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| 02:26am 20/07/2004 | |||||
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i just realized how many books i want. and how many books i have and still have to read. i don't think anybody else realizes that. i will share my list with you; ownd to read; oliver twist by charles dickens christmas carol by charles dickens we the living by ayn rand** fountainhead by ayn rand** romantic manifesto by ayn rand** crime and punishment by fyodor dostoyevsky anna karenin by leo tolstoy the kite runner by khaled hosseini south of no north by charles bukowski** tales of ordinary madness by charles ** kite runner by ernest hemmingway the short stories by ernest hemmingway galapagos by kurt vonnegut ** fates worse than death by kurt vonnegut** sirens of titan by kurt vonnegut** the known world by edward p. jones the jungle by upton sinclair** cannery row by john steinbeck black spring by henry miller** hamlet by shakespeare memoirs of a geisha by arthur golden helter skelter - true story folks ** = already have begun reading aaaannnnddddd to buy and read; geek love by katherine dunn the servant by robin maugham god's dbris by scott adams cocaine nights by jg ballard crash by jg ballard a clockwork orange by anthony burgess one flew over the cuckoo's nest by ken kesey the life of pi by yann martel philosophy:who needs it? by ayn rand the handmaids tale by margeret attwood the most beautiful woman in town by charles bukowski reasons to live by amy hempel the contortionists handbook by crain clevenger if nobody speaks of remarkable things by jon mcgregor the doors of perception and heaven and hell by aldous huxley point counter point by aldous huxley i am wayyyy ahead of myself. but i like it, a lot. and most of those books that i want to buy are recommendations from this community. |
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| 11:43pm 19/07/2004 | |||||
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heelllo. i was brought here by miss_bliss_07. i'm the friend she mentioned. bukowski=some kind of god. i'm reading about five books at the moment but am trying to concentrate on island by aldous huxley. which i must say is beyond beautiful. the only other book of his i've read is brave new world. and this is just....amazing. i'm also reading sirens of titan by beautiful vonnegut and black spring by henry miller. anybody read miller? it's my first book of his. |
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| oh my |
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| 09:32pm 18/07/2004 | |||||
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i just read through some scribblings i have from Kurt Vonnegut... and i realized... i am in love with the man. completely. |
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| The Bean Trees |
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| 05:37pm 17/07/2004 | |||||
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I'm currently reading THE BEAN TREES by Barbara Kingsolver (also wrote the Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer, among other things - but those are the other two I've read). She is very good at just writing about people's lives in general. Her characters are all very vivid and realistic. There are pieces of them you see in yourself and in your neighbors. There's also a lot of well thought out symbology. Things that seem simple tie into the underlying theme almost seemlessly. And it's good to get away from the authors who practically mark their symbols in red. In THE BEAN TREES, not much has really happened. Honestly, it sounded more exciting than it is turning out to be but I'm having a wonderful time reading it. It's definately not a book for everyone. I'll give a real opinion when I finish up in the next day or two. And I'd like to say welcome to all the newcomers. I'm glad to be part of a community where the members are just as wormish as I am! |
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| tickle-me elmo |
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| 08:26pm 17/07/2004 | |||||
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heelloo. i am very new. this community sounds pretty freaking cool. i am currently reading Pulp by Charles Bukowski, which was recommended to me by a friend, and is very good. its about a dick/alcoholic who somehow finds time to solve all his private eye problems. i liked all the other posts - im going to find some of the other books mentioned. -newbie thais |
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| The Life of Pi |
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| 04:58pm 11/07/2004 | |||||
by Yann Martel This book was lent to me by a coworker. And it is just an amazing novel. Full of the complexities of life put into the simplest of terms. It touches upon every aspect of life: faith, family, politics, environment; all within the confines of a small lifeboat. Amazingly believable with an ending to leave you speechless. May change many of your opinions of life and survival. . . or at least leave you thinking about changing them. I can't tell you too much of the story, it is best fresh from the pages of the book. Highly recommended for anyone and everyone to read and pass on. |
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| 01:48am 06/07/2004 | |||||
This is a short story about a young priest who fell in love with his altar boy. Written in 1894, it was highly controversial. It's a very, very beautiful story, and I suggest anyone read it--whether they are interested in male/male partnerships or not. It is written in a most lovely manner. Interesting commentary on the church and society. Do read it. ( My favorite passage... ) Clicking random words from the story: June thrill tender formed sinking stamped golden devotion love once ties neck embrace with -------- A Special Notation: Cross-Posted in my journal,  uberspiral |
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| Ophelia Speaks |
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| 09:08am 29/06/2004 | |||||
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| 09:54pm 28/06/2004 | |||||
