books to read

[brycickle]

I made a similar post a few pages back, but just in case somebody missed it...

Does anybody have any really good non-fiction books they can recommend? It can be about anything really, I'm just dying for a new book and have been re-reading some of my old favorites to keep me occupied.

Currently re-reading the book Acid Dreams.  I can't recommend this book enough... it's about the invention of LSD; first about the government funded creation/experimentation of the drug, then about what it did to the youth culture once it finally got out to the public.  Although we all hate and are annoyed by hippies, the original hippy movement has always fascinated me, and the stories about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters are as punk rock/anarchistic as anything Crass can think up.

Recommend me something, PLEASE!

Just picked this up. I haven't started it yet but I have high hopes



If you like The Wire, then check this book out.

[excitableboy]

Jim Harrison - The English Major
Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge
Saul Bellow - Seize The Day

Also reread Cloud Atlas recently. As impressive as it was the first time.

[lickcakes]

Does anybody have any really good non-fiction books they can recommend? It can be about anything really, I'm just dying for a new book and have been re-reading some of my old favorites to keep me occupied.

Recommend me something, PLEASE!

I got rid of mine, so here's what I remember that is worth sharing

The Information by James Gleick
Chaos by James Gleick
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Oliver Sacks' books accounting his patients' stories are pretty nuts
I also heard the Mötley Crüe autiobiography, The Dirt, is good whether or not you like the band

And this is more philosophy than non-fiction, but I would Subjectivity by Nick Mansfield - introduces a bunch of theories, and some might interest you - I think Foucault is pretty rad.

[shark tits]

i reread 'survivor' by palanhiuk in the mental hospital. funnier than i remembered.

[Smell Good]

I want to finish reading Ellroy's LA Quartet

I read the Black Dahlia sometime last year and it was pretty awesome. Takes me back to when I was pretty big into Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler stories and reading them in my car waiting for class to start in the winter

You never read about any of these hard boiled tough guys getting heartburn or anything what with all the black coffee, cigarettes and red meat they consume

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

And this is more philosophy than non-fiction, but I would Subjectivity by Nick Mansfield - introduces a bunch of theories, and some might interest you - I think Foucault is pretty rad.

This sounds really interesting. It's on my wishlist now. Thanks for that!

I'm reading this novel by Roberto Bola�o right now and it kicks ass! It's my first book of his and it won't be my last. I think I'll give Distant Star a try next. The Savage Detectives is the story of two Mexican (one of them is from Chile originally) poets on an odyssey through Mexico City, Mexico in general, and just the whole world really looking for this one poet they read about briefly. It's told from a million different perspective and is funny on the one hand and melancholic and dark on the other at the same time.

[abudabi]

I read the Black Dahlia sometime last year and it was pretty awesome. Takes me back to when I was pretty big into Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler stories and reading them in my car waiting for class to start in the winter

raymond chandler is a badass writer, thank you for reminding me of his existence.
i have a collection of his detective stories and it rules, he's the only crime/detective/murder mystery writer i really like.

[straight]

^ you should check out john hart. The last child is great and so are his other books

[Glue Reed]

Expand Quote

Does anybody have any really good non-fiction books they can recommend? It can be about anything really, I'm just dying for a new book and have been re-reading some of my old favorites to keep me occupied.

Recommend me something, PLEASE!

[close]

You might enjoy "Garcia: An American Life"--mentions some of the stuff you read in the book you listed.
Some other suggestions:

- "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand (just raced my dad through this one--amazing story that Hillenbrand had to write while dealing with her severe chronic fatigue syndrome)

- "Programming the Universe" by Seth Lloyd  (kind of out there [for me, at least], but some interesting things to think about)

- "Blue Highways" by William Least-Heat Moon (English professor loses his job, his wife divorces him; he travels through the U.S. in a van, taking only Blue Highways and meeting the people and seeing the places out there)

- "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick (the stories of some NK defectors--pretty depressing, but really well done)

-"Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder (pretty much anything by Tracy Kidder is pretty amazing--Paul Farmer's books, too. This book chronicles Dr. Paul Farmer's work with creating PIH [Partners in Health] which aims to make healthcare a human right. His brother is wrestler Jeff Farmer)

-"Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope" (a WWII biographic graphic novel illustrated by Emmanuel Guibert)

-Anything by Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker, Flash Boys, Moneyball, etc.)

