Book recommendations

[Copper Feel 0]

Would any males amongst you recommend Jane Austen?

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Haven't read her. As far as long dead English writers go, E.M. Forster is grand.

[vivalaultra 0]

Jane Austen's Ok, but all of her books are the epitome of "chick lit". Northanger Abbey is good. It's a faux-gothic satire type dealie.

[Guest The Showcase]

I'm about halfway through "The 48 Laws Of Power" by Robert Greene. I would definately recommend it to anyone into history and possibly ruling the world.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I'm reading Guns, Germs, & Steel for the second time & it rocks my socks off. Probably one of the most important books of the 21st century.

 

 

Is this the book about why people from certain areas of the world came to dominate the world? I've been watching the 3 part documentary and it's been pretty interesting.

 

Yeah, that's the one.

[EL BRUJ0 0]

Current readings and a couple before:

 

I'm about half way through Erotic Morality: The Role of Touch in Moral Agency by Linda Holler which examines our touch sense and the role it plays in moral relfection. What I've read so far has given me some points to think about.

 

Before that I finished Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin, her fourth book about the world of Earthsea. I've enjoyed all the books in that fantasy series, but I haven't read anything else by her; if anyone has recommendations, that'd be nice.

 

I was also reading the Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide... man, how the hell did I play this when I was a teen; to many rules to bother was my conclusion.

 

Contingency, irony, and solidarity by Richard Rorty was a bit too much for my mind to comprehend completely. The book deals with his position on philisophical topics and defining and explaining what is a liberal ironist. I'll probably go back and reread it sometime later this year.

 

 

Due to vivalaultra's pimping of Garcia Marquez, I've borrowed my sister's copy of Strange Pilgrims. Tis some short stories, so if I read and like I'll read some more!

 

Hey vivala, what's a good intro to Stephen King book... I read the Dark Half and wasn't too impressed by it. Looking for a book that's not too long but that'll give me a notion of what I can expect from him...

[vivalaultra 0]

'Strange Pilgrims' has some very good short stories, especially "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow", "Light is Like Water", and "I Sell My Dreams". On the subject of Stephen King, it's hard to say. If you wanna read like...some classic Stephen King in his horror phase, I'd say Salem's Lot, but, if you're not into the horror thing, then you might wanna go for one of his more plot-driven stories. You could pick up one of his short story/novella collections. For example, Different Seasons, which has four novellas, three of which became movies, two of which were good movies ('Stand By Me' and 'The Shawshank Redemption' being the good movies, 'Apt Pupil' being the not good movie.). Over the last 15-20 years, Stephen King's been shifting his style to be less of a pulp-horror writer and more of a character-driven writer. Uh...if you'd rather read something like that, you could go for Hearts in Atlantis, which is five short stories centering around the Vietnam War. Or just start reading 'The Dark Tower' series, since pretty much everything Stephen King has written is encompassed in it, and it's fantastic.

[EricMM 0]

Get the Long Walk.

 

Really.

[vivalaultra 0]

Yeah 'The Long Walk' is really good. The entire Bachman Books is good. Unfortunately, however, the best story from it's no longer in print, "Rage", which was just a really excellent story, but can no longer be found anywhere due to the Columbine school shooting and other similar events.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

Inc, weren't you an English major? How could you not read Austen for class or something.

 

That being said, I just read Pride & Prejudice for my lit seminar. It was very good and surprised me in that I didn't hate it like I thought, though I would have enjoyed it much more if I didn't have to read it at such a blistering pace. There's a lot of satire of high society and I like how, despite its reputation as a great romance, the romantic parts of the book are often glossed over while social commentaries and interpretations of letters are emphasized.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

The only Austen I was assigned was Northanger Abbey. Twice. I didn't read it the first time, actually. If you avoid 19th century seminars, I don't think you run into her that often these days. Charlotte Bronte gets a little more Eyre-time currently.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

I guess that makes sense. My seminar is a broader theme (it's called "Making Meaning," through different interpretations of text. Taught by Railton if you know who that is), so we're covering a range from Huck Finn to P&P to The Sound and the Fury to Nabokov's Pale Fire.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Inc, weren't you an English major? How could you not read Austen for class or something.

I only ever took two classes that concentrated exclusively on pre-20th century lit; one focused on American writers, the other class was for British ones. Austen never came up in the former for obvious reasons; the professor for the latter simply did not assign her.

