I'm reading through the Modern Library's Top 100 Fiction Novels

Started with:
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington


Set in the early 1900's about a well-to-do family not adjusting to the booming industrial revolution. Was a great read.

Now I'm on:

The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy

everyone else has read it... I might as well... (nearly done with this one actually, full opinion later)


reading this for school started it last night, pretty interesting vietnam stuff if you're into that.


loved the movie when i saw it about a month ago, so i just picked this up the other day.

I was in the mood for a no-brainer book so I picked this up


Not bad. I must say it's a very timely book. References to both 9-11 and Katrina. Wasn't really scary but a little unnerving.

I heard the ending's quite a shocker.



I just finished. Timeliness is right...characters also mention March of The Penguins. The crazy fucker finished it in October '05!. As usual, King doesn't know how to end it...but it was a white-knuckle ride.

What a great idea! I've been searching for new books to read - I'm going to start the list today!

This list is good too.

Anyone got a good non-fiction list they'd like to share?

Here Let me guess...you don't do fiction.

I read fiction on occasion, but the occasions are few and far between.

the rock snob's dictionary has been on my coffee table for a few days now and it's worth a few minutes to page through every now and then. i think i'll actually pick up a real book next week, though.

I wanted something slightly silly to read...



I got what I wanted. It's fun. There are no WMD's mentioned.

Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unamable by Samuel Beckett

These books are insanely good if you're into Beckett's work. And you really have to be, 'cause these totally deconstruct the form of the novel. Linear plot, distinct characters, time, structure, all out the window. But they're still completely mezmerizing. I read the first page a while back, but decided to wait until I had some more time, then last weekend picked it up and was forty-five pages into it before I looked up.

I keep forgeting about this thread. Well, this is the book I'm finishing now. I HIGHLY recomend it. Definatly gives a great view on the doctors world and how we all learn.

just finished this (took me long enough, right?) Thought it was really dumb and don't know what all the hype is about. Sure its kinda interesting but I feel like this was written for a fourth grader... just very simplistic mystery novel. Oh well, I'll still see the movie to see what they do with it.

Any movie with Tom Hanks as the star (post Big) isn't worth waiting for.

Was Splash pre or post big?

Splash was in 84...Big was 88. But I forgot, the burbs kicked ass too (89) he finished out strong with that. One can make a valid argument that he's never made a good film since, unless of course you are a Turner and Hooch fan.

I'm not the world's biggest Tom Hanks fan, and this is a weird place to be having this almost-argument, but I thought Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, That Thing You Do!, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, and Road to Perdition were all worthwhile. Not necessarily spectacular, but all "good" films.

Never read the book, but my wife and I watched a History Channel show a few weeks ago that pretty much exposes all the shit in this book to be a joke. Pretty amusing that there are so many people that take it as plausible. Guess that's wher the fourth grade reading level comes in.

i'm 80 pages into "kaffir boy" by Mark Mathabane.

heartwrenching autobiography of growing up black in south africa under apartheid.

I literally did laugh out loud... several times when i wasn't supposed to at both Dan Brown's writing style and just some of the shit he came up with.

I started reading this today.

What the is THE END OF FAITH. I sounds like something you could see advertised in Skeptic or Reason magazine.

Your thoughts? I've been considering picking this up.

A Shinagawa Monkey - Murakami's latest in the New Yorker.

i just started freakonomics on saturday and i'm already nearly finished. it's pretty good.

Facinating. Difficult to describe-- the life of an Azerbajani Jew named Lev Nussbam who was raised just as czarist Russia was being overthrown. Lev fled around the world, assuming various identities, marrying a heiress, and finally becoming an author who wrote books that were the toast of Nazi Germany. I know nothing of pre-Stalinist Russia, and the amazing mixtutes of races and cultures that co-existed peacefully for hundreds of years. It's a pretty sad story in some ways, but compelling as well.



Likewise facinating. The focus of this book is on invasive species-- specifically, the Brown Tree Snake that's decimated the native bird population on the island. Now the snake has been found in Hawaii, but the government is spending a fairly large amount of cash to keep the snake under control. In a wider context, book goes into detail about both human and animal migration patterns, and the biological, social, and economic implications of unchecked migration.

