books

[onebloodonelife]

So what does Bret Easton Ellis have to do with rock history? Are you just studying the coke-fueled 80s, or because it has the title of an Elvis Costello song?

We're talking about MTV this coming week. And we have to write a paper later using Less Than Zero as a lens to make sense of any of the music we've talked about in the class. But, since my professor is a huge Elvis Costello fan, that probably has something to do with it...

 

[Saracene]

Raymond E. Feist - Wrath of a Mad God

I haven't read Feist for ages; I enjoyed "Magician" and Riftwar saga okay but then my interest waned especially since I discovered much better fantasy authors. My brother got this new book though and I thought I'd read it. It's not bad, kept me interested in what happens next and though I don't think much of him as a writer - clunky, graceless prose, barely any memorable characters - I always enjoyed Feist's imagination and the depictions of different worlds/universes and the races, gods and other beings who inhabit them. Though admittedly most of his ideas are second-hand.

 

[corianderstem]

#19 Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

A father's story about his meth-addicted son. Heartbreaking, horrifying, and fascinating. His son has his own memoir, and I'm looking forward to reading it; there's a long wait for it at the library, and I hope the list moves quickly.

 

[Dalton]

#19 Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

A father's story about his meth-addicted son. Heartbreaking, horrifying, and fascinating. His son has his own memoir, and I'm looking forward to reading it; there's a long wait for it at the library, and I hope the list moves quickly.

I don't think I can read this.

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, much of it was very sad and awful.

 

[lazarus]

Yeah, much of it was very sad and awful.

That's exactly how NSW described your marriage--hey oh!

Anyway, doesn't anyone READ anymore?

I just polished off another Ross MacDonald book, probably have read 15 by now. I still prefer Chandler, but this guy was way more prolific, never disappoints.

Also read a good portion of Mark Twain's posthumous collection of mostly anti-religion essays Letters From The Earth. Very illuminating and bitterly funny.

I'm also about 3/5 of the way through John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. If you haven't read any Brunner, he's best known for his late 60's/early 70's dystopic science fiction taking place in the not-too-distant future, where he examines the ramifications of our deteriorating environment, media saturation, overpopulation, etc. His style, at least in the two books I've read, is inspired by the techniques developed by John Dos Passos in his USA Trilogy; alternating with the main plot are various "news clippings", short peripheral character sketches, excerpts from fake published works, etc. Very dense reading but dizzying in its ambition and sadly prophetic as well. Zanzibar won the Hugo for best SF novel of the year, for the record.

 

[corianderstem]

I'm still on the same book I started after the last one ... I've been distracted by severe snotty illness and a new Bruce Springsteen obsession.

 

[beegee]

Anyway, doesn't anyone READ anymore?

Puhlease, I spend 40 hours a week in a library!

The last couple books I read were:

Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortozar and Carol Dunlop (translated by Anne Mclean.) It was the story of a couple who make the journey from Paris to Marseilles in a VW van without ever leaving the autoroute. It took them a month. Along the way they camp, meet interesting folk, and write a book.

Ask The Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel by Patrick Smith. Pretty self explanatory (all the questions you wish you could ask your pilot) and fairly helpful to me (I am scared to fly) I could have done without the chapter on the ten worst airline crashes, though.

Currently reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby and it is exquisite. I am also making my way through Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (which I asked for because last year I made my coworkers read The Other Boleyn Girl and so now they're making me read this.)

 

[Saracene]

Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach
McEwan is slowly becoming one of my favourite writers; I loved "Atonement" and though this new book is much more modest in scope and ambition I drank it up with as much pleasure. It focuses on young British newlyleds in the early 60s, who are on their honeymoon and are about to have sex for the first time. I love the way McEwan burrows into the deepest nooks and crannies of his characters; some of the scenes made me absolutely *cringe*. And his prose is just exquisite.

Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds
A big fat saga set (mostly) in Australia, following the lives of the Cleary family and the central, doomed love affair between Meggie Cleary and Ralph de Bricassart, a Catholic priest. Very entertaining read, though not without flaws. The plot is somewhat meandering, with storylines and conflicts dropped abruptly, and by the end I felt like I was reading a 100-page epilogue, despite the shocking death near the end. And I thought that the male characters suffered in comparison to female, who were much better drawn.

