiful characterizations, huge moments of empathy between the characters. An astounding achievement, especially for only a second novel. It's a whale of a book - 700+ pages. I think it might be the best novel I've read in the past ten years.

I'm in the middle of Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts and it's a fantastic, almost thrilling read. Similar to Larson's The Devil on the White City, it's non-fiction that flows very much like fiction. It tracks the exploits of the Dodd family whose father was the Ambassador to Germany from 1933-37. His daughter is fucking Nazis left and right and a cast of very familiar characters of the Third Reich weaves in and out of the narrative including, Röhm, Himmler, Göring, Goebbels and, of course, Hitler himself.

Highly recommend.

I overwhelmingly prefer to read non-fiction rather than fiction. I just finished Cry Havoc by Joe Maiolo, which is about the rearmament before World War II. I am now reading 1968 by Mark Kurlansky, which is about the myriad of events occurring that year in Europe and United States.

When I do read fiction, I prefer to read classical literature rather than modern authors. The latest novel which I finished, I think, was Gulliver's Travels.

On the fiction front, I finished The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. The book that "finally" won him the Booker Prize. It's a slender thing, but superbly written and ultimately very "wise" (for lack of a better word).

On the play front, I just read Luke Owen's Unscorched which was really very good. Acute, well written and rather gutwrenching at times.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt is so so good. But really sad (I was practically sobbing at the end of it). Highly recommend. AIDS, 1987, perspective of a 14-year old girl. In and around New York City. Pretty awesome for a debut novel. I'm trying to get my producer friend in Hollywood to snatch up the film rights. Benedict Cumberbatch would be perfect in the role of Toby.

Others I've enjoyed recently: Answered Prayers by Truman Capote (the chapter "La Côte Basque" is every bit as satisfying as you've heard); Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple (immensely entertaining, timely and relevant, hilarious and heartbreaking). Beautiful Ruins is fun, but a little scattered and there wasn't enough of the present-day storyline, I thought, which really captures a particular milieu of Hollywood quite well.

Tee, I think A Visit from the Goon Squad is one of my favorite books. Just extremely well-executed and just stunning characterizations. The chapter entitled "Safari" and "Selling the General" are two of my favorite chapters/stories. I'm sure you've heard that HBO is developing a series based on Egan's book.

I've also been on a mini-reading tour recently promoting some new publications of mine. I might be doing a reading in September with theNewerYork if anyone is interested in the details.

Does it mark me a Philistine that McCann's and Toibin's are the only titles I recognize? Or is that typical for Booker: that I'll come to know the titles after the prize is given, not before?

Since it's been such a long gap, and because I've had considerably more available time of late, I have a fair number of books on which to comment.

First, on the non-fiction front:

Stacey Shiff's Cleopatra is a quite strong historical chronicle, with lots of facts I didn't know (among them: there probably never was any asp).

Caro's most recent Lyndon Johnson book -- The Passage of Power -- is too long (and spends way too much time on Christmas 1963 at the LBJ ranch). But it does a great job of covering what was the most significant year in American progress post-FDR, and makes the strong case that only Lyndon Johnson ascending to the presidency in precisely those circumstances made it possible to pass the Civil Rights Bill -- which, pending current attempts to roll it back, has made more impact on American society than anything else in the half-century since.

To the fiction rack:

I'd agree The Marriage Plot isn't up to Middlesex -- how many books are? -- but I pretty much loved it regardless.

Beautiful Ruins is strictly pop fiction, but of a quite enjoyable sort. Todd Field as the director for the film version seems wildly incongruous.

Julian Barnes' The Sense of and Ending is a really quick read -- I ended up doing it in a day -- and is quite touchinbg and gripping.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is on some levels more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but it gathers itself together by the end to feel like an organic whole. The punk rock era is actually a bit after my youthful prime time, but it feels authenhtically captured. And the book's sense of the passage of time is acute.

I read Flaubert's Sentimental Education because Woody told me at the end of Manhattan it was one of the things that made life worth living. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's a very impressive work (and I'm one who's not all that high on pre-20th century literature).

Somehow I ended up reading three books dealing significantly with World War I -- Birdsong, The Cove, and Life After Life. Enjoyed-without-loving all of them. Life After Life is very much the upscale version of Stephen King's 11/22/63.

Favorite book of recent times is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk -- the best book I've encountered about Iraq, despite its spending very little time on the battlefield. Or maybe because of that: the book makes the case Iraq existed more as a myth in the minds of a certain strata of Americans than it ever did for the people fighting it. A wonderfully-written, funny, moving novel; hugely recommended.

Time sure as hell flies by...16 months already??

Man Booker 2013 Longlist just announced...we skipped Mantel's second win in 4 years


Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris
The Kills by Richard House
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

I am currently slogging through 1Q84 myself. As far as "major" works go, it is definitely major...I cannot have an opinion on it right now, but there have been sections that I wasn't fond of. I am halfway though and it is starting to come together, so I have high hopes.

Also recently finished Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot" - no way it was going to come near "Middlesex" but it really doesn't need to. It is a beautifully written book and it speeds by in an instant.

Two sci-fi-ish debuts in the past months as well: Charles Yu's "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" (an at-times-overwhelmingly scientific work of deep yearning and snatches of humor), and Ernest Cline's "Ready Player One" (a nerd's adrenaline rush, the type of book you could read in a single sitting, tripping over yourself to reach the end).

Jennifer Egan's "The Keep" - a head-scratcher but deeply intoxicating.
Esi Edugyan's "Half Blood Blues" - the current Giller winner, a typically well-written literary work about black American blues musicians in WWII Germany and France.
Simon Reynolds' "Retromania" - one-third BS posturing, two-thirds genius exposition of popular culture in the modern hyper-age. A truly terrific work.

Right now, as part of research for a screenplay I am starting, I am reading The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, a non-fiction book by Ray Kurzweil.

I second Okri's recommendation of The Art of Fielding. Rich characters, smart, hugely entertaining, and both baseball and academia as major backdrops: what's not to like?

Finished 1Q84 a while ago, and it's clearly a major work from a major writer.

Also read Eugenides The Marraige Plot - a definite comedown from Middlesex.

I just finished Chad Harbach's debut, The Art of Fielding. I'm not a baseball fan at all, but it's clearly a remarkable work. As I got closer to the end, I actually reread the prior two chapters in order to savor his storytelling a little more before getting to the beautiful and entirely earned conclusion.

Next? The Van Gogh biography probably.

FilmFan720 wrote:Is it just on the Kindle, flipp? I have a Nook.

Seems to be offered only on the Kindle (and, of course, in old-fashioned hardback). I'll send you the link via PM. Thanks!

Is it just on the Kindle, flipp? I have a Nook.