Interesting books to read.

[RustyP]

Just finished reading Cannery Row for the first time...fantastic! I need to find a copy of Sweet Thursday now...

Now I'm reading "Myths to Live By" by Joseph Campbell, and kinda reading a book about G.I. Gurdjieff....interesting guy with some interesting ideas, but I haven't read far enough to know anything besides that

I'll second whoever it was that mentioned "Post Office" as a good read...

[RustyP]

I spent the last 5 days "working" at my dad's summer camp, which entailed playing drums for a whopping 30 minutes a day, so I got a lot of reading done.

I finished Sweet Thursday finally...awesome story! Some of the best characters I've ever encountered. Also started and finished A Catcher in the Rye..only the 3rd or 4th time I've finished a book in 1 day. Everyone I know who read it said they loved the book, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I wasn't blown away or anything. Don't think I've ever read the word "goddam" so many times in my life, which I got a good kick out of since it was a church camp I was at This morning before we left I started reading a translation of The Gospel of Philip, one of the "gnostic gospels" from the Nag Hammadi texts. I only got through the introduction and a few pages of the actual text itself so far, so nothing to report just yet...very interesting ideas presented, though, especially for anyone interested in the relationship between Christianity/Jesus and sexuality.

[Dogma]

Glad to see that Chiggins mentioned Neal Stephenson.

As I mentioned in another thread, I really enjoy David Foster Wallace:
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - a funny collection of essays
The Broom of the System - a great example of his fiction, and not too long
Infinite Jest - his opus

[XvileX]

I'll second whoever it was that mentioned "Post Office" as a good read...

x3

I was a longtime fan of Stephen King. His books just seem(ed) to flow well for me. (I haven't read anything of his in a few years). They were very smooth reading, but I'm also very detail oriented which may have just made it fit. I tried reading the The Sphere (can't spell Dean's last name off the top of my head ) and I couldn't get into it. It was like the sentences didn't fit together and it was choppy to me.

Someone mentioned The Stranger and if that's the one I'm thinking of I still need to pick up a copy in English. I read the original version and I think with my lacking vocabulary I may have missed some of the details. Even with my limited comprehension, the book was a very good read.

[maks]

I'll second whoever it was that mentioned "Post Office" as a good read...

x3

I was a longtime fan of Stephen King. His books just seem(ed) to flow well for me. (I haven't read anything of his in a few years). They were very smooth reading, but I'm also very detail oriented which may have just made it fit. I tried reading the The Sphere (can't spell Dean's last name off the top of my head ) and I couldn't get into it. It was like the sentences didn't fit together and it was choppy to me.

Someone mentioned The Stranger and if that's the one I'm thinking of I still need to pick up a copy in English. I read the original version and I think with my lacking vocabulary I may have missed some of the details. Even with my limited comprehension, the book was a very good read.

i liked the stranger very much, i recommend it cause its pretty short and has some meaning to it. im currently reading a brief history of time for the second time cause the last time i read it was when i was like twelve and i obviously missed some stuff....after that i am going to read post office.

[BLURR]

Just started reading Lewis Black's "Me of Little Faith". I am only a few chapters into it...but the dude cracks me up.

[Jsw]

Just finished Dune during a road trip up north. The depth of it seriously makes my head spin. But it is GOOD depth - plot depth. Not fluff depth. I love to read as much as the next guy but I tend to skim when authors get too "wordy" describing landscapes(Think by Brian Jacques' Redwall series). I.E. when an author goes on about local flora for two and a half pages, every two chapters or so. Which is hard to avoid when you primarily read quality fantasy/Sci-fi.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is a great read. It's good to get your enlightenment on, and one could easily finish it in a lazy summer day or two.

Maybe I should check out some of the other Dune series, but I've heard mixed things.

[Frank Delicious]

Now I'm reading "Myths to Live By" by Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell was a genius.

Books what that I enjoy.

Freakanomics

Outliers

Revolutionary Road

Kitchen Confidential

The Sun Also Rises

and for whoever suggested Atlas Shrugged, you are a bad person. No one should be told to read that book. Here I will summarize it for people who haven't read it "Objectivism is good, everyone is selfish and does things for that only benefits themselves. Some talking happens then a woman gets raped and likes it and says that women sometimes deserved to get raped. Then there is a 50 page speech by John Galt that no one reads. The end"

Palaniuk is good but all his books are the same read Fight Club and Choke or Survivor and you are good.

[RustyP]

Here I will summarize it for people who haven't read it "Objectivism is good, everyone is selfish and does things for that only benefits themselves.

That pretty much sums up how I felt about it when I read it in high school...but I'd kinda like to go back and re-read it now that I'm a little older to see if I still feel the same way about the entire book.'

I'm reading "Grendel" by John Gardner right now...basically a re-telling of Beowulf from Grendel's perspective. Funny in a dark way... I read Beowulf in high school, but I breezed through most of it and used Cliff Notes for the rest, so I think I'll give it another shot after I finish Grendel.

Next book will either be 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (my girlfriend, who totally devours books, finished it in 2 days :O ) or The Long Valley by Steinbeck.

[Frank Delicious]

Next book will either be 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (my girlfriend, who totally devours books, finished it in 2 days :O ) or The Long Valley by Steinbeck.

100 years is a great book and reads very very quickly. Spanish magical-realism is a great genre.

[chiggins]

100 years is a great book and reads very very quickly. Spanish magical-realism is a great genre

Have you guys checked out any Saramago? I dropped Blindness about halfway in, wasn't in the mood to go where it was going, but might give it another shot. Stone Raft was a delight though, lotta fun.

[Frank Delicious]

100 years is a great book and reads very very quickly. Spanish magical-realism is a great genre

Have you guys checked out any Saramago? I dropped Blindness about halfway in, wasn't in the mood to go where it was going, but might give it another shot. Stone Raft was a delight though, lotta fun.

Blindness was awesome but the part where everyone is put in the locked down prison was depressing, disturbing and really hard to read.

also Paulo Coelho is good and has a very simple writing style that is engaging.

[chiggins]

Some non-fictional good stuff: reading Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War right now. Suffice to say, Missouri was a rough place to be before and during the war. Really good book, deeply researched and compellingly told story.

[JohnnyB]

Spin state - Chris Moriarty. It's a sci-fi murder mystery with some future race relations thrown in.

World War Z - Max Brooks. I'm biased towards this because I have a major zombie fetish. It's a good quick read for anyone. You won't be disappointed.

Pastwatch: The redemption of Christopher Columbus - Orson Scott Card. Great book by one of my favorite authors. A little heavy handed on the left wing ideology.

Empire -Orson Scott Card. Another great book by the same author. A little heavy handed on the right wing ideology.

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson. One of those "Wordy" Authors. Just don't let the constant head nodding get in the way of finishing this great story.

[Jerrod]

Just started Moby Dick. The next will probably be Cryptonomicon or Confessions of an Economic Hitman.