Fave Books / Currently Reading

[lastplaneout]

The Master and Margarita

How is it? I've had an old used copy on my shelf for a while.

The weird thing is that I think I picked it up because the band The Lawrence Arms made a reference or two to the book.

It was really ridiculously good. I haven't been more satisfied with the ending of a book in a long time- it's surreal and grotesque, but ultimately really life-affirming. I'd say that any Rushdie, Murakami, Mieville, etc fan pretty much has to read it.

[lastplaneout]

Oh, right.

Now reading: The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

You know it's great young adult fiction because Anthony Burgess wrote the introduction.

[JonFromMaplewood]

I just finished "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and I don't think I'll ever read a book as good again in my life.

[crumbum]

I just finished "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and I don't think I'll ever read a book as good again in my life.

I've been trying to remember this title and author for a couple of years now after someone recommended it to me with similar extreme praise... all I could recall was that it was a war novel written in the last couple of decades. Thanks for inadvertantly jogging my memory!

[buffcoat]

The Psychopath Test. 

I really like Jon Ronson.  If I ever met him, I would subject him to the American exhortation, "Buck up there, little camper!"

[Omar]

I just finished "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and I don't think I'll ever read a book as good again in my life.

I've been trying to remember this title and author for a couple of years now after someone recommended it to me with similar extreme praise... all I could recall was that it was a war novel written in the last couple of decades. Thanks for inadvertantly jogging my memory!

I also recommend Timmy's Going After Cacciato and In the Lake of the Woods.

[wood and iron]

The Psychopath Test. 

I really like Jon Ronson.  If I ever met him, I would subject him to the American exhortation, "Buck up there, little camper!"

I'm not sure if it's in that book, but Mr. Ronson did a segment on This American Life about a British man who faked his way into a mental institution and now can't get himself back out. I think. Now I'm suddenly unsure if I'm remembering this correctly.

[crumbum]

The Psychopath Test. 

I really like Jon Ronson.  If I ever met him, I would subject him to the American exhortation, "Buck up there, little camper!"

I'm not sure if it's in that book, but Mr. Ronson did a segment on This American Life about a British man who faked his way into a mental institution and now can't get himself back out. I think. Now I'm suddenly unsure if I'm remembering this correctly.

That was a great radio piece, not least because of the way it doubled back on you so that even if he was telling the truth about faking it, you couldn't be sure there wasn't still something deeply wrong with the guy. As I think one of the interviewed doctors says, you have to ask what kind of person would put himself into such a situation to begin with.

[buffcoat]

That is the framing story of the book.  Tony is a very interesting character.

[cavorting with nudists]

The Psychopath Test is good, but I enjoyed his other books even more: Them and (despite the crappy movie they made of it) The Men Who Stare at Goats.  Psychopath has a lot of interesting stuff in it and I would never suggest anyone not read it, but his perpetually second-guessing, tends-to-believe-the-last-thing-he-heard persona frustrated me after a while in a way that doesn't become so onerous in the earlier books.

[buffcoat]

I also enjoyed Them more than this last book.  Also recommended in that vein are Kooks by Donna Fossey and Apocalypse Pretty Soon by Alex Heard.

[dave from knoxville]

Just started the complete Edgar Allan Poe.

[Steeley Chris]

I just finished The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley and Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy.

[Steve of Bloomington]

REAMDE by Neal Stephenson
Russian Mafia/Hacker Mayhem in and around a World-of-Warcraft like game. There's some pretty funny material revolving around the writers hired to come up with the backstory of the game, among other things.

Also, Autobiography of Mark Twain, 1910-2010.

[danner]

The Food Revolution by John Robbins

I've been flirting around with a vegetarian diet for the past six months or so, and this book might be the thing that pushes me over the fence.