The Books Thread

[darrylduffy]

Let's talk about 'em!

[jon]

"The Lemon of Pink" is such a good album. I like "Lost and Safe" as well.

ALSO I just finished "Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name." Really good. Hello, "Team of Rivals."

[yumitree]

no one make a post about the band.

i FINALLY was able to get handey's book from my local library (it was "in processing" for at least a month and a half) and have been enjoying it quite a bit.

[Kentock]

I starter reading Clockers over the weekend of the 4th, and I love it so far. Totally hits the spot.

[congolia]

I just finished "Black Postcards" by Dean Wareham. It was probably the dullest rock autobiography I have ever read, and I've read "Stone Alone" by Bill Wyman.

[Michael Blacklist]

I starter reading Clockers over the weekend of the 4th, and I love it so far. Totally hits the spot.

Holy cow. I just started reading this over the weekend. I heard the movie's a pale shadow of the greatness that is the book.

[mattlister]

Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion." I wish reading it was mandatory worldwide.

[albino sunburn]

Michael Ian Black's 'My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays that Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face' comes out this Tuesday!

His blog is consistently hilarious, so I have high hopes for this.

[CaptainBreakfast]

Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion." I wish reading it was mandatory worldwide.

Haha, you've been converted to radical atheism.

[CaptainBreakfast]

nvm

[Me!]

I've been reading the Ender's Game series. I think I'm on the 4th one now.

[Berliner]

If I recall, Ender's Game series gets all "Mormony" at the end.

[Me!]

Bummer...

[ArtsyMcShitshimself]

I'm reading the first Ender's Game. Which book should I stop at?

[ericluxury]

the story has a nice wrap-up at Xenocide (book 3)...i read book 4 and it wasn't bad but i couldn't tell you anything about it, very forgettable.

[daveunfun]

Switching it up between the new Handey book and 'Comedy by the Numbers'. Both are great.

Got Thomas Pynchon's 'Against The Day' on deck.

Two enthusiastic recommendations for anyone that hasn't read them already:

Jonathan Lethem's 'Motherless Brooklyn'
Steven Hall's 'Raw Shark Texts'

[CaptainBreakfast]

Just cracked open Battle Royale. Happiness flows like a river right through my head.

[Bucky_Sinister]

Just finished I Killed. it's all anecdotal stories from comics. I imagine any ASTer would like it.

[Matt Braunger]

"Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman I just read and loved. Can't shut up about it whenever superheroes get mentioned in conversation.

[heatherm]

right now i am reading "the moon is a harsh mistress" by robert heinlein and "what it is" by lynda barry. they're both fantastic.

[Babychoby]

I went on a beach vacation and read this book and it was 900 pages of AWESOME!

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p109/babychoby/riders.jpg

[ericluxury]

right now i am reading "the moon is a harsh mistress" by robert heinlein

That is indeed a great book. So exciting.

[Cameron]

Michael Ian Black's 'My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays that Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face' comes out this Tuesday!

His blog is consistently hilarious, so I have high hopes for this.

I bought it this afternoon and am anxious to dive into it.

I'm already reading like 3 books right now, but they are all going on hold until after I finish this.

[Barmy Man]

Swartzwelder's new book, "Dead Men Scare Me Stupid," came out a bit ago. If you love to envy genius, you'll love this book.

[drieux]

Echoing Bucky's comments on "I Killed": very fast, enjoyable read for any comedian or comedy fan in general.

I also enjoyed Black's "My Custom Van." Very funny stuff and I tore through it quickly and was sad when it was all over.

Currently reading Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union." Just like "Kavalier and Clay," finding it completely wonderful and well worth the reading. It's been on the pile for a while and I figured I'd read it before I heard more about the Coen Brothers flick.

I was thinking about picking up Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" next, but the Oprah Book Club thing kind of turns me off. Anybody else read it?

[uncomfortable]

I was thinking about picking up Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" next, but the Oprah Book Club thing kind of turns me off. Anybody else read it?
Don't be afraid to be late to the Cormac McCarthy party - but if you feel especially self-conscious, browse a used book store and pick up an earlier edition of the novel, sans Oprah seal. It's the same technique I use for books turned into films that then get reprinted with the theatrical poster as the book cover.

I've dumped roughly 40 books back to the library in order to force myself into finishing Gravity's Rainbow, and by god, I'm sure I'll finish it this time. I'm the farthest into it I've ever been. Which is page 97.

[Jenny]

I'm currently reading We got the neutron bomb: the story of L.A. Punk. I've read it before,but it's still fascinating. I'm also slowly reading the golden compass,but I dunno if I'll get around to it again.

[ragu sauce]

before i grew out of fantasy, i read the golden compass like 10-15 times.

ive been reading narcissus and goldmund for like a month. it's slow goings, but i really like it.

[Rob Delaney]

I am on book 13 of Patrick O'Brian's <u>Master and Commander</u> series. Any other O'Brian nerds out there? I have read a bajillion books but almost nothing is as dear to my heart as this series. Shakespeare and a handful of novels...

[tockxie]

I finished Jack Handey's new book a while ago, it is everything awesome that he's ever done apart from Tales of Fraud and Malfeasance in Railroad Hiring Practices.

There are even transcripts of a few of his unaired SNL sketches in the back of the book.

Now I'm stuck in dicktown with the rest of the dicks, looking for something to read.

[bao]

I was thinking about picking up Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" next, but the Oprah Book Club thing kind of turns me off. Anybody else read it?

Don't be afraid, Drieux. Like all of McCarthy's books, The Road requires an investment. It gets difficult to read at points, as it has a very slow pace, but by the end you can really feel the investment. Oddly, I had the most emotional reaction to The Road that I have ever had to a book, and I would have never expected it around page 50 or so. In other words, pick it up (sans seal) and stick with it.

And, as you have likely heard a million times, The Road and No Country for Old Men are far from McCarthy's best books. Suttree is my favorite.

So long as we're talking about books, any other huge Paul Auster fans on this board?

[KeithTalent]

edit: holy shit that's a long post. I ought to calm down about Dave Eggers.


I am reading The Road right now. The edition I bought (paperback, about two weeks ago) says Pulitzer on it, nothing about Oprah.

So far it's beautiful. I wouldn't even agree about it getting slow. There's a sameness to what's going on and it's somber and the prose is spare but it's never boring. It's a short book and hard to put down. I'm breezing through.

Can't wait for Hillcoat's film. I hope they don't have to soften any of the brutality.


Let's see, I most recently read...Galactic Pot-Healer, one of PKD's weaker novels.

Then The Time Traveler's Wife (also Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture) which is interesting and sentimental, even managed to choke me up a few times, but in the end I wasn't very fond of it.

And then immediately before The Road I finally got 'round to reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Before that all I'd read by Eggers was this terrible short story from the POV of a dog in one of those (largely excellent) McSweeney's genre compilations. Oh, and his forewords to those awesome Best American Nonrequired Reading things he edits are pretty funny.

I haven't hated a book this much since last year when I found a copy of Insomnia by Dean Koontz in a parking lot. What a sack of shit.

I tried to find a way in my head to give him credit. Like...if you're a self-absorbed asshole, as long as you're honest in your work I shouldn't fault you just because of who you happen to be. But no.

Being self-aware about being self-obsessed isn't good enough. Of COURSE you're self-aware about it, it's you! You're obsessed with you! I'm not impressed, I'm rarely amused, I'm mostly grossed out by the fact that this fucking thing was a Pulitzer Finalist.

Because novels are usually written in the past tense, when he mocks himself he seems to be saying "see, this is the asshole I USED to be. If I can tell you about my jerky motivations for my dickhead behavior that means I've moved past all that and I'm much more mature."

Except the mockery of his motivations re: the magazine is really this cliche mocking of all idealistic youth. And the more personal stuff...ugh. He's always making excuses. Like he drubs on all self-referential about how people feel used by his writing...makes fun of himself for having that self-obsessed mindset (but it's not his fault! his parents died and it made him feel "chosen"!) that everyone in his life is just a character in the Dave Eggers Story...but you can't fucking do that if you went ahead and wrote the book anyway.

Maybe he's not really pretending it's in the past. Maybe he's just trying to get credit for recognizing it, but again, I'm not impressed that you're aware of your flaws if the flaw is constant self-analysis.

I'm probably being really incoherent but jesus fuck I hated that book

[Jenny]

I dunno: I liked Egger's memoir when I first read it, tried to read it again and it was too rambling for me to get through it.

