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

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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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Admiral Dick Fart wrote:some recent reading:

Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity (8/10) - solid stuff. Eggers is a very descriptive writer with a unique style. However, sometimes that lent itself to passages being very rambly. They always found their way back on track, though. This is probably the longest "story about nothing" I've ever read that didn't suck. Characters were very natural and well-crafted and made the story.

Tucker Max - I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (7.5/10) - Funny shit. Most of this was available on his website anyway but it still makes for hilarious reading.

Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero (9/10) - probably my favorite of this big batch of books I recently picked up. Ellis has a bare-bones, realistic style on this one that drew me in from the first page.


I totally agree with Eggers being too longwinded and rambly. I also agree that Bret Easton Ellis rules. Most of his books are misunderstood. Less Than Zero is not just a book about drugs in Los Angeles. That's just the surface vehicle. He's capturing the the descent of morality really well. The disturbing apathy it creates. The empty indifference. The selfishness. Clay disturbs me because he seems to have a decent sense of right and wrong, he seems to definitely know better; yet he drifts and stagnates and doesn't seem to care much about anything but himself. The book takes you to low after low until the reader is desensitized like Clay is. That's the genius of the book. He manages to ditch LA at the end but his future seems very uncertain.

During the| McGinniss Jr. interview, Ellis announced that his forthcoming novel would be a sequel to "Less Than Zero" and would be titled Imperial Bedrooms, which, in keeping with the original, is taken from the title of a Elvis Costello record (both an 1982 album and song). He is being extremely ambitious to write a sequel with the characters now in their 40s. After reading Lunar Park, I've no doubt in my mind that he will write a great book that stands on it's own and will probably be better.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver. 6/10 Too descriptive and not enough action. Definitely not holding my attention like Cryptonomicon.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Admiral Dick Fart »

Scumfucker wrote:
I totally agree with Eggers being too longwinded and rambly. I also agree that Bret Easton Ellis rules. Most of his books are misunderstood. Less Than Zero is not just a book about drugs in Los Angeles. That's just the surface vehicle. He's capturing the the descent of morality really well. The disturbing apathy it creates. The empty indifference. The selfishness. Clay disturbs me because he seems to have a decent sense of right and wrong, he seems to definitely know better; yet he drifts and stagnates and doesn't seem to care much about anything but himself. The book takes you to low after low until the reader is desensitized like Clay is. That's the genius of the book. He manages to ditch LA at the end but his future seems very uncertain.

During the| McGinniss Jr. interview, Ellis announced that his forthcoming novel would be a sequel to "Less Than Zero" and would be titled Imperial Bedrooms, which, in keeping with the original, is taken from the title of a Elvis Costello record (both an 1982 album and song). He is being extremely ambitious to write a sequel with the characters now in their 40s. After reading Lunar Park, I've no doubt in my mind that he will write a great book that stands on it's own and will probably be better.
I like the rambly aspect sometimes (when it captures a more conversational tone), but sometimes I was just sitting there going GET TO THE POINT ALREADY! it doesn't take almost 400 pages to capture that kinda journey, especially since not much really happens beyond the two characters getting over their collective grief and getting rid of $32,000.

And a sequel? I can't wait for that. I need to pick up more of his stuff. What would you reccomend as a follow-up for someone who enjoyed LTZ?
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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Mike Turbo wrote:Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver. 6/10 Too descriptive and not enough action. Definitely not holding my attention like Cryptonomicon.
Though I don't remember it very well, I recall feeling that Cryptonomicon never got to the actual story. Like it was all build-up and no pay-off. Pretty well researched though, I think.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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Here's what I'll be reading in the next 10 weeks in just two classes. I don't have the reading list for a third class yet, but it should be a lot smaller. I'm also taking French.

2 October: African History, Historical Explanation, and the Colonial Encounter

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Charles Piot, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (Duke UP, 1999).
Charles Tilly, "Retrieving European Lives," in Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History, (edited by Olivier Zunz (Virginia, 1985).
David W. Cohen, "Doing Social History from Pim's Doorway," in Reliving the Past..
F. Cooper, "What is the Concept of Globalization Good For?: An African Historian's Perspective," African Affairs, 100, no. 399, 2001: 189-213.
Steven Feierman, "African Histories and the Dissolving of World History," in Africa and the Disciplines, edited by Bates, et al (Chicago, 1993).

