Funny, I skip the segment if the guest is "some asshole without a book".

hip hip

I've moved onto Thomas Ricks' book 'Fiasco', which is supposedly a gripping re-telling of how the clusterf*** known as the Iraqi occupation came to be. 'The Assassin's Gate' probably tread some of this ground. But it was a much more sprawling narrative, whereas this is focused specifically on the civilian/military conduct of the occupation. I'm pumped.

I'm 30 pages in. Good shit.

I'd like to read this, but it sounds like the same book as "Cobra II," which I've already read.

It would be interesting to find out what the differences are. Somebody should report that out! You'd probably need to build a timeline.

Three of the greatest novels of the 20th Century right dere...

They look like they were worth every penny.

Eff yes.

woah, I have your chem book in front of me right now. Except it's not "media-enhanced".

When they didn't have the new Claire Messud at Border's today, I instead spent my voting dollars on this man.

Good quick read. More of a long magazine story than a book, but excellently researched and reported. Dude follows an aging detective as he cracks a long-lost murder case. Then there's some good stuff out of the murderer and his whole Cagney thing. It's about a human condition and shit. Law and Order in a very very New Yorkerish way.

Isn't that redundant?

I meant the magazine. It was poorly written.

I dig.

The Saved by R.T. Both
a political comic set in Western Kansas in the year 2052

My favorite part is that apparently Cher is living with the hippies and the scientists
underneath a big trash mountain they call The Bush Memorial and everybody else in the US
is locked up in a big mall in Western Kansas to protect themselves from the nucular waste.
Haha, how old would Cher be in 2052?

let me know how this is. SD&CP was great, i read KYTL in a day (okay), and Fargo Rock City has been disappointing (mostly because i wasn't into the subject matter). i love his writing though.

I'd like to hear about this too -- I'm thinking about picking it up.

yukio mishima's the sound of waves

Woah I had no idea he had a new book out. I'll have to pick this up when I go in to work today.

edit: got it, started reading it, love it.

Don't really get the negative reviews. I'm loving these stories.

Talk to me. I've never heard of this guy.

He wrote the novel Mystic River was based on. Prior to that he wrote a series of gritty detective stories. He also writes for The Wire on HBO. Shutter Island was his last novel.

These stories are mainly based in the South, unlike his preivous work, which centers on Boston, where he is from. A lot of his fans are down on this set, as it is a departure from his earlier work, but I don't really see it. He's still dealing with fringe characters and/or everyday people that circumstances have pushed to the fringe. I really love his wrinting style, so it doesn't really matter that much to me.

These stories are more like little sketches of scense from someone's life, and I think that's what's rubbing his fans the wrong way. Even in his detective novels, the character development is very rich, and maybe people are missing that.

Sounds interesting; I'll dig into it when I have finished:



Finally showed up at the library.

I suggest that you check out Mystic River.

Only if it's better than the film. I really hated that movie.

Naturally way better than the film.

I liked the film, loved the book. My wife hated the film, loved the book.

Klosterman friends -- if you like him, you'll like it. The first half-plus is feature stories he did for Spin back in the day. The next third or so is columns he did for Esquire and Spin, and then the last part is a novella he wrote several years back. It's not as essential of a read as his last two books, but certainly worth reading if you're a fan. Klosterman's my favorite writer, so I was all over it.



Second attempt at reading this, about a quarter of the way through. Decent. I loved his last novel, "How Soon is Never?" Apparently he has a book about Green Day coming out in November... might check that out if I end up liking this as much as the last book.

Hoo boy.

This isn't nearly as good as "How Soon is Never?"

Bummer. It hasn't been so far, but I was hoping it would pick up after a while. Oh well.

What's this?

Anthony Shadid's book is really really good.

I was way into it until the lame ending.

Our copy just showed up last night. WTF?

Oh man, did you like it???? I'm a huge fan of this graphic novel. Everyone should
check it out. They're working on a movie of the story, too.

Still feels a bit odd to read online comics from five years ago in book form, but these were the prime years for Penny Arcade. Also got one of these...



Sexy, sexy.

So far, so good.

Haha. Why did Peter Gammons write the forward?

Let us know how it is when you're done with it. I read Moneyball in July and loved it.

This book was devastating. The AIDS parallel was an obvious one, but it was how he nailed teen isolation so perfectly that got me. It's one of the best books I've ever read. The artwork is beautiful.

yeah, black hole is one of my favorite graphic novels. words can't describe how much I love it. It really got me hooked on the whole genre. Some other recommendations:

I read Epileptic last year, and though I found it extremely engrossing, the whole massive sadness of it was a huge downer. Unlike Black Hole, which had a melancholy beauty to it, Epileptic was so tragic, it was almost too much to bear.

I hope to be getting Alison Bechdel's Fun Home from the library soon. I've been hearing great things about that one all year.

And I really want to get that Lost Girls collection by Alan Moore.

Yeah epileptic was hard to get through, but the staggering artwork would make up for it most of the time. Actually I'm less into the slice of life ones (autobiographical, semibiographical). I prefer the authors who give in to flights of fantasy. That's why I loved Black Hole, and I love Jim Woodring and Clowes. I'll have to check out some Alan moore Some time, as well as Fun Home. never read either.