Main book:


Before bed read:

I read in an interview with Ralph Steadman (who is my fave by the way,) that he did not see much money from the books he did with HST, but that when they signed up to do Curse of Lono, they did the royalties for it 50/50, and that Hunter never stopped giving Ralph grief about it! ha!

Then get a kindle. Get a Paperwhite or just the cheapest fucking Kindle you can find. I use my Paperwhite still because my iPad (they just came out with the fourth gen, btw.) is a little heavy for extended reading, and a little clunky besides. I still think it has the best resolution... its "night" mode kicks the Kindle Fire's white on black, and there is a much wider range of brightness levels.
But the Paperwhite almost feels like a book sometimes, and it's small and slow and shitty so you don't worry much about breaking it.

I miss books though honestly. I just found a gem at a yard sale: a first edition hardcover John Irving.... But I know I'll never read the thing. Too damn impractical.

the world will now end.

Read the damn thing in the shitter! or in bed fr a half hour before you sleep each night.

I have one book, usually a large reference text, in the bathroom to read while shitting. I am almost finished with this one right now


I love etymology. Since I am fluent in Spanish and English, it allows for a wide swatch of word recognition

By my bed I have the Promethea comics I posted before. In my messenger bag I carry to work I have the art essay book I also posted earlier. I doubt you can find any of the three for reading on a Kindle, but you never know...

Just like there are MILLIONS of vinyl recordings worldwide that will never be digitized or available on itunes, there are hundreds of years worth of books that will never be available on a kindle or ipad device.

I just read Norwegian Wood by Murakami in two days, for the most part I would say it was pretty good, but with quite a few waffles - a bit too oversentimental at times and it really drags on in parts. That said, certain things about it resonated with me on a deeply personal level, and I related to a lot of the main character's feelings and experiences. Can't help feeling that something is missing though, and that it's all a bit aimless - perhaps the point? Weirdly conflicted about it. Anyone got any experience with his other works?

Three Stigmata by PKD was excellent, tho!

I started reading Murakami back in the mid 90's when a friend told me I had to read A Wild Sheep Chase. (awesome) Then I read Dance Dance Dance (awesome as well) and then I read The Wind Up Bird Chronicles (maybe my fave) and it was awesome. Kafka on the Shore followed, which I liked very very much. I have yet to read one of his books that did not warp my mind in some excellent way.

I have not read Norwegian wood, it is from the mid-late 80's right? I heard it was the one that caught everyone's attention, but maybe he was not quite "there" yet?

It was his first novel and certainly his straightest. Especially when you compare it to books like Wind-up bird chronicles. I really liked it.

To Gravityslips-if you liked Norwegian...check out 'Sanshiro' by Natsume Soseki. Murakami was massively influenced by him and this book especially. You'll see many similarities to Norwegian Wood certainly.

just as there are some really fantastic PRINT editions of books that are widely available in digital format. I started collecting Heritage editions of some of the classics. The Crime and Punishment edition from the 60's with woodcut illustrations is a particularly nice example, as are a couple of others, notably Arabian Knights 2 volume set( pretty erotic pix and text)

Another really wonderful edition is the Keith Harrison illustrated edition of Hudson's Green Mansions, the art is a really necessary addition to the text on that one, and let's also not forget the Tenniel illustrated Alice books...........

Brilliant book and I'd recommend this to anybody with a slight interest in politics or social history. It's also depressing as hell when you realise not much is going to change.

Same here bruddha. I'm around the part where guy No. 72 (I think) just found out that Ms. Wright is his biological mother. Such a unique way to find out who yr mom is. ^_~

I read that and agreed with most of it but I've since been put off after seeing its author on TV a few times. He just comes across as really irritating. It doesn't help that he looks about 12.

Finished the David Hickey art essay book. Now onto this. One chapter in and I am excited.



One of my favorite writers, Robert Anton Wilson, has talked extensively about Buckminster Fuller and his ideas and now that I work at a Library, I can check out Fuller's books.

nah! piece of plastic crap....

i'll keep reading on the macfuck for now... till it croaks or something.

Elmore Leonard - Swag

After the massive mindfuckery of Blood Meridian this is exactly what I needed. If Cormac McCarthy takes two pages to describe a tree, Elmore Leonard rarely takes more than a sentence to describe anything. It's like listening to Blitzkrieg Bop straight after listening to Bach, or something.

Ha! great description.

I bought about a dozen or so books at the Friends of the Houston Public Library book sale yesterday. Some awesome stuff!

Has anyone read Magick Without Tears by Aleister Crowley? I printed it out and will be checking it out soon.

The library I work at has all the original editions of Crowley's books but they are held in the Special Collections area, not available for check-out.

Some of his books are in print, but there are quite a few that are not.

Again.

I finished the Dawkins book and am starting this one that I found in the Library I work at. 40 pages into and and awesome as fuck already. Parmenides is all up in this bitch.

Oh, and me and my wife are about 138 pages into this bad boy, one of my faves.

This is the 3rd time I am reading it. Read it when I was 19, then again around age 27. I am now 39. I see new shit every time.

Metals, Culture and Capitalism by Jack Goody

Man, if you guys want to read an engrossing collection of first hand accounts to a terrorist act, this is it. amazing book so far. Really amazing. Murakami is da MAN.

I buy all my books at the library across the street from work, they have some seriously great shit, in fabulous shape because they weren't in circulation most were donated for sale, usually $.50-1.00, sometimes even 3 for $1!! Recently read this:


I thought it was superb. I liked that it was a single day stretched across several hundred pages (this only felt like it was too much for a day once or twice during the novel), with the perfect blend of mundane daily moments which intersect deep existential insights and reflections. After all, isn't this how real life is? I get some my deepest epiphanies about life waiting for the light rail to pull up, or sweeping the kitchen floor. The ending was surprising at several layers, and while partly unrealistic, the over-all effect was convincing. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author, naturally fluid dialogue and better narration, excellent pace, expansive sensory details and setting.

That book was ok, but I get sick of Chuck's "he said" "she said" "I said" repetition, you have to almost invent your own conjugations just to get through it.. Coincidentally when I was reading Saturday, I was thinking to myself, "See, this is what Survivor could have been, a better crafted introspective exploration of a single day." McEwan does it better ;)

On Volume 3 of Promethea by Alan Moore


Finished this one last week. Good stuff if you like science history and philosophy

Try and get hold of his first book, a collection of short stories, First Love Last Rites, and his really early novels like The Cement Garden and The Child in Time. Absolutely brilliant. He's mellowed a lot since then but purely in terms of the way he writes, along with maybe Kazuo Ishiguro, he's still probably my favourite current British novelist.

Going through the Harry Potter books, despite having seen the movies and listened to the audiobooks before.

Just finished the David Browne book about SY, I found it very readable although I'm not sure if that's because the book is good or I'm just biased. Anywho, aside from being an easy read, his angle of approach to SY isn't one I'm particularly sympathetic too (how amazingly cool and important they are, comparing them to U2 and mainstream stuff all the time, explaining stuff that anyone who has reached the point of reading a book about SY probably doesn't need to have explained to them, telling it like a story he wrote rather than what it really is which is information gleaned from interviews and other resources, focusing way more on K&T but at the same time saying that the group works as a true democracy), there were interesting things about the group dynamic, and how career minded they were/are, how it seemed for a long time that they all thought they had a chance of making it big... and how anyone could ever have thought that is beyond me.

Started this this morning, 4 or 5 pages in and already enjoying it a lot.

will start this next week:


so excited!

Oh, nice one - I'll need to get that. The Psychic Soviet is one of my favourite books.