What Are You Reading?

[SteveThe Owl]

I've been putting off reading Heinlein's Stranger In a Strange Land for something like twenty years, but I picked up a used copy a few days ago and I'm about halfway through it -- and I'm just loving it. I wish I had read it twenty years ago -- I might have been an entirely different person... or maybe not.

Next on my reading list: Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces, which I've also been putting off for a few years.

Anybody reading something really cool out there? I'm always looking for new suggestions.

[Stoolshed]

One book I read a long time ago and couldn't ever find again just got re-released. Grimus, by Salmon Rushdie. Way different than most of his other stuff, which is also good, but not as creative, more poor india blah blah. Same with Hassan and the Sea of Dreams. Awesome.

Anything Kurt Vonnegut Jr. A piece of Phish trivia: Kurt Vonnegut once made an album cover for the band for one of their live discs. They didn't end up using it.

I liked the new margaret atwood Orynx and Crake, although the ending was a bit weak. And if you can fight your way all the way through John Irvings 'A prayer for Owen Meany', the end makes it completely worth the while. Don't cheat though, because it'll spoil the story.

Ciao, Stephen

www.stephenfranke.ca

[bradm]

I just finished Vonnegut's "Bogambo Snuff Box", which is a collection of short stories. I liked them a lot; I'm going to track down "Welcome To The Monkey House" (also short stories) soon.

At home, I've got "Tragically I Was An Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook", which is a funny read, and even funnier if you imagine the pieces being done by Cook (and Dudly Moose, who did a lot of them with Cook).

SteveTheOwl: Which "Stranger..." did you get? It was re-issued a couple of years ago with tens of thousands of words added, that weren't in the original editions.

Aloha,

Brad

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Still meandering through a couple that I seem to have been lingering on for a while now - Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Lovers and Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All, along with a history of the Crusades (Jonathan Phillips' aptly titled The Crusades), and a re-read of Daniel Burston's The Wing of Madness: the Life and Work of R.D. Laing.

They're all equally engaging, which means I'm getting not very far ahead in any of them .

[scottieking]

Flipping back and forth between:

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything -Steven Levitt (Author), Stephen J. Dubner

And

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking -

Malcolm Gladwell

Both of which are really really good nonfiction and so far, highly recommendable.

[bradm]

scottie, if you link "Blink", you might also want to read Th!nk, which is kind of a counter-book:

In "Think!," award-winning author LeGault refutes the 2005 bestseller "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thought" and describes an intellectual crisis in our country, the factors that created it, and why thinking is relevant to everyday lives, jobs, and quality of life.

Aloha,

Brad

[Guest Low Roller]

I've been reading a couple of books:

My commuting book is 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. I've never read it before, or seen the Johnny Depp movie. I'm enjoying it quite a lot.

The other book which I leave at home because it weighs as much as a brick is the 1000 page "Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norell". Imagine cramming Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Mandrake, and 14th century England together and you get the basic idea.

Given the books size, the action tends to unfold very slowly, so unless you have a patient attention span I would avoid this book. On the flipside the character development is incredible as you can really see the characters mature throughout the book.

[SevenSeasJim]

My collective bargaining agreement that I just received and ends in August (right on time as usual)

[CyberHippie]

I read stranger in a strange land at least 15 years ago. And frankly I hated it... However could be I just wasn't ready for it, I may have had a very different take on it, had I read it today.

Up next for me, "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove", but Christopher Moore. He's a genius, somehow he blends, comedy, satire, fiction, and horror into one story. Love it!

[Esau]

Walking On The Land - Farley Mowat.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I'm reading Dylan's Chronicles to my little girl (4 wks old today) as a bedtime story. Very good stuff, I must say- a real page turner

[FairySari]

I'm reading two books right now, in addition to readings for school, which also means i'm not reading very quickly.

Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler by Ethan Brown (which is part of my hip hop education for this year, and is really interesting so far, kinda like reading an episode of CSI or something, but with rappers!)

and Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins ( I started this book ages ago, and just haven't had the time, or the desire to sit down and read it for a while - it's not drawing me in as much as Robbins usually does, but I think I may have had a bit of a Robbins overload, the last three books I read before this were also by Robbins).

DEM - Skinny Legs is my second favourite book by Tom Robbins, I think. I would love to live in a giant steel turkey!

