what are you reading today?

[feather]

ordo, have you read After Dark? What do you think of it if you have?

Enjoy Norwegian Wood!

[ILLset]

as i am most weekends. the Economist. but once that's read back to Medieval Islamic Political Thought by Patricia Crone.

[lil brown brother]

Harry Potter 7 ... ehhhhhh

[breams]

speaking of Murakami.. which are his "best ones"? Ive read Wild Sheep Chase, Dance dance dance and kafka on the shore, all which I enjoyed a lot, especially the 2 last mentioned. Where do I go from here?

Personally, I liked South of the Border West of the Sun and Norwegian Wood the best. Books such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World seemed drawn out and unnecessarily long (to me at least).

I started reading Murakami after someone compared me to the protagonist in "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning", one of his short stories appearing in The Elephant Vanishes. So if you're lazy like me, take a read into some of his short stories.

[schmoses]

new flaunt, anthem and i-D mags

chabon-before-last: summerland

[feather]

I started reading Murakami after someone compared me to the protagonist in "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning", one of his short stories appearing in The Elephant Vanishes. So if you're lazy like me, take a read into some of his short stories.

I REALLY enjoyed that short. I think it was my first brush with Murakami before I even realize he wrote it.

[asuzano]

the soft machine+william s burroughs.

the only book i really loved from him was junky, which is my all time favorite...naked lunch is ok...but all the rest...i cant get into em...

free book so ima try and read thru it.

i agree with your assessment of burroughs + junky though i've only read that and naked lunch. ive been wanting to start on the soft machine! i've gotten too caught up with louis-ferdinand celine lately.

[ruach]

Personally, I liked South of the Border West of the Sun and Norwegian Wood the best. Books such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World seemed drawn out and unnecessarily long (to me at least).

I pretty much agree with this. Norwegian Wood was probably my favourite. There were times I enjoyed Wind-up Bird Chronicle but overall I thought it was terribly overrated.

As for me; the other day I started reading Darkness in Summer by Takeshi Kaiko.

[Guest]

Roads to Nowhere - L.J. Middleton

About doctors in africa, fairly good ...

[owl]

bukowski

always.

[jimmyc]

Check this out. Excellent read.

[superBobo]

^^ yea it was nice and pretty unusual.

[d0h15]

Currently reading an italian book for school:

Generazione 1.000 Euro - Antonio Incorvaia, Alessandro Rimassa

[feather]

[rvlt.]

i just started the electric kool-aid acid trip by tom wolfe yesterday, it's pretty interesting so far.

[Analog]

[feather]

Great choice Analog!

[willb]

colors of the mountain

by

da chen

it's required for all college freshman to read the book :/

[bee hee]

at mine they're making us read china shakes the world, by james kynge.

[surfed57]

I REALLY enjoyed that short. I think it was my first brush with Murakami before I even realize he wrote it.

Yeah I agree. All murakami shorts have some sort of poignency, delicacy, and texture that just make me sigh with content. I didn't like The Elephant Vanishes collectivel as much as Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, however.

The Mirror, I think is my favorite Murakami story ever.

On another note I just finished, "Founding Brothers, the Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis. It's probably the best nonfiction book I've read in five years.

[lucky_cloud]

I pretty much agree with this. Norwegian Wood was probably my favourite. There were times I enjoyed Wind-up Bird Chronicle but overall I thought it was terribly overrated.

co-sign. I like Norwegian Wood best of the novels I read, though I thought The Elephant Vanishes had some really exemplary short stories, too.

Reading Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita right now, and enjoying it a lot.

[feather]

Only ever read Gen X, Microserf (yes!) and Jpod. I keep flirting with his other books but just can't get around to or bring myself to read them based on their blurbs.

[bee hee]

I might be wrong, but I think the majority of his readers are females.

I think that's to be expected, because if my memory serves me correctly, JPod is the only book so far with a male main character.

[Corbin Law]

i finished east of eden which was fucking incredible

and started the old gringo by carlos fuentes.

[ogre]

Currently reading:

FOUNDERS AT WORK - STORIES OF STARTUPS EARLY DAYS by Jessica Livingston

A collection of interviews with entrepreneurs/founders of technology startups. Interesting reading.

and

CROOKED LITTLE VEIN by Warren Ellis

This really has a similar feel to his comic works. Started it yesterday afternoon and I'm already half way through the book. Entertaining quick read. Highly recommended so far.

Next up:

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN by John Perkins

Description from Amazon:

John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.

Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led.

[tweeds]

after the quake - short stories by

murakami

[jsmilez]

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

[glenn]

my goal in life is to be a murakami protagonist. guaranteed sex with a japanese girl.

[Analyst]

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN by John Perkins

I felt this book was highly unsupported with very little facts to back up Perkins widely speculative claims. The best part of the book is some interesting background on Indonesia and the Middle East. This should have been an insider's account of the behind-the-scene interworkings of the World Bank and IMF and "greedy" corporations. Instead, it read kinda like a bad spy novel about the "evil empire" of this or that. More Mark Bowden or Seymour Hersh and less grocery store paperback authors, please...

[ordo]

ordo, have you read After Dark? What do you think of it if you have?

Enjoy Norwegian Wood!

Back now from camping and catching up on SuFu.

I haven't read After Dark but probably will at some point.

I am interested to know what Tweedles thinks of After the Quake. I had been holding off reading Murakami's non-fiction but am thinking of picking it up. Thoughts Tweedles?