| Hi there. I'm new here, sort of. I was lazyslacker before, but I decided to change journals. Anyway, I had another book I wanted to recommend: The Servant by Robin Maugham. It's a very simple story about a man who hires another man to be his servant. Without giving away to much, their master-servant relationship gradually undergoes a bizarre role-reversal, in which the servant becomes the master and vice versa. The book is very short (my copy was less than 100 pages) and it appears to be very hard to track down, but you definitely won't regret reading it. | |||||
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| 06:19pm 25/06/2004 | |||||
| Hi everyone, this is my first post in this community. I just thought I'd recommend "A Happy Death" by Albert Camus. The book is very thin on plot (nothing very dramatic happens after the murder in the opening chapter), but it has alot of insight into human nature. It's definitly not a book that'll appeal to everyone, but I'd recommend it to anyone who likes authors like Paulo Coehlo. | |||||
| Newbie! |
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| 12:35pm 17/06/2004 | |||||
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| im new :) |
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| 07:03pm 12/06/2004 | |||||
| hey, im new but i just thought id reccomend a coupla books called 'if nobody speaks of remarkable things' by jon mcgregor and 'star of the sea' by joseph o conner. Mcgregors book is very subtly touching and star of the sea keeps your interest right to the very last page. I'll write more soon, ciao and check em out :) | |||||
| Hello + Currently |
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| 04:30am 06/06/2004 | |||||
Currently, I am reading Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's written from two perspectives. One of them I am completely getting into, and the other bores me to tears. Alex, the Ukrainian translator for the main character, is the one I like. I'll most likely end up finishing it anyway. I hate to leave books unfinished. Perhaps a more in-depth review shall occur later in time. Literary love, A.S. |
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| Stranger |
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| 09:35am 27/05/2004 | |||||
I have finished stranger in a strange land. I did review it and you can read the review here. I gather not everyone is going to simply want to know my opinion on the book so that is all I will say on such. I would say there is much to discus on said book though. I also don't know how many people have read this book. Still I shall go on. The book describes a character who's ideals, values and even simple behavior patterns follow solopsolism. He in fact creates a "church" to teach other humans to think and act in this manner. I suppose my question is do you believe this type of community would be feasible. It does break near all social taboos possible (communal nudity, communal sex or partner sharing, devaluing a monetary system, the list goes on). So what are your views? I'll share mine if in fact a discussion starts. I hope this is the right way to go about using this community, there were few guideline so I decided to just go for it. |
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| 07:28pm 09/05/2004 | |||||
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| A certifiably scary ghost story. |
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| 01:36am 17/03/2004 | |||||
 ...in my personal opinion, I think Miles was smothered in end. I read a couple of different reviews, though, and most them say they he "died of fright." Somehow this doesn't seem plausible to me, even though it's a ghost story. It seems like he was smothered, just because the governess was clutching him so tightly. I mean, if it took her so long to acknowledge that his heart had stopped beating, it sort of follows that she could've suffocated him unknowingly. This book is so very suspenseful - you're left waiting for definitive answers the whole way through (and make like 50 guesses as to what they are) until FINALLY at the end, it all comes together, and the truth is the complete opposite of your expectations. ...then again, I'm pretty guillible. I was totally taken in by the governess's ghost claims. She seemed fanatical and a bit too obsessive about being the children's savior, but I still thought she had the right idea in mind. Reflecting back on her accounts now, it's glaring that she was insane. The kids seemed "corrupted" by virtue of being so perfect, but then again, those are the governess's descriptions. It's entirely possible that they were normal kids...but I don't know, I thought they might've been traumatized by the molestation (or whatever happened there) they suffered at Peter Quince's hands. Then again, the whole supposition about ghosts controlling them probably should've clued me into how deluded the governess was... I still can't believe that the whole thing was a figment of her imagination. (...yeah, I apologize for giving this all away; I hope the eerie psychological-thriller effect is still there for anyone who hasn't read the book.If I am, stop reading now.) Then again, were the mysterious circumstances involving the deaths of Quince, Jessel, and eventually the governess herself just coincidental? Maybe it's something about Bly that makes everyone's "screws" loosen...it doesn't seem normal that every person put in charge of taking care of those children would die at a young age. ...even I'm not sure why I'm so disturbed by all of this. The shock of the ending still hasn't worn off and I needed to make sense of it by rambling a bit... also: it was probably not very intelligent of me to read this at night. |
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| The House of Leaves |
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| 02:05pm 06/03/2004 | |||||
