Dialouge in the 1st half of the book was VERY weak (only his 2nd book). The story is kinda cool (a man fucks the ground). I'm glad I read it.

"The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene.

astro-physics and string theory explained with metaphors instead of numbers.

was also a PBS series.

have you guys heard of ruy murakami?

That sounds like everything I'm interested in wrapped up in one book. I need to read this!

Just got the new McSweeneys. It doesn't really have a cover.

http://onlyrevolutions.com/

A bizarre "novel", Mark Danielewski's long-awaited followup to House of Leaves. Here, he expects readers to follow his strange, Finnegan's Wakean prose-poem telling the 2-sided tale of eternal teens Sam & Hailey by reading the first 8 pages of the book, then flipping it over and reading from the other side....

Official forum that might make sense of the whole thing.

It's an interesting project, in its conception, but not something I'll cherish like House of Leaves. Glad I only borrowed it from the library and didn't invest in buying it.

this...and it's yammy

maybe the greatest book I've read in years. actually i have no problems placing this in my top five.


i'm also reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for another class (somehow I have gone this long without reading it), and sadly I find it kind of boring. I'm forty pages from the end, and outside a few passages it has been nothing more than mildly pleasant.

Things I am going to read over winter break. Two weeks off. 4 weeks of one twice-a-week, optional winter term class. I can't wait:

1.

John Iliffe. Africans: The History of a Continent. I read one chapter and it is some of the best history writing I've ever read.

2.

Fyodor Dostoevsky. Notes From The Underground/The Double. This has been sitting on my shelf and bothering me for a very long time.

3.

Mike Royko. Boss.

4,

Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness.

5.

CA Bayly. The Birth of the Modern World. This is cumbersome and he's a dense guy so I might not get to it.

6.

Our Band Could Be Your Life. I feel like I'll need something fun after a month of Africa and Russians.

7.

Hoo. That new Cormac McCarthy book is pretty harrowing.

Catch-22 I had made it to 42 without reading this, but my Mom gave me a copy she had and decided to go ahead & read it. Pretty good, but not as earth shaking as if I'd read it before Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and The Illuminatus Trilogy.

Interesting read so far. More when I done.

I have been reading through this, as well.

Ahhhhhhhhh I love it so much.
I haven't read Hitchhikers' Guide yet. I've checked it out a few times but always been a little resistant to actually reading it. If Catch-22 is in my top 5, would I like it?

Haven't heard much, except that it's a post-apocalyptic kind of deal. Set in the present day, the future, or in some mythically crimson allegorical American West?

Not enough details to really say, but it seems like a not too distant aftermath. Father and son struggling to survive in the ruins of civilization. Day to day struggles for food, warmth and security. Many horrors of barbarity.

H2G2 is funnier but covers alot of the same ground without using a war to make the points.

If anybody finds the time to read this massive book, let me know what you think. I've got to read Mason & Dixon first.

Just started this book



It mirrors the excellent PBS special.

He had me at The Crying of Lot 49. He lost me with Mason & Dixon, though.

Had you read any of his other stuff? Gravity's Rainbow? V? Everything other than Lot 49 is incredibly long and dense and loses a lot of people. Hell, the 140 pages of Lot 49 loses a lot of people.

'the looming tower' by lawrence wright. 'you are there' account of run-up to 9/11. supposedly amazingly rich detail on intimate details of birth, planning, execution of 9/11. also tells tragic tale of FBI agent-border-on-zealot Kevin O'Neil, who implored the govt to take AQ seriously and ultimately paid for its failure with his life (he died in the towers that day).

the woodward book was entertaining, but seriously depressing.

John O'Neill. I really want to read that book, btw.

I am reading Tropic of Cancer. It is an abomination.

No, Crying was my only other exposure. I picked up Mason & Dixon within days of its release and my (former) copy was on display in a used book store a few days after that.

I'm sure I didn't give it a fair shake, only getting about a hundred pages in, but it was enough to know I didn't want to take the remaining 600 or so pages to find out.

