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What Are You Reading?


SteveThe Owl

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I work in a bookstore, and A Million Little Pieces is probably the bestselling book we've had for the past few months, thanks to Oprah. Most of the people who come in and ask for it have no idea that it's a biography, so I don't really understand why they would care if it turns out its not true - just read it as a work of fiction. Apparently there have been some concerns about people wanting to return the book because it isn't true... which I think is pretty silly.

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Apparently there have been some concerns about people wanting to return the book because it isn't true... which I think is pretty silly.

hehehe that is totally silly.

i wouldn't care if the book is true (not that i'm planning to read it...i don't usually like books oprah picks) but the guy was annoying on tv as he kept repeating in whiny voice 'i stand by my book' even when presented with the aforementioned facts. obviously no one wants to admit to lying on tv so i can't blame him but still, i just didn't like the guy.

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The other weird thing is that Frey admitted that he originally shopped the book as fiction but couldn't give a good explanation as to why it should now be considered a memoir. Again, not a big deal but he came off like a third rate politician.

Edited by Guest
Typed non-fiction when I meant fiction
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right now I'm 4 books deep into Frank Herbert Dune series, 2 more books to go, and then I get into the prequels written by his son, which include another 6 books.

best series I've ever read.

stanger in a strange land is a great book.

Thanks go to Bradm for getting me into heinlein, opened up a whole lot more reading for me.

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I recently started reading The Mayan Factor by Dr. Jose Arguelles, it is great.

The Maya were a very mysterious people who existence has been dated back as early as 4,00,000,000 years ago. Their culture seemed to have the ability to open points of entry from one world- realm into another, perhaps answering where they went and why they left behind so much detailed information about their culture including a much simpler yet far more accurate mathematical system than we possess today.

This author and more information is available at

http://www.13moon.com/time-is-art.htm this site is mostly about the 13 moon calendar which is the way the Mayan and other civilizations counted time and predicted shifts in consciousness. Once this calendar was replaced by the present Gregorian Calendar things like banks and stock market became the new way of life "time is money". and so on. Pretty interesting material.

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Being in school, my 'fun' reading is limited. I'm reading alot of textbooks... stuff on the Frankfurt School, Culture Industry et al...

In my minute spare time, I'm churning through Kafka's 'Trial' and Greame Greene's "Power & the Glory." I just finished Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island" and it was fantastic. Made me homesick.

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i don't see the big deal about a million little pieces either. who cares if it's not totally true? isn't there a whole creative license thing? and if it's "based on a true story", it's still based on a true story. this isn't anywhere near as bad as when it was uncovered that go ask alice was a fake -- that was a bit more disappointing because it was being touted as the real, actual diary of a person. supposedly it's based on a real diary. anyway, it's still one of my favourite books.

i guess i can see people being pissed off about the false advertising aspect of a million little pieces being sold as absolute truth, but add the disclaimer & i have no issue with it. it's still on my "to-read" list. :) i wonder if they planted all this bad press, now the book is notorious (and therefore selling millions of copies).

i also wonder if any of anne frank's diary was embellished?

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years

i LOVE adrian mole!!!!!!!!!!!! he is one of my all time favourite literary heroes.

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

why, because it's a kids book? WHATEVER!!!!!!!!! some of the best stories (and best writing!) around are within kids books. i haven't read any lemony snicket yet, but after seeing the movie, i really, really want to. personally, i think reading lemony snicket gives a big boost of coolness, rather than loserdom! :)

i have just finished two books i got for christmas and by the time i got to the second page in both, i already had two books on my list of all time favourites and david sedaris also became one of my all time favourite authors.

dress your family & corduroy & denim (thanks bbackon!) i now want every single piece of writing this man has ever published, i absolutely devoured this book.

dressyourfamily.jpg

and this infamous book DEFINITELY lives up to the hype. talk about a page turner. i couldn't put this mofo down. this is one of those race-home-from-work-to-read-it books. i don't even like motley crüe and i loved this book. sex, drugs & rock n' roll to the nth degree, and a surprising layer of deep emotion and occasional heart wrenching tragedy.

0060392886.jpg

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wow so many interesting things to put on my reading list.

i talked to cully about the book he's reading and the big controversy, and he said the jail bit is a total of maybe 5 pages out of the whole book. all people embellish a little, i really don't see what the big deal is, if it was stocked under biographies, move it to fiction. The point of the book is to help addicts and family members of addicts and that can still be done within the content of the book.

Right now I'm reading something light and easy. clive cussler's lost city. james bondish type action but all under water and in planes...oooooo. after reading the fountainhead and before that the complete works of jane austen (talk about draggin around a freakin tome....1500 pages!) i needed something easy. next up, atlas shrugged by ayn rand.

edit to add: hey PP, i've been wanting to read that motley crue thing forever....in there somewhere, does ozzy snort a line of ants?

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Phorbsie, stick it out and finish Atlas Shrugged, it took me about three months to read that book (hey, i was busy alright) and it had a huge impact on my philosophical outlook. it also came to me at a time when i really needed it, i love ayn rand!

Last night i finished Travels in a Thin Country by Sara Wheeler. It's about a woman's six month trip through Chile. i love travel writing and this woman did a lot of cool things during her six months. i found her to be a bit arrogant and she uses pretentious adjectives where plain ones would be better. i still enjoyed the book though, even though the author was a bit of a git.

now i'm not sure what i'm going to start today, i have a good stack of books i haven't read yet, i'm debating between two of Margaret Atwood's (Blind Assasin and Good Bones), A Prayer for Owen Meaney, Much Ado About Nothing, and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. Oh, and the Time in Between, the Giller Winner from this year.

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if people can deal with jesusy type things i'd recommend the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins. it's all about when jesus comes back and takes the believers leaving non believers here on earth for 7 years before he comes back for the last time, meanwhile, in those 7 years you've got satan or something to deal with and all these crazy things that are foretold in the bible.

it's 12 books long...they even made a couple cheezy movies staring kirk cameron. they're a good read if you can deal with the preachy preachy getting saved stuff.

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Look for the Toronto skyline in the opening shots of the first Left Behind (I found both of them in a discount bin). Apparently LaHaye and Jenkins have more or less disowned the movies, thinking them too cheesy. Another rich moment of irony in the wild and whacky world of NA evangelicalism.

Tim LaHaye's a scary bit of work, though (not to mention his wife Beverley - head of Concerned Women for America, the US counterpart to REAL Women Canada). He's got quite a history.

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yeah like i said...you've got to get past the preachy preachy jesus is the only way to salvation bits.

i saw the first 45 minutes of the 1st DVD before my tv crapped out and i had to use one that doesn't have the cable hook ups for a DVD player.

and let's just say...cheese. it wasn't done well at ALL. they used crappy film, like the kind most cheap canadian and british TV is produced with were it's all grey and grainy. and i'm surprised they blew up the amount of shit that they did. kirk cameron was the only good acting in the WHOLE movie. they took for granted the viewer had read the books cause nothing was really explained.

and lahaye probably disowned the movies because they play down the god is miraculous and doing all these crazy things angle (which is kind of the whole point of the books), and left it like it was just strange inexplicable occurances.

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