 

And good deal on getting to read Pale Fire. Awesome book, though most of your class will hate it.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I guess that makes sense. My seminar is a broader theme (it's called "Making Meaning," through different interpretations of text. Taught by Railton if you know who that is), so we're covering a range from Huck Finn to P&P to The Sound and the Fury to Nabokov's Pale Fire.

I once sexually exploited a pretty cute girl who took a very similar class from the same professor. Were I vulgar man, I'd joke that I Railed her a ton. But I'm not like that.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Three John Barth books—The Sot-Weed Factor, Giles-Goat Boy and Chimera (specifically the "Perseid" section)—are evidence that he's the only writer I've come across who can write truly hilarious, lol-worthy rape scenes. You think I could get a course out of this? I'll call it "Screamingly Funny Rape Scenes in the Fiction of John Barth." To counter the mirthfulness, I'll also teach Barth's Sabbatical, which features a very disturbing, particularly unfunny rape scene.

[Red Baron 0]

I just ordered, Sidney Poitier: Autobiography from Amazon.

 

Should get it in the mail by Friday if not Monday.

[snuffbox 0]

I'm currently reading a bio of William Jennings Bryan by Louis Koenig and a collection of Hunter S Thompson essays.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I just ordered, Sidney Poitier: Autobiography from Amazon.

 

Should get it in the mail by Friday if not Monday.

 

So, you watch Oprah eh?

 

At least you're not ordering THE SECRET.

[Red Baron 0]

I just ordered, Sidney Poitier: Autobiography from Amazon.

 

Should get it in the mail by Friday if not Monday.

 

So, you watch Oprah eh?

 

At least you're not ordering THE SECRET.

 

Ugh...

 

I like Sidney Poitier, and it was fairly cheap to get. Besides its a damn sticker, that can be easily removed.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Riiight.. In all seriousness, though, it does seem like an interesting biography at the least.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

I read Pledged by Alexandra Robbins. Meh. Thumbs down. I thought it would be either a fascinating undercover examination of sororities and what's wrong with them (because the author apparently does a lot of that sort of journalism), or really hot (because the cover features scantily-clad girls). It's neither. It reads like some crappy MTV Books Presents True Life: I'm a Greek or some bad teen romance novel. There's very little investigative journalism and a whole lot of hearsay about getting drunk here and having sex there and so on. Reads like fiction, but it's not supposed to be. I just ended up hating everyone involved. I'm going to lend it to a girl and not particularly ask for it back.

[Guest Vitamin X]

There's very little investigative journalism and a whole lot of hearsay about getting drunk here and having sex there and so on.

Knowing how sororities work from friends that have been in them, I'd say that's about as investigative as journalism can get regarding sororities. I don't know what else more you could have been expecting out of them.

[Guest Oedipus Rex]

You're right. In the first ten pages or so, she explains that things are so secretive, even as someone who could pass for 20, they wouldn't let her live with them, and she just had to rely on four girls to periodically relay stuff back to her. She wrote another book on the overachievement culture in high school. I might give that a shot.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I read a chapter of that in a class my 3rd year. Seemed very enjoyable, but it was just the first overview chapter, so it didn't really get into the repetition yet.

[snuffbox 0]

I read Philip Roth's 'Our Gang' today & enjoyed it.

[snuffbox 0]

I just received a 40 lb box of books from the Book Thing in Baltimore. Lots of good stuff. Bob McNamara's memoirs should be a hoot.

[snuffbox 0]

Hey viva, your boy turned 80 today.

[vivalaultra 0]

Yeah, GGM's my homeboy. I celebrated by reading "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" earlier this afternoon. Great stuff. I hope he lives to be 160. When it comes to magical realism, anything's possible.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Query: How often do the regulars of this thread feel compelled to finish reading a book? Particularly, one that is your introduction to a canonized author. While not bad by any means, Saul Bellow's Herzog isn't moving me any. I'm about a hundred pages in with a little under three hundred to go; I'm considering quitting, but I always feel a little disappointed with myself when I don't finish a book. (The only exception here is if said book is outrageously bad. Herzog isn't, but reading it is starting to feel like a chore.)

 

If I do stop, I'll try again later. Trying another time won't necessarily prove more fruitful—I have, on three separate occasions, began but not finished Delillo's White Noise (though I have enjoyed other of his books I've read)—but you never know.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

The only books I've started and failed to finish are American Pastoral and the two William Gaddis books I own (JR and A Frolic of His Own). I'll probably try JR again at some point in the future since the only reason I stopped reading it was that I got distracted by other stuff and couldn't devote to it the attention it deserves. Frolic, on the other hand, was kind of a boring piece of shit, so I probably won't be returning to that one.