[Rick Paulas]

I'm not sure if this is the place for "graphic novels", but I just read Alan Moore's "From Hell" over the past week and was completely blown away in every way. Sure, I'm a bit late to this party, but it's worth mentioning again. Get it, folks.

RE: Eggers -
I really dug the hell out of "You Shall Know Our Velocity". Anyone else?

I've dumped roughly 40 books back to the library in order to force myself into finishing Gravity's Rainbow, and by god, I'm sure I'll finish it this time. I'm the farthest into it I've ever been. Which is page 97.

I recommend giving up. I tried getting through that piece of shit 3 times so far, the latest a few months ago where I made it all the way to page 143, and have come to the conclusion that if a book is that impossible to get through, it's just not very good. Fuck you, Tyrone Slothrop!

[Meen Bellpeppers]

As far as graphic novels, I just read "The Education of Hopey Glass" by Jaime Hernandez. For my money Jaime and his brother Gilbert are just about the most talented cartoonists out there. As good, if not better, than Ware and Clowes who get a lot more attention than they do. This one was great, though I think "Ghosts of Hoppers" was probably the peak of the entire series for me.

[disl]

speaking of graphic novels, as someone who is interested in getting into graphic novels but has never read any series (i read maus for school a couple years ago but that's about all), what is a good general starting point? i'm not looking for obscure, i want the most obvious entry point, like if you were referring bands to someone looking to get into punk music, you would recommend the ramones before someone less obvious like the screamers.

[CaptainBreakfast]

I just read "Safe Area Gorazde" by Joe Sacco. Good Graphic novel with rich detail about the entire Bosnian Crisis. I enjoyed it.

[Meen Bellpeppers]

speaking of graphic novels, as someone who is interested in getting into graphic novels but has never read any series (i read maus for school a couple years ago but that's about all), what is a good general starting point? i'm not looking for obscure, i want the most obvious entry point, like if you were referring bands to someone looking to get into punk music, you would recommend the ramones before someone less obvious like the screamers.

If you've already read Maus, I guess Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware would be the Ramones of graphic novels in that it's both great and accessible.

[aenemaTron]

I just slogged through the last couple hundred pages of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. Are parts two and three worth reading, or is it more of the same rambling? Will the second and third parts continue the abandoned story lines of the first one? I don't want to throw good money, or time, after bad.

Meantime, reading Swartzwelder's new one, loving it.

[TenJay]

i'm currently reading "Waiter Rant" by The Waiter and as a 15 year veteran of the food service industry I realize my restaurants were pretty normal and easy going compared to this guys, a fun easy read, I highly recommend.

And I'm going to go pick up that Michael Ian Black book, I can imagine his writing must amazing, thanks yall for the heads up

[Harry Bongers]

I just finished "Black Postcards" by Dean Wareham. It was probably the dullest rock autobiography I have ever read, and I've read "Stone Alone" by Bill Wyman.

This is sad news. Galaxie 500 and Luna are basically my total fave bands and I was looking forward to reading it.

[Battleship Pretension]

I just slogged through the last couple hundred pages of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. Are parts two and three worth reading, or is it more of the same rambling? Will the second and third parts continue the abandoned story lines of the first one? I don't want to throw good money, or time, after bad.

Meantime, reading Swartzwelder's new one, loving it.


As a big Neal Stephenson fan, my response may be a little biased but I would recommend continuing. There's a lot more of Jack in the second and third books and the storylines are split up more evenly so you're not spending 300 pages with one character and then not seeing him again for another 300. That said, expect a great deal more rambling about the laws of gravity and inertia and the particulars of 17th century commerce.

[jon]

Just finished "number9dream" by David Mitchell. I thought parts of it were just okay, but overall I liked it. I could see places where he was setting the table for "Cloud Atlas."

[tockxie]

speaking of graphic novels, as someone who is interested in getting into graphic novels but has never read any series (i read maus for school a couple years ago but that's about all), what is a good general starting point? i'm not looking for obscure, i want the most obvious entry point, like if you were referring bands to someone looking to get into punk music, you would recommend the ramones before someone less obvious like the screamers.

A lot of people like Alan Moore's run on Miracleman and Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I don't, but you're asking for the obvious ones.

