What are we reading?

[grand theft sparrow]

[Gamblour.]

And how is this?
Good?
Informative?

Recommended?

So far, it does a great job of grounding the cultural and economic causes of the New Wave. I'm not very far into it yet, but I like it a lot.

[kotte]

Re-reading
The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity

I'm looking for good books about Leadership and great leaders...can anyone help?

[meatwad]

Carnet De Voyage by Craig Thompson

i read his book Blankets after seeing Pubrick, i think, talk about it in this thread. It was one of the best graphic novels i have ever read (granted, i have not read too many) and one day i planned on exploring what else this guy had did. my girlfriend works at a bookstore, saw that he had this book out, and bought it for me 

for those of you who have not heard about it, or are too lazy to look it up, it's his travel sketchbook chronicling two months of wandering through Africa and Europe, doing research for his next book

[cron]

this is my birthday present:

[kotte]

[Brazoliange]

grapes of wrath

[JG]

i'm in the middle of both:





i love irving novels, in particular this one.  they're so warm. 

[godardian]

Anyone ever read:



. . . it's really brilliant structurally, AND it has heart!

[Just Withnail]

Crap, I lost my original reply. Once more:

I read it, and because the recommendation on your blog some months ago, no less. I found Mitchell´s complete contol over speech patterns even more fascinating than the overall structure. In all of the episodes, I felt every character talked so completely psychologically, (and especially) socially and historically right. Of course, this is best illustrated by the future segments, which never felt like "future talk" at all. Which is basically true of his language in general, but especially his dialogue. In a book about the narrative threads of evolution, he predicts future ways of writing by knowing and showing the past ones. Now I´m not entirely shure if I remember this correctly, but I think I felt the contemporary segment was the most boring in form. Which is really a shame, as it should be the most daring. His future language is fun guesswork of where writing could end up, but I didn´t feel he tried to do something really "at the moment" with the modern piece, but rather that it was the most sterile. Maybe that´s some point I´m missing, or perhaps I remember it wrong? (the more I´m thinking, the more I´m guessing yes, and thinking of re-reading at least that segment). It doesn´t really matter, as I felt he more than covered the writing-with-modern-sensibilities with the whole of the book.

[Pubrick]

a couple of textbooks..



at least they have nothing to do with movies.

[kotte]

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography
by Edward Rice


Burton was the paradigm of the scholar-adventurer, a man who towered above others physically and intellectually, a soldier, scientist, explorer, and writer who for much of his life also engaged in that most romantic of careers, undercover agent.

A sick sick man in the best possible meaning of the word...

[Thrindle]

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx.  Yes... the movie is pretty much like the book... so far.   

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

[godardian]

Now I´m not entirely shure if I remember this correctly, but I think I felt the contemporary segment was the most boring in form. Which is really a shame, as it should be the most daring. His future language is fun guesswork of where writing could end up, but I didn´t feel he tried to do something really "at the moment" with the modern piece, but rather that it was the most sterile. Maybe that´s some point I´m missing, or perhaps I remember it wrong? (the more I´m thinking, the more I´m guessing yes, and thinking of re-reading at least that segment).

You cannot believe how much I am  (embarrassed/happy) that someone actually took a recommendation from my blog. Could it be that blogging needn't always be a euphemism for a big virtual wank (or, kinder, an inconsequential journal entry)? Anyway, thanks for that.

Now, my impression--not to pretend I'm TERRIBLY familiar with the works of Mr. Martin Amis--was that the contemporary "Timothy Cavendish" segment of Cloud Atlas was meant to be a post-Thatcher ultra-cranky Amis, Jr.-like thing, which I believe has a certain amount of zeitgeist-ness to it in the UK, or did? I'm very open to thoughts on this.

Me currently: