current reads

[Fitz]

okay, b/c i sometime have trouble finding new reads i'm asking you, what are you currently reading.

me: Founding Brothers-The Revolutionary generation by Joseph J. Ellis. Pulitzer Prize winner.

he tells the story of the founding of this nation in a unique way, through stories about a few of the "Founding Brothers" and then uses those stories to discuss the events occuring at that time and why. very well written.

[Stine]

I read The Hours - didn't understand all the hoopla.

The Secret Life of Bees - absolutely wonderful!

[monkey neck]

I'm slowly getting through "Ghost Soldiers". I'm going to school part time and working full time and I don't get a chance to read much.

It's a great book so far, though. It's about WWII POW's in the Philippines and the mission to rescue them. It's absolutely riveting and heart-wrenching at the same time. Those guys were in pure hell.

[peedub]

when i find time between episodes from season 4 of m*a*s*h on dvd and the stack of comic books that is threatening to drown me...

i'm reading "dune: the machine crusade", the 5th prequel to "dune". i haven't got to deep yet. and while the prequels are nowhere near as grand and complex as frank herbert's novels, it promises to shed more light on the vastness of the fictional history of the universe that is DUNE.

also reading "mythology: the dc comics art of alex ross". WOW! this is a coffee table sized book detailing some of alex ross' art for dc comics. it starts when he was 3 (the guy had more skill at 12 than most professionals do at death), gives a little history, and then smacks you in the face with some of the finest comics art you'll ever see.

[classicgrrl]

The Middle Mind by Curtis White.
phenominal...just an outstanding read. not an easy read by far but definitley makes you think.

the book is about the American imagination and the managment or mismanagment of it. you wont agree with everything he says but the guy put some major research and effort into this. highly recommended.

[redmeg8]

The Secret Life of Bees - absolutely wonderful!

Oh yes!! I completely agree!
What an evocative book - it was such a visual experience.
I waited an ETERNITY for the soft cover to come out - now in hindsight, I know that it would've been worth it to just plunk down the cash. Sheesh!

Now on to Blackwood Farm by, my girl, Anne Rice. Weeee!

[Murphy]

So glad I finally have time to do fun reading again now that grad school is done with!

Some recent reads of mine:
White Teeth - Zadie Smith. Excellent.

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - some great sci-fi & adventure & thriller short stories by Nick Hornby, Rick Moody, etc.

Ellen Foster - Kaye Gibbons ( It's a former Oprah book Club pick I think, so kind of chick-lit stuff)

And I just got my husband the new one by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake, so I can't wait to devour that one!

[hlfzephyr]

I am currently reading Devil In The White City by Erik Larson,. very interesting book so far, nonfiction but it's unbelievable in some parts - but this stuff really happened. I won't say anything about it you should read it to believe it...

[summerteeth]

Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Letham

you ever been one of a few white kids at an predominantly black school?? a creative look into what it's like to go to school in Brooklyn in the '70s. a few scenes evoked memories from junior high/ early high school. FANTASTIC!!

[MissKitty]

I've bought Mainlines, Blood Feasts, And Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader for the planetrip to the UK, and couldn't resist starting it a little bit early. :)

I was a little on the young side when Lester was in his heyday at Creem magazine (http://www.creemmagazine.com/BeatGoesOn/LesterBangs/BadTaste.html) but I was fortunate enough to have a much older sibling who purchased the zine religiously. Therefore, even though I wasn't old enough to understand what a lot of the words meant, I could still blunder my way through his fine writing and hilarious critiques.

This book is a collection of Lester's work, similar to Psychotic Reactions & Carburator Dung but with a whole new series of reviews and stories, including some that have never before been published. I've not been overwhelmed with the unpublished stuff (meaning it was unpublished for a reason and Lester would have probably wished it to stay that way!) but have so far enjoyed the book as a whole.

I'm doing my best to steer clear of reading the whole book before I embark, but it's proving difficult!

[Fitz]

I've moved on to Fat Land by Greg Critser. an honest look at the weight problem of america. caused mostly by socio economic functions as well as mass marketing. the history itself is really impressive. the science behind what we hear in the media is questioned and the popular ideas about diet, weight, and eating disoprders are dispelled as to look at americas love affair with food in an honest way that leads to more questions than answers.

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by Fitz
I've moved on to Fat Land by Greg Critser. an honest look at the weight problem of america. caused mostly by socio economic functions as well as mass marketing. the history itself is really impressive. the science behind what we hear in the media is questioned and the popular ideas about diet, weight, and eating disoprders are dispelled as to look at americas love affair with food in an honest way that leads to more questions than answers.

I read that it's excellent.

[bluewilco]

My gf has me reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and it's pretty damned good as far as short stories go. There's one in there called "You Can't Kill the Rooster," that had me laughing all day after I read it.

[yvette7ica]

Originally posted by peedub
also reading "mythology: the dc comics art of alex ross". WOW! this is a coffee table sized book detailing some of alex ross' art for dc comics... smacks you in the face with some of the finest comics art you'll ever see.

I completely agree. I love his work. My personal favorite is the Joker/Harlequin. I'll have to pick that up.

I'm a commitment phobe so I have a stack next to my bed depending on my mood. (Takes me at least 3 months and longer to get through a book).

Currently on the nightstand:

LIES (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) by Al Franken
Good so far, almost done.

GOD A Biography by Jack Miles

Uppity Women of the Renaissance by Vicki Leon

Children of the Matrix by David Icke
Conspiracy book about Reptoids

A Short History of Rudeness by Mark Caldwell

[hlfzephyr]

A buddy of mine just lent me "Time's Arrow" by Martin Amis, he said it's really good...anyone else here read it yet? I'm just about to crack it open?

[Nepenthean]

Reading Once and Future King right now. Good stuff. Then, I have a giant stack of stuff to get to.... not sure which I'll pick up next.

[yoshomon]

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth W.
Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich
Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem

Having trouble getting into Vaneigem, but I love the other two.

ps. I definitely don't recommend Ellen Foster to anyone. Maybe it was when I read it, but I thought the way the book described child-abuse, alchoholism, and rape was just... eh... not good for lack of a better word.

[yoshomon]

Originally posted by bluewilco
My gf has me reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and it's pretty damned good as far as short stories go. There's one in there called "You Can't Kill the Rooster," that had me laughing all day after I read it.

Oh god am I in love with Sedaris. He was great when he came to the Taft recently. "Naked" might be even better than Me Talk Pretty One Day, maybe..

[Seattle93]

Just finished:
"Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic" by Jim DeRogatis

Just started:
"You Shall Know Our Velocity" by Dave Eggers

Still working on:
"Blindness" by Jose Saramago
"How Late it Was, How Late" by James Kelman

[redmeg8]

Also feeling a bit adulterous these days about sticking to one book:
1. Songbook by Hornby (just got it as a Xmas gift - can't wait to dive in!)
2. Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice
3. The Profound Origins of Sacred Things (or is it the other way around?)
4. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, Harnessing the Power of Coincedence by Chopra

I'll let you know my thoughts soon...
I suppose.

[doctort13]

I just finished Saturday Morning Fever by Timothy Burke & Kevin Burke (no relation).

My wife found a copy at Half Price Books and KNEW that I would want to read it. I enjoy the history of how the TV networks "developed" Saturday morning programming into the crap that I loved. The expert research stuff bored me, and I wanted more interviews from the creators, writers, artists, etc. Worth looking into if you are a "toonhead", check the library or buy it used.
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue4.03/4.03images/saturday01.jpg

[harris_kw]

I just started "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. It was Editors Choice @ Amazon.com for Best book of 2003...and so far, I'd have to agree. An autobiography of a drug and alcohol addict and his struggles to come clean.

It starts with the author on a plane, no idea how he got there, where's he's going, or what he's been doing for the past couple of days. He's also had his 4 front teeth knocked out, has a huge hole in his cheek, broken nose, and bleeding profusely....

Definitely not cheery Xmas reading, but powerful nonetheless!

[Stine]

I'm back to the classics, reading Pride and Prejudice. Hard to read the dialect, but thouroughly enjoying it!

[earthcapricorn]

Starting on Howard Zihn's The Reader.

[The Hegemo]

Mrs. Thatcher's Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era by Peter Jenkins.

I bought it remaindered a few years ago when I was studying British politics, but never read more than the first few pages. I was going to take it to Half Price Books with a big pile of stuff last week, but then flipped through and decided to give it a read. It's actually a pretty good and readable overview of British political history from the 1960s to 1980s. Good if you're interested in that sort of stuff.

And of course, it's necessary to crank up the old Billy Bragg records while reading it. :p

[ungratefulbiped]

Originally posted by hlfzephyr
A buddy of mine just lent me "Time's Arrow" by Martin Amis, he said it's really good...anyone else here read it yet?

I read that one a few years ago. I adore Amis, but I think this is one of his better books. It messes with your head for a while, though. Sort of like a dizzy feeling. You'll know what I mean. I read straght through one evening and had a hard time adjusting back to real time.

[postfeminist]

i just started You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers...love it so far and i'm only about 20 pp in.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Eggers was the most brilliant book i have read probably ever. highly recommend it now that you can get it easily in paperback.

[Fitz]

i really like Eggers as well.

I'm currently readin Empire Falls by Richard Russo, I've read Straight Man by him and it made me laugh out loud on public transport.

[donetrawk]

I am currently buried in Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language , by Douglas Hofstadter.

This is the best book I have ever read.

[postfeminist]

I finished Y.S.K.O.V. last week and ended up pissed.

damn you, eggers.

[peedub]

i'm about 3 stories into "the coming of conan the cimmerian" which reprints all of robert e. howards original conan short stories from pulp magazines. these stories are beautifully written. if you can forget your preconceptions of conan, and you enjoy fantasy/swords and sorcery, these stories, which predate "lord of the rings" (and just about every title in the genre), deserve to be read.

[Fitz]

now on my plate is The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy. Copywrite of 1966 the themes (so far) are still applicable.

[RedWoods]

just finishing up Leviathan by Paul Auster and starting up Boy and Going Solo by Roald Dahl (his autobigraghy, written like a work of fiction though, pretty damn slick).

[bwingrave]

I'm currently reading three books:

The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver, a book about a hacker who goes nuts and starts killing people. (Gotta finish this one by Thursday evening for a discussion group -- I'll let you know what I think of it.)
American Pastoral by Philip Roth, about the effect of a young woman's political extremism on her straight-laced father, and
a Giant Golden Book version of
The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer 'cos I wanted a way to get the basics of the tale.


b

[Santos-Dumont]

Recently read: The Davinci Code, very good supreme page-turner
yeah I know it came out a couple years back but
oh well only after finishing it found out it was the
third in a series. Crap!! now I have to go back and
read the rest.

Now reading : Wolves of the Calla my boss just turned me on to
the Dark Tower. I wasnt a Mr King fan before but
these books are amazing!

A Season of Fire eye opening to the logistics and
the money-making business of fighting forest fires
in the bone dry West and always changing govnmt
policy and legislation on the subject

[Judy5cents]

Has it really been 139 days since I last posted? Did I miss anything?

David Sedaris always gives me hope as a writer, when he started doing the NPR commentaries ten or so years ago, he was cleaning out apartments in New York City. Now he's famous. And can probably afford to hire his own apartment cleaner.

I am reading "Aftermath" by Peter Robinson. It's set in England but it's no quaint Agatha Christy drawing room mystery. This is about a serial killer who buries young girls in his basement.

I got it for my husband, a displaced Brit and not much of a reader. He finished it in a couple of days so that in itself is a recommendation.

Also, if I may pause for a bit of blatant self promotion, my book "Caviar Dreams" --the only mystery to feature a heroine with an MFA from Miami of Ohio--is now available at Dutenhofer's Book Treasures on McMillan in Clifton. Dutenhofers is a really coo place to visit. You find all kinds of stuff there.

[Megs79]

I got a couple books you all mentioned-
My mom finished up the secret life of bees while i was home for the holidays, so she let me take it, and a friend of mine gave me naked as a present. I'm excited, because I need a hobby besides crocheting afghans. Yeah, I'm so exciting now that I've finished school and have a serious boyfriend.

[Fitz]

every one i've talked to recently is reading The Davinci Code . What up wit dat?

[Stine]

Originally posted by Fitz
every one i've talked to recently is reading The Davinci Code . What up wit dat?

Here, check it out. Sounds very very interesting. I plan on reading it at some point.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385504209/qid=1073422296/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-2699473-1348759

[bond]

Originally posted by Fitz
every one i've talked to recently is reading The Davinci Code . What up wit dat?

i've been getting the same thing. everyone keeps coming to me wanting to talk about fibanocci sequences and the golden mean, cause i'm a sucker for that sorta stuff and can talk for hours about math/visual/music interrelations. still haven't gotten a copy, though.. i'm in the middle of 'godel, escher, and bach' right now.. kinda heavy stuff but similiar subject-wise, all about recursion in number and set theory, and how it relates to logic, semiotics, music, and art..

[peedub]

Originally posted by bond


i'm in the middle of 'godel, escher, and bach' right now.. kinda heavy stuff but similiar subject-wise, all about recursion in number and set theory, and how it relates to logic, semiotics, music, and art..

i read that a few years ago, with steam jetting out of my ears the whole time. soooo effin' complicated....it does open your eyes to alot though, especially musically (although, i guess you get out of it what you can). it helped me to have copies of all the source material to reference when it is being discussed, i.e. the art of fugue, some escher prints, etc....i loved the tortoise and the hare dialogs, they are a great tool to simplify what is some very complex shit....

[72valiant]

i guess i should find something new to read. i am in the beginning of rereading gaiman's american gods.

[yoshomon]

'Evasion' by anonymous. This book is so much fun, and it was only $6 from crimethinc (http://www.buyolympia.com/crimethinc/sid=640503610/books.html).

It's the autobiography of a modern-day hobo who shoplifts, dumpsters, squats, hitchhikes, and hops trains around the country. Plus, he's straight-edge and vegan.

[bwingrave]

Finished The Blue Nowhere; definitely a page-turner. If you're into deep characterization, this is not for you. Everything seems to be tightly connected to the plot & main themes (hacking & identity theft, whether electronic or in person). A fun read.

b

[MissKitty]

Read the "chick-lit" book Cool for Cats by Jessica Adams on the flight home from England yesterday. I wish I could say it was a great book.....but it wasn't. It was okayish, I suppose, and it was an easy enough read to kill several boring hours in the sky.

The book is set at the height of the punk era, where we find Linda, a young woman who wins the "best job in England" as a reporter for a New Wave rag. Between going to Pretenders gigs and constructing the weekly crossword puzzle, Linda must re-evaluate what she wants out of life when her fiancé walks out on her.

Adams's writing might be fast and funny, but her characters are shallow and by-the-numbers. Cool for Cats is riddled with clichéd characters -- the practical boyfriend, cynical best friend, asshole co-worker, charming boss, hunky rebound guy -- whom we never get to know beyond their fashion choices and music tastes. For instance, Cindy the art paste-up girl, who we never get to know at all, and are expected to accept she's a "stroppy cow" based solely on her efficiency, her shoes and her American accent.

Linda's development goes just as poorly with her immature dealings with her boyfriend, her dopiness is masqueraded as naiveté (ala her ridiculous mid-book jaunt to Australia via New York) and her all-around rudeness. In the end, Linda's a know-it-all who doesn't really know much at all, created by a writer who has unsuccessfully attempted to disguise a dissertation on the music of 1979 as a book. Linda's experiences are apparently based on the author's own, but one hopes Adams is a little bit more self-aware than Linda, whose biggest decision in life is based on her contempt for Billy Joel.

I thought the ending (which I won't ruin for anyone) was thrown together quickly and without much thought. It was a letdown--nothing like an Epilogue should be. Oh well, it was only a few quid wasted and it killed some time.

[Sovrana]

Originally posted by MissKitty
It was a letdown--nothing like an Epilogue should be.

I've yet to read a good epilogue. In my opinion, epilogues are merely meant to put a quick patchy ending on a book that was never really thought out well. This is the case with every contemporary novel I have read that has an epilogue and sounds like this is the case here.

I now choose any new novel to read by reading the first sentence and then checking to see if there is an epiloque...if it has one, I put it back on the shelf.

Many who know me know that I cannot stand this strategy in film either...sort of an ending tacked on as a guide to help the audience understand. If the writing is good you don't have to guide me to a conclusion, I'll get it.

The worst one is at the end of Platoon when the voice over (Charlie Sheen) says something like "The Vietnam War is over, but for me it never will be.....blah blah blah....." ARGGGHHHHH!!!

Just say "no" to epilogues!! :cool:

[Rafe]

Ive got 2 books on the go at the moment - the first i tend to dip into regularly, called "our band could be your life" about the 80's US underground music scene, which im sure a lot of you know already! I must have read it several times, but its a great bit of sentimental reading, when i thought these bands were exotic (ie: foreign, alternative, exciting!).
The other one is another re-read - " a day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch" By Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. Its such a gripping book, and to think i first read it 15 years ago!
Any new stuff Stateside to recommend?

[Fitz]

okay, the last gentleman, well it was a decent book, very well written and all that, but the story really didn't go anywhere. it was a standard literary book. stylistic, narrated well, travels from place to place. it is more a comment on the social development of the south, the social dislocation that one felt during the 1960's (even today) and the devaluation of place. there is also a commentary on the civil rights movement esp. as it relates to the south.

while i waited for my books from B & N (bought with a gift certificate & on sale) i picked up half asleep in frogs pajamas, and will go through that quickly only to move onto Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam. I'm really looking forward to that book.

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by Fitz
Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam. I'm really looking forward to that book.

classic you'll love it. He also wrote a sequel that I havn't read yet. I intend to however...

[dusty bushworms]

i just finished Wigfield by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert. i have never laughed so hard while reading a book. i think i'm going to read it again :)

[kcneon]

Just read a cute book full of pop culture references....Filthy Rich by Dorothy Samuels. Quick, fun read. Marcy gets dumped live on TV (Who Want to be a Mil...I mean, Filthy Rich!) and becomes an instant, tho reluctant celeb.

She describes the flowers, gift baskets and other bribes sent by the likes of Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Oprah, Geraldo.....even 60 Minutes II (those cheapskates ;) ). It is really a great look at how crazy our culture has become. I'd recommend it when you want a change of pace!

[redbobsled]

I just finished Daughter's Keeper by Ayelet Waldman. It has a lot to do with mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of federal drug offenses. It's a really interesting, heartbreaking book.

[thisisexploding]

Originally posted by summerteeth
Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Letham

you ever been one of a few white kids at an predominantly black school?? a creative look into what it's like to go to school in Brooklyn in the '70s. a few scenes evoked memories from junior high/ early high school. FANTASTIC!!

I'm about halfway through it at the moment, so far it's an excellent read.. :cool:

[Rellah]

I just finished Party Monster by James St. James, which was rather surreal, as it kept mentioning DJs that used to spin at parties I went to.

I'm nearly halfway through with Behind the Scenes at the Museum, by Kate Atkinson, which is awesome.

[The Hegemo]

I celebrated my new employed status by ordering some books about soccer from amazon.uk...right now I'm working on The Toon: A Complete History of Newcastle United Football Club

[Stine]

I've finally gotten around to reading Memiors Of A Geisha - wow! I'm tearing through it, it really pulled me in. Reads a lot like a novel.

[MissKitty]

Am currently plowing through Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle by Lauren St.John...

Wow. Even the casual fan should pick this one up.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by Stine
I've finally gotten around to reading Memiors Of A Geisha - wow! I'm tearing through it, it really pulled me in. Reads a lot like a novel.

when i read it i found i had to keep reminding myself that an american man wrote the book.

[Stine]

Originally posted by Fitz


when i read it i found i had to keep reminding myself that an american man wrote the book.

No kidding - not only was the story good, but it was really interesting to learn about geisha.


Now I've moved on to Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I'm hooked! Started reading this morning on the bus and I'm already to page 68 - I keep sneaking a paragraph here and there at my desk!

[Santos-Dumont]

Has anyone read "They marched into sunlight"? I want to start it, but Im not usually a big non-fiction guy and didn't know if it would justify the time needed.

[Teddy KGB]

Originally posted by Stine


No kidding - not only was the story good, but it was really interesting to learn about geisha.


Now I've moved on to Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I'm hooked! Started reading this morning on the bus and I'm already to page 68 - I keep sneaking a paragraph here and there at my desk!

It seems like your reading all of the same books that my ex-girlfriend was reading last year...weird

[Stine]

Heh. I'm trying to get away from the Bridget Jones' knock-offs and move to the bestsellers I've never gotten to. All those Bridget Jones' type books are fun easy reads, but are just the same formula - I want some different stuff!

[Teddy KGB]

It would be nice to have time to read for pleasure. I pretty much get my fill of textbooks. I think the last thing I chose to read was a book called The Hottest State by Ethan Hawke (yes THAT Ethan Hawke)

[mobyoctopad]

The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. The movie is one of the best remakes of a book EVER. But the story has a pretty polarizing effect. People seem to either love it or hate it.

I love stories that show America from a foriegner's POV.

[trixi]

Originally posted by Stine



Now I've moved on to Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I'm hooked!

Excellent book! I read it a month or so ago. And immediately recommended it to one of my friends. Let me know how you like the ending.

[redbobsled]

Ooo, the Lovely Bones. I think that's a love it or hate it book. Unfortunately, I fell squarely in the "hate it" camp. I have never heard anyone say they thought that book was just "so-so." I was so excited to read it when it came out and I started hearing word of mouth about it that I bought it immediately (I almost never buy books....you know, trixi, it's from working in a library....). Well, I got about 3/4 of the way through and just never picked it up again. Maybe someday I'll go back and finish it.

[MissKitty]

Originally posted by redbobsled
Well, I got about 3/4 of the way through and just never picked it up again. Maybe someday I'll go back and finish it.

Ya know, I feel the same way about A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I'd heard such good things about it and was all excited (especially when CR recommended it as well) but....well, blah! I didn't think it was anything special, and I couldn't find it in myself to care about any of the characters. Ended up chucking it 3/4ths the way through.

[Stine]

Originally posted by MissKitty


Ya know, I feel the same way about A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I'd heard such good things about it and was all excited (especially when CR recommended it as well) but....well, blah! I didn't think it was anything special, and I couldn't find it in myself to care about any of the characters. Ended up chucking it 3/4ths the way through.

Oh no! That's too bad - It wasn't a "can't put it down" type book, but I enjoyed it.
But I did actullly stop reading The Corrections. I was like halfway through and absolutely nothing was happening and I hated the characters, so I just plain stopped reading it!

[bond]

y'know.. i don't think anyone i recommended the corrections to liked it.. :)

sheesh. i'm reading trout fishing in america by richard brautigan now. i think i'll finish godel, escher and bach once it stops being so cold and i can ride the bus again.. i've been halfway through it for a month now.. all that math, i had to take a poetry break.

[Rellah]

I loved every last word of AHWOSG.

I've finished Museum and have started The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and it's melodic.

[MisterTSlippers]

Mmmm...

Right now, I'm in the middle of

Coal - Barbara Freese. The story of humans using coal. It's a short, smart, well-researched book that I'm really enjoying.
Everything And More: A Compact History Of Infinity - David Foster Wallace. Dense prose, descrbing the history and mathmatics that comprise the study of infinity. There's math, logic, humor, and a LOT of footnotes (hey, it's DFW, what else do you expect?)
The Metaphysical Club - Louis Menand's history of four 19th century American thinkers: Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. It's a sprawling work, sort of an intellectual and cultural history of the shaping of their ideas and the impact of those ideas. I've had to do lots of little side-trips in American History to refresh myself or re-acquaint myself with some of the figures and events in this book. Been worth it though. It's a good read-- entertaining as well as very meaty.

I've been reading more and more non-fiction these days. Books like A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius are hugely annoying to me-- the central character is whiney, ineffectual, and downright dull. No matter how well-crafted the prose, I can't get the least bit interested in his life or his problems. I managed to finish the book, but only just.

[wdwrongforum]

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, Conversations with Picasso - Brassai, for the secong time, & Red Rocket 7 by Mike Allred

One day I will learn to read my books one at a time, I am just too curious to let them sit.

[yoshomon]

I just finished Girl, Interrupted and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia... two books I should have read a long time ago.

[Stine]

Originally posted by trixi

Let me know how you like the ending.

I actually dug it. Loved it front start to finish.

Read Straight Talk by Jane Green. I really liked Jemima J, so I thought this would be good - it was only so-so.

The Absence of Nectar - can't remember who wrote it, but highly recommend it!

Now I'm starting Elsewhere In the Land of Parrots - it's not grabbing me quite yet.

[redbobsled]

I'm in the middle of reading Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs (he also wrote Running with Scissors). It's absolutely hilarious. It's about the lives of the hosts and inner workings of a fictional home shopping channel (a la QVC). The main characters include a fundamentalist Christian show host who is being stalked by a viewer who keeps sending her emails about her problem facial hair and a male host who gets fired for inadvertently showing his penis during a Toys for Tots show on the channel. It's so fun.

[drworm8]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0743236009.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

[classicgrrl]

I saw that come into the store drworm, let me know if you like it.

[The Engineer]

I, Robot (again)
Pride and Prejudice (again)
Collected Works of Herman Melville (again)

I cannot read just one book at a time... Hey! You don't watch just one TV show a week now, do you?

[thelunarbee]

Re: Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

I was wondering when someone was going to mention this book. I saw it at the Borders by the Dayton Mall. They didn't have it at the library so I have not read it. Lemme know if it's worth reading.

[butter_of_69]

Originally posted by MisterTSlippers
I've been reading more and more non-fiction these days. Books like A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius are hugely annoying to me-- the central character is whiney, ineffectual, and downright dull. No matter how well-crafted the prose, I can't get the least bit interested in his life or his problems. I managed to finish the book, but only just.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am finally finishing up "White Teeth" after attempting to pick it up last year and being caught up in some other stuff. It's good, but I'll have to see how it wraps up before pronouncing final judgment.

Also have had time to read some other sci-fi lately, which I always enjoy.

[Murphy]

Originally posted by redbobsled
I'm in the middle of reading Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs (he also wrote Running with Scissors).

Oh, thanks for reminding me about this author. I was watching *dork alert* that book show on CSPAN , and listened to a reading by him which I thoroughly enjoyed and then promptly forgot his name.

Butter, I read White Teeth not too long ago. It's good stuff.

Although I've mostly been on a magazine and blog-reading kick, I am currently pecking away at The Botany of Desire, which is a very interesting nonfiction work about the history of our relationship with certain plants ( the apple, the potato, cannabis, and tulips.)
Also considering reading Cold Mountain.. I've had a first edition copy since the book came out, but never read it, so all the awards buzz about this movie is making me think I should finally read the book.

[bluelupis]

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Evil and the God of Love by John Hick

Both are good stuff especially Nine Stories. Short, quick, and very entertaining as well as pretty hard hitting.

[bluewilco]

Are You Ready for the Country - Pete Doggett (about coutry rock and everything that went with it--great chapters about Kris Kristopherson and a lot of Johnny Cash stories)

Godd Omens - Neil Gaimen (just started it, but I am definitely digging it thus far)

[LadyJo]

I just read two great books

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant and The Queens Fool by Philippa Gregory

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by LadyJo
I just read two great books

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant and The Queens Fool by Philippa Gregory

hey Lady Jo! missed you around here!!
I've had my eye on the Birth of Venus. I wonder if it will make a Discover award winner??

Currently reading Sex, Power, and Time. It's quite brilliant.

[mobyoctopad]

Originally posted by butter_of_69
I am finally finishing up "White Teeth" after attempting to pick it up last year and being caught up in some other stuff. It's good, but I'll have to see how it wraps up before pronouncing final judgment.

"White Teeth"! What a bunch of nut jobs in that one! A lot of funny Muslim fundamentalist stuff in it, which seems apropos to these times.

I've been wanting to read The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain. But in the meantime I'm forcing myself to get through some overrated JT Leroy book that everyone kept recommending.

[classicgrrl]

finally got around to reading the Sexual Life of Catherine M.

fucking incredible.
probably some of the most artistic writing I have ever encountered.

beautiful! poetry prose....
this is a must read book!

[drworm8]

Originally posted by classicgrrl
I saw that come into the store drworm, let me know if you like it.

Chuck Klosterman is the type of writer I want to be, this book is very hilarious, you will laugh, guaranteed......I love Chuck's articles in SPIN, sometimes it's the only thing in there worth reading, and it inspired me to pay hardcover for this one....Chuck takes pop culture and his extensive knowledge of it and molds up some occasionally crazy (but always interesting and thoughtful) theories on how it relates to tthe human condition and society today....this book goes from your local newspaper to Pamela Anderson to breakfast cereals to SAVED BY THE BELL.....and he makes a point everytime, even when it's just ironic and humorous.....Chuck Klosterman has encouraged me even more to look into journalism once I get into college, and tomorrow I'm picking up Fargo Rock City. I reccomend Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs to everyone here with a sense of humor and an open mind for a ridicuously intelligent, funny nerd.

He reminds me so much of myself......it's ridiculous.

[classicgrrl]

good recommendation, I will put it on my list.

[MissKitty]

Currently plowing through The View from the Vysotka by Anne Nivat, a French journalist and Russia expert. From the book jacket notes:

The vysotkii, or "Sky Houses", were completed shortly before Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 and still dominate the Moscow skyline today. Seven in all, they were the Soviet answer to the American skyscraper, transforming the Soviet capital from a feudal backwater into the city of the future. The vysotkas were intended to be "enduring monuments to the workers state" and to the glories of Communism. Now these imposing giants lie on the fault line between a world that has vanished and one still emerging from its ruins.


When she moved to Moscow several years ago, Nivat settled into one of the vysotkas, the one overlooking the Kremlin. She became fascinated by the building and learned everything she could about its history. As she got to know her neighbors and fellow tenants, Nivat discovered that they included some of the building's original inhabitants or their descendants, hand-chosen by Stalin and his henchman Lavrenti Beria (arrested and executed for high treason shortly after Stalin's death)-KGB operatives, Bolshoi ballerinas, and artists of Soviet agitprop. Living side by side with them were representatives of the "new Russia"---entrepreneurs, foreign investors, etc. because the Stalin-era buildings in today's free market are some of the most coveted addresses in the city.

By means of this decaying but still elegant Soviet icon, the author gives us a way of grasping the complexities of a country struggling to come to terms with its past and define its future. She allows the tenants of her vysotka to speak for themselves, to offer their perspectives on where Russia has been and where it is going. Some are keenly nostalgic for the days when the State dictated life. Others have prospered in the confusion that has reigned since the Evil Empire's fall and look to a market-driven economy to guide Russia to the Promised Land. Still others fall someplace between the two, anxious but hopeful, longing for yet also fearful of change.

Taken together, the portraits of the vysotka's inhabitants provide a panorama of Russia today. The View from the Vysotka shows us life from the inside, evoking both the forces that have swept through this vast and fascinating nation over the course of the last half-century, as well as a building that has managed to endure them.

[The Engineer]

I just started Main Street

[MissKitty]

Managed to get quite a bit of reading done during my 2 week hiatus from work, and possibly the best book I read during that time was The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor.

Unlike many historical accounts which can be tedious reading at best, from the moment I picked this book up to the moment I finished it I found it interesting and well researched. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a serious interest in history.

This book obviously covers the last few months of WW2 and how the Russian Red Army captured the Nazi capital of Berlin. It is a fascinating account that details the operations and strategies of the German, Russian, British and American armies as well as presents civilian stories from inside the city.

The story is very well told and offers an interesting blend of facts, first-person accounts, and analyses. It's refreshing that this book does not sugar coat everything the United States did too. Eisenhower and Roosevelt are tactfully exposed as being more than a bit naive regarding Stalin's motives. It shows how one of the primary motivations of the Russians was to capture the atomic weapons research lab at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and how the Americans, not knowing of its existence (according to the author), refused to engage in a race to Berlin.

It also reveals the utter madness surrounding the Third Reich and it's members. It is well documented how German children (Hitler Youth) were sent into battle, and this book also reveals how they were sent to a slaughter that could have been avoided had the upper echelon of the Third Reich actually listened to their generals, rather than demanding blind loyalty.

Highly recommended book. I'm planning to start Beevor's account of the German invasion of Stalingrad this evening.

[Santos-Dumont]

I have just finished Coraline by Neil Gaiman and was wonderfully impressed, this is my first exposure to Mr Gaiman' s work and while i knew he does a sort of graphic novel and mostly young adult stuff, i was still intrigued. His dialouge is very charming and very English( I love anything written with an English accent). The story about a tomboyish little girl is very well done and harkened me back to my childhood when i would just "go out exploring"

The mouse circus and orchestra was easily the best part of the book and on the back flap theres a picture of Mr Bobo's "mousetra" sooo great!!!

Anybody else a Gaiman fan?

[peedub]

Originally posted by Santos-Dumont

Anybody else a Gaiman fan?

dude, don't get 72v started....you've just scratched the surface...check 'good omens', it's laugh out loud funny...

[butter_of_69]

Originally posted by Santos-Dumont
Anybody else a Gaiman fan?

Oddly enough, I just this minute finished "Neverwhere" which I picked up after thoroughly enjoying "American Gods". I think I preferred American Gods, but they were both very good books.

[72valiant]

Originally posted by peedub


dude, don't get 72v started....you've just scratched the surface...check 'good omens', it's laugh out loud funny...

hey, don't get me started.:p check out neilgaiman.com for all his works. there is even some short stories posted. hell, even his journal is a good read. welcome to the fold, ah ah ah.

[The Engineer]

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin
Dear Theo, autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh

[Stine]

Originally posted by The Engineer

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin


I really enjoy reading her stuff.

I'm on my like 4th Jane Green novel, Mr. Maybe. Bookends was pretty good. Mr. Maybe is only alright.

After that I'm reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, then I'll probably read Wicked, also by Gregory Maguire since it's being made into a Broadway show.

[MissKitty]

Big thanks to Nepenthean for recommending Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs awhile back--it was foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny, all at the same time.

The book chronicles the true story of the author as a child--shunned by his alcoholic father, given away by his psycho poet-wannabe mother (who dumped him on the doorstep of her shrink), and raised by said shrink, who appears to be the craziest of them all. How Burroughs managed to rise above the chaos, filth and corruption of his childhood is compelling reading.

a big thumbs up.

[IPrayForSound]

In the last month or two...

Neverwhere by Gaiman...it's the second time I've read it. Man, I love that guy.

Introducing Quantum Theory...stupid amounts of fun.

Introducing Psychology...not as fun.

Introducing Existentialism...kinda fun...better than the psych book.

Tales of Ordinary Madness by Bukowski...great short stories. It's the second half of a large collection (the first being The Most Beautiful Girl In Town).

The Most Beautiful Girl In Town...see above.

Bluebeard by Vonnegut...not his best, but definately fun and noticeably Kurt.

American Scream by Cynthia True...biography of Bill Hicks...3rd or 4th time I've read it...VERY good...it'll come close to makin' ya cry at the end.

Perpetual Peace For Perpetual War: How We Got To Be So Hated by Vidal...surprisingly good read (for political commentary)...includes a lengthy discussion on (and sort of with) Tim McVeigh and how his views, in a far more moderate form, can shed a very clear light on more current events.

Feel This Book by Janeane Garofalo and Ben Stiller...suckitude. Kinda funny occasionally, but bleh...I dunno.

Also, tons of comics. Yup. Sorry 'bout the long post.

[peedub]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
biography of Bill Hicks...

who's bill hicks? i feel i should know this, but....

[IPrayForSound]

Bill Hicks is arguably the best stand-up comedian of the last 20 years (more?). I say arguably because I say he's awesome, and a whole shitload of people have never heard of him.

Also, he's dead (sorry if that ruins the end of the book).

[peedub]

nope, never heard of him...he got records?

[MissKitty]

Originally posted by peedub
nope, never heard of him...he got records?

Yep, and there are a few DVD's available too! He's superb.

[IPrayForSound]

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/03/13/hicks/story.jpg
"It's a shame it's that secondary smoke that stinks so bad, 'cause the stuff we're suckin' up is fuckin' great, man."

[IPrayForSound]

Originally posted by peedub
nope, never heard of him...he got records? Get "Relentless". It's one of the best albums ever.

[peedub]

huh...looks vaguely familiar, but not ringing any bells...looks like peedub's got him a new project....

[peedub]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
Get "Relentless". It's one of the best albums ever.


got it...i had heard some of this before, but probably never heard it identified as bill hicks....i did recognize a line or 2 from a tool record that i have...."rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal fuckin' high on drugs". then ichecked the inlay of said tool record, and there is a painting of bill hicks with the caption "another dead american hero"...

good stuff, i laughed...

[yoshomon]

'No Logo' by Naomi Klein - this book is great because it lays down a great critique of pomo/identity politics and rips apart those who claim free-trade and sweat shops help the third world.

'Rage & Reason' by Michael Tobias - honestly, you have to be vegan to enjoy this novel, but it's about as hardcore as vegan novels get.

'Hard Love' by ellen wittlinger - great teenage love novel about zinesters.

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by yoshomon
'No Logo' by Naomi Klein - this book is great because it lays down a great critique of pomo/identity politics and rips apart those who claim free-trade and sweat shops help the third world.

'Rage & Reason' by Michael Tobias - honestly, you have to be vegan to enjoy this novel, but it's about as hardcore as vegan novels get.

'Hard Love' by ellen wittlinger - great teenage love novel about zinesters.

Klein has a follow up out called Fences and Windows.

[c-lando]

At my own, super-slow pace, I'm currently reading CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. So far, so good.

[cockney rebel]

"The DaVinci Code"

a.fucking.good.read*

* "a.fucking.good.read" is the © of Cockney Rebel and may only be used on Dan Brown's next bookcover as a review if CR receives oodles of cash for its use

[snoop522]

I've just finished The Davinci Code and Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers. Both were great. I highly recommend Stiff if you like nerdy science books.

[Seth]

Island by Jane Rodgers. It's an easy read but it's really good. If you like weird stories about people wanting to kill their mothers, this just might be the book for you.

[mongoose]

Just reread 'She's Come Undone' by Wally Lamb. Love it. Don't let the Oprah Book Club seal of approval put you off.

Thinking about going out and buying the 'Out of the Silent Planet' trilogy by C.S. Lewis, and reading those again. It's been a few years since I read them.

[yoshomon]

Originally posted by classicgrrl
Klein has a follow up out called Fences and Windows.

mhmm. I'm planning on picking it up eventually. And her articles about Iraq have been right on target of late.

[LadyJo]

Elizabeth and Mary by Jane Dunn

Reading Sex and The City edited by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe - A collection of essays that explore the cultural relevance and impact of the series.

[redmeg8]

Originally posted by c-lando
At my own, super-slow pace, I'm currently reading CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. So far, so good.
Started that and never got through it. Should give it another shot, methinks. And, I bet we could compete for slowest reader. I am pitifully slow.

Currently finishing up the Fire & Ice series by George RR Martin. SOOOOOO GOOOOD. After that, I'll read.... <gasp> I'm actually almost DONE!? NO!!!

sigh.

[The Hegemo]

I'm reading Kathy Wilson's collected Your Negro Tour Guide columns.

[vicious]

since we've been REALLY slow at work, i've recently re-read a lot of my old favorites and finished a lot of new books.

new ones:

Eating the Cheshire Cat by helen ellis - a great quick read. i wouldn't really recommend it for the fellas, though. very nostalgic about first loves and whatnot. especially recommended for those of us who grew up southern, or at least under the thumb of a southern mother. it paints the competitive, deceitful environment in which a lot of girls grew up in a way i never thought could be described in words.

heartbreaking work of a staggering genius by dave eggers - i know, i'm behind everyone by a few years on this one, but i loved it. when i buy books, i always read the last sentence first. based on the last sentence in this book, it made it a REAL page turner to see how things got to that point.

i re-read Speaking with the Angel, a compilation of lovely short stories edited and compiled by nick hornby. highly recommended if you haven't checked it out yet - especially the irvine welsh and giles smith stories.

finished SongBook by hornby. it's better when you can read at home where you can listen to the accompanying mix made for the book. awesome.

now i'm starting How to be Good by Hornby. so far it's great. i should have it finished by tomrorow.

[butter_of_69]

Originally posted by vicious
now i'm starting How to be Good by Hornby. so far it's great. i should have it finished by tomrorow.

Didn't like that one.

[thelunarbee]

Originally posted by vicious
now i'm starting How to be Good by Hornby. so far it's great. i should have it finished by tomrorow.

Oh yeah, this book is pretty good. Weird with all the cult-like crap, but it's still the best page turner I have ever read.

[yoshomon]

I'm reading a book titled "The Enemy is Middle Class". It's fucking amazing. AK Press has it. If you're working class, I highly recommend checking it out.

I'm about to start book bout the Friends of Durutti group from the spanish rev and another one about Hungary '56. I'm also re-reading Lukacs' "History and Class Consciousness" which is one of my all time favorites.

[Jeff59]

....well, after finding out that Anton Wadajs' movie "Danton" was based on one of his plays, I just checked out Georg Buchners collected works. They where writtein in the 1830s, in German, but still....

Most of my reading is specialized nonfiction, so if you are interested in some recommendations on architecture or urban affairs books....well.....let me know. :rolleyes:

For an insanely fun political read try Anne Coulters "Treason". You don't have to agree with her to appreciate her over-the-top style. Sort like a right wing Hunter S Thompson.

[Jeff59]

the Friends of Durutti group

"The Return of the Durutti Column" from the 1980s was interesting music...just one guy I think, doing this ambient stuff...a bit like Sigur Ros.

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by yoshomon
I'm reading a book titled "The Enemy is Middle Class". It's fucking amazing. AK Press has it. If you're working class, I highly recommend checking it out.

I'm about to start book bout the Friends of Durutti group from the spanish rev and another one about Hungary '56. I'm also re-reading Lukacs' "History and Class Consciousness" which is one of my all time favorites.

Yosh, I'm gonna check out The Enemy is Middle Class and History and Class Consciousness.

I'm probably classified as Middle Class.
I've always known I was my own worst enemy.

[classicgrrl]

hey Yosh.

I can't find it on AKPress.com.

can you give the author or ISBN if it has one?
thanks!

[yoshomon]

I actually got Akpress.org's last copy. It's published in England, so it's prolly hard to come by. The author is Andy Anderson. Having some time to think on it, I really didn't like the conclusions that Anderson comes to... but it's a fun, interesting read. Anderson wrote a book called Hungary '56, and it's a lot better. Akpress.org still has copies of that.

History and Class Consciousness is by Lukács and published by MIT.

[peedub]

i just finished the speed of dark by elizabeth moon.

although this book just won the nebula award for best science fiction novel, i wouldn'necessarily classify it as science fiction....it is set in the near future, but there are very few sci-fi type elements to it. it's (the story) all about perspective and what is "normal", and what should one be willing to do to be considered normal...highly recommended.

[akip]

middlesex by jeffrey eugenides was brilliant.

[MissKitty]

Recently finished Candy Freak by Steve Almond, which was a very enjoyable read. Personally, I've never really been much of a candy eater, even as a child. Mr. Almond would like to point out that there is something intrinsically wrong with me and that I should be avoided. Heh. Here are a few facts about Mr.Almond:

1. Steve has eaten a piece of candy every single day of his entire life.

2. He thinks about candy at least once an hour.

3. He has between three and seven pounds of candy in his house at all times.

In Candy Freak Almond laments the disappearance of his most beloved confection, the Caravelle bar. It's vanishing led him to ask the question, "How is it that a candy bar, an absolutely sensational candy bar, can be banished to oblivion?"

He charts the demise of the small, independent candy makers who have fallen victim to the big candy makers (Hershey, Mars) and goes on a quest to visit some of the last remaining factories.

The book is more than just a document of Steve's lustful search for a single bar of chocolate, crisped rice, and caramel, however. It's part memoir, part history lesson, and it also reminds us how sweets have the power to make children of us all....even those of us who didn't consume massive amounts of candy as children.

[MissKitty]

Finished reading the very humourous and delightfully fun Join Me by Danny Wallace over the weekend.

Wallace is inspired by stories of his great uncle Gallus and his failed attempts to set up a commune in post-war Switzerland, so he decides to honour his great uncle's memory by attempting to recruit 100 people to create a perfect world. His Norwegian girlfriend is kept in the dark about it, because she deems most of Wallace's ideas "silly boy stuff."

He puts a rather mysterious ad in a newspaper and waits to see what happens....

I tip my hat to FG and CR for turning me onto this one.

[Slar]

I just tried to start with Anne Rice's Blood Canticle - the newest edition of the "Vampire Chronicles". It was perhaps just me or my mood at the time, but I couldn't even get past the first couple of chapters. The first chapter is Lestat raving on and on about how he wants to be a saint, all the wonderful things he would do, an imagined meeting with the pope, blah, blah, blah. He also complains about the fan critiques of "his" last book, which totally jumped the shark in my opinion. Hey author, don't get pissed at your fans when your storyline goes haywire.

Skipped to chapter 2 finally to get into the action, and couldn't find my place from where the last one dropped off. Also, it goes back to the Mayfair witches. I really wish Rice had never combined those two story lines. The Vampire Chronicles I loved, but the Mayfaird book I had to just trudge through. Not happy to see them back.

I've just given up on it then. Anyone disagree?

[summerteeth]

I'm almost finished with McSweeney's Mammoth Tales and Stories guest edited by Michael Chabon (author of Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay). 20 stories, almost all of them are very good. I have one more to go, then it's off to the next book.

[MissKitty]

Finishing up Ernie Pyle's War by James Tobin and am getting a little more disappointed with each chapter.

I first heard of Mr.Pyle on NPR a few weeks back, during a segment on Memorial Day. Pyle was a newspaper columnist from Dana, Indiana, who wrote for Scripps-Howard newspapers in the 30's and 40's. He had a very distinctive style of writing--one which we take for granted now--but that was very new and unheard of back then. He wrote about individuals--the "little guy", the underdogs, the common people of the day. His stories were about everyday trials and tribulations. He always said his goal was to bring the reader along with him, to make the reader feel as though he was sitting next to Ernie in the car as he drove across the country, meeting the people that Ernie met.

Ernie went to Europe when WWII began, sending stories about the regular G.I. and bringing the human side of the war home to readers across the United States. Before he went to Europe and the war, his column appeared in about 40 Scripps-Howard papers across the country. By the second month he was in Europe, his column was syndicated all over the world.

He was a fabulous writer and each column I've read has moved me to tears. So why am I disappointed? Because James won't leave Pyle's columns alone. There are scant few actual full columns that appear unaltered in the book. James pulls a snippet from this column, and another from that column, splicing and dicing and generally pissing me off.

I want to read his columns unaltered, in all their glory. James won't let me.

[The Hegemo]

Working on Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. I had never read any of Lewis' stuff up until a couple years ago, but he has rapidly become one of my all-time favorite authors. Despite the fact that he was writing 80 years ago, so much of what he writes works as spot-on satire of current America. I guess we haven't changed as much in the latter half of the 20th Century as we might hope..

[uselesstomato]

i've been re-reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan so i can get started on book 10.
im on book 9.

[angryj5]

Chuck Palahnuik's Invisible Monsters

[wileE]

Originally posted by uselesstomato
i've been re-reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan so i can get started on book 10.
im on book 9.

You must have a lot of free time. My wife loves that series, but I could barely get through the first book. Started off great, then started dragging on.

I am reading the Viscount of Adrilankha by Steven Brust.
Just finished the DaVinci Code and Catch-22.

[uselesstomato]

Originally posted by wileE


You must have a lot of free time. My wife loves that series, but I could barely get through the first book. Started off great, then started dragging on.

I am reading the Viscount of Adrilankha by Steven Brust.
Just finished the DaVinci Code and Catch-22.

free time... that and im almost obssessed with the series, book 9 and 10 are signed. :cool:
the first is the slowest of them all in my opinion... they get better :D my favourite characters arent even heavily introduced until 4 or 5

i think i need to start reading non fantasy books :p cant seem to tear my self from them though. the Thomas Covenant Unbeliever series was pretty good, though I only finished one of the trilogies, and the Book of Three series was great, and of course, the chronicles of Narnia.
hmm
i should re read those at some point.

[hlfzephyr]

"Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris

Hilarious! I've read everyone of his books and they just keep getting better & better...

[sirgareth]

Just finished "Among the Missing", a short story collection by Dan Chaon. Check him out if y'all like that sort of stuff...he lives in Cleveland, so it almost falls under the rubric of local. No matter where you live, his stories are frightening, funny, and creepy in a very cool way.

He just put out his first novel, too. Fans of short fiction, definitely give it a whirl.

[postfeminist]

the new sedaris book's release has forced me to get barrel fever, one of his earlier books. i like it so far. :)

finished the corrections awhile ago, fucking great book.

also reading that jonathan safran foer book...everything is illuminated or something...

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by postfeminist
the new sedaris book's release has forced me to get barrel fever, one of his earlier books. i like it so far. :)

finished the corrections awhile ago, fucking great book.

also reading that jonathan safran foer book...everything is illuminated or something...

The Corrections for me seemed a weird combo of Falkner type characters with an Aesop Fable ending. I like people with family issues.
:p

currently reading American Jezebel. The bio of the real like Anne Hutchinson that Hawthorne based his heroine on in The Scarlet Letter.

[akip]

just started "the fortress of solitude" by jonathan lethem and so far it's intriguing. supposed to be largely autobiographical.

[yoshomon]

Finished recently:
Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs by the Curious George Brigade
In Search of the World: A Traveller's Almanac Vol. 1
Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

'In the Age of Dinosaurs' was a quick, fun read. I disagreed with a lot of it, but it had some good points (especially when it provided real-world examples). 'In Search of the World' was awesome.

'Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit' was so good! Winterson is definitely one of the best fiction writers I have ever read.

[classicgrrl]

Yosh, where the hell have you been?
:mad:

now I have more books to put on my to read list.
:p

[drscott46]

Has anyone ever read House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski? I saw a blurb on it in one of the recent issues of MAGNET Magazine (the one about eccentrics and oddballs), and it sounded really interesting and unique.

[yoshomon]

Alright... what to read now?

I've narrowed it down to three:
The Shining Path Of Peru: A History
Valencia by Michelle Tea
Surrealist Subversions: the American Surrealist Movement

[sirgareth]

Oh! Oh! Pick Me! I just finished another one, and man do I want to share!

MAN WALKS INTO A ROOM by Nicole Krauss. A great first novel (not without flaws) about a man who, due to brain tumor, forgets the middle 24 years of his life. Great writing on memory, lonliness, and relationships (those of all types, not just the lovin' kind...). She also wrote a short story that was published in the 2/9 New Yorker, "The Last Words on Earth," that was the best short story I've read in the last year. Definitely a talented writer worth checking out.

[MissKitty]

Finished up Digital Fortress by Dan Brown last week, and although it started out really good (although not nearly as good as The Da Vinci Code) it got way too unbelieveable three quarters of the way through. I finished it very disappointed.

[hlfzephyr]

Just finished "Stranger Than Fiction" by Chuch Palahniuk (author of "Fight Club", "Invisible Monsters", & "Survivor"). A series of interviews and non-fiction stories. Some stories really, really great (like the interviews with Juliette Lewis and Marilyn Manson) some stories really, really crappy (like the castle story and some others). But if you like his fiction you should read this. It'll make you see some of what makes Palahniuk tick...

[postfeminist]

i just finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell... thought it was pretty cool. easy read. only took 2 days.

[munkie_boy]

As a few other above have mentioned....right now I am reading the new David Sedaris collection Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Some of the essays I heard him read in Cinci, but still all are very good.

Next in line, I want to read Ramblin' Man. It is a biography of Woody Guthrie

[vanler]

Just finished:

Ancient Futures - Learning from Ladakh
A look at culture of pre and post development in Ladakh, a Buddhist and Muslim part of northern India on the Tibetan plateau. Amazing!! A society that work(ed :( ) amazingly well.

Cheaper by the Dozen ~ (nothing like the movie, excellent read!!)

Dumbing us Down ~ John Taylor Gatto
Eye opening (to me) and intelligent look at government compulsory schooling. I also learned a lot of great ideas about community and democracy too..

Currently:
On the Road ~Jack Kerouac
Always wanted to read it, and its great so far!!!

[Headcat]

Just started Thackery's "Vanity Fair" Trying to plow through the classics.

[Jeff59]

working on two books

A Civilian Occupation (http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/segal_weizman_occupation.shtml)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1859845495.01._PE30_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

"Censored last year by the Association of Israeli Architects, A Civilian Occupation is the first attempt by Israeli architects, scholars, journalists, and photographers to highlight the role of Israeli architecture in the Middle East conflict."...they are primarily writing about the West Bank settlements.

And I'm also reading A Field Guide to Sprawl, by Dolores Hayden. More looking than reading as its mostly ariel photographs.

[Via]

I just finished reading Linda Barry's book Cruddy, from 1999, and I am astounded. It has the look and feel of a young adult book (it's illustrated like her earlier book the Good Times are Killing Me and it's a parallel story from two points in a girl's life, when she's 11 and now 16) but is so twisted and complex. I'd highly recommend this gory tale of a road trip (when she's 11) and hallucenogenic trip (when she's 16). After that crazed rampage I'm ready for some Sedaris... I just got the new one.

[Gaia]

Just got back from a week-long beach vacation where I did some heavy reading. In addition to countless magazines, here are the books I polished of:

"Valhalla Rising "by Clive Cussler. I hated it. Typically I don't like popular authors and would have stayed away from this, but it was recommended from a friend (whose future recommendations shall fall under suspect.) Note, whenever an author heroically writes themselves into the story, put the book down and walk away.

"The Yearling" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Having never read this, I picked it up to redeem myself for the Cussler. Loved it, makes me want to visit my parents home in Florida and seek out old parts of Florida.

I'm now halfway through "That’s Why They're in Cages, People!" by Joel Perry. Love it, funny stuff. After I'm done with that, I'll read "Life, A User's Manual" by Georges Perec.

[munkie_boy]

Right now I am reading the new David Sedaris collection Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

Finished it last night in a reading spurt -- i was up until 2:00 am -- that felt good...I am still having an internal chortle at some of the scenes....and still introspective and wiping away a tear with others....

Don't have ramblin' man yet....so it is to my reading-backlog for something...maybe Walter Mosley's Six Easy Pieces

[LadyJo]

The Kushiel trilogy - Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen & Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey.

The novels take place in an alternate version of renaissance era Europe. The protaganist, Phedre no Delaunay is a courtesan from the land of Terre d'Ange (France in our world) who is also an angissette, one who is experiences pain and pleasure at once. (In other words, S&M.) There are quite a few graphic sex scenes, not recommended for the squeamish, but they're not gratuitous, and tie in with the rest of the story. There's a lot of adventure, politics, court intrigues, plus a bunch of memorable characters and a strong supernatural thread that runs through the story. Great summer reading, especially for fans of fantasy and historical fiction.

[MissKitty]

Plowing my through Lords of Chaos: The Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind.

The book is a sort of guide to the Norwegian Black Metal scene, where this latest, more rebellious form of heavy metal originated. The book starts out a little slow, with the authors trying to draw a parallel from the old roots blues of America's south, to the music of the Stones in the 60's and onto Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and finally linking them with Venom, Mercyful Fate and Slayer in the early 80's.

I was interested in reading this book because I wanted to find out why Norway has been the recent setting for the burning of numerous churches, and for several gruesome murders for which a small group of Black Metallers have been convicted. I remembered reading about the burnings and murders in the newspaper, and hearing about them from the metal kids who used to frequent the indie music store where I worked. Countless times I special ordered LPs and CDs from bands like Burnum, Dark Throne, Bathory and Mayhem for customers, so I find the background on these bands fascinating. Most of the guys I special ordered Norwegian Black Metal for don't seem the type to murder or burn churches, but there were a few who geniunely frightened me with their odd point of view.

