i don't even remember having typed this last night.

jeez.

KPH

I can't get anywhere with these three books:

1. "Notes From the Underground" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2. "The Deptford Trilofy" by Robertson Davies
3. "A Lover's Discourse" by Roland Barthes

I need some suggestions, please. Genuinely interesting, enrapturing books, please.

Ish -

I think you need to be in the right mood for "Notes from Underground." When I read it, my low self-image made me empathize with the protagonist, and I zipped through the thing, and it was cathartic.

If you want lighter dark humor, I would suggest almost any of T. Coraghessan Boyle's work. I am a big fan of his, but after a few you realize that he only has one thing to say about humanity: "d'oh!" My favorites of his are probably "The Road to Wellville" and "Water Music."

enrapturing . . . huh. i haven't been full-on addicted to a book since i read the last harry potter book. coming from a guy with an english degree, this really saddens me. i need to read more.

oh, shit - have you read any of louise erdrich's novels? if not, go out and read all of them chronologically - she is a genius and a half. broken beauty of the human soul, captured on paper.

I read this a long time ago... it took a while to get the lingo down but I loved the glossary in the back.

I just got back from a trip to Italy and read:
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
A great book if you love to travel.

Me too, and I feel slightly sick and guilty reading it. It's entertaining, but it's certainly not literature.

Up next is "Song of Susannah" by Stephen King. My husband's been finished with the Dark Tower series for a month now, and he's been pushing me to finish so we can talk about it!

btw, spinningplates (or anyone who likes "Catch-22"), have you ever seen the documentary "Stone Reader"? It's quite entertaining, and the director of the film very much loves "Catch-22." I would highly recommend the film.

http://www.stonereader.net/

Blindness - Jose Saramago

brilliant and terrifying

Recently:

The Reader, a fun filled book about a Nazi prison guard
Cats Eye, veiled autobiog of Margaret Atwood by all accounts, a bit eh for me
Brideshead Revisited, probably shocking at the time I guess
Mao's War Against Nature, what it says on the tin

Pending:

Some more greatest hits off the dollar shelf at the thrift store.

Just finished "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon. It was good, but probably could have been shorter. I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

Currently, "White Line Fever" Lemmy from Motorhead's autobiography. It's not going to win a National Book award, or even a Jr. High writing contest, but it's kind of entertaining. I haven't gotten to the Motorhead years yet, so I expect it should get a little better once I get a bit further along.

Time Considered As A Helix of Semi-Precious Stones

Just read the Samuel R. Delany short story collection called Driftglass for the second or third time, can't remember for sure, but I know I've probably read that novella mentioned above at least 4 times over the years. A real classic in science fiction. Spectacular imagery and such lyrical writing. Amazing stuff. Some of my favorite novels are from Delany, like Nova and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

Are you a comic book fan? It definitely helps if you are at all interested in the golden age of comic books. I had thought a movie was going to be based on it.

i haven't read much of anything that wasn't online in the last couple years. i feel so stoopid.

Not currently reading, but in honor of Bhopal's anniversary I submit Don DeLillo's White Noise as one of the best and funniest books of the 20th century. The fucked-up thing is that DeLillo actually wrote it just prior to Bhopal, but one passage echoes Bhopal very freaking eerily.

Any DeLillo fans on here?

i tried reading americana but couldn't get through the whole thing. i'll see if the library has white noise and maybe revise my opinion.

I just got this out of the library yesterday. Once I finish Bel Canto, it's next.

yeah, White Noise is the acid test. after that, it's like a dark descent into an over-indulged academic who knows he's an overindulged academic so writes dark humor from the perspective of an overindulged academic.

as an overindulged academic, i think that i may be the target demographic.

but he really understands that we are a commodified people, bought and sold like so much chattel, and digs conspiracy, so he is one of my favorites, i think.

I read Underworld..it is less literal, more ephemeral companion piece to those Ellroy books I'm always prattling on about (which you should read, btw, Collin)

Have been meaning to pick up Great Jones Street, but like you, I find myself unable to get that into fiction these days. I think the world might be too weird right now, but you know what Faulkner always said "The best fiction is far truer than any form of journalism"

Do you ever wish you could :"unread" something, and go back and re-read it for the first time, and have it blow your fucking doors off again.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test come to mind, but so does Great Santini and American Tabloid

I'm not really a comic book fan. I appreciate them on some levels but have never spent much time actually reading them.

I enjoyed the book though, just thought it probably could have been edited a bit.

How many of the characters were real people? I recognized the obvious ones like Stan Lee but wasn't sure how many of the folks were made up and how many were based on real people.

On the pot: Ambrose Bierce's 'Devil's Dictionary'

Off the pot: Jorge Luis Borges' 'Dr. Brodie's Report'

Sherman Alexie's 'The Toughest Indian In The World'

Short fiction, novelettes are all I care to read outside of my glossy collection. This consists primarily of Harper's Monthly, Nat'l Geo. & a few underground comix.

I've been alternating between the new volume of McSweeney's and Jonathan Lethem's new book of short stories. Neither has really gotten me all that excited yet.

And I have a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket. Can't decide if I should pick something up for myself or use it to buy a Christmas present for someone.

i have this on my nightstand, but haven't even cracked it open yet:

I think I'll pick up Chronicles pretty soon. I've heard it's an entertaining read.

On a related note, Bob's doing his first TV interview in something like 19 years this Sunday on 60 minutes.

Bob Dylan as autobiographer: classic case of the unreliable narrator? defend yourself Dylan!

KPH

I like Sherman Alexie. I've only read Lone Ranger... and Ten Little Indians. Lone Ranger was one depressing fucking book. One time I walked into a Tower Records bookstore in Sacramento and none other than Sherman Alexie was sitting at a table signing books.

i've never even heard of this, but it sounds interesting so ill see if i can find it

If you're not too turned off by him, check out his "Cornish Trilogy"--better than Deptford by a longshot, although I thought Deptford was splendid. Davies was A-OK in my book. If you don't want to invest in an entire trilogy, try out "Murther And Walking Spirits".

Cornish > Salterton > Deptford