9 October: The Colonial Encounter

Jonathan Glassman, Feasts and Riot (Heineman, 1995).
Richard Roberts, Two Worlds of Cotton (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996) introduction, chapters 1, 2, 9, and conclusion.
A.G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (Longman, 1973), chapter 4.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Howard UP, 2002), chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6.
Philip Curtin, Steven Feierman, Jan Vansina, and Leonard Thompson, African History (Longman, 1995), chapter 15.

16 October: Resistance and Collaboration

Terrance O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896‑97: A Study in African Resistance (Northwestern, 1967) chapters 1,2, 10.
-----. "Connections Between 'Primary Resistance' Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa," Parts 1 and 2, JAH 9, 1968.
Allen Issacman and Barbara. Issacman, “Resistance and Collaboration in Southern and Central Africa,” International Journal of African History Studies, 10 (1), 1977: 31-62.
George Shepperson and T. Price, Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting, and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Uprising of 1915 (Edinburgh, 1958), chapters 2-5.
L. Vail and L. White, "Forms of Resistance: Songs and Perceptions of Power in Colonial Mozambique," American Historical Review, 88 (4), 1983.
James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale, 1985), chapters 1 and 2.
-----. Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Yale, 1990), chapters 1, 2, 6.
Frederick Cooper, "Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History," AHR, Dec 1994.
Karen Fields, Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa (Princeton, 1985)
Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily L. Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts, “African Intermediaries and the “Bargain” of Collaboration,” Introduction to Intermediaries, Interpreters and Clerks: African Employees and the Making of Colonial Africa (Wisconsin, 2006)

23 October: Inventing Traditional Africa

Terence Ranger, "The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa," in Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983).
-----. "The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa," in Legitimacy and the State in 20th Century Africa, edited by T. Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan (1993).
M. Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge, 1985), chapters 1 and 4.
S. Berry, No Condition is Permanent Social Dynamics of Agricultural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Wisconsin, 1993), chapters 1 and 2.
I. A. Asiwaju, "The Aleketu of Ketu and the Onimeko of Meko: The Changing Status of Two Yoruba Rulers under French and British Rule," in Crowder and Ikime, West African Chiefs (London, 1970).
L. Vail, ed.,The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, 1989), introduction.
M. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject¸(Princeton, 1996), chapters, 1-4.
T. Spear, “Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa,” Journal of African History, 44 (1), 2003: 3-27.

30 October: Colonial Courts and Social Conflict

Richard Roberts and Kristin Mann, "Introduction: Law in Colonial Africa," in Law in Colonial Africa, edited by K. Mann and R. Roberts (Heinemann, 1991)
Martin Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge, 1985), chapters 5, 6, and 7.
Richard Roberts, Litigants and Households: African Disputes and Colonial Courts in the French Soudan, 1895-1912 (Heinemann, 2005)
Brett Shadle, Girl Cases: Marriage and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya 1890–1970 (Heinemann, 2006), introduction, chapters 4 and 5.
Kristin Mann, Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900 (Indiana UP, 2007), introduction, chapters 7 and 8.


6 November: Rural Social Change

P. Hill, Migrant Cocao Farmers of Southern Ghana (1963) chapters 2‑7.
S. Berry, No Condition is Permanent (Wisconsin, 1993), chapters 3-7.
C. Bundy, Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley, 1979), chapters 1, 3, 4, and aftermath.
H. Bradford, A Taste for Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924-1930 (1987), chapters 1, 4, and 5.
T. Lane, “Witchcraft, Chiefs, and the State in Northern Transvaal, 1900-1930,” in C. Crais, ed., The Culture of Power in Southern Africa (Heinemann, 2003), 121-49.
S. Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Wisconsin, 1990), chapters 1, 3, 5, 10.
M. Vaughan, The Story of an African Famine: Gender and famine and 20th century Malawi (Cambridge, 1987), chapters 1, 5.
R. Roberts, "Women's Work and Women's Property," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1984.
Barbara Cooper, Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900-1989 (Heinemann, 1997), chapters 1-3, 5, 6.
Clifton Crais, The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power, and the Political Imagination in South Africa (Cambridge, 2002), introduction, chapters 1-2.
Allen Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and the Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961 (Heinemann, 1996), chapters 1, 3, 5, 10.

13 November: African Cities and Crucibles of Change and Conflict

C. van Onselen, New Babylon; New Ninevah: Studies in the Economic and Social History of Witswatersrand (Longman, 1982), especially "Regiment of the Hills," and "Amawasha: The Zulu Washerman's Guild," in vol. 2.
F. Cooper, On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombassa (Yale, 1987), introduction, chapter 1, 6.
L. White, Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990), chapters 1, 3, 5, 6.
Lisa Lindsay, Working with Gender: Wage Labor and Social Change in Southwestern Nigeria (Heinemann, 2003), chapters 1-2.
T.O. Ranger, Dance and Society in East Africa (California, 1975) chapters 1‑4.
P. Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville (Cambridge, 1995), introduction, chapter 4 and 6.
C. Waterman, Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago, 1990), chapters 1,2,and 4.
Bill Freund, The African City: A History (Cambridge, 2007), chapters 1, 3, and 4.


20 November: Money, Commodities, and Struggles over Meanings

Jane Guyer, Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa (Chicago, 2004).
Controversy over Jane Guyer in ASR
L. White, Speaking of Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (California, 2000), chapters 1, 2, 4, 9.
P. Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa (Virginia, 1997), chapters 1 and 3.
T. Burke, Lifebouy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (Duke, 1996), introduction, chapter 1. 
L. Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945 (Ohio, 2001), chapters 1, 2.


27 November: Thanksgiving

4 December: African Lives

M. Wright, Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life-Stories from East/Central Africa (1993), introduction, chapters 1, 2, 7, and 8.
B. Bozzoli, Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa, 1900-1983 (Heinemann, 1991), introduction, prelude, chapter 1, conclusion.
Stephen Miescher, Making Men in Ghana (Bloomington, 2005), chapters 1, 4, and epilogue.
Charles van Onselen, The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985 (New York, 1997), chapters 3-6.
-----. “The Reconstruction of a Rural Life from Oral Testimony: Critical Notes on Methodology in the Study of a Black South African Sharecropper,” Journal of Peasant Studies 20 (3), 1993.
S. Mirza and M. Strobel, Three Swahili Women: Life Histories from Mombasa, Kenya (Indiana, 1989), introduction, chapter 1.
M. Smith, Baba of Karo (Yale, 1981), introduction, parts 1‑3.
Personal Narratives Group, Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Thoery and Personal Narratives (Indiana, 1989), chapters by Mbilinyi and Marks.
L. White, S. Miescher, and D. W. Cohen, eds., African Words, African Lives (Indiana, 2001), chapters 2, 4, 5.
Greg Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the 20th Century (Duke, 2006), introduction, chapters 1 and 2.






Week Two (9/30): Social evolutionism

Lewis Henry Morgan, Ancient Society, Preface and Chapter One, “Ethnical Periods.” (1877).

Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Chapter Two (“The Family”). 1884.

E. B. Tylor, “Animism”, in William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion. (abridged from Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1871)

James Frazer, The Golden Bough (1922, abridged edition; first publication was 1890), Chapter 3, “Sympathetic Magic”, Chapter 24 “The Killing of the Divine King”


Presentation: Karl Marx, Pre-capitalist Social Formations


Week Three (10/7): The Boasians

Franz Boas, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology,” Science 4(103), 1896.

Franz Boas, “The Methods of Ethnology,” American Anthropologist 22(4):311-321, 1920.

Franz Boas, “The Outlook for the American Negro,” Commencement Address at Atlanta University, in George Stocking (ed). A Franz Boas Reader. (1906)

Benjamin Lee Whorf, “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language,” in Whorf, Language, Thought, and Reality (1939),.

Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture, Chapter One (“The Science of Custom”) and Chapter Eight (“The Individual and the Pattern of Culture”). 1934.