There's nothing really wrong with Miracleman per se, but I feel like Alan Moore is a novelist who somehow got stuck writing comics and now is intent on turning everything he writes into a watershed book for the ages. He's exhausting. Also, for whatever reason he always, ALWAYS crams the tiniest text possible into every panel in his page.

Sandman, on the other hand, is just gothy schlock.

Frank Miller's body of work is a good starting place too, but be forwarned, he's straight out of the 80s. Try The Dark Knight Returns for some truly hilarious slang, or 300 if you want to see what the movie did wrong. Sin City's also a nice series of graphic novels.

Finally, real quick: Transmetropolitan (Ellis before he drank the alt. internet kool-aid), Preacher, Punisher MAX (the Punisher in a real world setting, awesome), 100 Bullets (people seem to like it), Criminal (like 100 Bullets but way better), A History of Violence, and Tank Girl.

[drieux]

I can understand the Alan Moore criticism, but I'm one of those who loves pretty much everything he's ever done. For somebody who's never read any graphic novels, I would say that you should go out and pick up "Watchmen" right away. Totally self-contained, no need to know any characters/backstory/nerd history and as anybody who has ever read it will probably tell you, holycrapohmygodholyshitballswow, it's great.

Transmetropolitan is also great, and you can start the series right from the beginning in handy volumes.

If you're into zombie stuff, pick up the first couple of trade paperbacks of "The Walking Dead." Good stuff. And if you like it there are already about eight volumes out and more coming every few months.

These are things that you can most likely find at any decent bookstore. Some of the more obscure, indie books will require going to a comic book shop, which I know can turn off some people because of the high nerd quotient. But don't worry: they're more afraid of you (and sunlight, and girls) than you are of them.

[FF Woodycooks]

Oh man I loooove Transmetropolitan. I never really got into comics in a big way (I've read a lot of Moore, Clowes, The Goon, Maxx, and some Batman and a few other odds and ends but I never really became a "comic book nerd", mostly due to lack of funds) but that is probably my favorite of the series that I have read.

I used this summer to reread old favorites - right now I'm reading House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski again. I just finished Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom. Before that I tried my hand at Infinite Jest but only got about 500 pages in before giving up. I liked a lot of isolated bits a whole lot, but the whole thing is just too sprawling and indulgent for me, I think. I like DFW, though.

I think my favorite summer book is Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Andersen. It's just so quiet and simple and understated and perfect.

also: KeithTalent, thank you for articulating exactly why I have never liked Dave Eggers.

[uncomfortable]

Transmetropolitan is pretty awesome, but my heart belongs to Nextwave in the Ellis line-up. Though I do have to admit most of my graphic novel/comics knowledge comes from what I can grab off the shelves of the library.

And mentioned before Chris Ware's stuff is worth checking out (if you like to feel sad in a good way).

[Barmy Man]

I don't know much about comics or graphic novels, but I remember someone recommending one called "Y: The Last Man." I think it's supposed to be kind of popular, so it may be a general entry point. I was told it was written by one of the writers of Lost; I haven't seen that, either. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed. I bought Scud and never returned.

[yomamacuhsuckit]

I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but I think From Hell is sort of a great starting place IF you love novels but not graphic novels. For one thing, it's not about super heroes, which, as much as I liked Watchmen when I first read it, was a kind of stumbling block for me. Watchmen is great and all, and it absolutely transcends superhero comics, but if you're not into super heroes you're still reading about super heroes. From Hell is a brilliant novel about Victorian England that couldn't have been written in Victorian England, so it's also great if you like Dickens or other nineteenth century English novels. But it's one of my favorite books, and I think it's one of the best novels of the last decade or this one, graphic or otherwise, so take that for what you want.

On Gravity's Rainbow, if you like it but find it just too difficult, there's no shame in getting something like A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts. And while some people find it to be a piece of shit, it is undeniably important and a towering achievement that changed the face of the American novel. If you don't like it after a hundred pages AT ALL, you probably won't get anything out of it no matter what you do.

