Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947139 times)

Dan B

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #120 on: August 16, 2007, 12:51:05 AM »
I'm reading No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.  It's good.

It's awesome not just good
Oh yeah it is.

Deric W. Haircare

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #121 on: August 16, 2007, 07:59:30 PM »
Have y'all read any other McCarthy stuff? I rocketed through about 7/9 of the Border Trilogy a few months ago and abruptly stopped. What I read was really good. I'm wondering how No Country... compares. From what I've heard, Blood Meridian and The Road are the winners.
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Deric W. Haircare

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #122 on: August 16, 2007, 08:03:01 PM »
I also just finished reading The Book by Alan Watts.  I've always been a big Alan Watts fan.  Something about his approach to zen and philosophy really resonates with me.  There's nothing particularly earth shattering in this book, but I believe that's the point.

Yeah, I have a feeling that it wouldn't resonate as much as an adult. But when I was 15 and didn't know my ass from my elbow, it totally knocked me on my elbow.
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Chris L

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #123 on: August 16, 2007, 08:10:36 PM »
Have y'all read any other McCarthy stuff? I rocketed through about 7/9 of the Border Trilogy a few months ago and abruptly stopped. What I read was really good. I'm wondering how No Country... compares. From what I've heard, Blood Meridian and The Road are the winners.

Suttree is justly considered a masterpiece but you need to start Blood Meridian, like, tonight. 

John Junk

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #124 on: August 16, 2007, 09:17:01 PM »
I also just finished reading The Book by Alan Watts.  I've always been a big Alan Watts fan.  Something about his approach to zen and philosophy really resonates with me.  There's nothing particularly earth shattering in this book, but I believe that's the point.

Yeah, I have a feeling that it wouldn't resonate as much as an adult. But when I was 15 and didn't know my ass from my elbow, it totally knocked me on my elbow.

Yeah you took the words right out of my mouth.  It's great for people who don't know anything about philosophy yet.

bruce

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #125 on: August 16, 2007, 09:40:53 PM »
Have y'all read any other McCarthy stuff? I rocketed through about 7/9 of the Border Trilogy a few months ago and abruptly stopped. What I read was really good. I'm wondering how No Country... compares. From what I've heard, Blood Meridian and The Road are the winners.

Suttree is justly considered a masterpiece but you need to start Blood Meridian, like, tonight. 
I would Chris L but I've got other stuff that takes precendent like some smelly old must paperback that will turn out to be uttter crap*.





*actually I'm about to start The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Laughing Policemen.

Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #126 on: August 17, 2007, 07:16:40 AM »
The Laughing Policemaen.

Sjöwall and Wahlöö!  I went through a kick about twenty-five years ago when I read a million of their books (this was before I lost my ability to enjoy reading mysteries).  Good stuff, I thought.  I'll be curious to see if you agree, Bruce.

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #127 on: August 17, 2007, 09:22:19 PM »
Hello, FOTs!  Long-time lurker, first-time poster!

Right now I'm reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, which is a bit of a slog but probably worth it.  I've also been getting into Stanley Elkin and Octavia E. Butler lately (specifically elik's The Living End and Butler's terrifying Parable of the Sower).  Other recent favorites are anything and everything by George Saunders, Deborah Eisenberg's Twilight of the Superheroes, and Shelley Jackson's Half Life. 
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Petey

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #128 on: August 17, 2007, 11:03:56 PM »
I'm currently reading Henry Darger: Disasters of War, which features several excerpts from his "Vivian Girls" epic.

i wished they released all of that shit yo.

right now im reading. nevermind i finished reading it Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. it was really good. I was suprised because his other books were surreal and stuff and they were only aaight but this was reallllllllly good. the sexual parts were kind of corny but what you gonna do son. im gonna try to read the divine comedy next.

Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #129 on: September 09, 2007, 11:57:10 PM »
I had to do some re-reading in preparation for the classes I'm teaching, and just finished "The Catcher in the Rye."  I haven't read it in about 13 years, but I still liked it.

Spent yesterday in the Santa Monica Public Library re-reading Reyner Banham's "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies."  Banham defends LA heavily against Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford et al.--the anti-sprawlists, and celebrates LA as "autotopia," and the home to major works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and re-located Bauhaus architects.  It's a fairly quick read, considering it treats an entire history of urban planning, and is really witty and charming.  Banham wrote the book "Brutalism: Ethics or Aesthetics," on which I based my entire senior thesis in 2006, and which I'll be damned if I can remember anything about now.

Just started Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" trilogy with the first volume, "Titus Groan." This is one of those series of books I should have read as a child, when I was reading Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series (and of course LOTR, please don't hate me), but I never made it. Here's hoping it's good, though!

Josh

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #130 on: September 10, 2007, 12:02:10 AM »
Banham wrote the book "Brutalism: Ethics or Aesthetics," on which I based my entire senior thesis in 2006, and which I'll be damned if I can remember anything about now.

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age is good stuff. How'd you get a hold of that Brutalism book?
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Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #131 on: September 10, 2007, 03:24:17 PM »
It was buried somewhere in the 2nd floor of my university's Fine Arts library.  I think you can also get it online if you order it from amazon.co.uk or alibris.com.  Yay for architecture!

Josh

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #132 on: September 10, 2007, 03:35:21 PM »
It was buried somewhere in the 2nd floor of my university's Fine Arts library.  I think you can also get it online if you order it from amazon.co.uk or alibris.com.  Yay for architecture!

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B_Buster

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #133 on: September 11, 2007, 05:42:23 PM »
*actually I'm about to start The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Laughing Policemen.

Wow. You're reading stuff I read 30 years ago. I can't say it holds up the way Suttree and Blood Meridian does. I know you're committed to pulp, Bruce, but reading the good stuff once in a while isn't going to kill ya.

I'm reading Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke and it's terrific! I recommend to pulp readers and non-pulp readers alike. It's got a heavy Apocalypse Now vibe going on. 
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bruce

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #134 on: September 11, 2007, 05:46:45 PM »
1. those books are part of the column I write
2. I do read "good" stuff also just don't cover it.