so, whatcha reading? any recommendations? (preferably on the music tip). i just got a $50 g/c to borders and i'm itching for some new books.

Nick Hornby ( High Fidelity, about a boy...) always has plenty of musical references in his books, and I just read a new one recently called Long Way Down or something close to that (lite read,tho for sure)

Not music related, but I'm reading JR Moehringer's The Tender Bar... it has to do with bars, so that's always good. But it also deals with his growing up poor on Long Island without a father around.

Link

I recently finished A Long Way Down too, and I think the American musician character is supposed to be loosely based on one of the guys in Marah, whom Nick Hornby has expressed adoration for in the past.

cool, i love hornby's books. i'ma pick this up.

ooh, this sounds interesting. i'm going to put this on my list, thanks. it doesn't necessarily have to be music-related, but i do love reading about music. lately i've been obsessed with the work of lester bangs.

right now i'm reading "kissing in manhattan" by david schickler. it's a pretty damn good read. a collection of short stories about a bunch of yuppies falling in love but it's all connected...

link

sorry to break topic, but speaking of book recs, where the hell has Dunwoody Dude been?

Up until the completely useless last 100 pages, I really enjoyed Live From New York recently. Good oral history of SNL, especially interesting to hear perspective from the writers.

Promotion.

I'm currently reading "Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore" by by Albert Mudrian & John Peel. Highly entertaining, and historically informative. Reminds me of so many bands that I've heard over the years but had forgotten about.

Every metal fan should pick this up.

That was fun to read. Not surprisingly, Chevy Chase is an asshole.

I need something new to read now too. I'm nearly finished HST's Kingdom of Fear. I thinking of reading some Vonnegut. Never read any of his stuff and would like to know where to begin.

They mentioned apologetically in the intro that Chevy comes off as an a-hole in the book: I disagree: I think Harry Shearer and Nora Dunn come off as the biggest fucking ass clowns in history. Chevy is just Chevy IMHO.

Also, Janeane Garafalo? way to say that Lorne and the writers are sexist because you were too lazy to work hard enough to be successful on the show. And you aren't funny. And you smell.

'bout halfway through John Updike's Rabbit, Run. Not so sure I'm all that captivated. I'm switching between that and Karen Armstrong's A History of God, which I bought years ago, and never got around to reading. People are very inventive.

On deck, Roth's American Pastoral and Levon Helm's This Wheel's On Fire, which I put down for a bit a few weeks ago and keep meaning to return to.

Yeah, Harry Shearer and that crew really took themselves seriously. I appreciate putting effort into your craft, but damn let's not start thinking this is art or something. And Nora Dunn? Anyone who walks off SNL for "beliefs" because Andrew Dice Clay is going to host? Fuckin' psycho, man...same with Janeane G.

As for CC, I like Chevy in some of his early flicks, but seriously, talk about someone whose ego completely overwhelms what little talent his has. I've read other profiles of Chevy and the SNL book pretty much confirmed that he honestly seems like a dick.

read this a little while ago. fantastic.

Candy Girl : A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper - a very funny book about my friend Brook's experiences as a stripper in Minneapolis

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159240 ... s&v=glance

Right now, I am reading Getting Away With It : Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw by Steven Soderbergh. It's comprised of a series of interviews with Richard Lester interspersed with journal notes while Schizopolis was going to Cannes. It's kind of a tough read since I don't know anything about Richard Lester, but the notes on his films and thoughts in general are pretty interesting.


Next up, I'm gonna read Down and Dirty Pictures : Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind.

klosterman's sex, drugs & cocoa puffs

good humorous fun.

about to start chris ware's the adventures of jimmy corrigan, the smartest kid on earth

while still returning to mike chabon's kavalier and clay as often as i can

both are great recs though ware's book can be slightly depressing if not immenently fascinating. as for my rec, i think i'm the last person to read life of pi but i still think it was a fun--as well as a pretty quick--read. next up is zadie smith's on beauty courtesy of mlle with marquez's love in the time of cholera and possibly fast food nation on it's heels though i think there's better ways for me to spend my time than learning even more reasons to avoid fast food stores.

I don't know about books relating to music, but the following selections are pretty sweet:

J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Jose Saramago - Blindness
Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Memories of My Melancholy Whores

you have great taste.
i have read every single one of these.

Recent reads that I loved:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow Of The Wind
John Irving - The World According To Garp
Edward P. Jones - The Known World
Erik Larson - Devil In The White City

If you want something short but sweet and fun:

Gideon Defoe - The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists

haven't read this yet. like white teeth a lot.


one of the greatest love stories ever told.

reading some stuff on van gogh then next up for me is joan didion's the year of magical thinking.

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. In college I had a mass comm professor who was more into philosophy and he told all of that this was a must read. A few of us went out and looked into it, and for me personally, it is probably the essential book to encapsulate the 60s mentality. Through the teachings of a Yaqui Indian shaman (Don Juan), Carlos C takes the reader through an anthropological journey, "desert drugs" and opening your mind to a more productive life. It doesn't read like any philosophy book I've ever read, but is more a narrative.

Dune by Frank Herbert. If you like sci-fi at all and haven't read this, then shoot yourself now. Sci Fi, ecology, religion, sociological problems all rolled up in one book.

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. Just like his other book, Requiem For A Dream, this reaches heights of crudeness and utter human agony.

Anything by Bret East Ellis One of the finer artisans of the English language in modern fiction. American Psycho is obviously an amazing piece of literature, but I think he hits a note on Rules of Attraction that can only be described as legendary.

i listened to the audiobook of this that a friend loaned me before i went on a long drive--narrated by peter coyote. i don't remember it really well but there was a lot of peyote and mescaline and running around naked