I hate Dave Eggers's writing, and I think it's crazy that that book turned him into this superstar, and that he's stayed one even though his other books haven't sold or done well with critics, even though current book reviewers are notoriously forgiving lately of "ambitious" books like his. I also met him and he was a super swell fellow. He was teaching one of his McSweeney's teams how to help kids in writing workshops he was putting on. He had a bunch of wonderful ideas and I would have felt lucky as a kid if any of my field trips were as fun as what he outlined.

I just read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. It was one of only new novels I've really liked in a long time, even though I think it falls apart at the end.

[uncomfortable]

I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but I think From Hell is sort of a great starting place IF you love novels but not graphic novels.
My personal stumbling block with From Hell is Eddie Campbell's art, which I can't seem to grasp on to, I've picked up and put down the book far too many times. Although I did pick up The Black Diamond Detective Agency and it looks like his freeform style translates rather well to color, despite the limited palette.

On Gravity's Rainbow, if you like it but find it just too difficult, there's no shame in getting something like [SIZE=2]A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts.
I'm finding that just disregarding any misunderstanding I have of the actual text helps - not glossing over it necessarily, but trying not to fetishize over the sentences I don't understand whatsoever. I just mark 'em down as specific research points for a second read-through when I'm feeling optimistic.

[(Mul)Doomstone]

This is sad news. Galaxie 500 and Luna are basically my total fave bands and I was looking forward to reading it.

Then allow me to present the dissenting opinion. "Black Postcards" is one of the best rock autobiographies I've ever read - hell, maybe the best (that may be, of course, damning with faint praise). I very much enjoyed it.

Wareham's writing style is very composed, very crisp and filled with detail, perhaps a result of his Ivy League education. There's plenty of pages where nothing much happens - the bands loads in, the show is played, t-shirts are sold, the band loads out - but it really captures the monotony, hamster-wheel quality of playing in a semi-successful band. And it adds up to a bit of an emotional wallop late in the book. There's one passage in particular that will always stick with me.

His discussion of the music that moved him in his youth and beyond is really straightforward and well considered, as are his descriptions of drug use ("even traffic sounds good on ecstasy" he contends at one point, and who could disagree?). In some ways the book is the polar opposite of something like Motley Crue's "The Dirt" - not just for the music made by the authors, but for "Black Postcards" lack of bravado and overblown pronouncements, yet wealth of personal truths (or in many cases - just plain ol' truth. Not that I didn't enjoy "The Dirt" - I did).

Great book.

Currently reading: "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi and "Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Hot Lap Around America with NASCAR" by Jeff Macgregor. Enjoying both.

[Harry Bongers]

Then allow me to present the dissenting opinion. "Black Postcards" is one of the best rock autobiographies I've ever read - hell, maybe the best (that may be, of course, damning with faint praise). I very much enjoyed it.

Wareham's writing style is very composed, very crisp and filled with detail, perhaps a result of his Ivy League education. There's plenty of pages where nothing much happens - the bands loads in, the show is played, t-shirts are sold, the band loads out - but it really captures the monotony, hamster-wheel quality of playing in a semi-successful band. And it adds up to a bit of an emotional wallop late in the book. There's one passage in particular that will always stick with me.

His discussion of the music that moved him in his youth and beyond is really straightforward and well considered, as are his descriptions of drug use ("even traffic sounds good on ecstasy" he contends at one point, and who could disagree?). In some ways the book is the polar opposite of something like Motley Crue's "The Dirt" - not just for the music made by the authors, but for "Black Postcards" lack of bravado and overblown pronouncements, yet wealth of personal truths (or in many cases - just plain ol' truth. Not that I didn't enjoy "The Dirt" - I did).

Great book.

Currently reading: "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi and "Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Hot Lap Around America with NASCAR" by Jeff Macgregor. Enjoying both.


Yay!

Thanks. I actually find Dean Wareham to be an interesting guy and thought he would be a good writer for the reasons you mention. I'm going to grab that this weekend.

Have you seen the DVD final tour documentary they produced?

[Keith Whitener]

On Gravity's Rainbow, if you like it but find it just too difficult, there's no shame in getting something like A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts. And while some people find it to be a piece of shit, it is undeniably important and a towering achievement that changed the face of the American novel. If you don't like it after a hundred pages AT ALL, you probably won't get anything out of it no matter what you do.


How and why did it change the face of the American novel? Was this change for the better? What does it mean to change for the better? What is the context of this improvement?

