Can I get some recommendations from you cult folks
Hey all, i'm about to start my 4th Palahniuk book and was browsing amazon's recommend lists and saw alot of authors and books from Bukowski, Irvine Welsh and many others.. but I wanted to ask you guys for recommendations on some good reads that are satisfying and entertaining, not just famous and well known.
any tips would be much appreciated
[url=http://astore.amazon.com/officialchuckpalaha?%F5encoding=UTF8&node=46]Here[/url] are some authors you might be into. On the left there is a list of authors. Recommended reading is on the page.
Also check out the list of past book club books on the book club page. Shold be right above this thread somewhere.
*edit - OK for some reason that link isn't working now. I don't know if it will be working later. So - scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page. There are little white words. One says recommendations. Click that. On that page you will see a bunch of Chuck's books. On the right click on Palahaniuk-esque authors. Or something like that.
I hope that helps!
I just started Craig Davidson's "The Fighter" and I'm about 80 pages into i and I must say its a pretty good book so far, I recommend checking out man.
. .
eneyman..
yeah, there's a certain feel of loss when youve already read half of chuck's books, something like: so, this is it, when I'm done I'm done ? Damn. But dont worry, once you have flown through all of chuck's books, and youre waiting on the next one, youll find there are a great number of books out there to read and some of them to fucking love. I myself just needed someone to recommend them ... and perhaps like myself youll find a few books you loved even more than chuck's
Craig Clevenger is without a doubt the most popular to read after reading chuck. chuck hailed The Contortionists' Handbook (or TCH, or simply The Handbook) as the best book he'd read in easily five years. craig's second book to date is Dermaphoria, and it possesses some flawless prose, quite remarkable really: "The time flies. The time flies feed on rotting clocks."
one of my fav's, Will Christopher Baer . he has the Phineas Poe Trilogy out and is currently working his dark epic fantasy noir novel titled Godspeed which will come out one of these days, hopefully this year but it's become such a huge project for baer the badass he wants this one to be the one he's remembered for so he's taking his time and biting through his nails
Others..
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Cormac Mccarthy: The Road and Blood
Meridian
The Extinction of Rhinos in Mexico by Stephen Blackburn has some heart wrenching stories inherent
House of Leaves ~ need say nothing else really than HoL
Mark Richard: Ice at the Bottom of the World
Denis Johnson - Jesus' Son
The 25th Hour by David Benioff - great book, great movie
In the Cut by Susana Moore - pretty graphic but a great read
Jay McInerney - Bright Lights, Big City
Drown by Junot Diaz
Five Mile House by Karen Novak - she's also a cultist
American Psycho and Less Than Zero by Bret
Easton Ellis
Wise Blood by Flannery Oconnor
Ask the Dust by John Fante - some fantastic pages, and Bukowski's god !
as for me, im going to be getting my mittens on Guy Burt's Sophie - thanks La'bel
enery.. hope this helps with some of your searching, and welcome to the cult
-kabol
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play hard, like it's work to be done.
dam dam dam .. cant get the html or spacing working properly. will take me a while so sorry for the messy post -kabol
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play hard, like it's work to be done.
One of my personal favorites is American Gods by Niel Gaiman. Gaiman has obviously written a ton of great stuff, but there is something I love about the characters in this one. This pretty much sums it up from Amazon.com
Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.
Also, here is the link PGoutis01 was trying to get to ya. http://astore.amazon.com/officchuckpalaha Which not only has some awesome stuff, but it has the added benefit of supporting the site!
If you're looking for some new stuff, I've got two authors to suggest. My personal favorite is Kurt Vonnegut. I am almost reluctant to suggest him because he's a pretty damn big name, but he's written so many books that people haven't read. "Breakfast of Champions" was the first book I read by him, and I was instantly hooked. Also, if you haven't already, check out "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian". The former being a very popular title by him, the latter being a very short and hilarious read.
My second suggestion is John Kennedy Toole. He committed suicide at the unfortunate age of 32, and none of his works were published until after his death. "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible" are his only two works published. I'm in the middle of Dunces right now, and it is a great read. Just a bit slow, but once you get used to Toole's incredibly descriptive style of writing, its a hilarious ride.
If you do end up checking out anything I've suggested, please let me know how it goes.
If you want a good read AND some laughs I recommend 'Apathy:And Other Small Victories' by Paul Neilan and 'Lord Vishnu's Love Handles' by Will Clarke.
Wow thanks alot to all that replied. You guys are great.
The Contortionist's Handbook and Dermaphoria are recommended quite often....
Personally, one of my favorite authors is Guy Burt. Compared to anything Chuck, Sophie starts out slow. But I love how he builds it and builds it into something spectacular. If you can get through the first few chapters, very very very much worth it.