August, Damn Summer is nearly over and I am reading...

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Yatusaka Tsuitsui The Maid. I have no idea did I spell that all right but meh. Its good, I started it lastnight and will finish it this evening.

Stoner by John Williams

Beloved by Toni Morrison (another one for Uni).

I am! I finished it last night. I think it's going to be an interesting discussion. It seems like a book people are going to love or hate. I loved it.

It's still in hardcover, but it can be ordered from Amazon for about $15 new, and there are already a lot of used ones available.

It should be a good discussion then!

I hated the first five pages. It's starts out "Dearest Diary" and that's generally a vomitous device to me. In fact, I only kept reading because I'd agreed to lead the discussion. I'm SO glad that I did!

Hidden in Plain Sight : Tracing the roots of Ueshiba Morihei's power (Ellis Amdur)

The People of Hemsö by August Strindberg.

Finishing up Me Talk Pretty One Day.

Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman.

I love Klosterman's writing. This is one I own, but haven't yet read. Let me know what you think Derek.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and John Dies At The End by David Wong.

My boyfriend loves this book. I haven't read it yet.

So far it's great. Very interesting too. And funny. And all around good.

Ugggh, I finished Shantaram and it makes me sad! What a great book.

Sacred by Dennis LeHane.

Here is my conclusion. I loved Sex Dugs and Cocaopuffs or whatever it was called but I hated this one. The back of the book makes you think its about a roadtrip to the sites of some rock and roll deaths, which it is in a way but half the time he's talking about the 3 women in his life, Quincy, Lenore and Diane. After 150 pages I DONT FUCKING CARE ABOUT YOUR LOVELIFE. I can't tell the difference between the 3 women and from what I gather if you put the 3 together you wouldnt have one interesting chick. There are moments where one of his opiions hit me and I think Awesome but they are fewer and far between than his books of essays.
Speaking of his essays or articles, they are great. He reminds me of an Irish football pundit called Eamon Dunphy. 9 times out of 10 he comes out with shit you just can't help disagree with but Damn is he entertaining.
I'm not going to write him off over this one but I would mush prefer if he stuck to the layout of his other books.

Killing Yourself to Live is my least favorite of his books. Eating the Dinosaur, the most recent one, is my favorite. His writing is really maturing.

Added To Wishlist!!!!

Thanks Derek. Lucky I bought that one as a bargain book for like 5 bucks.

Jane - I'm adding that one to the wishlist also.

I finished Super Sad True Love Story last night. This is definitely one of the most interesting books I've read in a few years. It's dystopian, but not just in a sense that our statistics regarding stature, "fuckability," credit ranking, and finances are readily accessible through this futuristic social networking the author has created. Shteyngart provides us the future of emotions and relationships, and the scary part about it is that I can see this happening. Perhaps it's already happening--a place where our connections and interactions almost never venture beyond an electronic medium.

This is definitely going to make for one hell of a book club discussion.

I've got Kiss Me, Judas and Penny Dreadful pulled on my bookshelft to read next. Unfortunately, I probably won't get to them until after I've finished writing my own book and wrapped up some other loose ends.

i just started stephen king's duma key...anyone read that? is it worth it?

It's shit. Not as bad as Liseys Story or Cell but still shit. If you havent read his all his earlier stuff then go check them out. All his books since Dark Tower 7 have been crap with the exception of Under The Dome.

The last King book I read that I really LOVED was From a Buick 8. Despite the fact that he is the most popular author in the world, I swear I'm the only person that read it.

there's a hardcover of From a Buick 8 in the "library" at my work. i always see it and wonder how shit it is.

I've read it. After reading it I bought a toy Buick for my King collection.

i've read most of king's earlier work...and loved everything...he did start to get weird, though...i enjoyed bag of bones, but it was def not on the same level as his older stuff...

well damn, now i gotta find something else to read

I personally thought it was a return to real old-school King, like pre-coked out "Gerald's Game" type shit. And not just because it was a haunted car.

what have you got laying around?

I've also read From a Buick 8 so that makes three of us world wide. I can't remember how much I liked it compared to his other stuff though.

Matt, why are you awake at 4.18 on a Tuesday?

i have palahniuk's latest tell all...but i've been saving it...

the question is, sir, why are you awake at this time on a tuesday? hang on. what time is it in NZ now?

and, i'm awake because i am always awake. it's what i do. and, it's my night off. think of it as my lonely friday night in with my friends at the cult. a quiety.

for...

Anyway, Pattern Recognition was very good. Now reading Pain Killers by Jerry Stahl.

well, it's not that long of a book..i'll go through it pretty fast...that was all...and the king book is mammoth...but if it is mammoth swill, it's not worth it

Of the 30 or so of his novels I've read, I'd put it in the top 15. It's on the higher end, especially considering it came in a stretch of work I'd mostly qualify as crap.

i'm reading Imperial Bedrooms. i knocked out 100 pages just now and i'm trapped in it. Ellis does a pretty sweet job of adding that mystery to the story. and it's a fast read, like Less Than Zero. but god, i hate his dialogue sometimes. not the actual dialogue, but they way he does the 'she said and looked at me quizzically' thing. it's fucked. what the fuck is a quizzical look?

anyway, i'm really into it.

I read a review of that book at Paste magazine that gave it a 0.0 out of 10 rating. He stopped just short of saying it was the worst book he'd ever read.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/07/bret-easton-ellis-imperial...

Why is a book about these people worth reading? I spent four hours of the only life I have pondering the question.

LTZ with iPhones.

yeah, it's been pretty full-on, Hattie. but fucking sweet. at least it aids the story. unlike some shit i have been reading lately where it feels like shock for the sake of it. i'm going to do my major essay, using both Beloved and Heart of Darkness as my subjects. i just could not hack Everything is Illuminated. it was bullshit. fucking horrible story.

but yeah, Beloved was pretty gnarly.

as for LTZ plus iPhones, well, yeah, it is pretty damn hard to relate to Clay and his cronies, but i think that is half the point. and yeah, Ellis does such a good job of showing so much about his characters through their actions. that's what made LTZ so brilliant, and maybe it's just because IB was a continuation, but i get the same feeling with this book. but there is definitely a lot that i don't like about Ellis and his style these days.

This will probably come up in book discussion, but compare the first half to the second half when you're done.

Tell me if you really cared about what happened to these characters or if the mystery of the Jeep really paid off for you. About halfway through the hype sort of wore off. I didn't find Rain nearly as intriguing as Ellis was trying to depict her. I didn't hate IB, but I didn't particulary like it, either. I'll have to read it again before book club.

yeah, i'm still only on 100th page. i was planning on finishing it, but a couple of friends came around, but now they're all asleep, but i'm way too drunk and stoned to take bret easton ellis seriously.

i read somewhere that the whole jeep thing and the 'mystery' just lingers. so, i'm interested to see if i dig it at the end. i do love an ambiguous ending, i do. but it'll be interesting to see if it is like the critic i read said it was like; a big let down, used for the sole purpose of hooking the reader. which would be so cheap. such bad writing.

and yeah, i didn't even care about Clay the first time around. never. the dude is completely apathetic. how can you relate to, and care about that?

somehow though, ellis makes him interesting enough for you to want to read on.

i was super excited about reading this. i'm suprised i've waited so long to read it. mostly it's because i've had to read books for uni, but yeah, the writing seems kind of lazy. not as deliberate as he used to be.

When I began IB there was a feeling of getting reaquainted with this author, like seeing an old friend after too many years away...so I tore into it actively wanting/expecting to like it. About halfway through is where that feeling wore off.

The jeep thing is essentially how that reviewer described it: a carrot in front of the nose to keep you moving, and even when you get it, there's not much pay-off (you'll be able to guess it beforehand probably) and the cheap tactic is exposed for what it is, or at least, that's how I felt about it. I see that tactic used in short stories quite a bit, as that's what I've been reading a lot of lately. I'm fine with that. Even if it doesn't pay off, I've only wasted about twenty pages worth of reading time. When it's a full-on novel like IB, the pay-off had better be fucking good. It wasn't.

yeah, i'm hearing you. and the other thing is; what has he got to lose? what are the stakes? this time through it's like, well, Clay, you're still an apathetic/pathetic scenster, so who gives a fuck?

but, in saying that, i'm still enjoying it. we'll see though. the magic wore off a tad, which is why i stopped after 100 pages, but i'm still interested enough to keep reading. besides, it's only like 60 pages more.

the other thing i am bothered with is the unbelievablity of the whole hollywood scene. it doesn't seem real, and not in the distant-hollywood-detached way.

The Blonde on the Streetcorner by David Goodis.

I put this on your facebook, but I wonder if he's a distant cousin of mine... There are family members of mine that came to the US separately that spell their name like that.

Just got back from vacation. During it I read:

The Long Fall, Walter Mosely
Kraken, China Mieville (currently halfway through)
Stories, Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, editors (audiobook)
The Alchemist and the Executioness, Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell (audiobook also)
Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Carrie Vaughn.

All of these except the Carrie Vaughn were good to exceptional.

And I also re-read about 2/3 of Invisible Monsters