Foreign Babes In Beijing
By Rachel Dewoskin
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A pretty fascinating book.
DeWoskin moved to Beijing in 1989, shortly after the military squashed the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, but just as China's younger population began embracing Western ideologies and commodities. This entertaining romp through her five-plus years in Beijing details her life as a PR consultant—and as the star of the wildly popular Chinese nighttime television drama Foreign Babes in Beijing. After getting the gig on a lark, DeWoskin became known, sometimes even in her real life, as the character Jiexi, an American who falls in love with a married Chinese man, in the 20-episode drama, which aired to an estimated 600 million viewers. Her memoir weaves humorous tales of Sino-U.S. culture clashes both on and off the set with astute observations of the two cultures, as well as a significant amount of Chinese history. Though she admits frequently to being homesick for New York, DeWoskin feels for the loss of more traditional Chinese culture: "Consumerism became a religion; companies arrived like missionaries... seducing the average Zhou Schmoe with products he had never known he needed." The book offers a generous helping of Chinese words (along with their English translations and insights into the young people's "Chinglish"), as well as Lost in Translation–esque glimmers of the differences between the Chinese and American acting worlds.

Started today and already I want to write every member of congress and boycott every coorporation.

Blogged it.

What do you make of this?

Have you see The Atlasphere? Blogged.

This is my introduction to Ayn Rand. I'm still only around half way through the book. I like it a great deal so far. The characters are a little curious. I'll have more comment when I finish. I'm guessing Atlas Shrugged would be the next Ayn Rand book for me to pick up.

Really great in some spots. Really drags in others.

Yeah, I seen it in borders, but instead I got a book by Keynes.

Anyway, I've finished 'Mein Kampf'. Some of it is terrible, some of it consists of fair enough points and his humor is in good form throughout.

Not the worst book I've ever read, but I can't imagine picking it up again any time soon.

Anyway, I'm about to start:

Helen Graham - 'The Spanish Civil War A Very Short Introduction'.

That's what I love about Hitler. The humor. Him and Jane Austen.

And Tony.

Have yet to start, but just picked up. Everyone has read it... so why not?


Just started this again, everyone has read it.


As with the other two...


Reading this for my religion class... its pretty hard to get through but some interesting ideas.

I'm afraid that I'm not a big Austen fan.

I'm just about done reading a book entitled 'The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction'.

I now know that, at least under the leadership of Jose Antonio, the Falangistas were a force I could never subscribe to.

She's no Hitler but come on!

What did you read? I don't see how its possible to read Pride and Prejudice and not find it hilarious. If you read it properly (as a satire and not as a romance novel).

I forget its' title, it was in English a few years ago.

If there was anything romantic in it, I probably switched off.

I can always give her another chance, but I'm not the best reader. I poo-poo Albert Camaus and Ivan Turganev, something which has given me some hostility before, but they fail to excite me.

I'm always one to give somthing another go. Is it 'Pride And Prejudice' that you would recommend ?

Yes. Either that or 'Emma'.

I finally read All The President's Men. Hey, it's pretty good. I havn't decided whether I want to start in on The Last Days right away or give myself a break with something else. I picked up the Dylan Thomas biography off the B&N bargain table, the one by the guy who wrote up Fleming and Kipling already. Anybody read that? I also picked up Jim Thompson's cheesy old potboiler Pop. 1280. Any Thompson fans here?

Look at me, I'm Ben Welsh in 2003.
I'm halfway through this. It's like Lost in Translation with more psychics and Soviet torture sequences.

More like 2002! Man, I've been on this board forever. I feel old.

You all will never know how much its pleased me to see Murakami break out.

One fun thing with that novel, which is my favorite of his (although I STILL haven't read Kafka on the Shore), is the faint echoing of existential philosophy. What do you make of the time they spend down in that well?

Hey Ben, Stuart Dybek and Studs Terkel are doing a reading at Colombia College on March 13th - in case you were in town.

You should go with some sort of tape recorder and podcast the mother.