Presentation: Lee Baker: From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race 1896-1952. University of California Press, 1998.

Week Four (10/14): Structure and function

Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, “Introduction: The Subject, Method, and Scope of this Inquiry” (1922).

E. E. Evans-Pritchard, “The Nuer of the Southern Sudan,” in in E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Meyer Fortes (eds.), African Political Systems (1940).

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Mother’s Brother in South Africa”, “On Social Structure”, in Structure and Function in Primitive Society (1924)

Meyer Fortes. “The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups.” American Anthropologist, volume 55: 17-41. 1953.

Marcel Mauss, The Gift, Chapter 1, 2, 4 (1925)

Presentation: Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,” in Turner, The Forest of Symbols (1964)


Week Five (10/21): Structuralism

Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Structural analysis in linguistics and anthropology,” in Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, 1963.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totemism. 1963.

Edmund R. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology, Chapter One (“Rethinking Anthropology”). 1961.

Edmund R. Leach. Anthropological aspects of language: animal categories and verbal abuse. In New Directions in the Study of Language. (ed.) Lenneberg. 1964.


Presentation: Edmund R. Leach. Political Systems of Highland Burma: a Study of Kachin Social Structure. 1954.


Week Six (10/28): Post-war American developments: neo-evolutionism and ethnoscience

Leslie White, “Energy and the Evolution of Culture”, American Anthropologist 45: 335-356. 1943.

Julian Steward, “Multilinear evolution,” in Theory in Anthropology: A Sourcebook, Manners and. Kaplan, eds. pp. 241-250. Chicago: Aldine, 1968

Marvin Harris, “Introduction,” The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968) ; and “The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle,” Current Anthropology 7:51-66, 1966.

George Peter Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 5, No. 3. (Jun., 1940), pp. 361-370.. (Also browse web page: HYPERLINK "http://www.csub.edu/ssric-trd/modules/sccs/sccscb.htm" http://www.csub.edu/ssric-trd/modules/sccs/sccscb.htm)

Harold Conklin, “Hanunoo Color Categories,” in Dell Hymes (ed.), Language in Culture and Society, 1964, pp. 189-192.

Presentation: Dell Hymes, Reinventing Anthropology


Week Seven (11/4): Symbolic anthropology, Marxism, world system, practice theory

Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description”, “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man”, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”, in The Interpretation of Cultures. 1973.

David Schneider. American Kinship: a Cultural Account. 1968. Selections: pp. 1-54.

Claude Meillassoux, “From Reproduction to Production: A Marxist Approach to Economic Anthropology.” Economy and Society 1(1), 1974.

Pierre Bourdieu, selections from Outline of a Theory of Practice. 1977. chapters 2 and 4


Presentation: Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History, Introduction. 1982.


Week Eight (11/11): Feminist anthropology

Sherry Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?”, in Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds), Woman, Culture, and Society. 1974.

Michelle Z. Rosaldo, “Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview”, in Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds), Woman, Culture, and Society. 1974.

Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex,”
in Rayna Reiter (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women. 1975

Sylvia Yanagisako and Jane Collier. “Introduction: Gender and Kinship: Towards a Unified Analysis.” Stanford University Press. 1987

Presentation: Marilyn Strathern.  "No Nature, No Culture: the Hagen Case.” In:
Nature, Culture and Gender, edited by Carol P. MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern. 1980. Cambridge University Press.


Week Nine (TBA): Postcolonial critique and the crisis of representation

Edward Said, Orientalism, Introduction. 1979.

Talal Asad. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Introduction.

James Clifford, “Introduction: Partial Truths,” from James Clifford and George Marcus (eds.), Writing Culture: The Politics and Poetics of Ethnography. 1986.

Edward Said, “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology's Interlocutors”, Critical Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 2, Winter 1989, pp. 205-225.

Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, Feminist Review August 1988; Number 30


Presentation: Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” in Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. 1991.

********************************************************

No Class on November 25– Thanksgiving break

*********************************************************

Week Ten (12/2): Transnational flows and theories of globalization

Roger Rouse, “Migration and the Social Space of Postmodernism,” Diaspora 1(1):8-23. 1991.