 

[corianderstem]

Oh my god, The Thorn Birds. I read the book ages ago, but the TV miniseries FOR THE WIN! :win:

 

[Salome]

in the last couple weeks I read
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirowsky
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
finally read Fight Club

and now reading Ayn Rand's The Fountain Head

 

[Doozer61]

The Other Boleyn Girl

How was that? I wanted to see the movie but it's gone already.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I'm browsing this thread for ideas since I will have two months coming up this summer to read something other than a frigging law book.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

I haven't had time to read much more than student papers lately. I'm teaching a book called Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism by James Twitchell, and I'm enjoying it. We're jumping around in it a bit simply because we don't have time to read the whole thing, but I'm going to go back and read the other chapters when I get a chance.

I need to get back to reading every night before bed again. I have two books going right now, and once I finish one of them I'm going to get Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential from the campus library.

 

[beegee]

How was that? I wanted to see the movie but it's gone already.

I actually surprised myself by how much I liked this book because it's not the kind of book I usually read. It was very good. I was going through a box of new paperbacks when the cover caught my eye. I passed it around to a group of girls at work and then we all went and saw the movie together.

 

[meegannie]

I may read the book soon just on your recommendation, bg.

 

[Carek1230]

I just got a copy of Indelible Ink - a Memoir by Mary Lenore Quigley, the wife of a friend of mine. Can't wait to read it, it's about adoption. Mary is such a cool sweet person and I loved her poetry so this has got to be a good book. Can't wait to start reading it.

 

[beegee]

I may read the book soon just on your recommendation, bg.

I want to call it historical romance but it really isn't a romance at all. Not even close. Henry VIII was a pig. And the way the families used the women to further themselves was disgusting. They did what they were told.

The book is based on fact - Anne Boleyn did have a sister and she was Henry's mistress. As for poor Anne, well, we all know how it worked out for her. It made the ending that much more tense, knowing it was coming the whole time.

I'd love to hear what you think of the book if you do read it.

 

[corianderstem]

#20 1 Dead In Attic: After Katrina - Chris Rose

A New Orleans' newspaper columnist's collection of columns and essays from the time after Katrina. I've been reading it off and on for a while now, since it's so easy to pick up and put down - each piece is very short.

About as heartbreaking and horrifying as you'd expect, but also filled with great humor, hope and little spurts of joy. He gives what I imagine is a great sense of what it means to live in New Orleans, and, of course, what it means to miss it.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I'm going to get Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential from the campus library.

You won't regret it.

I need to get his other book soon. I have KC and the Nasty Bits, both fantastic.

 

[*browneyedgirl*]

Oh my god, The Thorn Birds. I read the book ages ago, but the TV miniseries FOR THE WIN! :win:

agreed

 

[corianderstem]

#21 Stick Figure: A Diary Of My Former Self

This is the author's diary from when she was a pre-teen and anorexic.

A quick read, often pretty funny, other times a little sad. I'm kind of fascinated by eating disorders and enjoy reading books (fiction or non) about them.

 

[waynetravis]

Currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird

 

[corianderstem]

#22 Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy

Kennedy worked at Warner Music Group for about a year and a half and felt supremely out of place.

It's mostly pretty amusing, and has enough head-shaking-in-disbelief moments to feel like you MUST be reading about the real music industry, because nothing else could be so absurd.

But his tone bugged me sometimes. He mostly sticks to a fish out of water/how-did-I-end-up-here tone, but sometimes seems a little smug to me, like "I'm way too hip and indie for this shit."

Maybe I read too much into it. I mostly liked it.

 

[corianderstem]

#23 Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

I love Steve Martin, no matter how many shitty movies he does these days. He's still awesome.

And his memoir about his stand-up comic years was darned good, too.

 

[VertigoGal]

Lolita.
damn that was good.

 

[Bono's shades]

Lolita.
damn that was good.

I just came here to post that I'm reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran," which made me want to read "Lolita" (which I've never read).

I also finally got a copy of "Wicked" from the library, and I'm kind of alternating between that and "Reading Lolita in Tehran."

 

[corianderstem]

#24 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Well, I'm awfully sorry I waited so long to read this. I absolutely loved it.

 

[anitram]

#24 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Well, I'm awfully sorry I waited so long to read this. I absolutely loved it.

Okay I must be the only one who hated that book.

This is just like The Kite Runner all over again!

 

[Carek1230]

I am reading Craig Ferguson's "Between the Bridge and the River". It's furiously funny, witty, fast-paced and well written. It's amazing how talented Ferguson is.....talk show host, author, actor, comedian, businessman, father, producer, director, writer.