minx Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 i'm just finishing up the recent bunch of books that i've been reading and it's time for a trip to the library/bookstore. what have you read recently that has held your attention. i am not interested in something that might have a few esotericaly interesting tidbits but something you couldn't wait to pick up again. i don't care if it's fiction, history, science, biography, whatever. i know there's been book threads but i don't want to wade through them. i'm lazy Quote
EWolfe Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 Gaviotas: A Village To Reinvent The World Quote
mtngrrrl Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 OK, it might sound hokey, but from the couldn't put down category of fiction, 1)The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., 2)Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe, and 3)The Last Great Dance on Earth by Sandra Gulland, historical fiction about Josephine Bonaparte. And I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I had to force myself to put it down to make it last. Quote
sobo Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. I listed it in one of the recent "whutchyareading?" threads. Fahq'n hilarious! Couldn't wait to get back to it, hard to set it down. Read it over a weekend. Quote
sk Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.... Quote
minx Posted September 12, 2003 Author Posted September 12, 2003 thanks everyone! i'm going to pick some of these up this w/e. i've got a voracious appetite for books so please keep them coming hope everyone has a weekend! Quote
Toast Posted September 12, 2003 Posted September 12, 2003 Fiction Storytelling: Yann Martel, Life of Pi World Events: Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy Both Quote
glen Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 Monkey Wrench gang by ed abbey. Long live Hayduke! Quote
Dru Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 Coincidentally I just finished reading "The Brave Cowboy" by Ed Abbey. Jack Burns lives! Quote
nolanr Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 Dru said: Coincidentally I just finished reading "The Brave Cowboy" by Ed Abbey. Jack Burns lives! I read that, didn't like it all that much as far as Abbey books go, but I would recommend "A Fool's Progress." I think it was his last novel written, and it's not hard to imagine it's somewhat autobiographical. Quote
Dru Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 Actually "Hayduke Lives!" is his last novel. He finished it on his deathbed and it was never really edited, just rushed to print. Quote
Dan_Harris Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 All of Bill Bryson's books are LOL hilarious. Quote
Thrashador Posted September 13, 2003 Posted September 13, 2003 Nick Hornby's books: Fever Pitch High Fidelity About A Boy Quote
chucK Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 Fast Food Nation surprisingly riveting! Quote
Billygoat Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 The Last Blue Mountain by Ralph Barker==gripping A Short History Of Nearly Everthing by Bill Bryson=compelling Stone Palaces by Geoff Childs=written in a very unique voice Quote
kitten Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 Cosmo... Ummmmmmm does that count for a good book? It has women, men, sex, and all that other stuff like letters & words & such... Quote
Beck Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 a strong second for Mount Analogue or one of Daumals other seminal classics, "A Night of Serious Drinking", in my mind some of the most compelling, contemplative fiction ever written. up there with that seagull story, but with drinks and cigars and stuff... the real question is, what do you LIKE to read? for narrative nonfiction, ANYthing by John McPhee is excellent, go look at his books, you will find something you are interested. I recommend his stories about alaska, the birch bark canoe, all his rock books if you like a lot of pages, the swiss military, encounters with the arch druid, the one on atomic weapons is scary, and the control of nature is one of the more impressive yet disenheartinging tales of human woe and triumph its incredible. oh and the one about the merchant marine.... travel, go with Paul Theroux (sp?) or the classic american one, "Travels with charely" by john steinbeck, or the travel book written by Ian Fleming, or one of the first travel books from the japanese poet, Bassho, called "Long Road to the Interior" if you like more contemplative. non fiction , McPhee; fiction, Daumal (but he is very hard to find in the average bookstore) or about 500 other authors. what do you like to read? what style, what types? Quote
Beck Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 (edited) glaughh! don't get me started about books, I'm the biggest book worm you will ever run into (I'm sooo bad!!!) for a great classic look at books, get a last whole earth catalog from the late 60's -early70's. its filled with great ideas... the new whole earth catalog is okay as well... i read, or scanned, EVERY non fiction book at the childrens library one summer when I was 9 or something ( I made it a point of it!) , and I've never stopped reading... one year as a teen i lived in room that was a 4,000 volume library. it was put togther by a philosophy professor. i lived there in the attic library with her daughter. it was very educational! I could walk up to a Dewey Decimal arranged roomfull of books and read about anything! what a treat!!! I am such a nerd! my tastes in fiction, russian industrialists of the stalinist era, french surrealists from about the same time, classic early fictions like ones by Rabelais, Dumas, Chaucer, Doyle for early mysteries, Poe for macabe. many good authors from the french enlightenment period as well. early american authors are very inspiring in their intamacy with nature. James Fenimore Cooper is plabulos to read, i still want a floating fort out in the middle of the adirondacks with canoe ports and canons and indian loyalists... Muir mentions the deforestation around Seattle in his early writings about the Seattle area, and climbed rainier in wool and hobnails... also, try Mark Twain.... he is great! as is saroyan, steinbeck, faulkner, chandler, and for humor, thurber.. best humor writer america has ever seen but from 80 years ago American Folk history in the retelling of tales is also so rich.... who knows the term "prarie schooner" don't forget to look at great photo books out there, like Ashael Curtis ' book on Seattle, also Diane Arbus if you like freaks, and many great nature photogs as well... oh, and the american post WWII Beat phenomenon bears some serious schooling, let me just recommend "Desolation Angels" by Jack Kerouac if you love the North Cascades (top ten best mountain reading EVER!) plus ...... hmmm.... i can't really ....... ............ Edited September 14, 2003 by Beck Quote
RuMR Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 The Mother Tongue...great book...pretty interesting... Yosemite Free Climbs... Quote
thol Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 Anything by Chuck Palahniuk, especially Survivor Quote
murraysovereign Posted September 14, 2003 Posted September 14, 2003 (edited) Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is probably my favourite of the "classics". And, although it may have lost some of its immediacy with the end of Apartheid, Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country" is a pretty powerful read. As others have pointed out, anything by Bill Bryson is well worth the price of admission. I never would have read "The Mother Tongue" but the subtitle intrigued me: "English, and how it got that way." Edited September 14, 2003 by murraysovereign Quote
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