Book recommendations

[Cheech Tremendous]

For someone looking to get into Roth's work, what's a good starting point?

[vivalaultra]

I'm by no means a Roth-head, but the first Roth I read was The Human Stain. The only other book by him that I've read was The Plot Against America. I enjoyed it and I don't usually like "What If?" historical fiction books. However, if you're like...a HUGE Lindbergh fan you might not like it.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!]

The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Director's Cut by Robert Coover.

Coover's probably the least-heralded of the Major American Postmodernists, and this is probably his least-heralded book, which is a shame because it's really, really good. I'm terrible at writing plot summaries, so I'll just quote Amazon: "[Coover's] new novel returns to the medium, this time endlessly looping through triple-X porn flicks. Protagonist Lucky Pierre is a porn star buffoon who wanders about Cinecity-the capital of Coover's fictional land-with his penis sticking out of his pants. Cinecity is a porno dystopia where every encounter between man and woman, or for that matter man and animal, or woman and vegetable, is destined to end in sex. He suspects that having his penis frozen, falling down an elevator shaft and nearly drowning aren't just filmset accidents, but are actually scripted into an overall film-one in which he is set up as the fall guy. His strategy is to try to find a way out of the film, but in the logic of the novel Lucky himself is merely the embodiment of a film's trajectory, and escape is impossible." It sounds like it should be a pretentious mess, but it's not. It is a little over-written in spots and it gets off to kind of a slow start (the first 50 or so pages are probably the worst part of the whole book), but ultimately it's pretty brilliant and funny and sad and weirdly moving.

[snuffbox]

A fun little anecdote from Dvid Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest on Robert McNamera's tragic bullrush into Vietnam being pushed by fhis feelings of failure during the Bay of Pigs...

 

"years later this still remained something of a joke among Kennedy insidrs, and after Edward Kennedy drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, among the many who rushed to the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport was McNamera; there he was greeted by the insiders' good fellowship and jovial remarks about the arrival of the man who had handled both the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam."

[vivalaultra]

Good choice on the Garcia Marquez, as I've said ever since my first post in this thread. That particular book is probably my favorite of his as far as plot goes, although One Hundred Years of Solitude is an epiphany in terms of form and style. I was planning on reading Tietam Brown by the Mick when it came out a few years ago, but I never did. I heard it was good.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

I already know that that massive, new Pynchon novel coming out in November will be devouring my whole winter break. Yay.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

I've never read anything of his. Some English major I am. Hence, very excited about the impending shipment.

 

What did you decide on for your next Roth foray? I'm looking for another one.

[Hank Kingsley]

Tietam Brown is just a series of the main character's horrible and emotionally-scarring events one after another. If you really want to read that, just save time and check out that Marvinisalunatic thread. The only difference is that Marvin wasn't molested by his KKK-member adopted father. I don't think.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

I've never read anything of his. Some English major I am. Hence, very excited about the impending shipment.

 

What did you decide on for your next Roth foray? I'm looking for another one.

Operation Shylock, but you should go with Sabbath's Theater.

[Henry Spencer]

I recently finished Civilwarland In Bad Decline by George Saunders, which was an amusing enough time waster, but really not good enough for me to recommend to anyone else.

 

Now starting Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen. I've always been curious about his pre-songwriting literary career.

[snuffbox]

Funny passage from The Final Days by Woodward/Bernstein...

 

"The President was almost totally lacking in mechanical ability and was not well coordinated physically. After four years of handing out souvenir presidential favors of cufflinks, tie clasps, pens and golf balls, Nixon still required assistance to open the cardboard boxes. Bull(Stephen, a personal aide of the President) was accustomed to providing such help. Once, the President had called him in to open an allergy-pill bottle, which Nixon had been struggling with for some time--the childproof type of bottle, with instructions saying 'Press down while turning.' The cap had teeth marks on it where Nixon had apparently tried to gnaw it open."

[Guest Felonies!]

