Now Reading in the New New Year

[Sir Stewart]

Just started Patti Smith's Just Kids.

[GtrPlyr]

Just started Patti Smith's Just Kids.

I got that one from the library a few months back. By the time I got around to starting it I'd run out of renewals and had to return it. Anyhow, I've got it back now and I'm about 30 pages in.

[Moss]

 

This is really good so far. I love the post apocolyptic stuff.

[welch79]

halfway through

and enjoying it. anybody read his others? this is my first one of his.

[kidsmoke]

 

I would totally love to read this! It's going on the list.

 

 

halfway through

and enjoying it. anybody read his others? this is my first one of his.

 

Tropper is brilliant! I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my reading list. I strongly recommend "How to Talk to a Widower"...just fantastic. I've also heard that "The Book of Joe" is wonderful.

 

If you like Tropper, I have a few authors I could recommend who are along the same lines, which I guess I would describe as being both funny and poignant at the same time. A lot of authors try for that blend, but only a few do it really well.

[jimmyjimmy]

 

This is an odd one for me.

I like the premise. Many of the overall elements of the story are solid but some of the language seems forced and a bit pretentious. It skips around a bit going backwards and forwards which results in getting a bit off track. And although I would have imagined putting it down and not coming back to it on more than one occasion I've very nearly completed it.

[Good Old Neon]

[Analogman]

The Hunt for Atlantis

The Tomb of Hercules

The Secret of Excalibur

The Covenant of Genesis

-Andy McDermott

 

You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup

-Peter Doggett

 

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos (Rock of Ages)

-Jan Reid

 

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

-David Bianculli

[knotgreen]

fellow readers, is anyone planning on attending any of the new yorker festival events in october? kind of bummed that most are sold out. frantically searching craigslist/ebay...

 

oh and i'm currently reading jonathan franzen's novel strong motion. ~100 pages in and enjoying it. as a massachusetts native i'm really getting a kick out of his descriptions of somerville/ boston area.

[alison the wilca]

[The High Heat]

[Oil Can Boyd]

[Sir Stewart]

Well, is it the greatest thing that ever happened ever, or what?

[Oil Can Boyd]

Well, is it the greatest thing that ever happened ever, or what?

It's all that and a little bit more.

 

Actually I am enjoying it. I remember reading The Corrections and thinking that I really liked the book and at the same time really disliked all of the characters. This has some of that same feeling but it is very well done. It's a fairly bleak view of America or at least a certain segment of America of which, frankly, I am probably a part.

 

Oh and as I mentioned in another thread Wilco and Tweedy are mentioned a bunch of times.

[Wendy]

I'll be picking this up soon ... love David Sedaris.

 

[Oil Can Boyd]

I'll be picking this up soon ... love David Sedaris.

I'm going to see him read tonight.

[gogo]

I remember reading The Corrections and thinking that I really liked the book and at the same time really disliked all of the characters.

Yes. Those books always make me sad. I'm going to read the new one anyway, even though I know this going in.

 

 

I'm going to see him read tonight.

Saw him reading from that a few months ago.

[welch79]

Tropper is brilliant! I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my reading list. I strongly recommend "How to Talk to a Widower"...just fantastic. I've also heard that "The Book of Joe" is wonderful.

 

If you like Tropper, I have a few authors I could recommend who are along the same lines, which I guess I would describe as being both funny and poignant at the same time. A lot of authors try for that blend, but only a few do it really well.

i will take you up on that offer of author recs.

 

halfway through

 

and liking it! interesting writing...so far has really captured interoffice relationships well.

[kidsmoke]

i will take you up on that offer of author recs.

 

 

Ok, try these. They are all terrific!

 

BASED ON THE MOVIE by Billy Taylor (One of the funniest things I've ever read. Had me roaring. )

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES by Jonathan Miles

STRAIGHT MAN by Richard Russo

WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon

 

That's all that's coming to mind at the moment, but they'll keep you for awhile. Wonderful, wonderful books! By the way, I picked up "This Is Where I Leave You" on your recommendation, and of course LOVED it. So thanks!