Arjun Appadurai, “Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology,” in Richard Fox (ed.), Recapturing Anthropology. 1991.

Anna Tsing, “The Global Situation,” Cultural Anthropology 15(3):327-360, 2000.

Engseng Ho: “Empire Through Diasporic Eyes: A View from the Other Boat.” Comparative Studies in Society and History. 2004, pp. 210-246.


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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by solidaritywithfruit »

haha, dang dude. that list goes on and on.

i wish my professors would give me a list like that. they always mention stuff as it comes up. it's annoying.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Scumfucker »

Admiral Dick Fart wrote:
Scumfucker wrote:
I totally agree with Eggers being too longwinded and rambly. I also agree that Bret Easton Ellis rules. Most of his books are misunderstood. Less Than Zero is not just a book about drugs in Los Angeles. That's just the surface vehicle. He's capturing the the descent of morality really well. The disturbing apathy it creates. The empty indifference. The selfishness. Clay disturbs me because he seems to have a decent sense of right and wrong, he seems to definitely know better; yet he drifts and stagnates and doesn't seem to care much about anything but himself. The book takes you to low after low until the reader is desensitized like Clay is. That's the genius of the book. He manages to ditch LA at the end but his future seems very uncertain.

During the| McGinniss Jr. interview, Ellis announced that his forthcoming novel would be a sequel to "Less Than Zero" and would be titled Imperial Bedrooms, which, in keeping with the original, is taken from the title of a Elvis Costello record (both an 1982 album and song). He is being extremely ambitious to write a sequel with the characters now in their 40s. After reading Lunar Park, I've no doubt in my mind that he will write a great book that stands on it's own and will probably be better.
I like the rambly aspect sometimes (when it captures a more conversational tone), but sometimes I was just sitting there going GET TO THE POINT ALREADY! it doesn't take almost 400 pages to capture that kinda journey, especially since not much really happens beyond the two characters getting over their collective grief and getting rid of $32,000.

And a sequel? I can't wait for that. I need to pick up more of his stuff. What would you reccomend as a follow-up for someone who enjoyed LTZ?
I would recommend The Rules of Attraction next. As you read more of his books, it gets more fun because the books tend to all exist in the same universe.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Gory Sweetfeather »

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald- 8/10
I started reading FSG after really liking his collection of short stories, and this novel I liked even more than Gatsby. I laugh my ass off reading his stuff, its so funny, I don't think most get the enjoyment out of him I do.

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb 9/10
Damn fine piece of work. I'd recommend this book to pretty much anybody. I'm tempted to use a word like masterpiece.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-8/10
Dug it. But I'm gonna sound like a jackass; did he do all that shit or not ? How stupid am I for not knowing?

What is the What? by Dave Eggers-8/10
Another solid read, I liked You Shall Know Our Velocity as well.

Reading now- Wolf at the Dinner Table by Augusten Burroughs, let you know.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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I liked The Great Gatsby when I read it in high school, but I don't think it's status is warranted. It was pretty good, not a great classic.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

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castaneda- The Eagle's Gift 7/10

working on lucifer rising and the dead names... :blackmeadow:
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Gory Sweetfeather »

father of lies wrote:I liked The Great Gatsby when I read it in high school, but I don't think it's status is warranted. It was pretty good, not a great classic.
I actually couldn't bring myself to read it in High School, read it about a year ago for the first time. The hyperbolic praise a high school english teacher or english textbook might put on the Great Gatsby I think is unwarranted for just about any book. I also beleive theres a big difference from these intellectual folks who just profess about how masterful his work was, and a guy like me who reads his work and genuinely enjoys it, laughing like it was a Douglas Adams novel or something, which is what it does for me. For me his work is brilliantly cynical and witty to the point of it being timeless and creating a unique bridge from the early 1900's to now, bringing to light fascinating similarities of vastly different times. Maybe I haven't read enough authors from this time period or something, but I think Fitzgerald's the fukkin tits bra, anyones suggestions to stuff I also might enjoy are greatly welcome. And to anyone interested in getting into Fitzgerald, the short story he wrote A Diamond As Big As The Ritz is my suggestion for a starting point.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Gory Sweetfeather »