Basically the view of Norwegian Black Metallers is they cite the slaughter of their pagan traditions at the hands of early Christians as their justification for the burnings and murders. Oooooooh-kaaaaaaaaay. Those rationalizations pretty much fall apart because the Black Metal kids were murdering their own kind.

I'm just glad the pictures are not in colour. I was really sickened by one particular photo--it was the singer for the band Mayhem (the singer's name is "Dead"), who took a shotgun and blew out his brains in his apartment bedroom. One of the other band members/roommates, named Euronymous, discovered the grisly remains and took the time to go out and buy film for his camera, then went back and took a rollful of pictures of Dead. He then took some pieces of Dead's brain and kept them as souviners, which he and other band members made into necklaces. It was only after he'd taken the pictures and saved bits of brain that he decided to call the police and report it. One of the suicide photos turned up on a Mayhem bootleg LP, which is reprinted in this book. It honestly turned my stomach.

[classicgrrl]

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton.

This is going on my list of books that are potentially life changing.

I can't even post about it right now. It is THAT good. Here are some quotes:

"Public opinion is the worst of all opinion." Chamfort"

"In the harsher climate of opinion that prevailed in certain strata of meritocratic societies, it now became possible to argue that the social hierarchy rigorously reflected the qualities of those on every rung of the ladder, and that conditions already in place ensured that the worthy would succeed and the undeserving flounder. Any tendancy towards charity, welfare, redistributive measures or simple compassion was thus rendered--conveniently--unnecessary."

"But when a belief in an afterlife is dimissed as a childish and scientifically impossible opiate, the pressure to succeed and find fulfillment will inevitably be intensified by the awareness that one has only a single and frighteningly fleeting opportunity to do so. In such a context, earthly achievements can no longer seen as an overture to what one may realize in another world; rather they are the sum total of all that one will ever amount to."

[classicgrrl]

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton.

Sometime ago, someone I knew made a statement about my weight. It bothered me. I wanted to know why it bothered me.

I saw this book come into the store and I put it on one of our prominent tables. It kept catching my eye so eventually I put on my reading list. After the comment, I deiced to read it.

People want to look a certain way, make a certain amount of money, own certain things, live in certain areas, or be recognized publically in some way (musicians, writers, and photographers included). The major underlying factor: we care what other people think. The author coined this status anxiety.

The book is written in two parts. The first is Causes. This first part is divided up into five parts:
Lovelessness
Expectation
Meritocracy
Snobbery
Dependence.

The second part is Solutions again divided up into five parts:
Philosophy
Art
Politics
Religion
Bohemia.

Over the years I have had what I like to term 'personal epiphanies'. Mostly from reading or hearing music. I now have another one to add to my list.

[pomegranate]

the outlaw bible of american poetry.

i havent been able to put it down since january.. i must have read it six times by now. .. but you seriously cannot go wrong with this anthology, what with poets from d.a. levy and diane diprima to tom waits and patti smith gracing the pages. i'm just sad that for "political" reasons, charles bukowski's work isnt included...yet i am happy that he does get a little nod in the steve richmond poem that is in it though.

i love this fucking book. damn.

[LadyJo]

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca

An amazing book. The author spent several months living and travelling among the gypsies, or Roma of Eastern Europe. These people are very misunderstood. They're either hated or romanticized, and Fonseca does a good job of stripping all of that away and presenting them as human beings with faults, strengths, joys and sorrows just like the rest of us. This is one of the best works of non-fiction I've read in a long time.

[Rafe]

Originally posted by LadyJo
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca

An amazing book. The author spent several months living and travelling among the gypsies, or Roma of Eastern Europe. These people are very misunderstood. They're either hated or romanticized, and Fonseca does a good job of stripping all of that away and presenting them as human beings with faults, strengths, joys and sorrows just like the rest of us. This is one of the best works of non-fiction I've read in a long time. I will absolutely check this out, and it will also be of significant interest to members of my family. Thanks for mentioning it, otherwise i'd have probably never heard of it.

[sleepingbeauty]

Originally posted by Headcat
Just started Thackery's "Vanity Fair" Trying to plow through the classics.

The fact that there is a movie coming out (I guess it's based on the book) reminded me that I want to read this. But I probably will pass on the movie.

Right now I'm reading "A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books" by Nicholas Basbanes

I just finished summer classes so it now has my undivided attention. I hope to read as much as possible in the next two weeks before fall semster starts!

[akip]

had some kind of rotten flu-like thing where i was in bed with a fever for a couple of days...the only good thing was getting to read uninterrupted for entire blocks of time.

finished the fortress of solitude, which connected like nothing i'd read for a while. then running with scizzors by augusten burroughs, a quick read which made me laugh and wanna puke at the same time.

felt well enough to go out today and buy hornby's songbook, unfortunately w/out the cd, and the child in time by ian mcewan---had always been a little spooked to read it (it's about a couple who lose their only child) but since a friend of mine just lost a baby, i thought i ought to try. and mcewan's a chillingly great writer.

[IPrayForSound]

I'm reading The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. Extremely weird and terribly delicious. Love it.

[MissKitty]

Just started Cider With Roadies, a music memoir by Stuart Maconie. I'd read some of his musings in a recent issue of Word magazine and it made me laugh so long and hard that I turned into a watery mess.

Maconie was a staff writer for NME during the punk years and beyond. He's got great wit and can really weave a story. I can hardly wait to delve back into it!

[carrotsncelery]

I'm reading My Wife and My Dead Wife by Michael Kun. And, yes, I picked it up because of the Robyn Hitchcock song.

It's entertaining. Nothing deep, but it's keeping my attention well. Though it does not seem to have any connection to the song. But the author is at least a lyric writer...he has lines from a bunch of songs that he wrote in the book.

[cockney rebel]

"Confessions of a Tax Collector (One Man's Tour of Duty inside the I.R.S)" by Richard Yancey.

A tale of bullshit bureaucracy.

[redbobsled]

We were reading The Life of Pi but had to return it to the library because it had a reserve on it. It seems quite slow to get going. Anyone read it? Is it worth getting it back again and giving it another try?

[classicgrrl]

The Two Income Trap

WOW!

really eye opening reading.
REALLY eye opening reading.

and man oh man oh man I am EVER GLAD I chose not to have kids! (this isn't a slam on parents, but read the book dudes)

[yoshomon]

CGrrl, how many books do you read on that subject? ;)

I just finished Written On the Body by Jeanette Winterson. What a great novel. I'm such a lesbian fiction junkie...

I think I'll travel with Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and a book by Vaneigem.

[classicgrrl]

oh foo!
:p

the book isn't about children but it is about how hard families have it today trying to make it in America. and the book isn't liberal neither...it bashes the left and the right pretty damned evenly.

the book was written after the largest economic study ever done in the US was completed.

did you now more families are now filing bankruptcies than are getting divorced?

[yoshomon]

Really? Damn. 50% of marriages end in divorce... what percent of families go bankrupt?

[mango woman]

I could be mistaken, but I don't think I've seen George Saunders' name on here. Go to your preferred book-buying depot, pick up a copy of Pastoralia and read the first page of any story in the collection. It's the best book I've read since The Twits. You know what I'm talkin' about.

Excerpt from The New York Times Review: "Artful and sophisticated . . . truly unusual. Imagine Lewis's Babbitt thrown into the backseat of a car going cross-country, driven by R. Crumb, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Harvey Pekar or Spike Jonze. That'd be a story Saunders could tell."

$12.00 US; $17.00 Canada

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by yoshomon
Really? Damn. 50% of marriages end in divorce... what percent of families go bankrupt?
Phreon and I had this discussion yesterday.

1/2 (not necessarily 50%) of marriages end in divorce. 1/7 families file for bankruptcy. for purposes of study, the team defined family as having children.

go get the book!

[sleepingbeauty]

Originally posted by IPrayForSound
I'm reading The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. Extremely weird and terribly delicious. Love it.

Have you read Shop Girl ? It's a novella by him. Sweet, poignent and sad. It's good little gem.

Edited to add: I just finished Lady Chatterly's lover by D.H. Lawrence and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Interesting choice of books to read one right after another, both are pretty much about living simply and not getting caught up in the culture that has been created by human-kind.

I plowed through Ishmael, I couldn't put it down, a pretty easy read I guess. I recommend it to everyone. But if I have to go with life changing philosophic books, I still have to go with Ayn Rand's Fountainhead.

[akip]

just started motherless brooklyn by jonathan lethem. only a few chapters into it the main character, a hired lunk with tourette's syndrome, has me completely aching for him.

lethem is brilliant at drawing you into the souls of lonely misfits.

[classicgrrl]

So You Wanna Be A Rock Star
Jacob Slichter

well written and brutally honest. this is the drummer for semisonic who had the hit Closing Time. graduated from Harvard and was told while studing music at Berkley to find something else to study; I identify with Slichter quite closely.

If I had been in music this is the way it would have gone for me I'm sure of it.

very good read.
highly recommended.

[kcneon]

When Generations Collide
Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman

Excellent! Defines each current generation in the workplace (Traditionalists; Baby Boomers; Gen X; Millennials), but not narrowly. Gets into everyone's heads to try to understand what makes each generation tick. I'm not sure that it will solve issues, but it opens the door to conversation and understanding.

It's a quick and easy read, as well. It covers what the Gen Xers and Millennialists are looking for in their work and lives. Even these two generations differ. I can't recommend this enough!

[redbobsled]

We're in the middle of reading Devil in the White City. It's pretty awesome - it's about the Chicago World's fair in the 1890's - and about the serial killer who was simultaneously killing women in Chicago. For nonfiction, it reads a lot like a novel.

[SenorCardgage]

I always loved the Bond flicks as a kid and recently decided to get into the original books. Kinda dates, sexist, even racist in parts, but great action stories. Nothing mind opening or great, but fun reads...

[lunamoth]

Everyone should read The Amazing Adventures of Kavilier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. I have recommended this to many very, very discriminating friends, and they all loved it.

Also- Bastard out of Carolina. Yes, child abuse and rape, but it is a beautifully written book, even if it depresses the hell outta me

[munkie_boy]

Two new ones on the nightstand....Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassan and Winesburg, OH by Sherwood Anderson.

[yoshomon]

Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin.

It's amazing. Highly recommended.

[RDU Neil]

Working through Gregory Benford's "Galactic Center" series... classic hard-sf from the late '70s through the '80s. Six books, recently re-released in updated mass markets. Fun to read the somewhat dated social-science commentary, and the hard science still holds up.

Also reading In Ruins by Christopher Woodward... a brilliant work on the impact of ruins (castles, the Colliseum, etc.) on art, poetry, and society. Very passionate writing from Woodward, who conveys his love of the deep mystery and power of being in the presence of buildings and artifacts of human kind being reclaimed by nature. Out in trade paperback for a year now, but the hardback is a wonderful sized, comfortable read.

[RDU Neil]

Originally posted by sleepingbeauty
[B]

Have you read Shop Girl ? It's a novella by him. Sweet, poignent and sad. It's good little gem.



Brilliant little book, Shop Girl really worth the couple of hours it would take (at most) to read. Too bad The Pleasure... doesn't really compare.