 

EDIT: Late additions, equally incredibly great:

 

LIGHTHOUSE by William Monahan

CIVILWARLAND IN BAD DECLINE by George Saunders

[welch79]

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES by Jonathan Miles

oh! i almost got this one! i'll def. get it now.

 

thanks for the recs, and glad you liked the tropper.

 

this thread has really inspired me to read more since about june...now it's become a habit again. in fact, yesterday, i found myself "fantasizing" about when i would be able to sit down and read. that's when you know you are getting older...

 

no matter. it makes me happy!

[Reni]

 

I just started this and it has sucked me in.

[kidsmoke]

That looks intriguing, Kate! What's it about?

 

Any T.C. Boyle fans here? I've been on a grand T.C. Boyle binge. What an amazing writing range the guy has. I've just read "Budding Prospects" (about a group of guys who decide to farm marijuana in a remote area of Northern CA....some very funny shit) and "The Road to Wellville", about the Kellogg (he of the cornflake) sanitarium of Battle Creek, MI, in the early 1900's, and the health movement of the times. And all the bizarre hucksters trying to get in on the breakfast food craze, and all the even more bizarre "health" treatments being used. Wow. Fascinating characters and plots that move along briskly and sweep you up in them. Just great stuff. Now I'm in the thick of his first novel, the rollicking, rampaging "Water Music" which puts me in mind of some of Tom Robbins' best stuff. Deeply funny and truly original.

 

I read "Riven Rock" awhile back, that was brilliant too. I recommend T. Coraghessan Boyle heartily.

 

Didn't several people on this board rave about "Drop City" awhile back? I haven't read that yet, but mean to.

[Reni]

Hi Donna! yeah, a lot of people were raving about Drop City awhile back. I picked it up at a library book sale, but it is still sitting on my "to read" shelf.

 

Room is written from the point of view of a 5-year-old boy, Jack. His mother was kidnapped 7 years ago and they live in an 11x11 room. The writing is really interesting, because it is through the little games they play and through him just talking about their daily lives (in an innocent way) that you learn about the circumstances in which they live. He has never lived outside of the room, so their life has a normative quality, to him. There is real life and then there's TV life. So, he'll say things like, "spiders are real; rabbits are TV," because he's never seen a rabbit.

 

It takes a little bit to get used to his voice, but you'll fall in love with it. I was thinking of you, Donna, when I posted this book. I think you'd really like it.

[kidsmoke]

Hi Donna! yeah, a lot of people were raving about Drop City awhile back. I picked it up at a library book sale, but it is still sitting on my "to read" shelf.

 

Room is written from the point of view of a 5-year-old boy, Jack. His mother was kidnapped 7 years ago and they live in an 11x11 room. The writing is really interesting, because it is through the little games they play and through him just talking about their daily lives (in an innocent way) that you learn about the circumstances in which they live. He has never lived outside of the room, so their life has a normative quality, to him. There is real life and then there's TV life. So, he'll say things like, "spiders are real; rabbits are TV," because he's never seen a rabbit.

 

It takes a little bit to get used to his voice, but you'll fall in love with it. I was thinking of you, Donna, when I posted this book. I think you'd really like it.

 

That sounds fascinating, Kate! I'm putting it on my reading list now. I wonder if it was written prior to the case of Jaycee Dugard and her 2 daughters, born in captivity to her kidnapper. (Jaycee's mom worked at a local high school where my husband was also working, right up until Jaycee was found. Of course she left when jaycee was found, to care for her daughter & granddaughters.) It's hard to imagine how the world looks to someone raised in so constrained a space! I'm reminded of that awful case with multiple children in Germany, or maybe Czechoslovakia? Those poor kids also lived like the child in "Room".

[Reni]

Robin is the one who gave me the book and I asked her if she knew if it was inspired by Jaycee Duggard. She said this was written before Jaycee was found, but might have been inspired by the case in Germany. The more I read it, the more I love it.