Book you are reading now: Now it's getting fucking ridiculous

[freetibetwpurch]

Essentially, I started this thread because I was talking to some girl the other day and for some reason she started telling me how much she loved Jack Kerouac and I said that I could never get into him because he writes forever and ever without punctuation or thought structure and so we hitched a ride with some guy and he took us to the middle of nowhere and we drank a lot then we got work and lived off the land and we had sex in the hay gee whiz america is beautiful and there are so many cultures and this is what life is all about man I mean you only have so many years on this earth and you have to see things.

[AndersLevant]

I finished Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon yesterday.

I'm not sure what to read next, so I started Love in the Time of Cholera.

But I'm thinking about moving onto Notable American Women by Ben Marcus.

Also, I've never read any of Kerouac's stuff, but I have two or three of his novels on my book shelf waiting to be read some day.

[fritter]

i hope those books on your shelf are big sur and dharma bums. big sur is pretty much his darkest days in the throes of alcoholism. pretty depressing, but i can't help but like the rhythm of his stuff. the thing is, you would think from reading it that he was pretty much train-of-thought writing, but he edited the crap out of it to get it to where it was digestible. i'm not that big on form or rules of writing, they can get claustrophobic and at times stunt honest expression, though they are essential to know before you go off and start with your own style.

i am reading civilwarland in bad decline by george saunders and the biography of ben franklin. so far, so good, though i haven't come to the part where franklin starts becoming the coolest american ever (which he pretty much is).

how was mason & dixon?

[Treebeard]

the last two books ive read were veeck as in wreck (a baseball book) and the kite runner

im currently reading one hundred years of solitude

[AndersLevant]

Mason & Dixon is hands down, without a doubt, the best novel I have ever read. Everything about it was wonderful and thoroughly entertaining. How can you not love a story that features a pot-smoking George Washington and a backwoods, Kabbalistic Popeye?

Treebeard, I was going to read One Hundred Years of Solitude again but I couldn't find my copy, so I went with Love in the Time of Cholera.

[5InchTaint]

"On the Road" is a pretty fantastic fucking read. Will Burroughs makes an appearance in it, for fucks sake! The beat period books can be a little much but a lot of times they're a fun read. William Burroughs stuff is especially fun if you can get over the constant homo references. If you have a hard time getting into Kerouac or Burroughs books, please listen to them speaking and/or reading their works. Sometimes you need to hear it first to really get into their writing and appreciate it. Don't let Kerouac's books collect dust on a shelf, please. Once you get into it, you can really burn through the pages. Sometimes it seems like work (especially with Pynchon's books) but stick in there! It's worth it. If only to cram the book down some other less knowledgeable twat's throat. That's right, I read for vindication, bitch. Dear God, I've almost hit the bottom of the proverbial barrel.

[5InchTaint]

BTW, the corollary wasn't missed, freetibetwpurch.

[Brain Stew]

http://www.readingrockets.org/images/books/0590442872_big.jpg

I just finished reading Clifford's Halloween! It was very spoooky! And by that I mean that it had a lot of black folks in it.

[teengirlsquad]

If you like On the Road check out Kafka was the Rage by Anatole Broyard.

[klaus_kinski]

I just read One Thousand and One Ghosts by Alexandre Dumas. Very interesting book.

And I hate the beat writers.

[JohnDenver]

I just finished "Jenny and the Jaws of Life" by Jincy Willett. It's a short story collection, so it's pretty uneven. However, one story, "The Best of Betty", which chronicles the nervous breakdown of an Anne Landers-type advice columnist is pretty damn good.

[Stabby]

Books, finally something I can get behind! (much better than that music crap, i mean who still listens to music?)

I am re-reading Elizabeth Smart's fantastic By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.

And I just finished some Kerouac a few weeks ago actually!

[ComedySnobedy]

I am about to start freakonomics, anybody give it a whirl already?

[JohnDenver]

Originally posted by ComedySnobedy
I am about to start freakonomics, anybody give it a whirl already?

No, but I really want to. Let us know how it is.

[freetibetwpurch]

I was going to read Burroughs anyway, but i'll move him up on the list for you Taint. Most of the things I read are either by Russian authors or some other classic. I still haven't made it to Tale of Two Cities yet. How can I start on anything else? Right now, I'm reading the Master and the Margarita. Now that is a great book. It's steeped in history, and as you know, the devil kicks ass.

[modrob]

Originally posted by Brain Stew
http://www.readingrockets.org/images/books/0590442872_big.jpg

I just finished reading Clifford's Halloween! It was very spoooky! And by that I mean that it had a lot of black folks in it.

Awesome. When I was in kindergarden I drew a picture of Clifford unleashing his big red dog on Emily. Needless to say, I was not caught being good that day.

[AndersLevant]

God, I hate Dickens. I hate most things written before 1900.

[agent_PUNT]

I'm reading the liner notes from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack.

[heroin bob]

I just finished 'Fluke' by Christopher Moore and have been thumbing through Ciment's 'Kubrick: The Definitive Edition'.

[SushiBarMachine]

Wheres Waldo
________
party Cam (http://www.girlcamfriend.com/webcam/straight-couples/)

[Dart Shitter]

Last book- Lords of Chaos- the history of Black Metal

soon- the new Harry Potter

[Tammy Dobbs]

Haunted-Chuck Palahnuik

[agent_PUNT]

I just finished reading that book "1984". Orwell I think.

I think it's funny that the whole book talks about how people are brainwashed into believing bullshit...

I think that's funny because it APPEARS that EVERYONE in real life has been brainwashed into thinking that the book "1984" is good.


That's fucking irony.

Edit: I should mention that I think reading is for chinks.

Edit Edit: 2,500 posts.

[CptPlanet]

I'm reading Choke by Noam Chomsky or something I don't know what it is really but it gets me laid

[AndersLevant]

I did in fact read Notable American Women by Ben Marcus. It was really good. Very, uh, experimental.

And then I read Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis. Also really good. And surprisingly easy. By far the easiest of his stuff.

And now I have about 35 pages left in Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. Once again, the easiest of his stuff that I've read so far.

Also, just so you fags know, I dominated my past two chemistry exams. On both I was the only person to get an A while the averages were 54 and 47.

[scotch-romanian]

Originally posted by AndersLevant
Also, just so you fags know, I dominated my past two chemistry exams. On both I was the only person to get an A while the averages were 54 and 47. so you're that kid in class who throws off the grading curve for everyone else?

[CptPlanet]

yeah anders go make a shirt about it jerkoff

[AndersLevant]

Don't worry, this professor is old and British and refuses to curve.

[Treebeard]

i get shitty grades

you suck anders

i finished 100 years of solitude and now i am tired of reading hard books so it's fargo rock city by chuck klosterman for me

[Kelsy]

I'm in chemistry.
I am drinking h2o!!
and breathing in o2!
and huffing n2o!!

A+!

[CptPlanet]

Originally posted by Kelsy
I'm in chemistry.
I am drinking h2o!!
and breathing in o2!
and huffing n2o!!

A+!

and smoking MJ? and drinking CH3CH2OH? PARTY HARD