June, Summer is here and I'm reading...

Portrait of an artist as an old man- joseph heller

I'm still plugging away at The Road when I'm at home... but I've been working so much lately and I haven't had a day off in a week and a half right now. So it's been slow going. I'm over halfway done though.

While I'm at work I've been switching between Honored Guest by Joy Williams and Unnatural Death by Michael Baden.

I thought I was going to like Honored Guest more because I absolutely loved The Quick and The Dead by her. In fact I recommended that book in a book swap recommendation thing we did a while back.

Unnatural Death is pretty much sweet. It's basically a medical examiner case book. Michael Baden is the ME who had that autopsy show on HBO. It's a really good book.

you mean James Joyce right?

I thought his was "as a young man?"

shit. kids grow up so fast these days! i missed everything!

also, what's that new sig nate? guiness book entry for eldest thread ever?

it's from those dark, early days of drupal when there were all kinds of screwy things going on.

James Joyce wrote Portrait of an Artist as a young man.

Joseph Heller has a novel named "Portrait of an artist as an old man"

i know
when im in full blown insomniac mode my eyes tend to read the first few words of things and fill in the blanks on others. sometimes it doesnt work very well.

I just finished Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell. It was actually pretty good, a really fast read. Before that I read Plainclothes Naked by Jerry Stahl, and now I'm working on Clown Girl. On hold for me at the library are I, Fatty, Filth: a novel, and The road. When I finish with all these, I think I'm going to attempt Pygmy again- it's the only one of Chuck's books I haven't read yet (I did try, though), and am waiting until I'm done with my semester to try it again. I just didn't have enough time to read it before.

Two days ago I finished Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson, which was really neat.

Now I'm back to On The Beach... Ugh, torture. And yet, I'm determined to finish it. I'm a fool, I know.

Im starting The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

Yesterday, I picked up Hey Nostradamus! by Coupland, I'll probably get through it quickly. I'm starting The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin after.

The Picture of Dorian Gray for book club - I got shot emphatically shot down for suggesting Lolita... pretty sure the club thinks I'm a perv now

Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault - this is school related but what a good book about the birth of the prison system

Stepford Wives is good too.

'hey nostradamus' is the only coupland book i like. i think i read it in a couple of days, it was a good one.

I'm not reading The Beach, but ON The Beach.

I really enjoyed Beat the Reaper. There's a photo of me reading it somewhere...

Oh, right. My reading buddy OWL stole it from me for a bit. Great book for being his first. I enjoyed it even more when I found out he was in med school as he wrote it. Fitting

Clown Girl was LOVELY. I hope you enjoy it.

Clown Girl!!!! Monica Drake ran an Intensive here and shes super sweet. My claim to fame is I send he candy twice a year and because I only ever send pics of Cujo she thinks Im a cat!

i was talking to monica awhile back and learned that she grew up 10 minutes from where i live. she worked at the burger king just off the highway.

it gave me hope, knowing that someone so luminous came out of this town.

I did the Monica Drake intensive. She was really nice.

I'm just about finished with Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust, and after that I'm going to finish Flaubert's Sentimental Education.

On The Beach by Nevil Shute =
The Beach by Alex Garland =
-the film of this = ?

nathaniel parker wrote:

tourist_information wrote:

-the film of this =

it's especially creepy if you get high and watch it at like 1 in the morning.

the beach, or on the beach?
i've watched on the beach, but not the beach. i wish gregory peck were still around.

On the Beach.
I guess The Beach would be creepy too if you get high and watch it at 1 AM as well.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche.

Oh, right. My reading buddy OWL stole it from me for a bit. Great book for being his first. I enjoyed it even more when I found out he was in med school as he wrote it. Fitting

Clown Girl was LOVELY. I hope you enjoy it.

Yeah, I loved it because that's where I'm headed.

Love the owl, and Clown Girl was fantastic. I really got lost in it....

I loved Clown Girl so much. After talking with her a little I think I have an author crush on Monica Drake - she's pretty great. Grew up in my childhood stomping grounds. She even sent me on a MISSION I can't wait for her next book. There are some great short stories of hers online:

see you later, fry-o-later

stomping grounds

one night

I'm on a Neil Gaiman kick right now. Having just discovered him, I'm enjoying his work. I started with Coraline, which was fun, then listened to "Neverwhere" audio book (highly recommended!), and just finished the first four Sandman collections (the fourth was my favorite so far). I'm thinking of either "Children of Dune" or "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." I've seen the latter advertised on the site, anyone read it?