[KeithTalent]

I am reading The Road right now. The edition I bought (paperback, about two weeks ago) says Pulitzer on it, nothing about Oprah.

So far it's beautiful. I wouldn't even agree about it getting slow. There's a sameness to what's going on and it's somber and the prose is spare but it's never boring. It's a short book and hard to put down. I'm breezing through.

Can't wait for Hillcoat's film. I hope they don't have to soften any of the brutality.


So I just finished this yesterday, I don't know what to make of the last three or so pages. Hm

[yomamacuhsuckit]

I will say that, while I like Gravity's Rainbow A LOT, I think that it changed the American novel for the worse. Everything Don DeLillo writes, and any book you read with a complex intellectual quest that devolves into meaninglessness is fathered by Gravity's Rainbow. It is the alpha and omega of postmodernism, and I think that's part of the problem. It was responding to the absurdity of those huge symbolic modernist tomes (Ulysses especially) where everything is integrated into this huge edifice in some incredibly complex way. Gravity's Rainbow builds a similar edifice but makes it completely absurd and silly. In Gravity's Rainbow, everything is connected, and that's why nothing is connected. The problem, to me, is that it's the end of something, not the beginning, and we've been swimming in the exact same postmodernist abyss ever since.

I think that the subsequent followers (A book like Infinite Jest is a perfect example) that include the same wacky characters and plots are beating a horse that was dead on arrival. Pynchon is inimitable. He's a good writer and a bad father, while, even if you find Ulysses unmanageable and irritating, you've probably read something you've liked that was heavily influenced by Joyce, maybe Faulkner or Woolf.

And to the above, to each his own. Eddie Campell's art is exactly half of what I love about From Hell.

[darrylduffy]

i don't know that we have a separate 'books that make us giggle' thread anymore, so i wanted to ask:

anyone been able to check out/read the new simon rich collection, 'free range chickens'?

[hellyesbrandon]

I'm currently making my way through Stephen King's "Eye of the Dragon." It's okay, very "And doth the king slayed the dragon" which is fine, but kinda boring at some points. I really just picked it up because I just finished The Stand and Flagg is the bad guy here to. If anything I'm fascinated by that guy, and how the ending of The Stand didn't really tie anything up at all and was somewhat underwhelming. Great rest of the book, though.

I'm also reading Mike Black's book, which is rad, and "Physics for Future Presidents," which is kind of a layman's guide to the physics of terrorism, 9/11, bombs, global warming, etc, written in a really interesting, compelling way. Not much math so far, either.

[Berliner]

So Sarah Vowell's new book about Pilgrims is coming out on Tuesday...

[Keith Whitener]

i don't know that we have a separate 'books that make us giggle' thread anymore, so i wanted to ask:

anyone been able to check out/read the new simon rich collection, 'free range chickens'?

Yeah, it's high quality. You can always read it for free at Barnes and Noble in a few hours. I am unsure which of the two made me laugh out loud more, but both are great and a testament to Rich's talent as a writer who is only just beginning.

[Itslikeimsayin]

If you're, like me, a fan of the band Eels, you must read Mark Oliver Everett's autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know. It's touching, it's funny, it's a super easy read (I bought it Saturday and finished tonight) and it provides great insight into E's difficult life and the music that's resulted from his life experiences. If you're not into Eels, I doubt it would mean much to you.

[Scott Aukerman]

If you're not in Eels, I doubt it would mean much to you.

To be fair, there's not a lot of people who are in Eels. I can think of only about two.

[Itslikeimsayin]

To be fair, there's not a lot of people who are in Eels. I can think of only about two.

Haha, oops. Fixed it. Into.

[(Mul)Doomstone]

Just got "More Information Than You Require" during my lunch hour @ Borders - 30% off list, 40% off for Borders Rewards members. Nice!

Best book of the year for me will be "The Nigh of the Gun" by David Carr, for sure.

Also got my copy of "The Encyclopedia of Svensk DodsMetall" in the mail today! Hooray.

[Me!]

As a throw back to my first post on this thread...I finished four or five of the Ender's Game books, the series started getting pretty bad and ridiculous and I was kind of relieved by the time I was done with it. I guess there are quite a bit of more books to the series but I don't think I want to touch them. The series started out really strong and just dwindled down until it felt more like a chore to read them.

