Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947387 times)

jamesp

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #450 on: July 14, 2008, 06:12:52 PM »
I've just about finished Myra Breckenridge by Gore Vidal. I'd never read anything by him before, and had him pigeonholed as a John Cheever-ish observer of upper-middle class life. (I like Cheever, btw.)

Holy cow, was I wrong! It's a crazy book. It seems like a natural for an FOT reading list - weird sex, drugs, celebrity obsessions and psychoanalysis. And it's hilarious.

Did anyone see the interview with Gore Vidal in the NY Times a few weeks ago? For an 82-year-old, he's still spunky as hell.

I usually hate those interviews in the magazine but he had some great answers.

I'm reading the Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer right now. I haven't read The Confessions of Max Tivoli but I'm enjoying this one so far.
The last book I finished was I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle, which was lame. Wasn't funny and I can already imagine how bad the movie will be.

cutout

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #451 on: July 15, 2008, 07:55:36 PM »
I put down The World is Flat and picked up The Places in Between by Rory Stewart - much better.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/books/review/11cover_bissel.html

"Rory Stewart's first book, "The Places in Between," recounts his journey across Afghanistan in January 2002. Even in mild weather in an Abrams tank, such a trip would be mane-whitening. But Stewart goes in the middle of winter, crossing through some territory still shakily held by the Taliban — and entirely on foot. There are some Medusa-slayingly gutsy travel writers out there — Redmond O'Hanlon, Jeffrey Tayler, Robert Young Pelton — but Stewart makes them look like Hilton sisters."

I'm on extended vacation and will need more to read soon - keep the recommendations coming.

cutout

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #452 on: July 15, 2008, 08:05:14 PM »
Matt Taibbi is already one of my favorite writers and finding this bit on The World is Flat just made me smile -

http://www.nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
Quote
The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is.

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #453 on: July 15, 2008, 09:04:02 PM »
I'm on to Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life.  Lots of paleontology minutae.
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Steeley Chris

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #454 on: July 21, 2008, 11:03:43 PM »
Nerding out with The Silmarillion. Second time reading it.
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AllisonLeGnome

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #455 on: July 21, 2008, 11:14:38 PM »
Nerding out with The Silmarillion. Second time reading it.

I was a huge Tolkien fan as a child, but I can't remember if I ever quite made it through that.

Denim Gremlin

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #456 on: September 01, 2008, 04:49:36 AM »
Nerding out with The Silmarillion. Second time reading it.

ugh

if you want to read a boring egghead book why don't you learn some actual history?
I was the first guy in hardcore to whip people with his belt.

Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #457 on: September 01, 2008, 12:46:25 PM »
Been doing a lot of planning for this year's set of courses, so I've re-read The Catcher in the Rye, John Berger's Ways of Seeing, part of Plato's Republic, and a textbook.  For fun, I read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Coco-Puffs, which was equal parts amusing and infuriating.

Klosterman always manages to pick examples to illustrate his ideas that, for whatever reason, I ENTIRELY disagree with.  In the essay he wrote on the coolness/greatness divide of Billy Joel, he made an off-handed comment about how silly it is when people defend artists on the strength of their deep cuts, not their radio hits.  The example he uses to illustrate this point is Dexy's Midnight Runners.  But Dexy's WERE a great band--it's not their fault they were a one-hit wonder act in this country!  Their deep cuts are great!

There were others, but that stuck out.  My favorite line, though, was, "What in Andrew WK was that all about?"

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #458 on: September 01, 2008, 12:50:44 PM »
I just read my reading list for my new Science Fiction class.  I think next time I'll read the essays before I add them to the course packet.

Right now I'm reading the original scroll of On The Road for this play I'm supposed to be writing.  I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do here.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

Emily

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #459 on: September 01, 2008, 01:13:51 PM »
Like the actual original scroll? where are you?

Emily

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #460 on: September 01, 2008, 01:15:12 PM »
wait, wait, don't tell me, you're at the Indianapolis Museum of Art ?

Susannah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #461 on: September 01, 2008, 01:21:01 PM »
For a second, I thought I was at the Indianapolis Museum of Art reading the original scroll of On The Road, but then I realized that I'm actually at home.  This avatar business is confusing.

emma

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #462 on: September 01, 2008, 01:46:15 PM »
I am reading Demons In The Spring by Joe Meno and it's already in my top 10 books of all time. And I'm not even finished yet! Also, it has a ton of beautiful illustrations in it.

iAmBaronVonTito

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #463 on: September 01, 2008, 01:58:17 PM »
Been doing a lot of planning for this year's set of courses, so I've re-read The Catcher in the Rye, John Berger's Ways of Seeing, part of Plato's Republic, and a textbook.  For fun, I read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Coco-Puffs, which was equal parts amusing and infuriating.

Klosterman always manages to pick examples to illustrate his ideas that, for whatever reason, I ENTIRELY disagree with.  In the essay he wrote on the coolness/greatness divide of Billy Joel, he made an off-handed comment about how silly it is when people defend artists on the strength of their deep cuts, not their radio hits.  The example he uses to illustrate this point is Dexy's Midnight Runners.  But Dexy's WERE a great band--it's not their fault they were a one-hit wonder act in this country!  Their deep cuts are great!

There were others, but that stuck out.  My favorite line, though, was, "What in Andrew WK was that all about?"

susannah gets it...why not the dopes I know who want to talk about this book?!

AllisonLeGnome

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #464 on: September 01, 2008, 02:45:28 PM »
I am reading Demons In The Spring by Joe Meno and it's already in my top 10 books of all time. And I'm not even finished yet! Also, it has a ton of beautiful illustrations in it.

Ooh, I have to get that! I love Joe Meno.