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currently reading: Mark Danielewski's, House Of Leaves, which is by far one of the strangest books i have read thus far. Description:With multiple narrators, a mass of footnotes and direct transcripts of video tapes, the novel has been described as a "literary Blair Witch Project' - a description we'd wholeheartedly agree with. The novel is narrated by Johnny Truant, a bar-hopping low-life who is losing his grip on reality. When an old man - Zampano - dies, Truant grabs a manuscript from his apartment and takes it home to read it. This manuscript is an analysis of The Navidson Record, a collection of videotapes that record some spooky goings on in a suburban house. As Truant reads the manuscript, he reproduces it in full, sharing his observations with us and describing his own increasingly fragile mental state. There are three main stories in House Of Leaves: Truant's reactions to the manuscript, Zampano's analysis of The Navidson Record, and the contents of the videotapes themselves. As the novel continues, each story overlaps. Zampano adds extensive footnotes to his work and attempts to contact the famous people (Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Camille Paglia) mentioned in the tapes; Truant attempts to explain the more tortuous footnotes, adding explanations and analysis of his own, and unnamed "editors" in turn comment on both Zampano's and Truant's comments. The Navidson Record would have made an excellent spine-chiller in its own right, but the analysis and footnotes rack the creepiness up by a notch. In the early stages of the transcripts, we know that something scary's going to happen: the footnotes tell us so. As if the layers of comment weren't complicated enough, after a few dozen pages things go completely mental. The word house is printed throughout in blue, without explanation; footnotes become longer than the sections they're commenting on, print is or , entire sections are crossed out; some pages contain a single word or letter, while others are filled with lists of buildings or household amenities. All of these things are reproduced faithfully, resulting in pages where the only text is "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", other pages with letters and words missing due to "fire damage" (the gaps are replaced by spaces and square brackets), still others with text at crazy angles or tiny font sizes. If you attempt to read this book in the bath, you'll probably drown. The book's ambition is also its downfall. The crazy typography and constant interjections from Truant (and others) make it difficult to follow parts of the story and, in the early sections especially, you'll be sorely tempted to throw the book out of the window. Many of the tangents - psychological theories, local history, analysis of photographs, lists of camera equipment - overstay their welcome, and the ending is curiously flat, as if the writer suddenly ran out of ideas. Some scenes jar with the rest of the book; in particular, Truant's description of his trip to a bar, where he talks to a band and discovers they've read the book he's still writing. This is either an unintentional error or - even worse - a ham-fisted "it was all a dream" scenario lifted straight from an episode of Dallas. House Of Leaves is a brave attempt to do something different, updating Burroughs' cut-up technique for a new generation of readers. At over 700 pages, however, the novel would have benefited from some judicious editing, and the overall impression is one of a writer too enamoured with typographical tricks. Nonetheless, House Of Leaves is an original and unique novel; for all its faults, it's unlike anything else you'll read this year. |
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| 09:38pm 28/02/2004 | |||||
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this community and seeing it here, has alone made me happy. for the moment at least. :)))) i'm readind a book called rachel's hoilday. it may not be that great (so far i think it is) but i feel relationship to what the author wrote for the main chacter. so it makes it great. |
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| 08:36am 26/02/2004 | |||||
 The Librarian Giuseppe Arcimboldo ca. 1566 "In the library, the reader is wakened from the dream of communion with a single book, startled into recognition of the word's materiality by the sheer number of bound volumes; by the sound of pages turning, covers rubbing; by the rank smell of books gathered together in vast numbers..." "...the library... is no mere cabinet of curiosities; it's a world, complete and uncompletable, and it is filled with secrets. Like a world it has its changes and its seasons, which belie the permanence that ordered ranks of books imply. Tugged by the gravity of readers' desires, books flow in and out of the library like the tides. The people who shelve the books in Widener [the library at Harvard] talk about the library breathing-- at the start of the term, the stacks exhale books in great swirling clouds; at the end of term, the library inhales, and the books fly back. So the library is a body, too, the pages of books pressed together like organs in the darkness." "In the stacks of the library..., I have the distinct impression that its millions of volumes may indeed contain the entirety of human experience: that they make not a model for but a model of of the universe. Fluttering down the foot-worn marble stairs that drop into the building's bowels, descending through layer after layer of pungent books, I am often struck by the sense that everything happening outside must have its printed counterpart somewhere in the stacks. It's easy to plunge into cabalistic reveries, dreaming rearrangements of the books that would reveal the mysteries of the universe, a sacred Logo tantamount tp the secret name of God." "[The] natural philosophers of the Latin Middle Ages... held that three classes of substance were capable of magic: the herbal, the mineral, and the verbal. With their leaves of fiber, the inks of copperas and soot, and their words, books are an amalgam of the three. The notion that words, like plants and stones, have existences independent of uttering them --that they have power and do things in the world-- is a commonplace in many traditions. Brought together in multitudes, heaped up and pared down, read and forgotten, library books take on lives and histories of their own, not as texts but as physical objects in the word." from Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles |
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| 06:08pm 24/02/2004 | |||||
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| bookaddicts | ||
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Friends Info Calendar Copious Info. |
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