what are you reading today?

[ChadM]

i ran through the road in 2 sittings, its alright. halifamous says i need to read blood meridian so thats next on my list. im gonna read mr delivery man this week cause i want to test it against less than zero. im slowly finishing oblivion, too.

what else is good?

I'm reading the Blood Meridian now and it's great. I was inspired to read it by hearing Ben Nichol's new album "The Last Pale Light In The West" which is based on the novel. Check it out!

[juliaN.]

yeah I bought Blood Meridian yesterday....The Road is a good book, not mindblowing as the reviews have said (kinda repetitive, the flashes of lyrical brilliance and insightful one liners about humanity kept it up), but I can see it having some deeper personal for McCarthy as it pertains to his fatherhood.

I will probably read Kundera's Immortality first, don't think I can read two McCarthys in a row.

[chantheman]

[juliaN.]

finally mustered up the courage to finish a book I started a few weeks ago and had to put down about 2/3rds of the way through - Sabbath's Theater. Jesus christ that was a difficult read, never been on a roller coaster but think I have a pretty good idea of what it must be like. The opening half or so probably contains some of the best dirty-old-man-fuck-you passages ever put to prose though (i threw up one in the fav. quotes thread which is one of my favorite sentences ever). And once I got through some of the REALLY depressing shit about parenthood and lost childhood memories there were a few funny moments of black comedy involving a mental asylum. The last sentence is very fitting in its irony.

One of the best books I've ever read and don't think I ever will again.

[tmadd]

Finished Omnivore's Dilemma...it is definitely something worth reading for a variety of reasons. Now onto something a lot less dry, and even better than I had imagined it would be insofar:

[NESK]

i just bought infinit jest and am gonna try to read it between now and jan 5th. its too big to take with me when i move, so ill see if i im up to it.

[juliaN.]

i just bought infinit jest and am gonna try to read it between now and jan 5th. its too big to take with me when i move, so ill see if i im up to it.

yeah i tried reading this many years ago, just couldn't put a dent in it. I think it'll remain one of those books that I like in my mind for the idea of it, but will never get around to actually reading the damn thing.

[ericdw]

just started this. amazing.

[soundune]

just started manhattan transfer...anyone read it? opinions?

[soundune]

also, just finished

solitudes crowded with loneliness

coney island of the mind

howl

bean on a beat streak lately

all excellent - esp. solitudes crowded with loneliness

[juliaN.]

out of the few works i have read from the beat generation (on the road, naked lunch....uhhh thats pretty much it), Howl was the only one of them I liked. Don't feel inspired to delve deeper into this category.

[Tea]

[Stylish Pilot]

i just bought infinit jest and am gonna try to read it between now and jan 5th. its too big to take with me when i move, so ill see if i im up to it.

I' afraid to start it. it would take months for me to read, just don't have the time to dedicate to it

just finished

fixing to start

[sidneylo]

Snow Crash is like cyberpunk on crack.

[rbn]

Just following the current trend. I'm reading Twilight

[tmadd]

[sidneylo]

So, do you buy the whole Asian people are good at math cause of the rice paddies deal?

[evisu 2000]

neuromancer>snow crash

SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX

[initialrt]

[initialrt]

wish i was raised around rice paddies...

[sidneylo]

neuromancer>snow crash

SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX

Underaged sexin' with 15 year old and an Aelut brute > everything else

[tmadd]

So, do you buy the whole Asian people are good at math cause of the rice paddies deal?

Rather embarrassingly, Outliers is the only sociology oriented text I have read in recent memory and so I am at the same time especially skeptical of, and willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Gladwell's various claims and the proofs that he supports them with. That said, Gladwell's assertion that Asian math-superiority is the result of monosyllabic, logically-structured numerical systems combined with a cultural tendency to value hard work, and accept long workdays as commonplace, as a result of agricultural demands, seems plausible.

[juliaN.]

i read Outliers...it's a nice, breezy and easy read, his argument is well constructed even though I don't buy it too much. The book comes across more like a motivational/self help book disguised as a sociological argument - the epilogue just about brings that whole thing back home.

case in point - i'm asian, my family's asian, we all suck at math

[DJ_Flame]

neuromancer>snow crash

SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX

Truth. Molly = best sci-fi lit chick

Re-read King Rat by Clavelle again, this time I was taking more time to absorb the plot, and it still strikes me as the best book he has wriiten.

[ericdw]

i read Outliers...it's a nice, breezy and easy read, his argument is well constructed even though I don't buy it too much. The book comes across more like a motivational/self help book disguised as a sociological argument - the epilogue just about brings that whole thing back home.

case in point - i'm asian, my family's asian, we all suck at math

i read tipping point and didn't like it at all. gladwell doesn't do it for me at all - his arguments were weak. michiko kakutani said outliers was even worse in that regard. neh.

[juliaN.]

didn't read tipping point even though i got it as a gift ages ago

then again, a book like Outliers doesn't appeal to me, In general I'm a skeptic, so I'm a Black Swan Theory dude all the way.

Outliers just shows how any random and scattered pieces can make a coherent puzzle if pieced together the right way.

speakin of Michiko, i remember reading her scathing review of Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater and wondered how a review could be so harsh to such a work of literary genius and only got it when I read up to the scene w/ Sabbath and Michelle in Norman's house, that shit had me LOLing once the two clicked.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

Outliers just shows how any random and scattered pieces can make a coherent puzzle if pieced together the right way.

apophenia?

not a fan of gladwell at all. tipping point was awful!

[juliaN.]

apophenia?

i had to wiki this term, but basically yes

that shit is kinda on some Number 23 tip (Outliers)

[ericdw]

I actually lost a lot of respect for Ira Glass when he included a chapter from Tipping Point in the New Kings of Non-Fiction. Great collection otherwise (Chuck Klosterman, DFW, Bill Buford), but I really don't like Gladwell. Basically dumbed down sociology for soccermoms. And on top of the poor theories, don't like his writing style either.

Just go a few books as gifts, but I don't know the order I'll tackle them in...

Downtown Owl by Klosterman

When you are engulfed in flames by David Sedaris

2666 by Roberto Bolano

The Savage Detectives by Bolano

Lessons in Disaster (about how McGeogre Bundy ruined everything)

I'm in the middle of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Dorris Kearns Goodwin, and I broke my one-book-at-a-time-rule b/c i couldn't wait to start 2666, but I have a feeling I'll feel like some more fiction for a while after the 1000 pages about the Kennedys.

What did everyone get for xmas?

[juliaN.]

I didn't get anything for xmas, bought myself a Tropic Thunder VCD (watched yesterday, the smartest comedy i've seen in a long time), and those books I mentioned earlier in the reading thread -

Milan Kundera's Immortality - reading now, i like it even better than Unbearable Lightness of Being. This is probably the wisest book I've ever read in my life with regards to its insights into human nature.

and Blood Meridian which i'll read next up. I also got a nonfiction book on sororities that i read through the first chapter but kinda put on stall for now.