I finally finished The Road. I can say that I was a little bewildered by people's responses to it... until the last 4 pages or so. And then I was just about in tears. I'll be posting my thoughts in the Book Club tonight hopefully.

Started Tours of the Black Clock by Steve Erickson. I've been meaning to read this since Craig Clevenger said something about it years ago. But when he said that I had just finished an Erickson kick and really couldn't read anything else by him for a while. Now is the time.

Also I can't stop reading the reviews of this shirt on amazon.

Read them here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Wolf-T-Shirt/dp/B000NZW3KC/ref=...

Of Three Wolves Howling at the Moon!

Did you read any of the reviews? There are over 1000 and they are all hilarious!

I just read the ones shown on that page and saw there were 1,162 more.
All of them are probably posted on the same day too I bet.
I wonder what the seller thinks reading all them.
Hilarious!

i just finished the curious incident of the dog at night time. thank you for the book, mirka i wont do a full review here, but it was very enjoyable.

next up, anthem by ayn rand.

PGoutis01 wrote:
Also I can't stop reading the reviews of this shirt on amazon.

Read them here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Wolf-T-Shirt/dp/B000NZW3KC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1246034037&sr=8-1

check these out:
http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/dp/B00032G1S0/ref=cm_...

http://www.amazon.com/Zubaz-Pants/dp/B000WVXM0W/ref=cm_cr_pr_mention_t

Especially the first one for the milk: the guy rewrote The Raven for this milk -- it's not bad either.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

The milk ones are funny in a whole different way.

I saw the pants one. Believe it or not - when you type in "Three Wolves Shirt" the pants come up along with a bunch of other stuff that have posted funny things to. But not the milk.

That is TOO funny. I laughed out loud more than a few times at the wolf shirt and zebracorn pants... hilarious!

I read that a week or so ago - what do you think? (I'm betting on hated it!)

i just started the song is you by a phillips. it's an unusual choice for me, but it kind of broadsided me when i was browsing at the bookstore. interesting book, six chapters in. i haven't read any of his previous stuff, which hasn't reviewed very well, but i'm impressed so far by the author's ability to paint things with his words that others would leave a splattered mess.

plus, i've never before seen the phrase 'erotic balloonery' used quite so well!

Discipline and Punish by Foucault - good so far and easy as far as French theory goes

Media Unlimied by Gitlin - easy read and entertaining

The Picture of Dorian Gray - I read this once in high school... don't remember it being this gay. And not gay in an offensive way but seriously like boy on boy gay.

I had such high hopes for this book since it was by Gillermo Pans Labrynth Del Toro but it let me down. I mean if people are still going to write about Vampires could they at least lend a bit of originality to it.
By originality I dont mean sparkly vampires.

Speaking of Guillermo Del Toro, I arrived into Dublin airport last week and spotted the book. I thought Wow that Del Toro guy was great in The Usual Suspects! Im gonna buy his book. It wasn't until I was halfway to Tuam that I realised it wasnt the Put The Gun Down Motherfucker dude but the I'm a Spanish director dude.

I dont need Eddy to turn up and call me an idiot.

I did the exact same thing! Well, not exact but everytime I read about people reading this book, I pictured Benicio Del Toro as the dog-faced boy in Big Top Pee Wee... EVERY TIME!

Oh Boy I have a story about this one too!

You know that Irish radio channel 2fm, well each week they give away a free book. About 5 years ago I rang in quick enough and they sent me a copy of Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke. The deal was I had to read it and have a review done in 4 days.

I read half of it and it was shit, seriously bad. I couldnt finish it. Later in the week a girl from the radio show rang me and asked how it was?

I said, it would have been less painfull if you made me eat it (It was a hardback), to clarify, It was shit.

She said Ok but i really cant say that on a daytime radioshow. In the end she hung up on me and the following week they read out all the reviews and said Derek from Tuam gave it 3 stars and siad it had its moments.

They still havent answered my calls.