I'm almost done with The Shroud of the Thwacker by Chris Elliott. It's insane and really great. I think I might like it even more than Into Hot Air. After I'm done with Thwacker I'll be starting on The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I've had a couple of people tell me that it is a "life changing" read.

[aenemaTron]

Life changing? Weird. I wouldn't count on it.

I just read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and I was pretty disappointed.

[Me!]

Was it so disappointing that it changed your life?

[Meen Bellpeppers]

I just finished The Road and was kinda disappointed with it too. It wasn't bad, just not as good as I was lead to believe.

[darrylduffy]

Life changing? Weird. I wouldn't count on it.

I just finished The Road and was kinda disappointed with it too. It wasn't bad, just not as good as I was lead to believe

geez Oprah's book club, chill out.

[Me!]

Well at least when I read it and I like it, it'll be a pleasant surprise since it seems like the worst book of all time so far in this thread.

[aenemaTron]

"Not life changing" is not exactly a criticism.

[Me!]

I was making a joke by being over dramatic. :(

[Meen Bellpeppers]

Good joke, but not exactly life changing.

[jon]

I recently finished both "Against the Day" by Thomas Pynchon and David McCullough's Truman biography. The Truman book is really good. It's well-written, and Truman was a pretty fascinating guy.

"Against the Day" is the first Pynchon I've read, and I thought it was...okay? There were parts that I enjoyed and parts that I thought were ridiculous, and not in the good way. I definitely liked the theme of the book and what he was trying to say, and when I got towards the end I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened next, but I found myself ultimately not caring about a large percentage of the characters.

[CaptainBreakfast]

I remembered today, whilst being very bored and doodling, that Mister I and Mister O by Louis Trondheim were a bucket of laughs for me. The books contain no words, and I heavily recommend them.

[aenemaTron]

As a big Neal Stephenson fan, my response may be a little biased but I would recommend continuing. There's a lot more of Jack in the second and third books and the storylines are split up more evenly so you're not spending 300 pages with one character and then not seeing him again for another 300. That said, expect a great deal more rambling about the laws of gravity and inertia and the particulars of 17th century commerce.

I wanted to thank you for this, I took your advice and I found The Confusion to be excellent and The System of the World only slightly less so.

More recent reading:

I read Anathem over the last two weeks, that was awesome. Got a little insane in the last hundred pages. I could read more about this universe.

The Children of Men was very good and VERY different from the movie. Frankly, the movie sucked compared to the book. I am definitely going to check out more P.D. James.

Right now I am reading The Once and Future King and it is also really great.

[rabbitandox]

I read Anathem over the last two weeks, that was awesome. Got a little insane in the last hundred pages. I could read more about this universe.

Can I offer the contrary opinion, if only to keep the thread going..

I was a Stephenson fan going in, but somehow Anatham has soured me on his whole collection.

I happen to be pretty near the Halikaarnians philosophically, so I found a lot of the Procian-Halikaarnian debates to be a little naive. (But then Stephenson points out that Halikaarnians always paint Procians as naive, so I'm not sure where that leaves us.) If you'll indulge me for a second, isn't there a part where a Procian tells a Halikaarnian that there has never, ever been an argument against the existence of Hylean Theoric World? I'm pretty sure Aristotle was the first of many to offer just such an argument. And isn't there another part where a Procian accuses the Halikaarnians of using only circular logic, when any self-respecting Halikaarnian would just respond that all reasoning is circular? Anyway, just a little naive to me. And the fact that Stephenson is mocking certain theologies while inviting me to believe in this arbitrary, intricate Platonic other-world... well, it struck me as a bit hypocritical.

But that's all academic. I can put that on the shelf if he can deliver the fiction. The slow, unravelling reveal of the technology and society and language of the monastery, I found fascinating. The giant clock, the Book, the spies, the Tenners/Hundreders, the rituals, the mythology; everything in the monastery was clever and intricate and amazing. But once he left the monastery, I was almost instantly bored. It was suddenly a much simpler world, where the most interesting things to happen are Erasmus falling in a hole and meeting some guys in red shirts. I had to really force myself through the last 600 pages or so. I wonder if more Procian-oriented minds find the story more compelling? I don't know..