finally getting to this. pretty awesome so far.

PROTIP: image is an imageRAR if you are so inclined.

Oh, I still need to get this! Loved 25th hour.

HAha! I used to love the movie when I was a kid, but nowadays I see how bad it is. A guilty pleasure.

love this book. that was the one i recommended to all my regulars this autumn. you're right about the relative dull-ness of the prose, but i actually came to appreciate his ability to write a book with such narrative restraint. he tells the story well, without a lot of authorial flash. it's not a great book per se, but it's a great read if that makes any sense.

I think this is going on my Christmas list:



"Charles Darwin meets the Beatles in this attempt to blend neuroscience and evolutionary biology to explain why music is such a powerful force..."

http://www.amazon.com/World-Six-Songs-Musi.../dp/0525950737/

I've got a copy of This Is Your Brain on Music in my bag - I thought, "Here it is. Here's the one that'll put an end to my inability to finish a book" We'll see. I'm still plodding through the Alaskan Jewish crime story at home...then this one when I've run out of newspaper on the train...then there's the pathetic rock magazines I can't stop buying...yeah, I don't see myself finishing a book again for some time. The hell happened!?

Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Bleak... very bleak

this is your brain on music is a really not good book. interesting subject matter, but ploddingly written. enough so to keep me from being interested in letwin's new book. or maybe i'm just not neuroscientifically inclined. who the eff knows.

Whenever it starts getting really cold outside, I start to read this book before bed every night. I have been doing this for 5 years or so. Easily the best, most interesting, most original novel I have ever read. It's fucking brilliant. I recommend everyone check this shit out.

The novel is done about the written account of a man viewing a home video. Catch is, the video doesn't exist. Also, the dude writing it is blind. It's the best mind fuck of all time. There are footnotes on footnotes, pictures, cryptic messages written in reverse, and pages with 4 words on them. Can't talk about this enough. I'm excited to start it tonight.

The whole first part of it about the mechanics of music was very dry, but I liked the book as a whole.

Yesterday the History department at UIC had a book clear out. Prices were outstanding with $.50 for softcovers and $1.00 for hardcovers. I took the bargain deal of "As many books as you can fit in a plastic shopping bag for $5.00". Filled two bags and the Prof brought the price down to 7.00 because my friends and I made him laugh. Anyways, The following were aquired for $7.00:

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND OTHER SELECTIONS - Edward Gibbon
CATULLUS AND THE TRADITION OF ANCIENT POETRY - Arthur Leslie Wheeler
I, CLAUDIUS - Robert Graves
LETTERS OF CICERO - LP Wilkinson trans.
PROBLEMS IN ANCIENT HISTORY VOLUME TWO: THE ROMAN WORLD - Donald Kagen
A HISTORY OF ROME - Marcel Le Glay et all.
THE ANCHOR BOOK OF LATIN QUOTATIONS
THE ROMAN REVOLUTION - Ronald Syme
SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE - Smith Palmer Bovie trans.
PARTY POLITICS IN THE AGE OF CAESAR - Lily Ross Taylor
THE TRIALS OF SOCRATES (Including Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon)
SEXUAL LIFE IN ANCIENT ROME - Otto Kiefer
A HISTORY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE - Fritz Heichheleim et all
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN - Edmund Burke / Thomas Paine
THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION: 1603-1714 - Chistopher Hill
THE ECONOMY OF RENAISSANCE EUROPE, 1300-1460 - Harry A. Miskimin
FRENCH LIBERAL THOUGHT IN THE 18TH CENTURY - Kingsley Martin
ABSOLUTISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT, 1660-1789 - R.W. Harris
THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY: THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES - Wayne A. Meeks
THE AGE OF IDEAS: FROM REACTION TO REVOLUTION IN 18TH CENTURY FRANCE - George R. Havens
THE FINAL DAYS - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
JEFFERSON THE VIRGINIAN - Dumas Malone

Damn, that's a good haul.

