It's July, whatcha reading?

good little book about how now matter how weird a family is, they all got the same problems to deal with

im reading scar tissue, by anthony kiedis, man that guy had a weird childhood. did you know that sonny and cher were his "god-parents"

I have some classic anti-drug films starring Sonny Bono...they're great.

Just finished Seeds of Fear from the Hot Blood series.

Just started The Fan Man, by William Kotzwinkle, man.

[QUOTE=inkpen78]Has anyone read the book Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.? I was given it today by one of my employees. I don't usually like the same genre of books as she does. Is it a good read or a waste of time?[/QUOTE]
I love this book. I liked it so much that I lent it to a girl I was dating at the time. And then we broke up. Now I haven't seen my copy in years. Time to go to the store and buy a new copy so I can reread it.

It pisses me off because I never lend books to people.

[QUOTE=UbikRex]What do you think of it. It was my first introduction into the Thompson myself. I like it a lot.[/QUOTE]

Well, it's my second time reading it. So I guess you could say I like it. It seemed like a perfect book for my trip, since I was going to be laying on the beach, drinking rum, and fornicatin' with my bride.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I was thinking of giving that a go, let me know what you think, for serious. The Serpent's Tail catalogue makes it look good, but it's one of their high profile translations...[/QUOTE]
well, I really liked the movie, so I'm kinda just waiting for scenes from there to pop-up. It's also a bit weird as there is no dialogue in it, but it's not too long, so you are a constant reader, give it a ''go''

I'm chilling a bottle of wine and crawling out to the roof garden with SPOOK by Mary Roach.

Edit: Thanks for the tip KarbParker. Great book from the git-go.

I'm reading Father and son by Larry Brown

chuck recommended it, so wtf.

after a long period of reading nothing but my script, i've started Ayn Rand's Anthem. I dig it.

SPOOK was a great book. I really enjoyed that one.

I zipped through "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" and now I'm back to reading "Inifinite Jest". The next time I take a break from IJ it'll be with Dave Egger's "How We Are Hungry", then Irvine Welsh's "Filth". Then I should be done with IJ and I'll read:

"we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by philip gourevitch
"brief interviews with hideous men" by david foster wallace

i picked up [B]infinite jest[/B] the other day. haven't started it yet, though. how do you like it?

It's kind of a love-hate relationship. The book is incredibly detailed, though occasionally drags. Make sure you have two bookmarks when you're reading it, too.

[QUOTE=McMuddle]I'm chilling a bottle of wine and crawling out to the roof garden with SPOOK by Mary Roach.

Edit: Thanks for the tip KarbParker. Great book from the git-go.[/QUOTE]
i'll take the credit but i havent even read that one yet so i dont know if it was me that recommended it
her Stiff was great tho

[B]trying to get my lazy ass to finish:[/B]
-Requiem for a Dream/ Cubby
-The Informers/ Bret Easton Ellis
-Already Dead/ Denis Johnson

im reading Invisible Monsters right now. so far so good:)

[QUOTE=leelee5485]im reading Invisible Monsters right now. so far so good:)[/QUOTE]

HEY ! You need to creep over to the New Member's forum and make a post. Welcome to the Cult. Check this link [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/forumdisplay.php?f=33[/url] so we can know who you are

IM is a helleva roller coaster ride. Just keep faith that the author will put everything together at the end. A great book. My favorite Palahniuk novel, followed by Survivor. Chuck has balls of steel

Anyway, leelee, again, welcome to the Cult
kabol

[QUOTE=courteney]i picked up [B]infinite jest[/B] the other day. haven't started it yet, though. how do you like it?[/QUOTE]

One of my personal favorites. But be perpared to hang onto it for a while. First time I read it, it took me 2 1/2 months to get through.

