What are you reading at the moment.

long gone · **Joined:** Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:53 pm **Posts:** 3262

I just need more recommendations!

I'm reading The Fermata by Nicholson Baker. Sweet pervy book.

Quote:

The Fermata is the most risky of Nicholson Baker's emotional histories. His narrator, Arno Strine, is a 35-year-old office temp who is writing his autobiography. "It's harder than I thought!" he admits. His "Fold-powers" are easier; he can stop the world and use it as his own pleasure ground. Arno uses this gift not for evil or material gain (he would feel guilty about stealing), though he does undress a good number of women and momentarily place them in compromising positions--always, in his view, with respect and love. Anyone who can stop time and refer in self-delight to his "chronanisms" can't be all bad! Like Baker's other books, The Fermata gains little from synopsis. The pleasure is literally in the text. What's memorable is less the sex and the sex toys (including the "Monasticon," in the shape of a monk holding a vibrating manuscript) than Arno's wistful recollections of intimacy: the noise, for instance, of his ex-girlfriend's nail clipper, "which I listened to in bed as some listen to real birdsong."

And The Jones Men by Vern E. Smith

Quote:

This latest volume in Norton's "Old School Books" series plunges the reader into the world of drugs, corruption, and murder as it follows the downfall of "Lennie Jack," a Vietnam vet who attempts to take over the action of the neighborhood's biggest drug lord.

Cotton · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:12 pm **Posts:** 17155

I'm trying to find The Last Gang in Town Clash bio to re-read, but other than that I've been going through my rhetorical process booksfrom college and waiting for j-pod to come out.

A Northern Soul · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3742

the last book i read was the wanting seed by anthony burgess, and i have yet to start reading this:

Hegel · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:45 pm

this thread. Oh man. I am awesome. Please slap me.

Leon · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:47 pm

Northern Soul Wrote:

the last book i read was the wanting seed by anthony burgess,

How did you like it? Burgess is one of my favorite Authors and The Wanting Seed is one of my favorite books.

neuroboy · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:47 pm

i'm digging school right now but i can't wait to have the free time to read non-textbook/non-clinical literature. ugh!

Billzebub · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:26 pm **Posts:** 6459

This.

Cotton · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:12 pm **Posts:** 17155

well i'm reading a chapter on prosthetic noses right now. it's pretty nasty.

alongwaltz. · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:03 pm

I'm obsessed with biographies. I already raced through ones on Charles Schulz, Stan Lee, and Chuck Jones.

andyfest · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:05 pm

The Ghost in the White City. Very interesting read. I imagine a lot of you Chicobners have read it.

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:11 pm

The Path to Power, Vol. 1 in the LBJ bio series by Robert Caro. Fucking Amazing.

soreal · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:13 pm

andyfest Wrote:

The Ghost in the White City. Very interesting read. I imagine a lot of you Chicobners have read it.

i have to read this. ever since seeing "city of the century" on channel 11, i've been amazed at the changes chicago has gone through.

A Northern Soul · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3742

paranoidandroid Wrote:

Northern Soul Wrote:

the last book i read was the wanting seed by anthony burgess,

How did you like it? Burgess is one of my favorite Authors and The Wanting Seed is one of my favorite books.

i thought it was a decent book. ive read plenty of dystopian books and in that context i dont think he did anything more or better than orwell or huxley.

mcaputo · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:17 pm

ayah · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:03 pm **Posts:** 6402

the personals.

ayah · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:03 pm **Posts:** 6402

mcaputo Wrote:

i'd love to know what you think when you're done.
i don't know anyone else who has read it.
are you a ggm fan?

mcaputo · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:29 pm

ayah Wrote:

mcaputo Wrote:

i'd love to know what you think when you're done.
i don't know anyone else who has read it.
are you a ggm fan?

I've read both 'One-Hundred Years...& LITTOC and liked them quite a bit...especially the former. I'll post something here after I finish his new one.

Timis · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:34 pm

ok - funny this thread came up today. i started to get back into reading "fun" books again (prior to i just read education books -> programming, etc)

so i heard this guy on a radio show talk about how awesome this book is
"Ender's Games" by Orson Scott Card. eventhough its a "sci-fi" kind of book - its much more then that.

so i go to barnes and nobles last night, and could not find the book (was looking in the sci-fi section). i went up to the counter and asked if they had the book. instantly the girl knew where it was. she walked me to the kid's section - yes the kid's section. she hands it to me, and i was like, "this is not what i was expecting". apparently they repackaged the book for kids (basically the cover).

i am against the whole reading potter books (unless you are a kid), but i am going to make an exception.

so we'll see. anyone else read this?

Lester Burnam · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:56 pm

"Infinite Jest"
David Foster Wallace

How indie...

long gone · **Joined:** Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:53 pm **Posts:** 3262

Lester Burnam Wrote:

"Infinite Jest"
David Foster Wallace

How indie...

A very fine book IMO.

Billzebub · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:26 pm **Posts:** 6459

andyfest Wrote:

The Ghost in the White City. Very interesting read. I imagine a lot of you Chicobners have read it.

Interesting premise, and appears to have been well-researched. Stylsitically, however, it left a lot to be desired. I have the same problem with Matthew Pearl's "The Dante Club".

Billzebub · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:26 pm **Posts:** 6459

I just finished this:

and am now reading his second:

pollysix · **Joined:** Tue Oct 26, 2004 2:56 am **Posts:** 5174

A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf

and started rereading:

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

and...

various travel books about France and Spain.

billy g · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:41 pm **Posts:** 9020

mcaputo Wrote:

ayah Wrote:

mcaputo Wrote:

i'd love to know what you think when you're done.
i don't know anyone else who has read it.
are you a ggm fan?

I've read both 'One-Hundred Years...& LITTOC and liked them quite a bit...especially the former. I'll post something here after I finish his new one.

I just ordered this yesterday. who knows when I'll get around to reading it though.

d · **Posted:** Tue Mar 21, 2006 6:14 pm

Not anything exciting....

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

but on deck is The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. Plan on hitting this one on the plane trip later this week.

"No one understands Alaska. [Officials in Washington] wire me to step over to Nome to look up a little matter, not realizing that it takes me 11 days to get there." That's the state's governor, Scott Bone, in 1922, three years before the distant, former Gold Rush outpost would need help combating an incipient diphtheria epidemic. As the Salisbury cousins amply demonstrate, upstate Alaska during winter was about as alien and forbidding as the moon-total isolation, endless night, bizarre acoustics, unreliably frozen rivers, and 60-below temperatures eventually causing both body and mind to shut down altogether. Under these circumstances, the 674-mile dogsled journey required to bring Nome the desperately needed serum seemed destined to fail, to put it mildly. The authors rightly frame the undertaking as the last gasp of an ancient technology before the impending arrival of air and road travel. As soon as news of the situation reached the "lower 48," it instantly became headline fodder for weeks. The book demonstrates the remarkable intimacy mushers develop with their lead dogs-only a handful of sled dogs have the character, courage, intelligence and will to be the lead dog. Especially heroic were renowned musher Leonhard Seppala and his lead dog, Balto, who undertook the treacherous and long final leg; the dog is immortalized by a statue in New York City's Central Park. The journey itself occupies the second half of the book; the authors judiciously flesh out the story with fascinating background information about Nome, the Gold Rush, dogsledding and Alaska. This is an elegantly written book, inspiring tremendous respect for the hardy mushers and their canine partners.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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