I've probably said it a million times already, but in case you didn't know:

Check out www.houseofleaves.com for intense discussions on the book and other related ephemera...

And check out Poe's album Haunted, in part inspired by the book. She is Danielewski's sister, and in this special version of "Hey Pretty" from the album, Danielewski reads from the book himself.

Oh yeah, I have read the book about 6 or 7 times now. I have checked the website for discussion stuff. Some of it has been helpful, but I prefer figuring out the stories on my own (even if my insight is off, I enjoy using my imagination to add to the mystery, which I think Danielewski intended). Poe's Haunted is great. I really enjoy the "5 1/2 Minute Hallway" song. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into "Only Revolutions." I thought it was original and clever, but I couldn't really enjoy the wordplay. It's been a few years (I remember it came out the same day as The Mars Volta's Amputechture). Maybe I'll give it another shot. Have you read it?

Original, but too clever for its own good. I really only completed it to say I finished it.

New Writing 13
which is now 3-year old writing, but a nice comp of contemporary short stories and poetry, a good break from long heavy novels.

I picked this one because Steven Hall has an entry, though his story is just a list of names in a phonebook with short blurbs next to them like:

Storer A, Has smiled at at a crocidile
Storer G.D, Hears voices
Storey A.C, Could have, but didn't want to.

and so on.

This sounds really interesting.

Some of my favorite quotes from House of Leaves:

“You might try scribbling in a journal, on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. That's when you'll discover you no longer trust the very walls you always took for granted. Even the hallways you've walked a hundred times will feel longer, much longer, and the shadows, any shadow at all, will suddenly seem deeper, much, much, deeper."

“And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still win, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name. And then the nightmares will begin.”

"And then out of the be-fucking-lue, everything gets substantially darker. Not pitch black mind you. Not even power failure black. More like a cloud passing over the sun. Make that a storm. Though there is no storm. No clouds. It's a bright day and anyway I'm inside."

"Tonight's candle number twelve has just started to die in a pool of its own wax, a few flickers away from blindness."

and





the bolano book is absolutely unbelievable. this book is like a brick to the face and about as heavy. i also think it will hold the honor of being the first of his books that i will make it all the way through. then i'm going to give his others another try.

the gladwell is gladwell, really readable, fascinating, etc. highly recommended, but nothing compared to 2666.

2666 is one of the finest novels i have ever read. maybe.

Read this a couple of years ago. People would see me reading this in public or in class, flipping back and forth through the pages.

"Why are you circling the first letter of every word on that page?"

"Because it spells out a fucked up secret message, that's why! Now leave me alone, I think I'm getting closer to the end but I'm not sure."

I've always been a fan of Philip K. Dick's writing. Short, enjoyable, science fiction novels. The storyline for this one is pretty intriguing so far, and I'd like to continue with the others in the series when I'm done with Valis.

I've also been trying to read Ulysses for a while now but always seem to get sidetracked with other books.

i went to my school library to try and get some JG Ballard or Lewis Hyde books only to discover they had none. so i googled their names with haruki murakami to find some book lists for recommendations and stubbled upon the name Kobo Abe. it was vaguely familiar (becuase of the film Woman in the Dunes i figured out later) so i picked up a book of his at random my library actually had called Kangaroo Notebook, and damned if it is not one of the strangest things I have ever read. not finished yet, but definitely worth picking up. beautifully written for how utterly fucked the whole thing is

/\

This book sounds incredibly interesting. I'll definitely be checking this out from my library.

So far, a really fun, good read if you're a basketball fan. The Gilbert Areans section and introduction(written by him) is just pure entertainment.

Exactly what I expected this to be like. Awesome, outrageous, and lacking sense.

The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus. I adore these Penguin Great Ideas editions. Beautifully designed.

Also rereading Fahrenheit 451 for the first time since high school.

I haven't read this one by Burroughs. How is it?

I am currently pushing through House of Leaves and enjoying every second of it. Such a great album. I always find new little insights and foreshadowing that I didn't catch the first couple of times. I feel like I will find something new every time I read it, no matter how many times I have read it. Kind of like The Bible.