[B]Miyamoto Musashi[/B] (Kenji Tokitsu), a biography and analysis of the japanese sword master

[QUOTE=jane s.]One of my personal favorites. But be perpared to hang onto it for a while. First time I read it, it took me 2 1/2 months to get through.[/QUOTE]
Hear, hear. It's one thick mother, physically and mentally, but so far well worth the read. I've just past the half way marker after an inconsistent month and a half of reading, plus about a hundred pages of Evelyn Waugh ('Brideshead Revisited') thrown in the mix. I think the "be sure to have two book marks" advice is worth repeating. It's not exactly travel-friendly either, hence the Waugh interruption on a trip to Tokyo. Highly recommended, though. Brutally funny, raucously intelligent. Oh yeah, prepping for my life in the blurbs.

[QUOTE=jane s.]One of my personal favorites. But be perpared to hang onto it for a while. First time I read it, it took me 2 1/2 months to get through.[/QUOTE]

Some people won't try a book they think looks 'too long,' but if you groove on a book, it doesn't matter. It took me two months to get through Mason & Dixon, and I needed the help of the OED online almost constantly to parse it out. But I loved it.

With long books, if I don't get hooked in 50 pages or so, I walk away. Learned my lesson on Good Soldier Svejk, which is the kind of thing you should get college credit for suffering through. 750 pages, and it's only like 2/3 of what Hasek meant to do with it, and he died before he could finish or edit it. Plus, a translation, so there's that on top of it all.

And if a books short, nothing will save it if it bites. Jim Crace's 'Being Dead,' after a while, I felt like I was being dead reading it.

This Book Will Save Your Life by AM Holmes. It's making me want to eat donuts.

[QUOTE=Clem]This Book Will Save Your Life by AM Holmes. It's making me want to eat donuts.[/QUOTE]

That's a good one.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]That's a good one.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I'm enjoying it so far (especially after my trip to Krispy Kreme!).

It'll only get expensive if you try to eat salmon all the time like he's used to doing. Or if you start immitating some of the pricier adventures...

yeah, I reade zombie in one sitting yesterday. The stream of conciousness vibe of the whole book really added to the overall dark tone at the end. It was annoying at first, but when he finally nabs Squirrell I couldn't imagine it being as effective if it was written any other way.

[QUOTE=Tomacco04g]How can you people read so much shit at one time? Jebus.[/QUOTE]

I don't. I am a fast reader, so I usually have a monster pile of stuff and tend to get through it rather quickly. I read 3 books this last week: Zombie, Choke, and I'll finish Ishmael (Daniel Quinn) tonight. I usually only read one thing at a time though. I can't multi-task in that.way. I always feel like something gets lost on me if I try to read too many things at once.

I'm also working on the collected works of Amy Hempel thanks to this site. In the last couple weeks I read Old School by Tobias Wolff, Jay Mcinerney's Bright Lights, Big City, and Raymond Carver's selected stories. Next on the list is this Baer character everyone has been fussing over...I'm on the wire about joining the intensive too. For those of you looking for a new read check out Ed Falco's Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha...sexy shorts.

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by HP Lovecraft

Finished Geek Love last night....awesome recommendation. Its definitely a book I will read again down the road.

After Michelle Tea, I have lined up: What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Demon Theory.

The former is such a great movie, the debut novel by Hedges seems destined for greatness; SGJ is hit and miss with me, but I loved ATBS so much I have to try it.

Which to try first?

I didn't even know What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a book!

I just started We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - very good so far.

Oh, I almost bought that!

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
by Stephen Fry

It's about how to write poetry. Very informative and detailed but still witty in a Fry like way.

After finding out Seeds of Fear was something like book 10 in a series of books (Horror short stories) I went and bought the set on ebay.

Just started book 1 : Hot Blood

[QUOTE=Clem]I didn't even know What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a book![/QUOTE]

Peter Hedges' debut. The author photo, he'd get carded for beer, maybe even for cigarettes.

[QUOTE=Clem]
I just started We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - very good so far.[/QUOTE]

That is a great book, keep meaning to check out her backlist. She has four or five earlier novels, but I think they're all OOP at this point.

[QUOTE=inkpen78]Finished Geek Love last night....awesome recommendation. Its definitely a book I will read again down the road.[/QUOTE]
is that one helluva cast of characters or what!