About five years after The Crying of Lot 49, I came across a chapter reprinted in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction, which piqued my interest, so I re-read the whole book and felt like I "got" it in a way that I hadn't during my first read.

I feel as a college student I should read Pynchon.
It's like, a prerequisite for turning 22, yeah?

sorry. kevin o'neill is the zealot nba assistant coach, ex-marquette/nw'ern hoops coach.

And Kevin Nealon is a non-funny SNL alumnus.


Yeah. Otherwise, you might have to postpone that.

more like will be reading (over xmas break):

I'm 200 pages into this, but had to stop cuz of finals week. and after I finish this I will be doing a grand tradition:

I mean, I almost couldn't turn 13 because I hadn't read The Outsiders. The red tape is a bitch.

i feel you. i just read To Kill a Mockingbird (at age 21), and I now feel like I can graduate middle school.

This site has some good notes to help you keep track of characters, events, etc. in three of Pynchon's most difficult works (Gravity's Rainbow, V, Mason & Dixon) for anyone who feels like making the leap.

library results

This was given to me by a friend. A lot of it I know, but there have been some fun surprises.

Although not my favorite Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day is must more solid overall I think) this book contains the funniest story I've ever read (Six to Eight Black Men), especially when you hear him read it out loud.

This is my only Sedaris read, and I was like, meh.

yeah, that's probably his funniest story outside of his performance art/meth addiction stories. and so timely!

Meh has been my response to every Sedaris I've read. People praise [/i]Naked[i] to high heaven as one of the funniest books ever written, and I think I had perhaps one mild chuckle in the course of the whole book. Not my bag, baby. You're not alone, Mats.

I like Sedaris, but I like Augusten Burroughs better. His stories are more insane and therefore more hilarious (and shocking). But if you don't like one, you probably won't like the other. They are very similar.

Anyhoo, I'm just finishing up this one now:



It's an interesting story. It's a love story at it's core, which i usually detest, but the concept is very interesting. However, the coolest part of the book is that it is set in Chicago and the characters are always talking about places I'm familiar with, so it's pretty cool. They even live in my neighborhood. And they talk about cool music ...definitely a plus.

I would like to get Against The Day, too...having read all the others, but gave up on Mason & Dixon (the Early American prose style just got to be too much for me). Pynchon is indeed a challenge. With Pynchon, hold on to yourself for a ride that veers between silly burlesque, historical fiction, and technical manuals...just don't expect to get all of the storylines wrapped up.

EDIT: I see from the above linked site that "screamo" band Thrice just released an album supposedly inspired by V...I'm intrigued to see what they actually did with it....Thanks for the link, Raleigh.

Just finishing up:



And bought all of these on a massive book-buying spree at the Border's Outlet near Bay City, Michigan ($17 total):

This one is great. I read it not too long ago. It started off kind of slow for me, but once i got into it i couldn't put it down.

Anyone else, read the book before you see the movie. I beg of you.

I haven't seen the movie yet. Is it any good?

It's good, but not perfect...

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello is EXCELLENT as the narrator Alex. Elijah Wood is kind of miscast as Jonathan. The movie decided to avoid almost all of the historical sections of the novel detailing the lives of the ghetto citizens, so it ends up being all about Jonathan and Alex's adventures with the grandfather. In that regard, it's weak and loses some of the original novel's mystical and social themes. All in all, though, it's very funny and very moving.

Thanks. I wanted to see it when it first came out, but i wanted to read the book first. After reading the book, I thought Elijah Wood would have been kind of weird as Jonathan. hmmm...should be interesting.

Netflix, here i come...

Nice to have a break to read stuff I like rather than school stuff.

I'm wary of filming novelizations already, and the thought of Frodo as Jonathan gives me the howling fantods. This wonderful novel in particular, with its register shifts and fragmentation, seems especially ill-suited for celluloid.

Maybe I'll Netflix it...