-"The Billionaire's Apprentice: The Rise of the Indian-American Elite & the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund" by Anita Raghavan (really interesting--reads like a financial thriller and explains financial concepts as it moves along)

-"World on Fire" by Amy Chua (this is pre-"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" / "The Triple Package" Chua--pretty sure she just writes to be controversial these days)

-"A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal" by Ben Macintyre
 
-"Alan Turing the Enigma" by Andrew Hodges (Read this before seeing "The Imitation Game", if you can)

-"Howard Hughes: The Untold Story" by Brown & Broeske (so much more crazy stuff that The Aviator didn't really dip into)

-"Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick (kind of hard to sympathize with him after finishing the book, but an interesting story)

-"The Signal in the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, But Some Don't" by Nate Silver (actually, pretty much anything this superstar statistician writes is a really good read)

Expand Quote

Does anybody have any really good non-fiction books they can recommend? It can be about anything really, I'm just dying for a new book and have been re-reading some of my old favorites to keep me occupied.

Recommend me something, PLEASE!

[close]

I got rid of mine, so here's what I remember that is worth sharing

The Information by James Gleick
Chaos by James Gleick
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Oliver Sacks' books accounting his patients' stories are pretty nuts
I also heard the M�tley Cr�e autiobiography, The Dirt, is good whether or not you like the band

And this is more philosophy than non-fiction, but I would Subjectivity by Nick Mansfield - introduces a bunch of theories, and some might interest you - I think Foucault is pretty rad.

damn guys, thanks a ton!  all of these sound interesting, and will be checking many of them out.

Currently reading Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, a Vietnam memoir.  I've been somewhat interested in the subject of the Vietnam War lately, as I've always felt I should know more about it than I do.  A great read so far, haven't gotten to the thick of it yet.

I have the book Dispatches up next (both coinciding with the awesome Vietnam in HD doc. I'm watching on iTunes).

[UgolinoTheSignificant]

[chockfullofthat]

the myth of mental illness - L. Ron hubbard

[oyolar]

So is The Myth of Mental Illness pretty much Foucault's Madness and Civilization/History of Madness?

[UgolinoTheSignificant]

So is The Myth of Mental Illness pretty much Foucault's Madness and Civilization/History of Madness?

TBH i couldn't tell you, i haven't had the time or chance to get into any foucault at all.

I've only just started it, but basically this doctor from Budapest is arguing that the current rhetoric regarding Mental illness in society is severely problematic. "mental illness is a disease" is what's espoused by the government health agencies but his point is that a disease by definition is something physiological, and using the current frame to discuss and treat mental illness is fatally flawed. His theory is something along the lines of that the current rhetoric and classification of mental illness removes peoples responsibility for their behaviors, is a means through which social control is asserted, results in involuntary treatment and isolation (essentially imprisonment), and is fundamentally linked to the insanity plea as established and maintained by the judicial system.

He mentions epilepsy and homosexuality as key examples for why there is no such thing as mental illness as disease (once societal norms changed homosexuality got dropped from the list of mental illnesses, once the physiological basis for epilepsy was discovered it got moved to the list of actual legitimate diseases). He's saying that the current rhetoric/classifications allow for psychiatry to function mostly as pseudoscience. etc etc. check it out if you're interested.

[oyolar]

Yeah, it sounds pretty much Foucault with a little more medical rhetoric thrown in.  To be honest, it doesn't sound too well done and like there are a lot of leaps in it (not only from your description, but from reading some reviews of it just now) and some logical flaws (your description of his argument for why mental illness is not a disease sounds a lot like begging the question).  Some of it sounds interesting, but some of it sounds like controversy for the sake of controversy.

[abudabi]

anyone read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck?
i just started it, but im reading a couple other books so if i get into this one, i probably wont finish any of them.
seems like it could be a really good book.

[shark tits]

yeah, i read that and tortilla flats back to back. one of em was wicked funny, dudes had great intentions but would just end up getting wine drunk all the time.
when i was a little boy for punishment my dad tried to make me read 'grapes of wrath' and book report it.
intimidated by the small print i ran the fuck away and got beat up when i got caught but never read that piece of shit. i seriously hated steinbeck for decades, sight unseen. told that story to a guy who picked me up hitchhiking on maui and he goes 'nah, the rest of his shit is pure comedy' so i gave it a chance. his short stories were pretty good as i recall.

[abudabi]

word, i dont really know anything about the steinbeck but that's a bummer about your dad. what kind of punishment is that?
i've heard of tortilla flats but i dont know anything about that either. cannery row seems really cool so far tho.

[UgolinoTheSignificant]

Yeah, it sounds pretty much Foucault with a little more medical rhetoric thrown in.  To be honest, it doesn't sound too well done and like there are a lot of leaps in it (not only from your description, but from reading some reviews of it just now) and some logical flaws (your description of his argument for why mental illness is not a disease sounds a lot like begging the question).  Some of it sounds interesting, but some of it sounds like controversy for the sake of controversy.

I just figured I'd try and give the main gist of it so far since you asked, but I'm still skeptical myself.

