what are you reading today?

[ssheat]

I like it a lot.

[Baeyer-Drewson]

Just finishing an old popular science book I had called "What Remains To Be Discovered?" by the former editor-in-chief of Nature, John Maddox.

Really good overview of the important discoveries of last century. It's about 15 years out of date now (when I originally purchased it) and it is amazing to see just how rapidly science has progressed since 95.

[po_boy_fuuma_hatesbargerz]

great shit people...

currently re-reading Ayn Rands "The Fountainhead"

i haven't read in ages, decided to pick up a book and finished it in a few hours, tuesdays with morrie is definitely an easy and good read

the movie on the other hand, looks very shit.

Okay, I am really tempted to neg both of you for reading those.

Ayn Rand? and Tuesdays with Morrie? What is this, Styleforum? What's next, some Palahniuk?

that aside – Is anybody willing to start a Sufu book of the month club? It'd be neat to have the opinion of some other members while we're all reading the same thing.

[TheNotoriousT]

Just finished T.C. Boyles "Watermusic" which I loved.

Now reading "Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A.Gang Member" by Shanyika Shakur which is quite disturbing but great.

And as always the new issue of http://www.waxpoetics.com/.

[domdomdomdom]

that aside – Is anybody willing to start a Sufu book of the month club? It'd be neat to have the opinion of some other members while we're all reading the same thing.

that would be interesting, wouldnt it. wouldnt it? i think so too.

[Yardsale]

Okay, I am really tempted to neg both of you for reading those.

Ayn Rand? and Tuesdays with Morrie? What is this, Styleforum? What's next, some Palahniuk?

that aside – Is anybody willing to start a Sufu book of the month club? It'd be neat to have the opinion of some other members while we're all reading the same thing.

neg reps should be handed out swiftly and judiciously.

[gramps]

Piss poor covers, I might add.

[vitasoy]

Okay, I am really tempted to neg both of you for reading those.

Ayn Rand? and Tuesdays with Morrie? What is this, Styleforum? What's next, some Palahniuk?

that aside – Is anybody willing to start a Sufu book of the month club? It'd be neat to have the opinion of some other members while we're all reading the same thing.

@JustAnotherXY and Yardsale

What's wrong with Tuesdays with Morrie? A friend of mine suggested it that's why I read it, it wasn't thaaaat bad

[po_boy_fuuma_hatesbargerz]

^^ It's feel-good junk. The kind of stuff Oprah and 45 year old women might enjoy reading after being ignored by their husbands. Kind of on par with 'The Alchemist' and other new-agey junk.

SUFU BOOK CLUB

Anybody interested in reading Gabriel Garciá Marquez? Or, since half of us are obsessed with Japan, we can look at Murakami. PM me your suggestions, and I'll set up a new threak for all this. If anybody has new book suggestions, I don't keep up too much with new releases, but I'm down.

[superbeveridge]

[automaton]

[Macwich]

[broneck]

For a class entitled "The History of Globalization", which apparently started in 13,000 BCE.

[po_boy_fuuma_hatesbargerz]

^^ ha, that book is a supposed classic.

Caveat though – About halfway through it just turns into unbearable drudgery. But if you can make it through it, it's (kinda) worth it.

[Tisswat]

[NESK]

i cant find the coming insurrection at any local bookstores. i guess chapters doesnt want to carry activist propaganda.

remix by lawrence lessig is pretty good if your into the whole intellectual property rights debate. im about halfway through it and its 1000x more approachable than free culture was.

[Guest]

amazing read.

[mpcec]

"the post marquez era"... that phrase is retarded. gotta check that book out though.

[gramps]

Jumped the bandwagon after finishing Infinite Jest (latecomer to the infinite summer party).

I was expecting something more obviously complex and layered. By that I mean that 2666 reads very easy, having heard people speak of how epic and dark this book is supposed to be I expected to make me sweat tears.

