January 2010 Happy New Year and Im reading...
Just got The Lost Symbol for Christmas.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
You see, this is why we need a facepalm emoticon.
Just finished cat's cradle, so I'm looking for a new Vonnegut. Prolly Breakfast of Champs.
Also, I'm about 3/4 done with contortionist's handbook. Boy, what a ride
Still reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Moby Fucking Dick, You Niggers!
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink.
"The sun may burn brightly, and the faces of children may be plump and achingly sweet, but in the air we breathe, in the water we drink and in the food we share, there will always be darkness in the world."
I'm reading "The Search For Modern China" by Johnathan Spence. An extremely long but really fantastic book about the last few centuries of Chinese history. I'll be working on this one for a long time.
Oy. I don't remember posting that at all.
It is what I'm reading though.
It is what I'm reading though.
Had a good New Years then? lol
Bottle of rum and a Cuban cigar. only thing that coulda made it better was a naked woman on my lap.
...but instead he had to make do with a cat.
damn thing scratched me all to hell...
I'm reading Crime and Punishment, but I put it down for two days after Christmas to read The Lovely Bones because my kids bought it for me for Christmas (meaning, I picked it out myself and wrapped it and put it under the tree). It was good. Crime and Punishment is....challenging, to say the least. I liked The Brothers Karamazov better (so far).
Im about to start my girlfriend Comes to the City to Beat Me Up.
Choke by Chuck. So far I'm really digging it. I have to wrap it up pretty fast b/c next week I gotta read White Noise by Don DeLillo for a fiction class. Fun fun 
"[B]eing good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two." - Ray Bradbury
I, Fatty by Jerry Stahl.
I'm rereading Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi for an essay, and enjoying it as much as the first time.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
I've been reading THE NEVERENDING STORY. I really like the move, always have. So, that, mixed with the book's metafiction aspect, I was eager to dive in. So far, the fantasy genre elements are a bit much (there is a lot of contrivance based around magic; the names of the characters are stupid; dialog is all high-flautin'), but I'm enjoying myself. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get in fantasy books.
Vurt by Jeff Noon
I'm reading Hyperspace by Michio Kaku which is a pretty quick read considering the content. I also picked up the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson - I'm normally not a Sci-Fi reader, but this is about terraforming mars, which interests me.
Think for yourself. Question Authority.
ugh, that book bored me to tears.
Maybe I should give it another chance though, because I remember Americana boring me to tears also, but I was thinking about it the other day and remembering bits and pieces, going "yeah, okay, I enjoyed that part, but everything else was boring...well, except that other part." and so on and so on.
I should reread them both.
That looks really interesting, thanks! I added it to my Amazon cart to purchase once I've finished Dan Chaon's backlist: You Remind Me of Me (novel), Fitting Ends (stories), Among the Missing (stories).
I recommended Chaon's 'Await Your Reply' to Stephen Graham Jones, and he read it in a day, recommending Steve Wright's Going Native right back at me. So, that's in the Amazon cart too.
Oh, and I've been reading 30 minutes from the Encyclopedia Brown series with my nephew every day.
I finished 'A Dark Matter' by Peter Straub and it was pretty good. I'll read another book of his sometime.
ugh, that book bored me to tears.
Maybe I should give it another chance though, because I remember Americana boring me to tears also, but I was thinking about it the other day and remembering bits and pieces, going "yeah, okay, I enjoyed that part, but everything else was boring...well, except that other part." and so on and so on.
I should reread them both.
I've only read Underworld by DeLillo. Quite lengthy, but amazing. I have Cosmopolis on my shelf right now. Maybe I'll have to skip White Noise.
Yes, this. As soon as I get through the Tin House anniversary ish, which assembles a ton of great writers.
Finished House of Leaves - not bad.
Just started Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite.
I am frightened and/or ashamed!
edit: that was about my book, not the PoopyRainbowBrite thing.
nah, this is just an arc of sorts to get me to a brutal second draft.
going through pretty much all of paulo coelho's books , currently on my 4th- eleven minutes, all, so far, are excellent.
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Just finished Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy.
"My hopes lay shattered like a mirror on the floor
I see myself and I look really scattered
But I lived my broken dreams"
- Daniel Johnston
That looks really interesting, thanks! I added it to my Amazon cart
I absolutely love it. I love it so much that I'm risking getting a poor grade on my essay by writing about the book and not about its avant garde aspects, which is what the course is about. I don't care, I love that book.
It's basically a Japanese version of Lolita.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
Safelight by Shannon Burke.
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Players on Titan by Philip K Dick
That looks really interesting, thanks! I added it to my Amazon cart
I absolutely love it. I love it so much that I'm risking getting a poor grade on my essay by writing about the book and not about its avant garde aspects, which is what the course is about. I don't care, I love that book.
It's basically a Japanese version of Lolita.
Now I really can't wait to read it. But don't risk your paper, please, you can write a review of of it for us, AND a suitable paper for your class, tada! 
'Don't Cry' by Mary Gaitskill should arrive today, if not, gonna start 'Beat the Reaper' by Josh Bazell
Excellent.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
Im rereading Survivor by Chuck P, so far Im loving it and want to reread Choke and Invisble Monsters soon.
The Cave by Tim Krabbe, I love this guys books.
The Broken Places by Susan Perabo.
So over the past couple of weeks I've read:
-Saramago's 'Blindness', which I thought was pretty good. I like the film too and I can't really understand why people who loved the book would hate the film, it's virtually a direct adaptation.
-'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I absolutely loved. I had read Never Let Me Go, which I thought had some good ideas but I didn't really like it, mainly because it's written in a very flat, dull style. But I had heard that this was a conscious choice for that particular book and Thesillian made Unconsoled seem interesting, so I gave it a go and I thought it was brilliant. It's like a massively extended dream-sequence. A famous pianist is in a city to perform at a kind of conference, but his preparations keep getting side-tracked by the demands of the people around him, who all seem to be suffering from some kind of family disfunction. The world expands and contracts, and characters show up and then disappear for long stretches, but overall the themes gradually develop and build up a picture of the meaning behind it. It's fantastic.
I also got a book about the 20th century by a fairly famous historian. He's called Niall Ferguson and I'd seen him on TV a few times and I'd been pretty impressed. I think the book was called Humanity Is Scum - A Thouroughly Depressing History Of The 20th Century (it was actually called War of The World - Histories Age of Hatred). It taught me a lot that I didn't know about WW1 and WW2, but everything that came after that was very condensed, I was hoping for a bit more recent history.
I think next I'll be reading Falling Man, by DeLillo.
I'm reading On Killing and Odel.
Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R Lansdale
One of three books I received this Christmas about Nazis. Jolly!
It's very good so far.
Jealous! 
Let me know if they're any good.
That was my first Saramago. If you liked it, definitely read his other stuff. I have yet to be disappointed by the man (I've read All the Names, Blindness, and The Double).
I did quite like it, although I found the writing style to be a bit grating. I'm actually quite interested in finding the sequel to Blindness, it's called 'Seeing' (I'm serious).
The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Susan Churchwell.
I too thought that was a joke when I first heard it. But the descriptions of the book online make it seem pretty damn good, actually.
Peter Straub: 'A Dark Matter'
It's the first Peter Straub book I've read and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.
I read 'Await Your Reply' by Dan Chaon in a day and it blew my mind. I plan on reading his three other books as soon as I get my hands on them.
I started 'Chronic City' by Jonathan Lethem, but set it aside for now. It's great, but I'm not in the right mood.