[Santos-Dumont]

recently started the lemony snicket series

That's right Im reading childrens literature.

I love em especially the way the titles are alliterated. I just found out last night about the Blank Book which Mr Snicket has added to the series to help children create their own stories. I think this fact alone allows Mr Snicket to wipe the floor with anything Miss Rowling puts forth.

I cant wait to get this new Peter pan story that was coauthored by Dave Barry.

On a side note,
Anyone ever read Coelho's(sp) The Alchemist? is this part of a Series or a single unconnected novel?

Oh and what the flip ever happened to Book Magazine I know they stopped publishing last year, but, WHY?:(

[MissKitty]

Originally posted by Santos-Dumont
recently started the lemony snicket series

That's right Im reading childrens literature.


EXCELLENT! CR gifted me the Lemony Snicket box set a few years ago and I thought it was incredibly well written and wry. I wish it had been around when I was a kid!

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by Santos-Dumont
On a side note,
Anyone ever read Coelho's(sp) The Alchemist? is this part of a Series or a single unconnected novel?

Oh and what the flip ever happened to Book Magazine I know they stopped publishing last year, but, WHY?:(

1. Alchemist is SORT OF part of a series. He wrote a couple more after that...

2. B&N is trying to turn a bigger profit for their investors so away goes Book Mag along with a whole bunch of their positions making more work for me. I don't pay any attention to their stock price so I dont know if it was done for just bigger profits or because they were not making their projections.

[Santos-Dumont]

thanks for the info Classic!

[wileE]

Originally posted by RDU Neil


Brilliant little book, Shop Girl really worth the couple of hours it would take (at most) to read. Too bad The Pleasure... doesn't really compare.

Shop Girl was good. Has anyone checked out his plays? Picasso at the Lapin Agile (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802135234/ref=pd_sim_books_3/104-4681283-3727110?v=glance&s=books)? Has 4 or 5 plays he wrote. I saw Picasso performed down at Taft a few years ago. Freaking hilarious!

I will have to check out The Pleasure.... Didn't even know that was out.

[Stine]

About 3/4 through The Devil Wears Prada. When I first saw the cover I thought it was another Bridget Jones' type thing, but it's not!

Makes you thankful for the job/boss you have!

Hilarious!

[postfeminist]

currently reading:

Cash by Johnny Cash
What's the Matter w/ Kansas by Thomas Frank
Running with Scissors by some dude (Augustus something maybe?)
Bare-- the truth about stripping (can't recall author)

[jps]

Originally posted by wileE


Shop Girl was good. Has anyone checked out his plays? Picasso at the Lapin Agile (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802135234/ref=pd_sim_books_3/104-4681283-3727110?v=glance&s=books)? Has 4 or 5 plays he wrote. I saw Picasso performed down at Taft a few years ago. Freaking hilarious!

I will have to check out The Pleasure.... Didn't even know that was out.

I loved picasso at the lapin agile! i wanted to see it performed and never got the opportunity. I recently got a book of his that has the other plays, and was planning on reading it sometime soon.

[Johnnylama]

Originally posted by Stine
The Secret Life of Bees - absolutely wonderful!

Quite good! We're actually making it required reading for our Sophomores next year.

B/w a zillion Scarlet Letter essays (yick) I've mannaged to finish Hope in the Unseen by Robert Suskind. It's about a kid in a rough D.C. school that makes it into an Ivy league collage. VERY powerful read for anyone interested in eduation or minority opportunity.

This is a really long thread! I'll admit I skipped a few pages...

[MissKitty]

Recently finished Cider With Roadies: From School Bus to Tour Bus Without Ever Growing Up by Stuart Maconie, which is a sort of music memoir about growing up in Northern England. Maconie is a huge music fan, a great storyteller and has a wonderful sense of humour, which is probably why he eventually found himself freelancing for NME in the early '80's and ultimately becoming one of their editors.

Most of the book chronicles his early years growing up in Wigan in the industrial north of England, from loving the progressive stuff of ELP to the dancehall stuff of Northern Soul to punk and new wave. He regales tales of stalking Elvis Costello's father one summer when the elder was touring for the bluehaired set; he fails to impress girls with his encyclopaedic music trivia; he plays in a series of shockingly named punk bands and goes to political rallies.

Somewhere along the way he accidentally became a northern stringer for NME and finds himself living the rock & roll lifestyle, gigging, marathon drinking, all the while still holding a teaching job in Liverpool. His first big break was flying to Seattle to interview INXS, and from there the story really takes flight--Morrissey...The Stone Roses...Happy Mondays... Madchester... The Hacienda Club... The Fall...it's all there, and told with such humour that I laughed myself silly from page to page.

From his four minutes with MC Hammer to four days in a van with Napalm Death, it's a life affirming, comic romp of Spinal Tap-esque excess that shouldn't be missed.

[yoshomon]

MissKitty, you're always reading neat books!

[MissKitty]

Originally posted by yoshomon
MissKitty, you're always reading neat books!
I'm just dweeby and always reading music related books. ;)

[MissKitty]

My current read is The Fate of The Romanovs by Greg King and Penny Wilson, which chronicles the last year of the life and the gruesome death of the last Russian Imperial family.

There is perhaps no twentieth-century event more shrouded in controversy, mystery and speculation than the massacre of Czar Nicholas II and his family in Ekaterinburg, Siberia, in July 1918. This riveting political and personal drama has been the subject of countless books, movies, documentaries, musical compositions, and Internet Web sites.

Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, son Alexei and four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia were executed soon after the Bolshevik Revolution-and the speculation as to what exactly happened hasn't died out during the past 85 years.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 revealed, among many other things, a hidden wealth of archival documents relating to the imprisonment and eventual murder of the Tsar and his family . Emanating from sources both within and close to the Imperial Family as well as from their captors and executioners, these often-controversial materials have enabled a new and comprehensive examination of one the pivotal events of the twentieth century and the many controversies that surround it.

Independent scholars King and Wilson stoke the flames of controversy with a creative theory: Lenin and the other Bolshevik rulers in Moscow didn't give the orders to kill the tsar's family, as has been believed. They offer a different reading of the Russian archives, arguing that Lenin preferred a trial to an execution for fear of antagonizing the Germans, whom he wanted to appease in order to consolidate his own grip on power. They reveal that it was the local Ural Soviet Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, where the Imperial Family was imprisioned, who made the ultimate decision to execute the family.

It's a very interesting and plausible theory, but the authors tend to repeat a lot of text and materials, making the book redundant at times, and much longer than it really needs to be. One item that is only superficially touched on in this book is the most intriguing to me: Where are the missing bodies of Alexei and Anastasia? The authors mention this at the beginning of the book, but then let the question drop. Too bad.

[WalterSobchak]

So our school library here shows the fact that this used to be a British "colony."

I've tried to embark on a month of Conrad but got sidetracked halfway through "Lord Jim" and haven't found my way back.

Just read Molvania (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1585676195/qid=1099725436/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-1276214-8900731?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) . It's a faux travel guide book that is fucking brilliant. The kind of book you can just open to a random page and crack yourself up.

Finished "Diamond Age" and "Zodiac" by Neal Stephenson. Good stuff, waiting on "Snow Crash" to come from home.

Other good: "Herzog" by Saul Bellow and "The Plague" by Camus. Can he be a one name author? I think so.

Crap: "Shopgirl" by Steve Martin and "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving. I hate John Irving. Hate. Crap face. Rant inspiring dribble. Dribble I say! Done. Bye.

[Sovrana]

Originally posted by WalterSobchak
Crap: "Shopgirl" by Steve Martin and "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving. I hate John Irving. Hate. Crap face. Rant inspiring dribble. Dribble I say! Done. Bye.

I so agree with "Shopgirl." The only good thing about it is that it is short and I could easily finish it before throwing it across the room. Blech!

I've never read "A Widow" but John Irving may be my absolute favorite writer. Everything I have read by him I love. I mean, how can someone read Garp and not love that?!

now, go back and (re)read Garp!

[Johnnylama]

Originally posted by WalterSobchak


I've tried to embark on a month of Conrad but got sidetracked halfway through "Lord Jim" and haven't found my way back.



That happened to me for years. I kept trying, but I don't think I ever go through it. I really liked "Heart of Darkness" and some of his other stories, and I liked the concept of "Lord Jim," but I just couldn't stay focused.

Camus: Read "The Myth of Sisyphus" (spelling?)

[Burger Queen]

I'm surprised I didn't post in this thread sooner. (or maybe I did ?)
I work in a library and try to read as often as I can.

There's this wonderful author named Jennifer Weiner. (yes, it's Weiner) I just read her third book Little Earthquakes. She depicts women so well, I can't even begin to explain. So I recommend her for the ladies who like reading about the interesting lives of other women.

[Burger Queen]

Originally posted by vicious


now i'm starting How to be Good by Hornby. so far it's great. i should have it finished by tomrorow. I love all of Nick Hornby's books. As much as I love High Fidelity, I would have to say that About a Boy is my favorite so far.

[mobyoctopad]

Originally posted by WalterSobchak
I hate John Irving. Hate. Crap face. Rant inspiring dribble. Dribble I say! Done. Bye.

wow harsh. him and tom robbins were like my fav authors in highschool.

[muse_rocks]

almost finished reading The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/034541005X/qid=1099865233/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-3886993-6860826?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

it's a book about a young boxer from south africa. i put off reading this book a long time since i'm not very interested in boxing as a sport....but once one of my friends got me to read it, i would have to put it in my top 5 books ever read. but i'm young!

i also just finished reading ender's game by orson scott card. incredible.

[bluewilco]

I liked Shopgirl. It is what it is, and when the movie eventually comes out, I'm sure I'll watch it at some point in time.

I finished up "Nickel and Dimed," recently by Barbara Ehrenreich. A great read pretty much chronicling the crap that the average lower/middle class worker endures.

Right now I'm reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James Loewen. It's good for facts, but isn't very well written. I'm having a hard time finishing chapters in one sitting.

I'm also reading The Wilco Book--good stuff. It isn't what I expected, and that's what I dig about it.

[frizgolf]

I've been looking for some good reads, and I just locked on to this thread. After spending 5 years going to night school, followed by 5 1/2 more working non-stop overtime, and now with a new job, I finally have time to catch up on some reading. Good stuff here, although I haven't had time yet to read the entire thread. (Maybe that's the next read on my list?)
I've devoured two books in the last couple weeks, and I plan to get back to a rate of one a week.
I've read Ki In Daily Life by Koichi Tohei, and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Ki is the universal life force we all have. The book offers methods and practices to bring out the positive energy of the "universal". The martial art of Ki practice is Aikido, which is non-combative in nature. I am considering joining an Aikido practice, as my self esteem can use a good boost.
Hawking's book is quite a page-turner. I've always been interested in astronomy, but Hawking goes into theory about the beginnings of the universe, the theory of relativity, the problems faced by great pioneers like Galileo and Copernicus (whose thinking got them into trouble with the Christian church), and he deals with the possibility of our being on the threshold of a grand unification theory which could explain the origins of all matter known to man. He is the Einstein of our era, but his book has a way of putting esoteric theories into laymans' terms. I'll definitely reread this one.
Thanks for the tips, everyone!

