Your favorite book......

[Blarg]

I didn't get into If On a Winter's night either. I loved Cosmicomics, but felt t-zero was treading a lot of the same ground with sometimes less energy.

The Baron in the Trees & The Cloven Viscount were great fun.

I think I read some pieces from Mr. Palomar but not the whole thing. I've read a bunch of his short story collections too. I forget what else of his I read, but I'm really impressed by the guy. It's rare to see someone who is that adventurously imaginative also be such an excellent writer. Most authors who come anywhere near sci-fi or fantasy are at best extremely average writers, and what at least I feel is actual incompetence might as well be the norm. I'm grateful a guy that imaginative can also be so damn good.

Plus, he seems to be a generous-hearted guy. I guess that goes well with your idea that he would be a good bar buddy.

[daveT]

Good suggestions guys.

I am now in my memiors/ auto-biography stage. I haven't read a piece of fiction for about two years. That was Drop, by Matt Johnson. I find it powerful. I know he has written one or two other books, and I have them on my favorites list on Amazon. I haven't got around to ordering them yet.

I guess to break it down into genres:

Fantasy/ Sci- Fi: Otherland by Tad Williams. Actually four books. I need to continue on with his reading as well. I do hate this genre as a rule (yes I hate Terry Goodkind, The Hobbit and Shadow Moons, Dragons of Pern, and the Weel of Time) I also have read J. V. Jones, who I have enjoyed.

Auto-biographies: Underneath it all by Tracy Lords, Nickle and Dimed by Barbera Ehrenriech. And yes, Travels.

Mystery: Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong. Excellent cultural book about China. Not a who-dun-it in the classical sense.

Gambling: Gambling Scams by Darwin Oritz.

Biographies: The Woman Who Ran for President by Lois Beachy.

Humanities: The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K Shipler, Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser. Both very informative, well researched, and well thought-out.

Horror: Hearts in Atlantis and From a Buick 8 by Stephen King. Very very very small sample size in this area.

There's others, but I guess this adds a bit to the over-all discussion.

[KilgoreTrout]

Blarg,

You may enjoy "Book" by Robert Grudin (Gruden?). It's a metafictional mystery novel. When I was a TA we had a proseminar before one semester and Book was the material. If you know Gadamer you'll recognize his notion of play in this book. Basically, the experience of reading is like a game. The text establishes rules that the reader tacitly agrees to play by. The reader suspends his/her own reality and enters the play world of the text. In this way both the text and the reader are reaching out to each other.

Grudin messes with this, though, by "permitting" the text to serve its own ends or even cheat the reader. Footnotes criticize paragraphs. Marginalia ridicule the footnotes. The text knows how the story will end and tries to bluff the reader. It's a fun read if you like meta stuff.

[bryan4967]

[ QUOTE ]
This article gives props to KV's illustrations.

[/ QUOTE ]

great site, great article, thx.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Blarg,

You may enjoy "Book" by Robert Grudin (Gruden?). It's a metafictional mystery novel. When I was a TA we had a proseminar before one semester and Book was the material. If you know Gadamer you'll recognize his notion of play in this book. Basically, the experience of reading is like a game. The text establishes rules that the reader tacitly agrees to play by. The reader suspends his/her own reality and enters the play world of the text. In this way both the text and the reader are reaching out to each other.

Grudin messes with this, though, by "permitting" the text to serve its own ends or even cheat the reader. Footnotes criticize paragraphs. Marginalia ridicule the footnotes. The text knows how the story will end and tries to bluff the reader. It's a fun read if you like meta stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds interesting. I'll keep it in mind.

I'm one of those guys who will often read many books at once.

Right now I'm at various depths into:

Stephen King -- On Writing
textbook on real estate
Ode to Kirihito - supposedly best graphic novel ever done by Japan's best graphic novelist ever
American Splendor (second collection put out after the movie) -- Harvey Pekar, graphic
various meditation books -- Mantak Chia
How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker -- Penn Jilette
Cosmicomics -- Italo Calvino -- another re-read of it

On the burner to read next:

From Hell -- Alan Moore, graphic novel
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and The Palm Wine Drinkard -- some African dude won a Nobel prize for this I think; supposedly absolutely fantastic; the album by Brian Eno and David Byrne certainly was
God is Not Great -- Christopher Hitchens
various collections of horror short stories; I like to dip into these whenever the mood hits me

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]

Fantasy/ Sci- Fi: Otherland by Tad Williams. Actually four books. I need to continue on with his reading as well. I do hate this genre as a rule (yes I hate Terry Goodkind, The Hobbit and Shadow Moons, Dragons of Pern, and the Weel of Time) I also have read J. V. Jones, who I have enjoyed.


[/ QUOTE ]

Quick comment here, if you like J. V. Jones you should give A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin) a shot. Not traditional fantasy by any means.

[diamonddawg]

Several favorites but just finished by Joan Didion her National Book Review Winner, <u>The Year of Magical Thinking</u>

Cliffs Notes: Dealing with the grief of the death of her spouse.
Undercurrents: Multiple, mainly positive, about the profundity of love and long term attachment.

This book is especially helpful at the current time of my life; dealing with grief.

Many amazing passages/quotes. I wrote down a few of my favorites:
"I realized that for the time being I could not trust myself to present a coherent face to the world."
and
"I know why we try to keep the dead alive. We try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us."
and my favorite:

"Time is the school in which we learn"

[Shadowrun]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1984
The Grapes Of Wrath
Slaughterhouse-Five
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Brave New World
Animal Farm
A Clockwork Orange
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Lord of the Flies



[/ QUOTE ]

shadow...
based on this list we have very similar taste in books.

i highly recommend jennifer government by max barry.
its a modern day brave new world chronicalling a dystopic future of totally free market capitalism and its awesome.

he also wrote a book called syrup which isn't nearly as substantial but is a really fun easy satire on the marketing industry.

his latest book the company wasn't nearly on par with the first two.

jen gov't and syrup are two of my fav books and if you like 1984 and BNW i think you'll love em too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thnx for the recommendations, ive been pretty busy so ive only now really had time to tart reading jennifer government.

It is pretty interesting/good so far and im pretty sure it will stay that way.

[nick604]

[ QUOTE ]
Thnx for the recommendations, ive been pretty busy so ive only now really had time to tart reading jennifer government.

It is pretty interesting/good so far and im pretty sure it will stay that way.


[/ QUOTE ]

Shadowrun, if you don't already know of it you may like to check out the website that Max Berry created to promote Jennifer Government - http://www.nationstates.net/. It's a political decision-making game where you get to create and govern your own country, and a great way to waste 15 minutes in the office each day.

[ToddGaines]

fight club