My thoughts:

This book is not like Infinite Jest in any way. Bolano's writing does not have the same hyper-textual or referential quality. His style doesn't sit as high in the saddle either. You'll find that at the end of the book it will take a lot of thought to piece together some of the subtext and much of the thematic content is only glancingly implied, sort of a vague pushing in one direction or another and it's hard to figure out where you want to stop. His colloquial language buries it even more. And if you aren't finding it very dark yet, I wonder if you've gotten to the part about the crimes?

[cJajce]

[Guest NoRtHsIde]

The rum diary by Hunter S

[persephone]

one of my all time favorite books...such a beautiful read.

[NESK]

anyone who read chronic city notice how lethem references infinite jest with the book that gets thrown into the urban art pit? i think it was called obstinent dust in the book and the author had some 3 name moniker like DFW and lethem kinda tore into the style of obstinent dust as some sort of useless void of a novel which he then has his character throw into a useless void of a pit.

id love to know if lethem was paying homage or actually offering a criticism on one of his caontemporaries. kinda would be cruel to tear it down though considering wallace isnt alive to defend himself.

[salaryman]

[american_hearts]

anyone who read chronic city notice how lethem references infinite jest with the book that gets thrown into the urban art pit? i think it was called obstinent dust in the book and the author had some 3 name moniker like DFW and lethem kinda tore into the style of obstinent dust as some sort of useless void of a novel which he then has his character throw into a useless void of a pit.

id love to know if lethem was paying homage or actually offering a criticism on one of his caontemporaries. kinda would be cruel to tear it down though considering wallace isnt alive to defend himself.

This wouldn't make any sense. First of all, and I may be pulling this out of thin air, but I'm pretty sure they shared a mutual admiration. I know for sure Lethem has appropriated DFW's own words/ideas in the past although I'm hurting for a specific example ATM.

Although, if he was trying to take a jab at DFW's entire M.O., I could see it as a tongue-in-cheek, very in-joke kind of thing (by making a very writerly joke when DFW's whole stance when he was alive was against 'writing for other writers')

It's obviously a reference to DFW, but for it to be meant as a jab at the work or the author? There's just no way.

EDIT:

found the following:

Rumpus: What’s Obstinate Dust all about? Why did you include it, and include it the way you did?

Lethem: Well, uh. There’s a gesture in this book and in my work in general. I have a tremendous interest in the impossible artworks. And you have Obstinate Dust in this book, but also the fjord, Noteless’s sculptures.

...

Then it’s also a joke about the way unread books can become cultural tokens, or objects of fascination and energy, and I’m thinking about obviously David Foster Wallace there...But the reference to Wallace became strange, because he died while I was finishing this book. I’d already put the reference in and then it felt disturbing to me, but it didn’t seem right to take it out. It was as though I’d be erasing him in some way. So what I ended up doing was strengthening that reference.

It seems possible to think I’m dishonoring Infinite Jest, but I don’t have that in mind at all....

if anything gets into my books at all, as an overt reference or slightly disguised the way that David Foster Wallace is slightly disguised, it’s almost invariably because the thing has meaning to me, tremendous value and interest.

[Chicken]

might be a good day to read catcher in the rye.

[NESK]

american_hearts: thats perfect. i was searching for an explanation from lethem and that totally puts my mind at ease. i think the fact that he referenced infinite jest (which i had just read before chonic city came out) helped me understand where he was going with the fjord in the first place. if i didnt understand the wieght of wallace's novel, i dont think id been able to follow how the fjord related to anything in lethems book. thanks.

[american_hearts]

might be a good day to read catcher in the rye.

Yesterday was Nine Stories all day. R.I.P. dun You changed the game.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

a lot of people hate Infinite Jest

i have learned (the hard way) not to bring it up, even if you see it on a friend's bookshelf

i have been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

my Southern aunt (RIP) bought it for me when i was aged eight

but as a yet unassimilated FOB trying to find my way in yankee-territory i never got around to it until now

enjoying it much

twain is so gangsta

[dubcbadass]

...and not for fun, either.