Books/Reading Thread

[mask man]

Flatland, A Romance of many Dimensions

by Edwin A.L.Abbott MChord Jackson the 3rd

with Introduction by A.K.Dewdney and Preface by editor.

[Graeme]

Has anyone read " The Historian " by Elizabeth Kostova ?. It´s pretty good imo.

That's like a sequel to Dracula, right? I've never read it, I heard he doesn't make too many appearances in the book.... although I am a massive fan of Stoker's original novel.

[Lithium]

Went to the library a couple of days ago and picked up these:

Soviet-Marxism by Herbert Marcuse

Europa, Europa by Sally Perel

The West is Losing Its Grip - Norway Without a Direction by Sten Inge Jørgensen

What Lenin Really Said by E. Fischer and F. Marek

Auschwitz by Laurence Rees

[Marky]

The Double Eagle is a great book. Can't remember the author's name

[wasted]

Just started Our Man In Havana.

Quite amusing.

[Black Sabbath]

You finished Atlas Shrugged already?

[Powerage5]

I read a book called Hairstyles Of The Damned over the summer. Cool book if it's something that interests you. Right now I'm in the middle of Brave New World.

[wasted]

You finished Atlas Shrugged already?

I read The Philosophy of Objectivism - a manifesto. It covers Capitalism, Anthem, Atlas, Fountainhead. The whole show.

"You exist only in my thoughts my friend. If I left this room...."

Edited September 8, 2008 by wasted

[Black Sabbath]

I see.

I just started Atlas last week after I finished Assumed Identity.

[Guest Jack_the_ripper]

currently I'm finishing up "The Grapes Of Wrath" then I'm shit out of books, so I'm going to have to head out and buy another book.

[wasted]

Havana is a relatively short novel.

So was I Love Dollars. Both are pretty funny.

After Atlas you need some light relief I would say. I think Rand was responsible for the Me generation, it's a very tight little theory. It's quite hard to find any cracks so you end up feeling like crap for feeling any empathy for anyone whatsoever!

[wasted]

I see.

I just started Atlas last week after I finished Assumed Identity.

What's Assumed Identity about? Apart from the obvious.

If you get a sinking feeling while reading Atlas, don't worry there's jokes too!

[hbkdx1125]

I'm reading Lolita. Very weird book. Kind of a sick subject since it's about a man that's obsessed and in love with a 12 year old girl. It was recommended to me. No way I'd read something like that by choice.

Like someone said, after I finish this then my "books to read" list is done. Anyone got some suggestions? I've already read a handfull of the books people suggested on here like all of Bret Easton Ellis' books, a lot of Chuck Palahnuik, Catcher In the Rye, etc. Any others?

[The Sandman]

I'm reading Lolita. Very weird book. Kind of a sick subject since it's about a man that's obsessed and in love with a 12 year old girl. It was recommended to me. No way I'd read something like that by choice.

It is rather strange, but a decentish book.

[nameless_girl]

I'm reading Lolita. Very weird book. Kind of a sick subject since it's about a man that's obsessed and in love with a 12 year old girl. It was recommended to me. No way I'd read something like that by choice.

Like someone said, after I finish this then my "books to read" list is done. Anyone got some suggestions? I've already read a handfull of the books people suggested on here like all of Bret Easton Ellis' books, a lot of Chuck Palahnuik, Catcher In the Rye, etc. Any others?

Lolita is gorgeous, but I'd call Despair Nabokov's actual masterpiece.

Other than that, I'm not his biggest fan, but if you end up liking Brett Easton Ellis, you may also want to look into Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz and Susan Minot for similarish thematic writing, or Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert for what Ellis supposedly modelled a large chunk of his writing after. If you end up liking Catcher, J.D. Salinger's other fiction would be an obvious continuation, as well as that whole Angry Young Man movement of the 1950s. Oh, and just skip the Chuck Palahniuk.

Edited September 8, 2008 by nameless_girl

[axlfan88]

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (great book about the Spanish civil war and how the stalinists crushed the proletarian revolution making it easier for fascists). The song "Spanish Bombs" by The Clash was certainly inspired by that book. It's curious that the best historians of that war are almost all English.

"I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being."

http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Homage_to_...a/english/e_htc

[Lithium]

The song "Spanish Bombs" by The Clash was certainly inspired by that book.

That sentence alone is enough for me to run off and see if I can find the book in question somewhere in a book store.

[stevGNR666]

Right now I'm trucking through Saussure's "General Introduction to Linguistics" for my course on Language and Literature. Also, I'm reading Plato's Symposium and a couple Emily Dickinson poems.

Saussure is a bitch to get through.

[hbkdx1125]

I'm reading Lolita. Very weird book. Kind of a sick subject since it's about a man that's obsessed and in love with a 12 year old girl. It was recommended to me. No way I'd read something like that by choice.

Like someone said, after I finish this then my "books to read" list is done. Anyone got some suggestions? I've already read a handfull of the books people suggested on here like all of Bret Easton Ellis' books, a lot of Chuck Palahnuik, Catcher In the Rye, etc. Any others?

Lolita is gorgeous, but I'd call Despair Nabokov's actual masterpiece.

Other than that, I'm not his biggest fan, but if you end up liking Brett Easton Ellis, you may also want to look into Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz and Susan Minot for similarish thematic writing, or Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert for what Ellis supposedly modelled a large chunk of his writing after. If you end up liking Catcher, J.D. Salinger's other fiction would be an obvious continuation, as well as that whole Angry Young Man movement of the 1950s. Oh, and just skip the Chuck Palahniuk.

Wow thanks for the recommendations! I wrote all those names down and I'll look for their stuff when I go to the bookstore later. So why aren't you a fan of Chuck Palahnuik? I know a lot of people think he just writes things with a lot of shock value and all but I think he's a decent writer. I've read some really good books that he wrote like Choke..... of course I've also read some really bad books that he wrote like Rant and Survivor. He's a hit and miss for me I guess.

[The Sandman]

I'm reading Lolita. Very weird book. Kind of a sick subject since it's about a man that's obsessed and in love with a 12 year old girl. It was recommended to me. No way I'd read something like that by choice.

Like someone said, after I finish this then my "books to read" list is done. Anyone got some suggestions? I've already read a handfull of the books people suggested on here like all of Bret Easton Ellis' books, a lot of Chuck Palahnuik, Catcher In the Rye, etc. Any others?

Lolita is gorgeous, but I'd call Despair Nabokov's actual masterpiece.

Other than that, I'm not his biggest fan, but if you end up liking Brett Easton Ellis, you may also want to look into Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz and Susan Minot for similarish thematic writing, or Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert for what Ellis supposedly modelled a large chunk of his writing after. If you end up liking Catcher, J.D. Salinger's other fiction would be an obvious continuation, as well as that whole Angry Young Man movement of the 1950s. Oh, and just skip the Chuck Palahniuk.

Wow thanks for the recommendations! I wrote all those names down and I'll look for their stuff when I go to the bookstore later. So why aren't you a fan of Chuck Palahnuik? I know a lot of people think he just writes things with a lot of shock value and all but I think he's a decent writer. I've read some really good books that he wrote like Choke..... of course I've also read some really bad books that he wrote like Rant and Survivor. He's a hit and miss for me I guess.

Obviously Fight Club, and Invisible Monsters (iirc) - great books by him.

He can be hit and miss, but does have a talent. Even if it is rather samey.

[Montrealer]

Try any Harlan Coban books.

[wasted]

Ask The Dust by John Fante

Women by Chalres Bukowski

Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes, Millenium People - all by JG Ballard

The Kid Stays in the Picture - Robert Evans - if you like 70s movies. He made Godfather btw if you were wondering

[Alty]

On The Road by Jack Ker-o-ac.

Did i say this already.

And y'know the old loves like Catcher in the Rye and lets see....Fear & Loathing.

You see I'm re-reading books at the min so I'm gonna say like Steppenwolf, Perfume and ho..................yeah like Factotum.

Virgina Woolf is a long time love too.

Dostoevsky..shouviuwgiuiueriug or whatever way you fancy spelling it is a gaureneteeeeeeddddded good read if you can keep track of all the Russian names. I can't.

And the likes of Portrait of Dorian Gray/Grey I DONT KNOW are like essential, ESSENTIAL reading. Á Rebours/Against Nautre is the shit.

[wasted]

Paradise City by Lorenzo Carcaterra. - If you like Scorese or Sopranos buy this book.

The Last Don by Mario Puzo.

Black and Blue by Ian Rankin

Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey - sort like Hunter S. Thompson. Or maybe he's just the Kinky Friedman of Florida.

If you liked On the Road you might like Not Fade Away by Jim Dodge.

[oregunsnroses]

I recently read Into the Wild, and enjoyed it very much