books!!!!

23 Responses to “books!!!!”  

1. 1 joe on May 27th, 2008 said:

   Yuck it up. When someone is sitting pretty on a pile of money from a can’t-miss Nigerian bank investment, then we’ll see who has the last laugh. (Hint: ME).

2. 2 joe on May 27th, 2008 said:

   To keep the thread on track: I just finished Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, which I loved. I’m starting Richard Price’s Lush Life now.

3. 3 maris on May 27th, 2008 said:

   Well, class, I happen to be leaving for LA tomorrow for Book Expo America. Which I suppose is just a really big nerd convention. So here’s what I’m taking on the trip:

   Personal Days by Ed Park–an office comedy of manners from a founding editor of The Believer
   Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller–a triple biography of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon. Love those ladies because they provide me with plenty of karaoke fodder.
   The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst–2004 Booker Prize winner. A “sweeping novel about class, sex and money.” A thinking person’s beach read!

   As for audiobooks, I’m really excited by a couple of new arrivals:
   His Illegal Self by Peter Carey–latest novel from the author of Theft. Australian hippies!
   Him Her Him Again the End of Him by Patricia Marx–Steve Martin loved this book. Many people hated it. I thought it was rather clever.

   Also, I need to reiterate what Yancey said about God is Dead. An amazing novel in stories by Ron Currie, Jr. If you’re looking for something totally weird and inventive and different, this is the book for you.

   I’ll be back from LA next week with lots of new suggestions…

4. 4 maris on May 27th, 2008 said:

   Oh, I’ve also asked a friend to send me a copy of Netherland, which is shaping up to be the big buzz book of this summer.

5. 5 yancey on May 27th, 2008 said:

   yeah i ordered netherland the other day, along with a kajillion other books in preparation of the ny state amazon tax starting june 1. boo ny!

6. 6 Adamm on May 27th, 2008 said:

   I just finished Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, which I strongly recomend. I’m now reading The Devil in the White City, on Maris’ recomendation.

   I also read A Scanner Darkly, based on a mix of liking the movie, Maris’ recomendation, and a general love of Phillip K. Dick, but I did not like it as much as Ubik, which I thought was amazing. (And which I think made a cameo appearance on Lost this season. (And yes I’m a loser for noticing that.))

   As far as the New York Amazon tax, the (indellicate) question that comes to mind is whether Spitzer paid sales tax on all his purchases.

7. 7 maris on May 27th, 2008 said:

   I have been trying to keep a running list of books that appeared on Lost. We’ve got quite a few of them in audiobook form. A project for next week…

8. 8 joe on May 27th, 2008 said:

   Man, I loved Gravity’s Rainbow — it’s been forever since I read it, but I found it completely absorbing, pretty much from start-to-finish.

9. 9 Daniel, Esq. on May 27th, 2008 said:

   [i]Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush vs. Gore[/i] (Oxford History of the United States, Vol. 11), by James T. Patterson. Great book. Amazon link below.

   http://www.amazon.com/Restless-Giant-United-Watergate-History/dp/019512216X

10. 10 MiDoJo on May 27th, 2008 said:

    Just Got Finished with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. It was an interesting way of presenting the Zombies take over the World Scenerio.

    I just started Federick Forsyth’s The Odessa File.

    I think I might read Gravity’s Rainbow sometime in my life, but having finished “V” I think I am afraid of Pynchon for a while (hahaha)

11. 11 doorknobs on May 27th, 2008 said:

    Finally FINALLY finished Underworld and was kinda floored. I’m reading a trio of Flannery O’ Connor short stories right now alongside a book of Grace Paley shorts. Both are excellent so far.

12. 12 yancey on May 27th, 2008 said:

    along the lines of restless giant (which i will pick up), daniel, i just ordered nixonland as well. oh, and the nine. and a book about the draft card riots in nyc.

13. 13 anna on May 28th, 2008 said:

    The Line Of Beauty is one of my favourite books Maris - I truly love it. A friend of mine described it as “somewhere between ‘Brideshead’ and ‘The Rules of Attraction” which makes it sound more university-based than it is, but is still reasonably accurate.

    On the subject of Evelyn Waugh, I went on a big second-hand book binge at the weekend, so I’m rereading lots of old favourites - ‘A Handful of Dust’ by the just-mentioned Mr Waugh and the books in AS Byatt’s Frederica Quartet: ‘The Virgin In The Garden;’ ‘Still Life;’ ‘Babel Tower’ and ‘A Whistling Woman.’

    I also picked up Paul Theroux’s ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’ because I clearly don’t get enough of what Americans think of the British in my day-to-day life.

14. 14 Adamm on May 28th, 2008 said:

    doorknobs: Underworld is one of my all time favorites. If you haven’t yet you should check out White Noise too. It’s the only DeLillo that I’ve found that I liked as much as Underworld.

15. 15 yancey on May 28th, 2008 said:

    don’t get me started on delillo! i rank delillo: white noise = libra >> mao II >>>>> great jones st >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else.

16. 16 Tom Hilton on May 28th, 2008 said:

    I would put Underworld in the same class as Libra and White Noise, the three of them above everything else. But that’s just me.

    Recent reading:

    The Saragossa Manuscript, an early 19th century post-modern picaresque Gothic Bildungsroman; it’s Russian dolls in Chinese boxes, stories within stories within stories (at one point you find yourself six narrative layers deep), set in 18th century Spain and populated with succubi, genii, Kabbalists, Gypsies, and the usual assortment of Dons and Grandees and duennas. A wild ride, often hilarious (there is one awesome punch line when two stories suddenly overlap) and always entertaining.

    Dreadnought, about the Anglo-German naval arms race before WWI. Complex history presented clearly and compellingly, with tons of fascinating characters and entertaining anecdotes. The Agadir Crisis alone is worth the price of admission.

17. 17 maris on May 28th, 2008 said:

    Anna, I was reading The Line of Beauty on my flight today when my iPod shuffled on to So Alive, a song that was prominently featured in the (dreadful) movie version of The Rules of Attraction. So I totally made that Alan Hollinghurst/Bret Easton Ellis connection too!

18. 18 ihatewesley on May 28th, 2008 said:

    I’ll echo the love for Delillo and Pynchon and would like to point any fans of those guys toward the book I’m currently reading: Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. It’s taken me a month a half, but I’m finally nearing the end, and it will likely end up in my top 5 favorites. Big, sprawling, epic, but the thing I love is the style, which frequently shifts first-person point of view (sometimes in the same paragraph) and really digs into the characters’ psyches. The style reminds me a lot of Faulkner, too.

19. 19 Adamm on May 29th, 2008 said:

    Sometimes a Great Notion is another favorite.

20. 20 Tom Hilton on May 30th, 2008 said:

    Ditto on Sometimes a Great Notion. Best Faulkneresque writing by anybody not named Faulkner (and, let’s face it, better than some of Faulkner’s lesser stuff).

    Oh, and very belatedly: Gravity’s Rainbow is one of my all-time favorites. And if y’all like Mason & Dixon as well, then definitely check out John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor, which was a major influence.

21. 21 Adamm on May 30th, 2008 said:

    So I (rather embarassingly) admit to never having read much Faulkner. Anybody recomend a good starting point?

    In turn, two other writers I’d recomend that sort of fit along this string are Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Ecco.

22. 22 Adamm on May 30th, 2008 said:

    oops, I mean Eco.

23. 23 ihatewesley on May 30th, 2008 said:

    The Sound and the Fury is my pick for Faulkner. As for John Barth, I still haven’t gotten around to Sotweed Factor, but Lost in the Funhouse is another of my all-time favorites.

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