I was going through my old books today and I found this one. One of my favorites when I was little. I read it last year in a couple hours and forgot how imaginative and metaphorical it was. Great book and very inventive children's (and adult's) story.

"There is no love of life without despair of life."

^^I read Myth of Sisyphus yesterday and now I'm working my way through The Rebel. Great stuff. Camus is probably the one philosopher who always seems to be completely on my wavelength.

phantom tollbooth was my favorite book as a child. feels like a direct throughline from that to cat's cradle. have tried reading it again as an adult multiple times but cannot manage it.

I finished Fahrenheit 451 last night. The problems I had with it when I was younger continue to irritate even now. The world in this book, much like the one in 1984, is too extreme, too silly, and in its depiction of a "zombified" populous too preachy and obvious. The book gets considerably better about halfway through, and it ends well, but this sort of extended metaphor quickly wears out its welcome, especially when the characters lack believability.

Anyone else notice some similarities with Cormac McCarthy's The Road? More towards the end? It almost seems like McCarthy was directly referencing this book.

Bought a bunch of books on the basis of their covers a couple of years ago, and I pull them out when I don't have anything else to read. Working on this...it's ok, if nothing new:

have you ever read jonathan strange and mr norrell by susanna clarke (whose blurb is plastered on that stardust cover)? it's a very gaiman-ish book, but far better than any prose he's ever attempted. for me at least, it's one of the greatest recent works of fiction. and i have a very low tolerance of fantasy. if you haven't read it, you should definitely search it out.

I second this. I loved Strange and Norrell - don't be intimidated by the length - it pays off huge and is a book you never want to end.

I mentioned this book casually at a party about 6 months ago to someone. Two weekends ago I get a call at 2 am from the guy I mentioned this to and he was drunkenly thanking me for introducing him to "the greatest work of fiction ever produced". Quite a statement.

Love it!

A really great book for working with kid clients.

Ray Bradbury is a legend in my hometown, Waukegan, where the ravine of Dandelion Wine fame is overlooked and just a place to get stoned, but I collected beer cans there as a kid.

Sisyphus has always been my almost archetype, striving for everything that's just out of my reach. I'm looking forward to reading the Camus book, which I hadn't been aware of prior to this post.

thirded. couldnt put it down once i started.

fattweedy, good call on the never wanting it to end. i wanted to live in that fucking book. it made me want to have children just so i could read it to them before putting them to bed.

Cool, sounds like I gotta read this--thanks!

I was about to be all offended on Neil Gaiman's behalf, and then it struck me that if I ever read Stardust, it made no impression at all, as I have no memorioes of it. The truth, as near I can tell, is this:

Neil Gaiman was a hell of a great comics creator once. Sandman was amazing stuff. Since then, his novels have mined the same literary territory and even the same themes and imagery, as Clive Barker at his least horrific and most fantastical. Some, such as American Gods, manage to be so entertaining that I can overlook the derivative. Some must not be, since I cannot even remember them well enough to make a distinction.

yeah, gaiman's not a bad writer, just not an especially great one. the best book he wrote was coraline, which was aimed at the children's market. but sandman is enough to cement his legacy. dude's a legend, just not when it comes to prose.

Yeah, once I finished Stardust and read about the rest of his works, I decided I should've started w/ the comics. Looking forward to those too.

you've never read sandman!!! god, what i would give to read that again for the first time.

Salman Rushdie - Haroun and the Sea of Stories
One of my favorite books. The imagery and vast imagination of the characters is brilliant and the ending is dazzling.

Chuck Jones directed a pretty good full-length movie based on this, it's on a rare DVD or via torrent.

No shit? I'll have to check this out. I'm assuming it's animated, much like a Dr. Seuss movie.

Never cared for the movie. The musical bits were pretty dopey.

Best book ever, though.

True. It's an interesting flick. It starts live action, then goes into animation. And Butch "Eddie Munster" Patrick plays Milo, sans his werewolf do.