Latest Gene Wolfe book you read (1-10 scale)

[riley-o]

Can't it be both?

i think being genuinely that crazy would preclude you from using it to troll as i think trolling has to be intentional

i haven't finished a book in ages

sorry about this thread, it deserves better

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hah, I saw that today (via Andrew Sullivan).

Same, I love the Daily Dish. It's usually a huge act of resistance not to re-post 80% of his posts here or on FB.

[gelatinous cube]

Hah, I saw that today (via Andrew Sullivan).

Same, I love the Daily Dish. It's usually a huge act of resistance not to re-post 80% of his posts here or on FB.

Yeah, if I accomplish nothing else over a given day, I will usually at least have read most every post from Sully.

[gelatinous cube]

Monsignor Quixote - Graham Greene: 8/10

Did not expect much from this despite being crazy about Greene. Really touching piece with the usual heavy dose of moral uncertainty and sadness.

[james]

Maxim issue 163 (July) - 0/10

Cover story says Rose Huntington Whitely's lips saved the world. Too bad they didn't save this stupid fucking issue. There was a card inside the magazine that gave me $500 for Red Star Worldwear. That was pretty cool, I ordered like 9 pairs of sunglasses.

There's an article in here that's supposedly about juicing a snake. That's fucking awesome because you could watch it try not to die while it spun around in a blender. I tried to read it but there was a cologne sample that made my thumb flip to the wrong page. I read the wrong page and I got pissed off.

The entire world is just a big giant commercial brake. It's just corporations trying to get you to buy shit you don't even need and causing autism at an increasing rate. This issue gets 0 out of 10 because of that.

-Gary

[Fuck...I'm Dave]

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

good WWI novel, I need to read some of Follett's earlier works.

[Gay for Cock]

What is Anarchism? - Alexander Berkman 8.5/10

[featherboa]

Christi-Anarchy - Dave Andrews 8
A new friend is friends with the author and might have lived with him in Australia if I am not mistaken, so he has a box of these books. Another short easy one. Very readable. Stuff I'm already familiar with, but probably a very good, readable overview.

[altars of radness]

Chomsky - Hopes and Prospects
8/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Excellent as usual. I found the beginning to be slightly bitter, but I may have just been projecting. This was the first recent Chomsky book I've read, and a lot of it is based on current issues, so overall it comes across as fairly urgent and immediate. Lots of Israel/Middle East/NATO, which might strike some as overkill at this point in Chomsky's career, but the chapters on South America, Obama and the fallout of the cold war were enlightening, especially for someone like me, whose interest in politics is far from overwhelming.

Philp Roth - The Counterlife
8.4/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Definitely the most Jew-centric story I've read by Roth. It makes Portnoy's Complaint look like fucking Mein Kampf. Still, the main thrust of the book is universal -- re-invention and deception, the torture and denial involved in each.

It's probably the best use of Roth's pseudo pseudonym, Nathan Zuckerman. More than in any of the other Zuckerman books, it's this one that utilizes Zuckerman as a symbol of the book's themes and makes clearer the whole point of Zuckerman as a literary creation. Roth's use of Zuckerman here, because he's so involved in the story, becomes really convoluted at times, but never in a way that actually complicates anything or gets in the way of enjoying the story. Quite the opposite. Really fucking good.

Milan Kundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
3/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

This reminded me a lot of Paulo Coehlo -- flimsy, forgettable cliches masked as some kind of wisdom. The writing isn't that good either -- really dry, lame symbolism, bland characters, a few weak forays into magic/fantasy. Awful.

Moby Dick
As a novel: 9/10
As a story: 9/10
As storytelling: 4/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I'd be lying if I said I completely enjoyed this. The first hundred pages or so are fantastic, then it pretty much loses all momentum. I get the point of the exhaustive amount of detail about whales, but those sections were invariably boring to read and ground the story to a halt. There's a lot to love about MD, but most of my appreciation derives from the overall weirdness and hugeness of the book and the amount of work and faith that had to have gone into it. It's a bit of a mess, but it's a brave and committed novel.

McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
9.5/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Re-read this as I'm planning on reading the rest of the Border Trilogy. Blood Meridian may be McCarthy's best novel, but this is his best story telling. Beautiful.

John Dos Passos - The 42nd Parallel
6/10

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Another trilogy I'm in the midst of. I heard Dos Passos' USA trilogy is one of the great American epics, but so far I'm not convinced. It's far from unique -- there's plenty of Steinbeck, lots of Faulkner, a surprising amount of Upton Sinclair -- and the massive scope of the book results in some potentially great moments being glanced over, but things will hopefully ramp up a little in the next story.

[featherboa]

McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
Re-read this as I'm planning on reading the rest of the Border Trilogy

[ibn Horowitz]

A House for Mr Biswas - VS Naipaul - 10/10
probably overlong but i can't find it in me to care

[Lord Beguile]

Chariots of The Gods - 8.7

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan's Teachings - 9.7

[BUNGVOX]

the national wrestling alliance: the monopoly that strangled pro wrestling

9/10

tons of facts and names. way old school.

[smooth]

Book: Ecstasy through Tantra - 7/10 - Informative, placing the seemingly perverse in "magickal" realms.

Audio: Stumbling on Happiness - 8/10 - Very entertaining and informative. Was surprising to hear a good perspective of happiness (as very fabricated and fickle).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I am 1/4th, volume-wise through Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln: The War Years

This is what I live for when it comes to reading history, insanely rich in detail in describing both the big stories and the little stories interspersed with excellent illustrations and exhibits from the time period, mostly in the form of political comics running in magazines it never occurred to me had been around so long (Vanity Fair, among others). There is really an emphasis on telling the story through the ridiculous amount of facts and first hand accounts informing the author's fly on the wall imagination.. The other major players of the period on both sides are given equal treatment, and some characters are dug out of obscurity and found remarkably in pivotal roles. Sandburg is alternately empathetic and vicious towards Lincoln and the rest of the cast as the situation demands. Excellent and intriguing stuff, on the same level as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

10/10

[ibn Horowitz]

Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell - 6/10
social conscience obscured by exploitation of stereotypical lathered-up hicks, fuckin and prayin
Good line though, after one of the hicks hits a black dude with a car and kills him, old guy strokes his chin thoughtfully: "yep, niggers will die, alright"
High Rise - JG Ballard - 8/10

[Mooretician]

Under the Dome - 5/10, way too fucking long, some good ideas, the usual exploration of white trash small town shit. You've also read THIS book before.

I've read maybe 60% of what I guess you could call 'Nu-King' (minus the Dark tower) and I definitely liked this one the most. I didn't mind the length but in typical King fashion, the ending is kind of botched. The explanation of the Dome came and went so quickly that after investing so much time in the book it was irritating to have everything explained away so briefly. However, it would make for a truly awesome television show.

[The Real MPD]

A Dance With Dragons - 9

[This Means War]

Read a bit this weekend:

Who Killed Marilyn: Were the Kennedys Involved? - 8/10

Moby Dick - 10/10

The Inferno - 12/10

From Ape To Man: A Study In Evolution - 9/10

Birth Of A Nation (Aaron MacGruder graphic novel) - 6/10

[Honky Kong 64]

Mona Lisa Overdrive - 7.5/10

[fallbacktostone]

any Don Quixote experts on here that can assist a comrade with a preferred translation or edition?

IMPORTANT

[Chad]

any Don Quixote experts on here that can assist a comrade with a preferred translation or edition?

IMPORTANT

John Ormsby

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

I wouldn't ignore any advice from Chad.

[NANOplague]

The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven - 8.6

[riley-o]

any Don Quixote experts on here that can assist a comrade with a preferred translation or edition?

IMPORTANT

John Ormsby

mr. budd used to insist on charles jervis and he loved that book a lot