You'd think that as a football player he'd have some coordination.

[snuffbox]

I don't think Nixon was particularly good at playing footbal...just a really big fan. Judging by the results of his Superbowl play calling he wouldn't have made much of a coach either.

 

The only conversation that Nixon and Hunter S Thompson had was about football.

[snuffbox]

I read William Kennedy's Ironweed over the weekend and enjoyed it.

[dubq]

I've always wondered why this thread hasn't been moved to the Comics/Books/Literature forum?

[Giuseppe Zangara]

It never would've gotten past the first page had it been.

[Guest Felonies!]

This would die in Comics & Literature under the crushing weight of manga shit and the lack of traffic, so it's here.

[dubq]

Ahh, gotcha.

 

Guess it would've made sense to check the first page... good thing I'm a non-sense making kind of guy these days.

[Giuseppe Zangara]

Has anyone here read any of those A Series of Unfortunate Events books? I've been giving serious consideration to reading some. Sounds like something I would've loved when I was a kid and still might appeal to me as an adult.

[Guest Felonies!]

My little sister has a bunch of them. I could have her write a TSM guest review!

[Giuseppe Zangara]

Maybe you should read some yourself. I can't imagine they'd take up too much of your time.

[vivalaultra]

I read the first one. It was...ok. It was very child-oriented. Similar to the Harry Potter series, I'd guess where each book gets more and more advanced, as per the growth and development of the reader. Yeah, the first one took like...less than an hour to finish. Really easy.

[snuffbox]

I enjoyed the movie.

[snuffbox]

John Dean's Blind Ambition is very well (and very honestly) written.

[Gert T]

I am moderating (sitting on my ass) for the OGT tests this week. I am reading Lord Jim right now by Joseph Conrad. Not too bad so far.

[vivalaultra]

I just bought Lisey's Story, the new book by Stephen King. I've been a Stephen King fan as long as I've been reading 'adult books', my first 'adult book' being Stephen King's The Stand, which I read the summer of my 5th grade year. I have a massive King collection with every one of his books in both paperback and hardcover. I've got a copy of The Dark Tower: Book IV, Wizard and Glass that's worth about $400, but, yeah, I think that Stephen King is the greatest American writer of the last half-decade at least. I'll leave Thomas Pynchon to the eggheads*, I'm reading Stephen King.

 

*-I don't mean eggheads in any derogatory way whatsoever nor do I have anything against Thomas Pynchon.

[snuffbox]

The last half-decade?

[Giuseppe Zangara]

The last five years have been Nobel-caliber for King, I guess.

[snuffbox]

Who has been the best of the full decade? Tom Clancy?

[vivalaultra]

Eggheads, the lot of you! It's a personal preference thing. All of my favorite authors, Garcia Marquez, Tim O'Brien, Stephen King, etc. write from the heart. I can see real people in their characters. I can see myself in Col. Aureliano Buendia and Florentino Ariza and Roland of Gilead and a young Tim O'Brien sent off to Vietnam to witness horror and human suffering. That's the kind of stuff I can relate to, the kind of stuff I look for in what I consider 'great literature'. Sure, I can read Thomas Pynchon and Barth and Bartheleme and parts of Finnegan's Wake and feel smart for 'getting most (some) of the references', but...geez, man, where's the love? Where's the emotion? Where's the human condition? That's what makes me love literature-the insights into human relations and conditions that books hold, not being able weave my way through some complex series of archaic word games to discern some postmodern point of view. I do enjoy, on occasion, reading Pynchon, Barth, Bartheleme, and the rest of the postmodernists, but I can't sink myself into their stuff, really. It just all seems so robotic and calculated. I like reading authors who write like their balls are on fire. I'm not a very good English major.

 

And clearly I meant half-century in regards to Stephen King. Otherwise my argument holds little to no value. However, his last five years have been stellar. Out of the three books he's put out, two have been brilliant and the third was about zombies.