[Guest Low Roller]

I'm reading Dylan's Chronicles to my little girl (4 wks old today) as a bedtime story. Very good stuff, I must say- a real page turner

Awesome.

[LJFH]

Walking On The Land - Farley Mowat.

I just read a ton of Farley Mowat lately..... I just read "A Whale for the Killing"...and had to do it in snippets because it made me so emotional.

Right now though I'm reading Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rusdie. Good book.

[bradm]

I forgot to mention the one I just finished: On A Cold Road by (Rheostatics member) Dave Bidini. It's part road journal of a touring band in Canada, part history of and look inside the world of the Rheos, and part piece-meal history of rock music (or the musicians' experiences of rock music) in Canada. Bidini writes amazingly well, and it's a very fun, engaging, and worthwhile read, especially for music junkies.

Aloha,

Brad

[scottieking]

Brad, that is a great book!

[Davey Boy 2.0]

didn't the Kids In the Hall have a contest where the winner could touch Dave Bidini?!?!?

[ollie]

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years. I'd read the first two books ages ago and just got this one for Christmas. Eminently readable, this is the first book I've read in years. Sad really but maybe it will get me back in the habit. I miss long bus rides to work for this very reason.

It is so pathetic how much I can identify with Mole.

[Cully]

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

[Rob Not Bob]

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events Part 4 : The Austere Academy ... yes, I am a loser.

[bradm]

Maybe, but you're not an illiterate loser.

Aloha,

Brad

[phorbesie]

We saw James Frey on the Larry King show when we were in Cuba...he sounded like a tool to me. Did you see that show? Apparently the book is not all true. Haven't read it though...do you like it?

I'm about halfway through Atlas Shrugged...slowly reading that one.

Just finished Sirens of Titan which was awesome.

Just started The Drifters (by James Michener) which should be good as I always love his books. Plus it's about a bunch of kids in the 60s partying there way around Europe and Africa, so I'm sure I'll like that!

[timouse]

I forgot to mention the one I just finished: On A Cold Road by (Rheostatics member) Dave Bidini. It's part road journal of a touring band in Canada, part history of and look inside the world of the Rheos, and part piece-meal history of rock music (or the musicians' experiences of rock music) in Canada. Bidini writes amazingly well, and it's a very fun, engaging, and worthwhile read, especially for music junkies.

Aloha,

Brad

indeed! read that a couple of years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

just finished re-reading the massive all in one hitch-hikers' guide to the galaxy and started in on "songcatchers" by mickey hart.

[livingstoned]

We saw James Frey on the Larry King show when we were in Cuba...he sounded like a tool to me. Did you see that show? Apparently the book is not all true. Haven't read it though...do you like it?

I'm about halfway through Atlas Shrugged...slowly reading that one.

Just finished Sirens of Titan which was awesome.

Just started The Drifters (by James Michener) which should be good as I always love his books. Plus it's about a bunch of kids in the 60s partying there way around Europe and Africa, so I'm sure I'll like that!

With all the controversy about James Frey as of late - so someone had enough time on their hands to search court records and see that something he talks about in the book doesn't actually happen as he claims - however a simple disclaimer would have saved him from the controversy "events or names may have been altered..." Which the publisher is including for future prints - from what I understand

- whatever - I don't really see what the big deal is but my co-worker brought up an excellent point regarding this:

If he was a drug addict to the extent of what I've heard - would he not be "cloudy" about events during his time as an addict...

Anyway I thought that was a good point.

[ollie]

- whatever - I don't really see what the big deal is but my co-worker brought up an excellent point regarding this:

If he was a drug addict to the extent of what I've heard - would he not be "cloudy" about events during his time as an addict...

Anyway I thought that was a good point.

One of the points of contention was his story that he had spent 3 months in a particular jail for a particular offence. Turns out he was booked and released the same day. Seems like a stretch to use the "cloudy" excuse on this one.

I thought it was lame how Frey kept using the memoir defence, like memoir was some new genre that he was pioneering.

Having said all that it blows me away that this is news at all in light of past revelations that people like Jay Leno have actually paid other people to use their stories as his own in his autobiography. It was even parodied on Seinfeld. Leno didn't receive a fraction of the moral outrage that Frey did and I think Leno's offence is way more severe.