books to read

[Mr. Fink]

The Collector by John Fowles was really amazing. I'm definitely going to check out more of his stuff.




I can't wait to read this new Andy Kaufman book.

[Smell Good]

I'm trying to read Gravity's Rainbow and there's a lot of shit that goes over my head (the fuck is an "adenoid" ? etc.)

I don't know. This feels like reading Burroughs' Naked Lunch where you're just reading strings of words after awhile with no meaning and only a vague semblance of the plot/scene.

I'm only reading it because I really like Neal Stephenson and apparently Pynchon was an influence?

[brycickle]

Adenoid is a gland in your throat.

[floop]

i had mine removed when i was a kid

[oyolar]

I've read a few of Pynchon's books, and actually read Gravity's Rainbow first and I definitely suggest getting one of his other books if you want to try him out.  That is pretty much his masterpiece and has all of his tendencies at their peak of extremity.  I'd suggest picking up The Crying of Lot 49 or Inherent Vice and reading those instead.  Gravity's Rainbow is a huge time sink while those other novels will take 2-4 weeks to finish so you're not wasting much time on them.  And they're a lot easier to understand as well.

If you really wanna grind it out, you can visit here for some help: http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Smell Good]

Yeah, I may need to pull the eject lever on Gravity's Rainbow and try to get into Pynchon's earlier novels

Anyways, I've got a copy of William Gibson's new book (The Peripheral) on hold at the library so I'm pretty stoked on that.

[Mr. Fink]

Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth is a novel about how things would turn out if FDR lost the 1940 election to Charles Lindbergh.

[Mundungus]

[logan chase]

Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..

[jezus]

I've got this list of books I wanted to read like two years ago, and I started reading all of them like a maniac, leading me to now only have a couple left so I won't really know what to read in like a month or so, I'll just put the ones I really enjoyed here,  if someone has books in mind they  they think I would like, it would be highly appreciated!


1984 (George orwell)
the catcher in the rye (J.D. salinger)
Brave new world (Aldous Huxley)
on the road (jack kerouac)
catch 22 (joseph heller)
the doors of perception (Aldous Huxley)
one flew over the cuckoo's nest (ken kesey)
a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (douglas adams)
kanikosen (takiji kobayashi)
les particules elementaires (Michel houellebecq)
the dice man (George cockroft)
the electric kool-aid acid test (tom wolfe)
food of the gods(Terence mckenna)
GAIA (james lovelock)
l'?tranger (albert camus)
stranger in a strange land (Robert Heinlein)
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (Robert pirsig)
the alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
Ishmael (daniel quinn)

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..

I'm not too sure about Capote being a visceral writer, but In Cold Blood is pure gold. Literary Journalism at its very, very, very best.

[shark tits]

just read a short story by dostoyeovsky called 'white nights'. might be a double entendre for 'white knights' but i'm not sure if that tacky slang was used in 19th century russia. for anyways, the protagonist wanders st petersberg admiring the architecture like a proto-puleo when he encounters a woman about to be harassed by a man. he interjects and they swap lonesome stories.
his is that of a dreamer, all potential and no kinetic. hers is that after growing up sewn to her gramma's dress [literally, so the blind bitch can keep an eye on her] and she falls for their boarder. he promises to return in a yr w/ money for marriage but he's late so the girl gets pedantic and decides protagonist would be a better suitor.
he's all about it but just then the original suitor shows up and she kisses main character bye and wanders off w/ her fiancee.
in her capriciousness she broke the wigga's heart but he looks at it like 'better to have known a moments happiness than not to have'.
don't like me giving away the endings? well fuck ya'll yuppies w/ your matching books in the case, nobody ever answers me on this thread so i'm just gonna spoil the classics from now on.
good day sir. i said good day!

[Ollie Ringwald]

Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

"Man in the High Castle" - Philip K Dick. It's fiction and kind of sci-fi so maybe not what you're looking for right now but definitely worth reading at some point.

[jezus]

Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

I think 1984 fits under that category, but other than that I wouldn't know of any

[Chinaskis underpants]

Wind, Sand and Stars by Saint-Exupery is real fuckin good. Similar to Hemingway, historically, but I feel he soars above him.

[logan chase]

Expand Quote

Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..

[close]

I'm not too sure about Capote being a visceral writer, but In Cold Blood is pure gold. Literary Journalism at its very, very, very best.

More like a visceral reaction to his writing

[oyolar]

I doubt Dostoyevsky intentionally made that pun just because I don't think those words are close enough in Russian.

[shark tits]

I doubt Dostoyevsky intentionally made that pun just because I don't think those words are close enough in Russian.

i didn't either but it's all apropos and shit

[woodsman]

The Butcher Boy

[Smell Good]

William Gibson's new book has been great so far

Took me awhile for my brain to warm up and to be able to conceptualize and visualize the technology and the interfaces that these characters are dealing with but I think my imagination's done a good job of it.

I also feel compelled to buy a bunch of little drones now but I don't think the tech is there yet for them to be implemented like in the book.

[thepman]

[ChronicBluntSlider]

Such an interesting book. Uses historical data to show trends in income inequality over the past 300 years or so. Talks about the history of inflation and some other stuff I didn't know much about. Kind of depressing though. Inequality in the US is about as bad as it was in colonial Europe and is trending to get worse so that on the current pace by 2030 it will be the most inegalitarian society ever seen. Europe's headed back in that direction as well just at a slower pace. I'm only about half way through but I highly recommend it.

[Peter Zagreus]

[sametelt]

Thorough work. Really depressing read.

[4wheels]

all set to hitchhike across the united states now

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

I'm currently reading this:



And it's fucking awesome (no pun intended)! This just confirmed why I think Eggers is the most relevant contemporary American author out there. In a nutshell, Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng (a refugee from South Sudan) teamed up to compose the fictionalized (auto)biography of the latter and tell his story. The book is a compelling acccount of the life of a refugee in the US, gives a lot of background on the civil war in Sudan, and tells the story of the co-author's journey from his village in South Sudan over Ethiopia and a refugee camp in Kenya to Atlanta. The whole story is insane. Deng narrates how his family and friends died before his eyes and how he found himself completely lost and without a home from one day to another and survived the genocide in his village by a hair's breath.

I got nothing but great respect for Deng and how he's able to tell his personal story on a worldwide stage. Also, props out to Eggers for putting one of the most pressing issues of our time out there.

As much as I love other literature, it was refreshing to read a "real story."

[Brandon]

long time, no post. knausgaard and walkable city are on hold as i've gotten really into "stoner".

[Ollie Ringwald]

long time, no post. knausgaard and walkable city are on hold as i've gotten really into "stoner".

I loved Stoner but by fuck it made me feel a bit sad...

[oyolar]

Just finished rereading The Impossible by Georges Bataille.  Definitely made a lot more sense this time, but there is still a lot that I felt didn't sink in.  Reading The Silence by Jens Bjoerneboe right now to finish up The History of Bestiality.  I'm only about 20 pages into it, but it already feels a lot more concrete and stark than the first two volumes.  Interested to see if that stays true as it starts to delve into the actual protocols.

[The Shogun]

Sick book, just got a used copy and I'm digging it. I recommend it!