Great read.

Currently reading, the more I read, the angrier I get so i guess its working

who can recommend me a good book on the Civil War (U.S.)

There are a ton of Civil War books out their. However, the most "storylike" is probably Bruce Catton's books (he won a Pulitzer back in the 1950's). They're not great for scholarship, but they do move along.

Shelby Foote's histories are pretty good. Better researched, but still pretty accessible. (Foote was interviewed as part of the Civil War series.)

While I'm at it, I'm going to plug Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains. It deals with the westward expansion in the Great Plains, but his connections between the Union Army's "burn everything in your path" tactics that were born as part of Grant's and Sherman's campaigns to the tactics used to colonize the western part of the US from 1870-1890 are pretty impressive.

Just got on Goodbooks and its great, thanks whoever recommended it.

Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss.
Hype surrounding this book 100% warranted.

www.GoodReads.com is another really great site if you enjoy sharing thoughts on matters of prose.

Anyways, finished The Road last night. Eh. It's well-written and all but I felt like the plotting was rather routine. Just didn't surprise me as I think it did most people. I dug McCarthy's other books a bit more. Blood Meridian, in particular.

Picked up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time a few days ago. I might read that some time this week.

Now reading The Great Gatsby.


I liked that one a lot. It's a great story and a really quick read.


haha. yeah, it kinda pissed me off from time to time too.

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Larry Brown's A Miracle of Catfish (even unfinished, a much better book than this year's Ntl. Book Award winner, Denis Johnson's bloated Tree of Smoke.)

Larry Brown - Dirty Work

Larry Brown - Facing the Music

After Larry, reading anything else has been hard.

It was indeed, very Safran Foer-like.

Is it worth reading some of Chomsky's older works? Or does his stuff date pretty quickly?

i'm not normally an Oprah book club reader but i really liked this book. can't wait for the film.


another Oprah selection. really didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else. it started kind of slow and dragged on for a bit. the end was good, especially the last paragraph.


finally finished up my summer read and now there is snow on the ground. 700 pages is a lot of short stories. it was laborous to get through to the end, considering the love and death sections up front and in the middle provided the better stories. still there were some gems in here.

now i'm out of things to read.
what's next?

So I just finished this:


I am teaching a five week unit on this in a month or so... not overly excited to do so. It was a good book, but I am worried about how to conduct thoughtful discussions about it with high school kids.

I am teaching a five week unit on this in a month or so... not overly excited to do so. It was a good book, but I am worried about how to conduct thoughtful discussions about it with high school kids.
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Pretty much everyone has a mentally ill relative on meds these days. Since from what I recall the book is really a study of one man's complete psychic fragmentation, maybe you could go from that angle?

You like 'em long and and as Oprah selections?

Here ya go.

Read this on my last flight and cried pretty much the whole way. A very, very sad story told without an ounce of sentimentality.

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Tolkien - Unfinished Tales of Numenor and the Second Age of Middle Earth

comfort reading.

I can't read or watch movies where bad shit happens to dogs. I just can't.

Had to leave the theater several times while watching Eight Below just to cry. Finally I said to my girl we had to go. It was too fucking much.

Even now when flipping through cable channels, if Eight Below is on- my bottom lip trembles and the eyes tear up. He loved those dogs so much...

Almost went to see that but maybe it's good that I didn't.

Memoirs from dog owners seem to be the hot trend in books for 2007. Second only to chick-lit for moms.

Holy shit. A retelling of The Odyssey from a modern perspective of a soldier returning home from a war in the middle east. Pretty awesome.

Cover alone makes it look awesome.

Anyone else read ebooks? I have a Sony Reader that i use its great not lugging around 100+ physical books.

Yup, it's really good. The Captain (the protagonist is never identified otherwise) encounters modern day variants of the cyclops, sirens, Circe and such. Petty slick. Noto's sense of artistic design is superb.

My only complaint being that in the story's introduction they skirt over Odysseus/The Captain's cowardice in avoiding his duty to his fellow countrymen. Sowing his fields while riding backward on an ox so as to seem insane and so forth.


Oh? I tried an e-reader out before. The print quality really is amazing in it's readability. Ultimately, I prefer to sit back and relax when reading prose though. Don't take public transport either. The need for an e-reader is just not there for me.

What subscription service do you use, if I may ask?

Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West

Fucking violent and bloody so far, doubt it will get any less so.

Bob Dylan - Chronicles

I'm only about 50 in, but I'm freaking loving this.

is this just a copy of Cervantes' Don Quixote or some other version?

anyways, great novel

just the Cervantes version. I picked it up out of ancestral pride, but it's really gotten a hold on me. Easily one of my favorite books ever.
I'm thinking about getting that picasso tattooed on my arm when I'm done.

