More books

See? Titles... so you can decide whether you want to read the rest of the post. But I should warn you that just because I've felt the need to add titles does not mean I feel the need to strictly adhere to them and not wander off into talking about other things.

Having said that, I haven't written about books for a long time - over a month, so here's what I've been reading:

Finished:

The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
Walking on Glass - Iain Banks
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
How the Dead Live - Will Self
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - R. L. Stevenson
Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

Reading:

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle

On Deck:

[Ha! This is actually a very long list, but I think I'll start with the following:]

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Narrative/theory - David Richter
Lullaby - Chuck Palanhiuk

So, The DaVinci Code was interesting, but it's definitely plane-material. It's got some cool ideas, but doesn't make you think to hard about them. And even though it's long, it's also a really quick read. That some of the far out stuff mentioned in the book actually takes place outside literature (i.e. the real world) is slightly disturbing in a fascinating kind of way.

Walking on Glass was cool in a alternate-world-intersects-with-thought-process-of-insane-person kind of way. A neat premise and also a fun read. Quick too because it's short. Only problem is that I think I had to special order this one if I remember right because it's out of print. Maybe I could do a documentary about it in a kind of Stones of Summer (which is also on that summer list, but I'll read it later when the pool opens) way and get it back in print!

The Victorian stuff, Dorian Gray, Jekyll & Hyde, Tess, are actually not very Victorian (i.e. they weigh in at less than the usual 800 pages) and I have a newfound respect for Hardy that I had lost reading Jude the Obscure. I actually found myself empathisizing with Tess and really getting involved in her problems, feeling the injustice of her position and such, something that I rarely lose myself to in Victorian lit, so I was duly impressed by the book.

I did not feel that How the Dead Live or Day of the Triffids wasted my time, but unless you want to read a lot of obscure sf, don't bother. If you are into obscure sf and you like old sf film, then you definitely need to read Triffids and then see the movie adaptation.

I'm looking forward to rereading Dracula, since its been a very long time and too many film adaptation screenings since I read it to really remember it well. Hopefully I'll get it done before next weekend when Van Helsing opens, since I'm DEFINITELY going to see that.