Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947558 times)

Christina

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1410 on: September 23, 2010, 04:04:31 PM »

I still haven't started on the new Gary Shteyngart novel. I'm going to put it off for as long as I can. The last way I want to escape our terrible present is to venture into our even worse future.

Just started this one myself. I love that fucker.
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Ike

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1411 on: September 24, 2010, 05:19:58 PM »
Finishing up Freedom and I've started Matterhorn--about 50 pages in and Mike's assessment is EXACT. 

Very clunky, very awkward at times.  Also sort of engrossing in a weird way. 

I have a 'thing' for war-lit books, and this one, at least, doesn't seem to be pulling punches.  My reading load 'shifts' during the semester--mostly centering on student papers, short stories, and inane emails. 

I will be happy to BE DONE with Freedom and focus on Matterhorn. 
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B_Buster

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1412 on: September 24, 2010, 07:23:43 PM »
I'm about a third of the way through Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field. It's terrific so far, and I haven't even gotten to the "incident" yet. I'm dreading it.

If you like that one, I also recommend Echoes in the Darkness which is even freakier.
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Yinka D.

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1413 on: September 28, 2010, 10:03:01 PM »
"Cardboard Gods" by Josh Wilker.

Thank you for the recommendation, Scratchbomb (at least I think it was you in the chat).  I loved it.

I've started reading "Big Hair and Plastic Grass" which I highly recommend to anyone who loves baseball.  Or at least loved it when players like Richie Hebner had to dig graves in the offseason to make ends meet.

colonel panic

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1414 on: October 01, 2010, 03:57:17 PM »
I just finished  Stretch
The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude
By Neal Pollack

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Stretch-Neal-Pollack/?isbn=9780061727696

It was funny and I think I'm going to try learning/practicing some yoga in the mornings via youTube instruction.

masterofsparks

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1415 on: October 01, 2010, 07:11:44 PM »
"Cardboard Gods" by Josh Wilker.

Thank you for the recommendation, Scratchbomb (at least I think it was you in the chat).  I loved it.

I've started reading "Big Hair and Plastic Grass" which I highly recommend to anyone who loves baseball.  Or at least loved it when players like Richie Hebner had to dig graves in the offseason to make ends meet.

I loved Big Hair and Plastic Grass so much that I'm going to check out Cardboard Gods. I just got an Amazon gift certificate, so the timing is perfect.
I'll probably go into the wee hours.

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1416 on: October 03, 2010, 04:20:45 PM »
I was stranded in the Rochester airport and started reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.  It was in the business section and had a blurb from Lou Dobbs, so that gives you an idea of the nature of Friedman's predictions.  Nonetheless, I was completely engrossed by it and couldn't stop reading it.  As soon as I got home I ordered it from the library but couldn't wait for the Brooklyn interlibrary system and downloaded it as an e-book.  I was so into it that I finished it in a couple of days, even though I couldn't figure out how to get it on my Kindle and read the whole thing on my laptop, which I hate doing. 

I think he's kind of full of shit about some stuff, while other stuff is more plausible.  He ignores global warming but at least acknowledges that it's real in the afterword.  Some highlights: the "War on Terror" will fizzle out by 2020, but Russia will rise and collapse again after a new cold war.  China will fracture by 2030, and in the 2050s there will be a new world war, mostly in space, involving the US and Poland against Japan and Turkey.  After that, there will be a population bust which will be alleviated by robots, and in the 2080s Mexican-Americans will join a resurgent Mexico in an attempt to re-annex the American Southwest.  It was the Japan/Turkey war and the Mexican annexation that struck me as BS, for reasons I won't bore you (or myself) with.

Admittedly, I am a sucker for alternate-history stuff -- I also ate up Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt -- but at least those billed themselves as fiction.  Still and all, this was a fun read.

Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

Steve of Bloomington

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1417 on: October 04, 2010, 10:12:23 PM »
Population bust alleviated by robots? Sex robots? Or just the robots fill in for the people? The space war really motivates me to take better care of myself so I can be around for that.

JustNicole

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1418 on: October 05, 2010, 09:10:10 AM »
Just read The Game by Neil Strauss. I now feel confident that I could become a great pick up artist. I also thought it was funny so much of the book revolved around many of the people he met online through message boards.
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dave from knoxville

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1419 on: October 05, 2010, 01:05:28 PM »
I am on page 1430 of Les Miserables. I am considering stopping 30 pages short.

Rick in Salt Lake

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1420 on: October 05, 2010, 01:56:18 PM »
I am on page 1430 of Les Miserables. I am considering stopping 30 pages short.

Is it that tedious?
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Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1421 on: October 05, 2010, 02:22:37 PM »
Population bust alleviated by robots? Sex robots? Or just the robots fill in for the people? The space war really motivates me to take better care of myself so I can be around for that.

The robots just run factories and stuff.  It's the kind of "great game of history" analysis that you see in the work of most historians, sociologists, economists, etc.  No one on these guys' world has any sexuality or does weird, irrational, or stupid things, unless prodded to by leaders.  I.e., the Tea Party fits into this worldview, but ComicCon doesn't.

The space war doesn't sound very fun at all.  Though that's one of the predictions that made me call bullshit -- even if Japan and Turkey become highly militarized autocratic states, there's no way they're going to attack our Battlestars (that's what he calls them), let alone actual US cities.  That kind of state-to-state warfare ended with the nuclear bomb.
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Ignore Function

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1422 on: October 13, 2010, 10:12:36 PM »
I just finished "How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II To Hip-Hop.  The Machine Speaks" by Dave Tompkins. 
Amazing.  The perfect balance of espionage and electro-funk.  And Peter Frampton.  And Kraftwerk. Cold War cryptology and Roger Troutman in the same book.  Unfortunately, there is nothing listed for voice modulators or high school radio stations in the index.   

put_it_away

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1423 on: October 14, 2010, 11:36:29 AM »


Didn't know if I would like this or not when I picked it up, but I'll be damned if it isn't pretty great. Except now they are going to ruin it with an American film version.

I haven't seen the Swedish film yet - I was waiting to finish this first, and I finally got around to reading it this week.

put_it_away

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1424 on: October 14, 2010, 11:37:42 AM »
Wow - just saw the Swedish cover of the book. Way better: