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girl germs
08-13-2001, 02:34 AM
what has everybody been reading lately? what books have you read this summer? do you recommend anything?

i just finished re-reading <i>crime and punishment</i> by dostoevsky. i'm not sure why i decided to read it again. i guess it's just because i fell in love with the intensity of the book the first time i read it, but this time i found it kinda boring. nonetheless, i gotta give it up to dostoevsky for writing such a thought-provoking book. suck books do give me a big fuckin headache but i think it's worth it.

i also read shel silverstein's <i>a light in the attic</i>. my friend gave me this book as a gift this summer because i kept telling her stories of the horrible (but yet adorable) children i get to babysit. i mentioned something about wanting to sit on the little brats so they would just be quiet for a bit and i made a reference to "mrs. twitter the babysitter," which is a poem in a light in the attic. so my friend bought the book for me and i thought it was the best gift ever because i love shel silverstein! his books definitely made my life a bit more interesting when i was a child. whenever i was bored and could not find anything to do at all, i always picked up one of his books. his books are like a cure for boredom. his poems rock my socks off! he is that brilliant! if you didn't read any of his books when you were a child i recommend you do so now, because i'm afraid you missed out on a lot!


other books i've read since june:

<i>push</i> by sapphire. this book is about a girl who is growing up in harlem. she is poor, illiterate (thanks to the public school system), abused by both her parents (they both sexually abuse her and beat her. her father rapes her and has impregnated his daughter twice), and she also finds out that she is hiv positive. she meets a teacher in an adult education class and this teacher changes her life by making her discover the joy of keeping a journal and of writing poetry.

this book was extremely powerful. i had a hard time reading this book because it was so intense...it was like i could feel everything the main character was going through. it sounds cheesy but i cried throughout the whole book. what can i write to make you all pick this book up? this book was BRUTAL. it was HARDCORE. it's also very inspirational and if i were you i would definitely read it.

<i>the reader</i> by bernhard schlink. the lady at my local library recommended
this book to me and i'm really glad i checked it out. when i started reading the book i couldn't put it down. i finished the book in one day. the book is about a german boy named michael berg. he's 15 yeards old and he has an affair with a women named hanna who is more than twice his age. they begin to see each other almost everyday. they make love, take baths together, and hanna makes michael read to her almost everytime they meet (you find out why towards the end of the book). and then one day hanna disappears and michael thinks it's his fault. time passes by and michael is studying law. he next sees hanna in a courtroom. she is on trial for a nazi war crime. during the trial michael notices that hanna is not even trying to defend herself. she is hiding something. it's a secret she doesn't divulge and because of that she is sentenced to life in prison. there's more to the story and i could write forever.

GO READ THIS BOOK! next to elie wiesel's books about the holocaust, this is the best holocaust related book i have read in a longtime. it really does make you think. the beginning of the book is also very erotic...and who doesn't love a book with a little eroticism in it??? i would read the bible if it was eroticized.

i feel like the reading rainbow.

right now i'm reading "paradoxia" by lydia lunch, the collected poems of edna st. vincent millay, "the waves" by virginia woolf, and "about rothko" by dore ashton. and today i bought "mark rothko: a biography"...it's a hardcover book that would have cost me 45 dollars but i bought it for 20 buckaroos at the strand. suckers!

girl germs
08-13-2001, 08:35 AM
come one people! i'm sure you've all read some really good books and stuff. tell me about them!!! please?

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Captain Rooster
08-13-2001, 08:36 AM
girl germs - i like your style

i have read
The Stand (uncut)- Stephen King AWESOME must read

Dreamcatcher - Stephen King another wow!

Different Drummer (about Reagan)

(Starting) Lord of the Rings - Tolkien

what do you think Germ?

SSSEEEYAAA!!
LT Rooster

oldschoolbarb
08-13-2001, 08:57 AM
This summer I've only been reading books about computer programming, since I have a class..but I recommend:

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Everything else by John Irving
Slackjaw, by Jim Knipfel (NY Press columnist and antisocial personality)
Bag of Bones, Stephen King
On Writing, Stephen King (nonfiction, great for writers)
Naked Came the Manatee (various South Florida authors, including Dave Barry, got together to purposely write a stupid novel).

I want to carry Fez around in my pocket.

The Blowhard
08-13-2001, 10:16 AM
"The Reader" is great. It was actually one of Oprah's Bookclub picks last year, and a friend lent it to me.
I just finished "Hell To Pay": a humorous unauthorized bio of Hillary Clinton. It's a fun read!

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IkeaBoy
08-13-2001, 10:17 AM
This summer i've read quite a bit including reading LotR for the first time (good but overrated), all five Hitchhikers Guide books and The Godfather. The most recent book I finished was the uncut and complete The Stand by Stephen King and I'm reading Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity as I write this.

"Nothing can kill The Grimace"

Circus Boy
08-13-2001, 10:53 AM
i read
Cosmic Trigger vol. 1 :Final Secrets of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson

The Tantric Path to Purification by Lama Yeshe

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

The Complete Idiots guide to The Pilates Method

Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson

i'm now workin on Microserfs by Douglass Coupland

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JimBeam
08-13-2001, 12:28 PM
I'm currently in the middle of a few books.
The one I'm trying to finish is called Killing Pablo . It is basically the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar and how the US finally decided that they had had enough of his shit, and basically went to war with that fat-ass. Its a good read.

I'm also getting ready to read Black Mass . Its subtitle is something about how the FBI had a secret deal with the Irish mob in Boston.
Sounds good.

Also flipping through a book called Confederates In The Attic . Its basically stories about how the writer traveled to different former Confederate states and observed how the culture still embraces a lot of the past. Its good reading for Northerners with misconceptions of the whole Civil War era. Good stuff.


I do have balls !!!

adolescentmasturbator
08-13-2001, 10:51 PM
Funny germs I just got Crime and Punishment from the library.

I'm also reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. So far it's a pretty damn good book. Definitely recommend it for anyone.

Also I just finished Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and No Logo by Naomi Klein and thought they were amazing.

I keep trying to finish Invisible Monsters but it didn't have the same allure as Fight Club or Survivor and bores me.

Next up for me is Fast Food Nation(which will supposedly scare me out of fast food which I am already weary of) and Bag of Bones by Stephen King.

I will get a sig pic...eventually

hndsmepete
08-13-2001, 11:02 PM
I've been reading (or at least trying to read) "If Chins Could Kill" by Bruce Campbell. I've always wanted to read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair & now that AdolescentMasturbator mentioned it I may check it out now. I completely forgot about it.

"I'm Young, I'm Hung, & I'm Skilled With My Tongue!" - Joel Gertner (ECW)

Pootertoot
08-14-2001, 03:48 PM
Currently, I'm reading The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. Daniel Quinn's schtick is that he conveys some brilliant philosophical constructs, observations and criticisms on society and civilization in the context of a story, this time detailing the exploits of a roman catholic priest who has been sent to discover whether a speaker who has gained quite a following in Europe is, in fact, the Antichrist. I highly recommend anything by Quinn, but the best way to start is to pick up "Ishmael", for most of his latter work references the teachings found in that book. Trust me, it's not nutty "Celestine Prophecy" or "The Bible Code" shit, it has nothing to do with religion or mysticism, just peels away some of the delusions about who you and we really are.

At the beginning of the summer, I got really into the Graphic Novel scene, known to others are really long comic books. The mother of all these, Watchmen by Alan Moore, which I read around this time last year, should be picked up by EVERYONE at this very moment. It will change your mind on the subject of Graphic Novels if you won't read them and it will show you what graphic novels SHOULD be if you read them now. I won't ruin anything, I'll just let you know that if you haven't read this book, you're missing something incredible.

However, the ones that I read THIS summer are:
Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow, which I thought was decent, but became muddled at points. Good read, but not as great as I had expected.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware. The slight plot of this book is that our hero, Jimmy Corrigan, a doughy, 36-year old man with a total lack of selfconfidence, is given the chance to meet his father for the first time in his life. What makes this book brilliant is the way Ware has chosen to tell the tale: He juxtaposes Jimmy's tale of rejection and abandonment with the stories of his father and grandfather, the stories, though seperated by decades, blend together seamlessly, each event in the past having echoes in the future, showing everything comes full circle, and history is doomed to repeat itself.

Finally, on the graphic novel front, Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, the first in the Sandman series. The story is this: A man obsessed with capturing Death but instead actually captures the King of Dreams. Refusing to release him, the world suffers dreamlessness and horrible sleep disorders. I definitely recommend it.

I read two of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Small Gods, which I HIGHLY recommend, and The Color of Magic which was also great. The former is the story of a dying god, who wakes up to find himself trapped in the body of a turtle with only one follower (who's only a step above the retard level) to keep him from joining the realm of Forgotten Gods. The latter follows a failed wizard who becomes the guide of a mysterious tourist to his land, and of course, wackzaneriffic hijinks ensue. I've quickly become a fan of the Discworld series, and will be reading them all shortly.

On the comedy side, I read I Rant, Therefore I Am by Dennis Miller, arguably the weakest of his Rants series but still, good for a laugh. Also, Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down. by, duh, Dave Barry. Dave Barry=ALWAYS FUNNY.

Coming to the end of our far too long post, I read Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin, which I thought sucked, despite my love of Steve Martin.

Charity by Mark Richard, a collection of Short Stories that pan out like Norman Rockwell with an evil twist, such as one story about a bunch of "Cannery Row"-esque drifters who have been hired out to clear from the ocean the chunks of the corpse of a murdered prostitute who had been sucked up into the dredge broom. The longest short story in this book is the worst, but it's worth a read, if you're up for something different.

Slaughtermatic by Steve Aylett, my first cyberpunk novel! Yay! Actually, this was pretty damn good, not at all what I expected. Read it with some

girl germs
08-14-2001, 05:18 PM
rooster, i never got into any of stephen king's work. whenever i tried reading any of his books i just skimmed through the book and jumped to the last chapter to see how the story ended. but i'll try "the stand" again...and i've never really been into fantasies but lord of the rings is definitely a great book.

adolescentmasturbator, the jungle is one of my favorite classic novels. it's also very similar to fast food nation, which i recommend to anyone who wants to find out what really goes on behind the fast food industry. it's pretty disturbing.

i'll also give the watchmen by alan moore a try, once i finish the books i'm reading now.


and heckler, i'm gonna confess something. whenever i'm at the library i always stop by the "oprah's book club" display. i've read about seven of those books. i even wanted to write oprah a letter after reading "white oleander" by janet finch. if oprah was president, we would all be reading some really good books, because i bet she would force all of us to read.

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adolescentmasturbator
08-14-2001, 09:31 PM
I also picked up Fast Food Nation today from the librarybecause a lot of people mention it's similarity to the Jungle.

Also poot if you like Graphic Novels you should Akira. They are a series of 6 and so far 4 of them are out but they are great.

I think I'll pick up Watchmen too.

I will get a sig pic...eventually

JustJon
08-14-2001, 10:03 PM
I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman right now.

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Pootertoot
08-15-2001, 02:59 PM
How's American Gods, Just Jon? It's in my waiting list.

AM, definitely pick up Watchmen. I'll pick up an Akira and tell me how Fast Food Nation is, as that's in my waiting list, (lol, So is "The Jungle".)

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Circus Boy
08-15-2001, 08:30 PM
the jungle was great...i have fast food nation sittin right in front of me waiting to be read...damn isnt it weird we all think alike>?

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Pootertoot
08-15-2001, 08:50 PM
Which one of us is the 100th monkey?

Cigar to whoever gets the reference.

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The Blowhard
08-15-2001, 10:13 PM
Germs, just talking about Oprah is funny, but her selections are pretty decent.
BTW, I just finished "A Drinking Life" by Pete Hammil.
Great book.

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Circus Boy
08-15-2001, 10:24 PM
well poot its a book written by Ken Keyes Jr. about social change

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Circus Boy with the Grubby Mobile

This is my temporary sig. pic so i dont get chastised by JJ.