I’ve been spending my free time on Amazon trying to find something interesting to read and have come up with nothing. Most of you gorgeous readers out there are smart and have good taste, so please help me out and give me some ideas. No porn please.
Funny side note: The whistler started her whistling this morning while leaning back in her chair and I looked up at her (with the death rays fully loaded) just in time to see her blow a giant blob of snot out of her nose. She jumped up startled and tipped her chair over, falling. I ran away from my desk and went into a stairwell to LAUGH MY ASS OFF. Oh, it was beautiful. I just got back and I keep giggling. See, I think my mental telepathy is working on her. Whistling=a snotty fall from your chair. **insert evil laughter**
Here’s the annoying update cause I can’t remember shit anymore: Um, I forgot to tell you all that I was once a Manager at Barnes and Noble and my section of the store was Fiction, Biography, Memoirs, Poetry, Philosphy and Essays. I will tell you all that I’m kind of a book snob. I read Joyce and Foucault for fun. Now, I do read my share of rubbish (like Bridget Jones and Marian Keyes and Harry Potter) but for the most part I like really really well-written books. So, if an author puts out a book a year you can count on me not wanting to read it. I’m a pain in the ass that way.
Thank you so much for your suggestions.
sage is the most prolfic reader I know I am sure he will give you something.
I am reading a book about Bono right now. I love U2 but this book is just so f’ing dull. I have no idea how a whole book can be an interview and I can just read the question and skip the answer because its been gone over and over.
When in doubt my wife always goes with some trashy biography.
i can give you a few of my favorites:
–fiction
1. “a prayer for owen meany” by john irving. best novel i’ve ever read.
2. “extremely loud an incredibly close” by jonathan safran foer. heartbreakingly good.
3. “the little prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. a relationship fable for adults, although it is actually listed as a kids book.
–non-fiction
1. “expecting adam” by martha beck. all i can say is, holy sh*t, this book is magical.
2. “a heartbreaking work of staggering genius” by dave eggers. funny and touching.
3. anything by sarah vowell.
good luck!
Thanks Dim. Your blog isn’t dull.
Hotwire: I read all of the fiction ones, I read the Little Prince in french. How cool am I? Um, never mind. No, I will look into Expecting Adam and the Sarah Vowell books. Thanks a bunch.
If you haven’t already, you have to read Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock. Cheap and addicting. Like me!
Anyway, it’s the first in a series of books and is a really fascinating read presented in an interesting format.
You’ll dig, I think.
- D.
I will go through my bookshelf when I get home and find something for you.
I tend to look at Powells.com for hints on good books. They have a great selection. You can then head over to Amazon and get them cheaper! I’m sly that way.
Patricia Cornwell, though you have to start from the beginning. I love love love her.
Dim: Read it and all of the other books in the series. They are very good.
Hotdrwife: I’m going there now.
Softball: Thanks.
hey, i’ve admitted to being a book snob in the past, so don’t apologize. one i forgot was “night country” by stewart o’nan.
hotwire: We book snobs are the best. I’ll right that one down.
People, I just had a strawberry shortcake ice cream stick thingy from Jack and Jill. And I have to say, YUMMMMM…artificial strawberry flavor is awesome.
know what you mean snob; if it’s on a best seller list i seldom read it. (a friend left me dan brown books, god they’re horribly written)
anyway; dostoevsky, sartre (especially the iron in the soul trilogy, or nausea), henry miller (especially the colossus of maroussi), tom robbins, terry pratchett, solzhenitsyn, milan kundera, jm coetzee, isabel allende, diamela eltit (el infarto del alma) and loads more but seeing as though you’re a snob you’ve probably read them and i wont try and show off with anything more obscure cos that would be, well, snobbish of me.
by the way, if you read joyce for fun (foucault ok) but joyce, for fun. woah girl…
Papamamba: Yes, I’ve read most almost all of the authors on that list. I LOVE Isabel Allende. I like reading her in Spanish. It seems to flow better. As for my reading Joyce for fun…even though I portray myself as a complete idiot on this blog, I’m certainly not one in real life. The people who know me will tell you that.
never doubted it…
what about la vita nuova? seems like it might be right up your alley…
Sage: That’s a good one. Didn’t think of Dante.