[pomegranate]

Originally posted by bluewilco


I finished up "Nickel and Dimed," recently by Barbara Ehrenreich. A great read pretty much chronicling the crap that the average lower/middle class worker endures.



i really enjoyed that book. it's nice how some authors actually put themselves in the place of those they are writing about. who needs the sociological imagination, when you're willing to get out there & do it yourself?

[Stine]

Just finished Jane Green's "To Have and To Hold" - could NOT put it down... I actually think it was better than "Jemima J."

Dowdy girl marries high school hunk. He knows he can mold her into what he wants. She becomes trophy wife, hates living in the big city and all the schmoozing. They end up having to move to the US from London where they get a Manhatten apartment AND a Conn. house. She stays in the country, he stays in the city, and they travel back and forth.
Alice [main char.] slowly realizes she's been pretending who she is for years of marriage... Great story of following your dreams and becoming your true self!

Five stars!

[redmeg8]

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

I LOVE THIS BOOK. I devoured it!!
(not for the squeamish)

I need to find more books in this vein.

[MissKitty]

I have anxiously awaited the US release of Nine Suitcases: A Memoir by Bela Zsolt. I saw it in the bookshops of England last xmas but it was hardback only at the time, so I held out and didn't buy it. I didn't think it'd take nearly a year for it to reach our shores, but it is well worth the wait.

Born in 1895, Zsolt was well known in intellectual circles during the 1920s and '30s as a liberal political journalist. He and his wife managed to escape from Hungary to Paris when war broke out, but their luck turned for the worst. From Zsolt's own words:

I blame the nine suitcases for bringing me back from Paris, where I was living in a small hotel in the Rue Linne with my wife and friends, trying to prepare for the renewal of Hungary from abroad, and to save our homeland from outside. My wife clung to the nine suitcases tooth and nail, and because there was no room for all nine together on the overcrowded train to the Riviera we didn't go to Cagnes. For the same reason we didn't go to Madrid or Lisbon. In those days it wasn't possible to travel on French trains with luggage. Passengers were sitting on the roofs and hanging from the steps, robbing each other. The railways wouldn't accept any express goods and there was no question of getting anywhere with nine suitcases. I kept asking my wife to leave with two to start with, and to collect the rest later if possible. But she insisted on all nine. Only one train was prepared to accept all nine suitcases, a train with a sleeping car and a dining car, a blue train, leaving from the Gare de Lyon. The wagon-lit attendant, as haughtily as in peacetime, lifted the nine suitcases over the heads of Parisians who, in a panic after the first air raids, were trying to escape without any luggage. The train crossed Switzerland and Italy according to the peacetime schedule. Only, it's destination was Budapest..."

The book is a collection of his memoirs of the war, of the forced labour camps, of Bergen-Belsen. It originally appeared in serial form in a Hungarian magazine in 1946 and is one of the first personal accounts of the Holocaust. Zsolt died in 1949, a year after his wife commited suicide.

[c-lando]

Finished TWISTED CITY by Jason Starr and liked it up until the VERY end. Sick bastard!
Now, I'm reading a Nicholas Sparks book that I borrowed from my grandma. NIGHTS IN RODANTHE. I got tired of EVERYONE looking so shocked when I told them I had never read any of his books. But, I'm mostly reading it because I loved the movie version of THE NOTEBOOK so much and wanted to see if any of his other stories could pull me in like that one.

[classicgrrl]

The Surrender by Toni Bentley.

GREAT BOOK.

I will say no more.

[Burger Queen]

Originally posted by Stine
Just finished Jane Green's "To Have and To Hold" - could NOT put it down... I actually think it was better than "Jemima J."

Better than "Jemima J"...really? I'll most definetely have to read it.

[redbobsled]

I just finished To Have and To Hold as well. I agree, I think I may have liked it more than Jemima J.

I just finished this YA book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think it's probably the best YA book I've ever read. Yes, I do enjoy the YA literature. I'm perpetually 15 years old.

[Burger Queen]

Originally posted by redbobsled
I just finished To Have and To Hold as well. I agree, I think I may have liked it more than Jemima J.

I just finished this YA book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think it's probably the best YA book I've ever read. Yes, I do enjoy the YA literature. I'm perpetually 15 years old.

Ahhh! The Perks of Being a Wallflower IS a fantastic read! It doesn't seem like a YA book, it reads so much more mature.

[mobyoctopad]

I just checked out a couple satirical books by Joe Bob Briggs. I really miss TNT's Monstervision...

[Stine]

Just started Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" - it hooked me pretty damn quick!

[Stine]

Finished Gregory Maguire's “Mirror Mirror” - an adult version of Snow White.
His writing is a little hard to understand... but overall interesting read.
Incorporates actualy historical figures - The Borgias - as the evil characters in the story.

[Johnnylama]

Just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- whoa! That was intense. It blended together the history of philosophy, a ride across the country, and a man who underwent electroshock therapy re-discovering his old personality. Highly recommended if you haven’t read it yet!

[frenchstudent]

Just finished A Farewell To Arms.


:( :( :(

[Johnnylama]

Originally posted by frenchstudent
Just finished A Farewell To Arms.


:( :( :(

How did he eat without any arms?!?!?!

HAHAHAHAHAHA




I'm such a dork.

[monk]

Originally posted by Johnnylama
Just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- whoa! That was intense. It blended together the history of philosophy, a ride across the country, and a man who underwent electroshock therapy re-discovering his old personality. Highly recommended if you haven’t read it yet!

I've somehow never made it through it. I've started it any number of times and I could just never really get into it and i'd eventually abandon it for something more interesting. I guess i'm not into motorcycles enough :p

[monk]

Originally posted by Johnnylama


I'm such a dork.

quoted for emphasis. ;)

[Johnnylama]

Originally posted by monk


quoted for emphasis. ;)

Oh, you don't know the half of it. :p

[ideoplastic]

Just finished "the Bedbug and selected poetry" by Vladmir Mayakovsky.

The back blurb made him sound much more interesting than what actually proved to be: "For too many years the great poet and playwright had been known to the West only by hearsay. Canonized by Stalin as a Soviet poet laureate after his suicide in 1930, Mayakovsky remained hidden behind a dual barrier of language and politics."

[despondent]

Originally posted by Johnnylama
Just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- whoa! That was intense. It blended together the history of philosophy, a ride across the country, and a man who underwent electroshock therapy re-discovering his old personality. Highly recommended if you haven?t read it yet!
I saw this book on the shelf and I may have to pick it up in the near future. I recently finished 'Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings'. I am currently reading 'The Awakened Self: Encounters with Zen'.

[Johnnylama]

Originally posted by despondent

I saw this book on the shelf and I may have to pick it up in the near future. I recently finished 'Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings'. I am currently reading 'The Awakened Self: Encounters with Zen'.

there really isn't much Zen in it. It's a lot of western philosophy. It touches on unifying eastern and western thought, but discusses western thought a lot more than eastern. A great read if you're into that kind of thing. Probably bad if you're not.

[summerteeth]

"Libra" by Don Delillo

it's a fictional account of events leading up to the death of John F. Kennedy. half the story is about Lee Harvey Oswald, and rest about former government agents who are setting up the "attempted" assassination. very intriguing, engaging read, in large part because the fictional scenario is very plausible.

[akip]

there's a great autobiographical piece by a.m. homes in the new yorker (dec. 20 & 27 winter fiction issue). it's called "the mistress's daughter" and is about meeting her biological parents.

it's making me rush out to find more of her stuff.

[MissKitty]

Currently engrossed in The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It's the true story of the 1893 Chicago World Fair, featuring the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor who commited scores of murders in Chicago during the time of the fair by luring the victims to his "Worlds Fair Hotel."

Fascinating read!

For more information clicky (http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/devilinthewhitecity/home.html)

[jneale]

Ahhh! The Perks of Being a Wallflower IS a fantastic read! It doesn't seem like a YA book, it reads so much more mature.

I just got this - NPR had a segment about kid's books - sounded like a good Christmas gift for my 12 yr old niece...I'm 3/4 the way through it - It is a great book - but not sure I'll be giving it to her, maybe in a couple years...

[untame]

Decided I needed something fun to read over the break so I started the Illuminatus! Trilogy this morning at like 9am...it is now 3:30pm and I have just put it down. I am a sucker for conspiracy theories...maybe I shouldn't have told you that :confused: .

[JSpaceman]

Thanks to Christmas gifts, I am reading the Mr. Show book "What Happened?" by Naomi Odenkirk and re-reading for about the fourth time Bret Easton Ellis- Less Than Zero...

[untame]

Bret Easton Ellis- Less Than Zero...
I know what Ellis was after in that book (literary-aggression towards the plastic culture youth of LA) but, man, does it ever come off seeming self-indulgent. His contempt for his characters is not quite evident...it comes off (to me) very flat. "We did drugs, we screwed, we fought, we hate them but hang out with them, we did more drugs, we will keep on doing it, so there." I felt the same about "Rules of Attraction" the movie. But, I thought both versions of "American Psycho" were brilliant.

[elodie]

i'm so glad someone brought up this book - it is pretty much one of the best i've ever read. probably because it is so easy to connect with the character. anyway, oldies will appreciate this book because it's set in the eighties or early nineties... nostalgic. i sincerely urge everyone to read it.

[akip]

i always read "the dead" from dubliners by joyce at xmas.

[Johnnylama]

i always read "the dead" from dubliners by joyce at xmas.

Whoa, that's a pretty cool idea. I haven't read that in years.

[crazybob60]

Well yesterday I just finished the novel called 'Smack' by Melvin Burgess. Wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Dealt a lot about juveniles and sex and prostitution and drugs and running away from home and that stuff. It talked in like English talk as well throughout the whole thing. Man, that sounded derogatory, and I didn't mean for it to come out that way, sorry.

And then today I started on the book that I got from Christmas that I talked about in another forum called: "Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing" by Benjamin Nugent. As the title suggests it is a biography on the late Elliott Smith. Much loved and admired by me. Anyways, I am only 40 pages into it...more on that book later. This is my first time posting in the pulp section, hopefully I just didn't mess up this thread because I only read a couple of posts in this one thread, ah well...

[elodie]

yeah, i read smack too. it sucked. i was really disappointed.

[crazybob60]

yeah, i read smack too. it sucked. i was really disappointed.

Good, someone who agrees with me on this...I was expecting a lot more out of it, for some reason...I mean, then I went to the last page of the book where the advertisements are for more books and it said something to the effect of for other teen readers or something...I mean was this book basically geared for only teen readers and since I am 25 maybe I just wasn't in the age range for this book? Or is that just a stupid prejudice thing for me to look at and I am just trying to find an excuse why this book wasn't that great???

[akip]

Whoa, that's a pretty cool idea. I haven't read that in years.

"the air of the room chilled his shoulders. he stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. one by one, they were all becoming shades. better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age..."

[The Hegemo]

I'm slowly plowing through Empire by Hardt and Negri. Trying to keep my ability to read lots of dense, jargon-filled political theory from atrophying now that I'm out of the academic world ;)

It's tough because I got a couple of way more interesting books for Christmas that I'd like to read, but I know if I put down H&N, it's never getting picked up again.

[Johnnylama]

"the air of the room chilled his shoulders. he stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. one by one, they were all becoming shades. better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age..."

Haunting! Joyce blows me away.

"Welcome, oh life! I go for the millionth time to forge in the the smithy of my soul the uncreated consciousness of my race." POTAAAYM (I think that's right.)