[QUOTE=Earthbound]The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by HP Lovecraft[/QUOTE]

The king of horror. H.P.'s stories scare the shit out of me.

Just started A Scanner Darkly the other day. It's my intro to Phillip K Dick and I'm digging it so far.

About half way through What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

I started reading Moon Palace by Paul Auster yesterday. Only read 20 or so pages in so it's mostly history of the characters like he tends to do. But I'm digging it.

P.S. - I loved Redneck Manifesto. Some parts were repetitive, but it really made me think about a lot of shit.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]I started reading Moon Palace by Paul Auster yesterday. Only read 20 or so pages in so it's mostly history of the characters like he tends to do. But I'm digging it.
[/QUOTE]

Heard an mp3 of Auster reading from, then work in progress, THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS. Dude can read man. Lemme know where MOON PALACE stands based on his other novels. (Which ones did you read btw)

Also, picked up a dirt cheap second hand copy of Richard Price's CLOCKERS from the infamous second hand bookstore.

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]is that one helluva cast of characters or what![/QUOTE]

I would love to pick Katherine Dunn's brain for a few hours.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]Heard an mp3 of Auster reading from, then work in progress, THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS. Dude can read man. Lemme know where MOON PALACE stands based on his other novels. (Which ones did you read btw)

Also, picked up a dirt cheap second hand copy of Richard Price's CLOCKERS from the infamous second hand bookstore.[/QUOTE]
Well if you remember - it was your pimping Auster that got me reading him. I've read New York Trilogy (which I loved) and The Oracle (which was even better - also a book club book). I have Leviathon on my shelf too - but I haven't read it yet.

Auster's style is just so different. I don't even know how to explain it. There will be this lengthy description and before you know it the description morphed into an action scene and you don't realize until you're dead in the middle of it. His style took a while to get used to, but once you start digging it - you start to expect it. That's what I like about him.

I have a hangover, so I'm not so sure that that made much sense.

Starting Ulysses tonight... who knows when I'll finish it!

[SIZE=1](is it good?)[/SIZE]

jack kerouac: lonesome traveller - pretty good, especially if you are on the road (no pun intended)

[QUOTE=The_Mouseketeer]
I should be done with IJ and I'll read:

"we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by philip gourevitch
[/QUOTE]

[U]We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families[/U] is a beautiful book. Though there were times when I had to take a break from it and chew over what I had just read.

After I'm done the summer reading for AP Lit, I'm going to read:

[U]Lolita[/U]- Nabokov (really excited about this one, I love his writing style)
[U]House of Leaves[/U]- Danielewski
[U]The Fountainhead[/U]- Rand

But seeing as how I still have 4 books to read for school (Including the 500+ pages of [U]All the King's Men[/U]) I probably won't get to these until September...

if you dig Orwells Why I Write, might want to also check out henry Miller's On writing
i'm a total whore for that book

This is my first post
Im reading PROZAC NATION by Elizabeth Wurtzel
im looking forward to picking your brains on some good books!

[QUOTE=Barca Boy]This is my first post
Im reading PROZAC NATION by Elizabeth Wurtzel
im looking forward to picking your brains on some good books![/QUOTE]
that reminds me i downloaded that flick about a year ago
probably should get around to watching it

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker]that reminds me i downloaded that flick about a year ago
probably should get around to watching it[/QUOTE]

It's not so great, all whinging and not enough insight into what's it like living with mental illness. The book might be better. For anyone who's into that kind of thing I would recommend seeing 'Girl, Interrupted' if they haven't already. Has anyone read the book of that?

This month I finished reading 'Underworld' by DeLillo which I thought was extraordinary.

I recently read 'River Out Of Eden' by Richard Dawkins, he's probably the most well known evolutionist and a personal idol of mine.

At the moment I'm reading Factotum, I saw the film a while back and I've been meaning to read the book. The films actually extremely true to the book.

DONE!!! Finished that beast Infinite Jest (and I'm well up for discussion if anybody is interested), promoted a bit of the lingo, and now moving on to more civilized tales of the English upperclass with Waugh and his Brideshead Revisited.