Have you read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger? The synopsis sounds a bit hokey, but this is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I’ve never steered you wrong, have I? Go, read it.
you ever see “hannibal”? a rare successful book-to-film transfer; the opera scene using la vita nuova as libretto was quite well done.
Portland: I loved that book. It was so beautifully written.
Sage: Yes, it was.
Um, I just read over some of my responses to your comments and there are two things I noticed: March, I called you Dim. Please forgive me. I’m losing it. And for someone who edits things, I used the wrong write (I used the right). Dumb dumb dumb. That’s what I am anymore.
ooo i hate to say this but sometimes march can be quite dim….
uh oh.
march and i go way back… he’s got to forgive me! thanks fresh, that opening so wide you could drive a truck through…
No problem. It’s what I live for.
Damn. I got another one: Handling Sin by Michael Malone. Well-written and INSANELY funny. Stay away from Malone’s other books though. No bueno.
Portland: I’ll have to check that one out. Thanks.
I loved Handling Sin, too. I was going to suggest Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (I read it in Paris and I didn’t want to leave my hotel room, it was that good) but you’ve already read that… I just read an F. Scott Fitzgerald that I hadn’t read before: The Beautiful and the Damned. I’d always heard before that the non-Gatsby Fitzgerald books were shit, but they’re not. Read it. If you haven’t already.
Srebrenica – Record of a War Crime
…Jan Willem Honig
Norbert Both
hey fresh — you ever read any Trevanian? ‘The Main’ and ‘The Summer of Katya’ and ‘Shibumi’ are all top-notch…
Marcia: I’m not a big Fitzgerald fan. I forget what that book is about so I’ll have look into it.
VS: I’m going to call you VS because I’m too anal to not put the accent marks above your name and I can’t be bothered right now. I hope you don’t mind. But no, haven’t read that. I have heard of it though and it sounds very good.
Sage: No, I always pick up those books but never buy them. They’re that good? I’ll have to get one.
Fresh — it’s all relative, so it’s hard to say how good they are. All I can say is I think he was a fantastic writer, and I quite enjoy his books.
A little backstory, if you don’t mind. Trevanian was the pseudonym of Rodney Whitaker, a former film professor. He applied the techniques of method acting in creating his fiction, first creating a fictional “author” complete with an intricate self-contained history, who then went on to “write” the novel.
‘Trevanian’ was originally created to write spoofs of spy thrillers, and The Eiger Sanction became a huge critical success, with no one really understanding that he was actually making fun of the Ian Fleming-type thriller.
The book ‘Shibumi’ was supposed to be the ultimate spoof of this genre, but ended up transcending it, and is a fascinating deconstruction of a spy/assassin, complete with a true look at post-war occupied Japan, and the only novel I’ve read that accurately portrays what it means to be Basque. It also has a competition between a man and a woman, the object being to see who can induce an orgasm in the other first — without touching!
I apologize for the length of this comment.
Sage: That sounds pretty damn interesting. I will have to buy it.
Hi, sorry if you are way passed this and aren’t taking any more suggestions but I have a couple. I have been holed up in the countryside writing, so no tv, no internet for me and I just read this post. Since you read Joyce, you may find Flann O’Brian’s At Swim Two Birds interesting since Flann O’Brian was influenced by Joyce in a lot of ways and if you read it, you will see the connections. At Swim is not as intense a read but it is funny stuff.
A book that I recently picked up off a discount pile in a bookshop was the Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (George Cockcroft is his real name). It is memorable and the verdict is still out on it in my book but it is worth a read. It explores some pretty crazy stuff. It has been wiki-d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man.
I am always looking for new stuff to read so I will peruse your comments. Thanks!