I was amazed by how much I liked this.

My favorite McCarthy book. Have you read this before or is this your first go?


Yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. In particular the parts that make the case for the villain.

first time through with this particular novel. Just got through the first huge slaughter and the subsequent celebratory ravaging of the town.

In honor of the Mitchell report coming out tomorrow I have picked this up at Borders for $4.99.

$4.99, that has to be the lowest I've ever paid for a book.

Ah well, I don't want to ruin the book for you. But it gets better as it goes on. You'll see what I mean.


edit: Usually, I love McCarthy's prose but his plotting tends to feel a little rote to me. BM is a case where I felt his plotting of the book was well handled.

I doubt this will get much response over night, but I am going to use my Borders 30% off coupon to pick up a book to read this break (after I finish Persepolis, and What is the What) And I am trying to choose between these two books:
or


thoughts? I think storywise I am more interested in Underworld, but it is a little long for a simple read over the break (especially because I asked fro the new Pynchon book for Xmas), but I am really interested in getting into Cormac, and feel that BM is his most well regarded book.

Blood Meridian is shorter, but I am reading it now, and it will take nearly as long to read as Underworld. It is just a brutal story.

Have you read any other Delillo? If i wanted something relaxing for Christmas Break, I'd probably pick something short like Mao II or salacious like Libra, which are both just as good. I never made it through Underworld..

cool, thanks for the recommendations. i have never actually read anything by Delillo, and from what I have heard, (like you said) it might be better to start elsewhere. I guess I might just go to Borders and read a few pages from each to get a vibe.

a better question might be, what is Delillo's prose like? I think right now, I am in the mood for someone with just an overwhelming love of language. Whose langauge is stuffed with beauty and epic scope. I am assuming that is not McCarthy, and i have no idea what to expect from Delillo. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? Preferably a more recent novel.

This post makes me love all that is Luscious Phil. Pynchon, McCarthy, Delillo? Hell Yes!

As for your question:

McCarthy's language can be very beautiful and epic (and often is) but perhaps not in the way you expect. His ability comes in his economy of language. He is somewhat laconic and tends to describe things very simply but with alarming accuracy. I find it to be a very appropriate strategy for his novels which tend to take place in bleak and desperate terrains.

Delillo is an entirely different animal. he tends to focus more on the interior of his characters. No matter how base or twisted his characters may seem to the outside world, there is always a complicated and reasonable interior.

McCarthy is plot and story. Delillo is character and philosophy.

Both are great. Choose wisely.

Thanks for the help Raleigh. I think right now, after just finishing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I might be more in the mood for plot and story.

so I suppose I am going to hit up some McCarthy.

Anyone see the movie adapted from this? Is it any good?

David Louis Edelman takes us 500 years into the future, where a number of world revolutions have taken place, and society programs its individuals with injectable microcomputers to take care of every ill...very much like Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" (although not as funny) and other imaginative future-tech horrors.

I love it what a new Nick Hornby book comes out!

This was told from an adolescent perspective -- an 18-year-old looking back on being 16. An interesting story as well, that included a few Groundhog Day/Sideways/Premonition time events. I loved the use of Tony Hawk (or rather his biography) as an Obi-Wan Kenobi-like spirit guide and guru.

I couldn't personally relate to the main character the way I could in reading Hi Fidelity, or any of the Chuck Klosterman tomes for that matter, but did find myself regularly delaying other necessary tasks in order to continue reading and find out what happens next.

On deck:

I just finished The Road, my first McCarthy, and thought it was fantastic. Will be getting into Blood Meridian before long I imagine.

Where do long time McCarthy fans stand on The Road? How does it fit with the rest of his work?

'cause nothing says christmas like pynchon.


right now i'm reading:

the start of chapter two is some of the best writing i've read since joyce.

then i have:
then whatever books i get for christmas

I had high expectations going in and this book is beating all of them. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

^^ He never surpassed that one.

Read Ender's Game and Speaker For the Dead over the last week, this series is pretty neat, but Novinha is a straight up bitch for hatin on Ender.

Speaker for the Dead is one of my fave books. Sad commentary on me, I guess. But loved it.

Between tomorrow and January 3rd I am taking a total break from my thesis and I want to read:

Anybody read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I'm debating if I should read 100 Years of Solitude or Love In the Time of Cholera first. I'm leaning to 100 years, but I have no idea what they are like.

Yeah, I read through most of the foundation books when I was younger and they were all good, but repetitive.