It's definitely not quite what I was expecting...I read a good opinion of it somewhere a long time ago and just now got around to checking it out. I'm hoping he at least goes into specifics on some disorders and talks about iatrogenesis as opposed to it just being an anti-establishment philosophy of medical rhetoric text.

[ChronicBluntSlider]

Chapter 2 of Cannery Row is one of my my favorite pieces of literature ever. Here's a link if anyone's interested. http://nale.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Literature/Cannery2A.html It's just like a 2 page vignette. I recently read The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. Super interesting novel about a North Korean guy who works with government at first doing kidnappings and then goes on to do other things. The author did a lot of research. I guess he somehow visited there, interviewed defectors, etc. Parts of the story read like an Orwell novel. And Kim Jong Il is a characters which makes for some pretty interesting scenes.

[oyolar]

Expand Quote

Yeah, it sounds pretty much Foucault with a little more medical rhetoric thrown in.  To be honest, it doesn't sound too well done and like there are a lot of leaps in it (not only from your description, but from reading some reviews of it just now) and some logical flaws (your description of his argument for why mental illness is not a disease sounds a lot like begging the question).  Some of it sounds interesting, but some of it sounds like controversy for the sake of controversy.

[close]

I just figured I'd try and give the main gist of it so far since you asked, but I'm still skeptical myself.

It's definitely not quite what I was expecting...I read a good opinion of it somewhere a long time ago and just now got around to checking it out. I'm hoping he at least goes into specifics on some disorders and talks about iatrogenesis as opposed to it just being an anti-establishment philosophy of medical rhetoric text.

No problem man, I understand.  Hope I didn't come across as dismissive or a dick.  Just based on your description and the other things I read it sounds too absolutist and, like you said, an anti-establishment philosophy of medical rhetoric text (in a negative way).  I can see why it would be influential in its context, but in the 50 years since it was published, psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience have made huge leaps so I wonder how influential it would be if it was printed now?  Again, not attacking just wondering. 

My mentioning of Foucault is more so that his own work on mental illness and insanity has said a lot of similar things--that (mental) illness is often a symptom of a specific social context designed to constrain action and regulate/facilitate power structures. 

What stood out to me is your mention of the discussion on the insanity plea, especially because that is a fairly risky/volatile legal institution.  It's not commonly used and it doesn't commonly succeed.  So to say that the flawed interpretation of mental illness is somehow related to the US justice system in a nefarious way is odd to me.

[abudabi]

Chapter 2 of Cannery Row is one of my my favorite pieces of literature ever. Here's a link if anyone's interested. http://nale.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Literature/Cannery2A.html It's just like a 2 page vignette.

sick, this has me stoked for when i get around to reading it.

[Makaveli]

Anyone read poetry? I need some recommendations, no Bukowski tho

[A Not At All Naughty Chemist]

I started this today and oh boy it is hilarious, i would definitely recommend it if you want a good laugh

[abudabi]

Anyone read poetry? I need some recommendations, no Bukowski tho

check out "the drunken boat" by arthur rimbaud. that's one of the top 5 poems ive ever come across for sure.
its kinda far out tho.

mexico city blues chorus #3 by jack kerouac is pretty cool. kerouac wrote a lot of cool shit.

"alone" by edgar allan poe is pretty wicked.

idk. id be curious to see if any other slappers are into poetry. i was going to make a thread for it but then i condescendingly decided i didnt give a shit what the people on here read.

[oyolar]

Just finished The Futurist Cookbook by Marinetti and am now reading Laughter In The Dark by Nabokov.

[Chris Hansen is back]

Why did I not look into this guy sooner?

[N.L.]

Anyone read poetry? I need some recommendations, no Bukowski tho

Blake, Keats, Neruda, Rilke, Whitman.

I have a hard time with more modern poetry. There are exceptions though...

[shark tits]

went to the library and ordered al jourgensen's biography. got it on layaway so might prolly be 3 wks fore it comes in but i'm stoked. might get old after a bit but what i've garnered about it 2nd hand, alotta rock star depravity, some name dropping or whatever and shit talk. letchaz know how it goes.

[N.L.]

Only browsed the last few pages of this thread but no mention of Cormac McCarthy?

'The Road' and 'Blood Meridian' are two of my favourite novels by any author
'Sutree' is also very good.

[abudabi]

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Anyone read poetry? I need some recommendations, no Bukowski tho

[close]

Blake, Keats, Neruda, Rilke, Whitman.

I have a hard time with more modern poetry. There are exceptions though...

what do you consider modern/ who are the exceptions?

edit: your post is kind of funny because i have trouble reading keats and blake because they seem almost too traditional to me, although i want to look thru their stuff still