what are you reading today?

[MindxMatters]

Just finished reading junky again a few weeks ago, great book + rep.

[polishmike]

I'd like to see these "highly regarded" journals' reviews of Hosseini's attempt at a culturally enlightening novel. It was written as a blockbuster novel; it was written to sell, just like all the shitty romantic comedies, teen-gag flicks, and action movies that come out every weekend.

polishmike & I are completely right.

Just saw this and have nothing else to add. Just cause couple clowns like it and give it five stars doesn't make it a good book in my opinion. Remember, Cher got an Oscar but I wouldn't put her in my top 1000 actresses.

[ericdw]

Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker

it's about the events leading up to US involvement in WWII... made up entirely of 1-3 paragraph blurbs describing a particular event. no chapters or breaks, just 300 pages of these little blurbs. it's the only book i've read that i can honestly call "intense"

[dakkaisbabel]

a sucker for pamphlets, but turned out to be a great read so far, pretty insightful ideas

[polishmike]

just finished rereading Hadji Murat

[Quiver]

Onto the last chapter of

[FunkyFrenchy]

[alexryb]

Just finished for the second time.

First was for entertainment, second was for a government class.

Pry gonna start Les Liaisons dangereuses or finish

Candide next.

[seraphim]

My basic reading list right now:

+ À rebours - Joris Karl Huysmans

+ Fleurs du Mal - Baudelaire

+ The Dharma Bums - Kerouac

+ The Woman Destroyed - Simone de Beauvoir

+ Seven Dada Manifestos and Lampisteries - Tristan Tzara

+ Shakespeare's Late Style - Russ McDonald

+ The Art of Rhetoric - Aristotle

+ Monsieur Shoushana's Lemon Trees - Patricia Duncker

+ Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

+ Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter

+ Four Archetypes - Carl Jung

+ Mademoiselle De Maupin - Theophile Gautier

+ Collected Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges

+ The Age of Wire and String - Ben Marcus

+ Rock Springs - Richard Ford

+ House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

+ Digital Leatherette - Steve Beard

+ (Debug.): Primary Techno Noir - Kenji Siratori

+ Meeting the Shadow: Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature - Connie Zweig

a couple are for university, but the majority are just whims.

[polishmike]

Few of them made you really hot, the rest not so much

[little ants]

Wallace Stevens - Harmonium for class.

Raymond Roussel - Locus Solus for myself.

[mrpenguin354]

Just finished a close reading of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, excellent read if you've got the time.

Next up on the block is either Gravity's Rainbow or some Nietzsche.

[n0cturnal]

reliquary - douglas preston & lincoln child

[eightynine]

finished The Road (Cormac McCarthy) a couple weeks ago, i liked it a lot better than No Country For Old Men. started Watership Down (Richard Adams), more than half way through and i'm really diggin it, HA! really though, it's a great story.

coming up next:

The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins)

The Raw Shark Texts (Steven Hall)

[SipaH]

reading Italian Fever by Valerie Martin. anyone read this? im reading it for school and so far it is the slowest book ive read.

[Quiver]

I read Blink about a year ago.

Just started reading Think.

Blink was very sexy in that it appealed to 'smart' intuitive thinking. However, I've come away recently from a university subject (decision making under uncertainty) that demonstrates our intuition are actually fairly poor - particularly with problems that has even just small complexities to them (i.e. the Monty Hall problem).

Has anyone read either book (or both) and would like to share some thoughts?

[selbsttatig]

started Watership Down (Richard Adams), more than half way through and i'm really diggin it, HA! really though, it's a great story.

I've wanted to read Watership Down for a while. I saw the animated movie a long time ago and it was cool. Fairly bloody too which was kind of surprising.

Has anyone read either book (or both) and would like to share some thoughts?

I've read maybe a fourth of Blink. I own it but for some reason haven't finished it. I can't really offer an opinion about it. I'd like to read it then read Th!nk though.

[jf30]

finished The Road (Cormac McCarthy) a couple weeks ago, i liked it a lot better than No Country For Old Men. started Watership Down (Richard Adams), more than half way through and i'm really diggin it, HA! really though, it's a great story.

if you like mccarthy i suggest reading blood meridian, arguably his best work.

[mpcec]

Lately I've been reading a lot of comics. In the last week I read American Virgin, Preacher and Transmetropolitan. Besides that I've read Y-The Last Man. I'm looking for some more recommendations. Those are literally all I've read for comics, I've got The Watchmen, Hellboy, BPRD and Fables all ready to read, but those won't last me very long. So any recommendations would be appreciated.

[jewbagel]

[ktothe]

Just FYI - if anyone is interested:

http://reactor-core.org/none-dare.html

[System]

On chapter 2 of 'Crime and Punishment':

Got this the other day, it was recommended by someone.

[landho]

Blink was very sexy in that it appealed to 'smart' intuitive thinking. However, I've come away recently from a university subject (decision making under uncertainty) that demonstrates our intuition are actually fairly poor - particularly with problems that has even just small complexities to them (i.e. the Monty Hall problem).

Has anyone read either book (or both) and would like to share some thoughts?

(Should preface by saying that I'm just offering lay opinions.)

Blink was basically a collection of anecdotes without an overarching thesis. Gladwell explains the power of intuitive thinking at the beginning but then cautions against relying on it too much. An interesting read but not one that I really found worthwhile.

You must be reading a bit of Kahneman and Tversky then. I read a few of their papers, and honestly I think their work is amazing. (They did win the Nobel, after all.) As I'm sure you studied, they showed that people concluded different things from the same information if the information is framed differently. The consequences of their work are far-reaching and mind-boggling. If you can, I would find a couple of collections by Kahneman and Tversky and read through those if you're really interested in this subject. Their papers are dry (academic, after all) but much denser and rewarding.

Haven't read Think.

I would, however, mention that Gladwell in Blink seems to be purporting that intuitive thinking is most effective when done by experts; the example of the counterfeit statue was spotted by a historian (IIRC) who spent his entire life immersed in ancient Mediterranean art. The other people didn't seem to have as deep an understanding of the subject matter.

[MGC3]

[Winu]

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burguess

[whizkit]

Memoirs of My Nervous Ilness,

Daniel Paul Schreber

[denimfan45]

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burguess

One of the best books ever written, IMHO!!

[lawlercopterz]

I read Blink about a year ago.

Just started reading Think.

Blink was very sexy in that it appealed to 'smart' intuitive thinking. However, I've come away recently from a university subject (decision making under uncertainty) that demonstrates our intuition are actually fairly poor - particularly with problems that has even just small complexities to them (i.e. the Monty Hall problem).

Has anyone read either book (or both) and would like to share some thoughts?

i haven't read either, but i've been comtemplating investing some time to read blink? how is it?

[aaronS]

helmut newton - autobiography

[eightynine]

can you tell me about this?