Now Reading

i haven't read the cobweb, but i really, really injoyed interface. stephenson's uncle kinda takes some of the nerdy edge off his writing, i think

incidentally:

    Quote

On July 8, 2009, Publisher's Marketplace released word that a deal had been struck for the publication of REAMDE, a new (Stephenson) novel. The deal was made by his lifelong literary agent Liz Darhansoff with publisher Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow. The novel is slated for publication in 2011.[4]

Holy crap, that's fantastic news.

And that title has some serious Sean & Rob to it.

  On 6/10/2010 at 8:02 PM, kaini said:

  On 6/10/2010 at 7:58 PM, baph said:

  On 6/10/2010 at 7:42 PM, impotentwhitecapitalist said:

  On 6/10/2010 at 4:26 AM, Yegg said:

I'm in the middle of re-reading Foucault's Pendulum and it's fun!

i saw this post and was immediately intrigued, thinking "shit a michele foucault book i've never seen or heard of", yet it turns out to be a book about another foucault i've just never heard of! nonetheless i was left just as intrigued after reading the plot summary of pendulum as i was upon being mistaken of the works original author lolz.

 

EDIT: i'm not sure how i've never heard of this book now... it seems very popular, lots of info on it.

 

The best part is once you've read it you're legally entitled to throw a hardcover version at people's heads when they mention that they think the Da Vinci Code is either well-written or well-researched. Since that happens frequently, you get a lot of no-liability battery opportunities.

 

it's also the more academic, less discordian cousin of illuminatus!

Yes, that's the best part!

umberto eco is such a master of this incredibly florid, detailed description thing; i seem to remember a description of an altar in the name of the rose being about five pages long in the trade paperback i was reading, and it was all completely fucking fantastic and tripped me the fuck out.

I enjoyed it a lot .

i recently got an amazon giftcard, so i'm looking for some good cyberpunk novels to buy. any suggestions?

I just started this and it's really great and weird in a good way

  On 6/11/2010 at 2:07 AM, kaini said:

umberto eco is such a master of this incredibly florid, detailed description thing; i seem to remember a description of an altar in the name of the rose being about five pages long in the trade paperback i was reading, and it was all completely fucking fantastic and tripped me the fuck out.

Since i read it i have never grabbed another Eco's work, because i need so much time to catch all the details and follow the rhythm of his writing. It's really brilliant.

  On 6/10/2010 at 8:23 PM, kaini said:

incidentally:

    Quote

On July 8, 2009, Publisher's Marketplace released word that a deal had been struck for the publication of REAMDE, a new (Stephenson) novel. The deal was made by his lifelong literary agent Liz Darhansoff with publisher Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow. The novel is slated for publication in 2011.[4]

Aw man I just came in my pants at work. i still haven't read Anathem, too much reading for school.

Currently reading:

Amy Chua - World on Fire

Ian Buruma - Inventing Japan

next up:

The Political Economy of Japan.

  On 6/29/2010 at 5:09 PM, Hoodie said:

i recently got an amazon giftcard, so i'm looking for some good cyberpunk novels to buy. any suggestions?

william gibson - neuromancer

neal stephenson - snow crash

bruce sterling, ed. - mirrorshades: the cyberpunk anthology

throw in some philip k. dick too, maybe valis or obviously do androids dream of electric sheep?

nearly finished cloud atlas

- i was a bit meh at first, but once it gets going, it gets going.

the structure is very clever and original, but the way you see the structure reflected in little bits of plot and exposition here and there is even more clever

- but more importantly it's a right page-turner as well.

  On 6/30/2010 at 9:19 PM, xxx said:

First, I just happened to read about Tolstoy's totally fucking weird trajectory from aristocracy to strict religious asceticism and parts of his life story sort of resonated with me. My father-in-law: wealthy, single and likely looking to draw the ladies in, bought this massive, leather-bound, gold-leafed set of "books-one-ought-to-know-about" e.g. Odyssey, Iliad, Great Expectations, etc. I noticed that "Anna Karenina" was in there and then reading that the entire fucking world thinks it's the best fucking novel ever so I've been givin' 'er a go a page at a time since summer school gets most of my time. Sure enough, it sucks you right in. I can just "taste" some Russian-English translation issues but still a great read thus far.

you should stay russian and read some solzhenitsyn after - cancer ward; or maybe the gulag archipelago (if you're after something a bit more cheerful, lol)

If you're gonna stay Russian and read Solzhenitsyn I would respectfully disagree with kaini and suggest this bad bwoy right here:

that is also a perfectly respectable alternative

after cloud atlas, i think i'll try austerlitz again - it'll be my third attempt but cloud atlas segues nicely into the weird proto-danielwskiness of austerlitz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerlitz_(novel)

again like tolstoy and solzhenitsyn he's an author translated (this time german to english) and i get the feeling the translation is like a filter on the perception.

and with this book, that's very interesting to me because sebald does loads of fucking about with typography and images and such... maybe some jonathan safran foer in there too.

goddamn read some Dostoyevsky

that's some prime cut right there

raskolnikov

re-reading bill bryson's 'a short history of nearly everything', as i do every couple of years. the best overview of the history of science ever written for the layman, imo. this book should be used in every secondary school in the world.

recently read Breakfast for Champions and Clockwork Orange

reading Kafkas Trial, good but not very captivating

i need something that results in:

suggestions?

  On 7/9/2010 at 8:52 PM, viscosity said:

recently read Breakfast for Champions and Clockwork Orange

 

reading Kafkas Trial, good but not very captivating

 

i need something that results in:

 

suggestions?

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsi

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

Someone recommend me some Delillo, I've already read White Noise and loved it.

Oprah told me to read One Hundred Years of Solitude... so of course I didn't.

then I read a GGM short story and it was good so I finally picked up One Hundred Years last week, and it turns out it's really good

damn you oprah

  On 7/9/2010 at 9:19 PM, Candiru said:

  On 7/9/2010 at 8:52 PM, viscosity said:

recently read Breakfast for Champions and Clockwork Orange

 

reading Kafkas Trial, good but not very captivating

 

i need something that results in:

 

suggestions?

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsi

 

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

anything burroughs? or bob dylan's "tarantula"

  On 7/13/2010 at 11:03 AM, dese manz hatin said:

  On 7/9/2010 at 9:19 PM, Candiru said:

  On 7/9/2010 at 8:52 PM, viscosity said:

recently read Breakfast for Champions and Clockwork Orange

 

reading Kafkas Trial, good but not very captivating

 

i need something that results in:

 

suggestions?

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsi

 

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

anything burroughs? or bob dylan's "tarantula"

books that don't make sense

just finishing..