Scumfucker wrote:
Admiral Dick Fart wrote:
Scumfucker wrote:
I totally agree with Eggers being too longwinded and rambly. I also agree that Bret Easton Ellis rules. Most of his books are misunderstood. Less Than Zero is not just a book about drugs in Los Angeles. That's just the surface vehicle. He's capturing the the descent of morality really well. The disturbing apathy it creates. The empty indifference. The selfishness. Clay disturbs me because he seems to have a decent sense of right and wrong, he seems to definitely know better; yet he drifts and stagnates and doesn't seem to care much about anything but himself. The book takes you to low after low until the reader is desensitized like Clay is. That's the genius of the book. He manages to ditch LA at the end but his future seems very uncertain.

During the| McGinniss Jr. interview, Ellis announced that his forthcoming novel would be a sequel to "Less Than Zero" and would be titled Imperial Bedrooms, which, in keeping with the original, is taken from the title of a Elvis Costello record (both an 1982 album and song). He is being extremely ambitious to write a sequel with the characters now in their 40s. After reading Lunar Park, I've no doubt in my mind that he will write a great book that stands on it's own and will probably be better.
I like the rambly aspect sometimes (when it captures a more conversational tone), but sometimes I was just sitting there going GET TO THE POINT ALREADY! it doesn't take almost 400 pages to capture that kinda journey, especially since not much really happens beyond the two characters getting over their collective grief and getting rid of $32,000.

And a sequel? I can't wait for that. I need to pick up more of his stuff. What would you reccomend as a follow-up for someone who enjoyed LTZ?
I would recommend The Rules of Attraction next. As you read more of his books, it gets more fun because the books tend to all exist in the same universe.
I just wanted to mention that Dave Eggers short story "After I Was Thrown Into The River And Before I Drowned" is my favorite short story of all time and would like to reccommend it thusly.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by THE KILL »

canon.docre wrote:I'm powering through The Watchmen graphic novel and it is fucking amazing. Easily 10/10. I love it. Rorschach is the shit!
I've finished it a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't stop thinking about it for a week afterwards.... everything by Alan Moore I have read to date has been brilliant. Up next is From Hell...
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by sundin »

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill 9/10. Well Researched and scary as shit.

to the dude asking what to read after "Less than Zero"
check out "the Informers"... it's set in LA and at least one of the LTZ characters pop in.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by NANOplague »

CONTRACT KILLER by Lake Headley (true accounts of countless mob hits and prison stories told by the hitman Donald (the greek) Frankos.

FINAL TRUTH by Wilton Earle and Donald Gaskins (true accounts of lots of murders and acts committed and recounted by Donald "Peewee" Gaskins"

both re-reads and both 10/fucken 10's
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Scumfucker »

Gory Sweetfeather wrote: American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-8/10
Dug it. But I'm gonna sound like a jackass; did he do all that shit or not ? How stupid am I for not knowing?

Did he do all that shit? Yes and No. If you read the book, you will notice he is horribly vain and sees the world through very warped eyes. You could look at all his gloating and dramatic violence as lies or as truth. It's so over the top that I don't even think that all the killing is even supposed to be real. For example, Bret Easton Ellis understands that if you stuff a starving rat up a girls pussy, it probably wouldn't start literally eating away at her pussy flesh. It would suffocate and die. But in Patrick Batemans mind, it's such a twisted demented thought that he fantasizes he really does this cos it sounds awesome.

In this book, Bret Easton Ellis spews his hatred for his father. Patrick Bateman is based off of his father, who was also extremely vain, violent, and wealth obsessed. The book is his exercising his demons with his unresolved issues with his dad who died (thank god because it would be cruel for his dad to read it knowing what it's about). This is the hardest to read out of his books because of the deadpan style of the narration. Bret Easton Ellis' dad was not going to pay for his college because of Bret's choice of school and choice of major. His grandfather paid for his college and he abandoned his dad and from then on barely ever spoke to him, and wrote this book which is a grotesque exaggeration of his dad. In a way, Lunar Park is a sequel to American Psycho. This is because Lunar Park is also about his dad, and it also features appearances by patrick bateman (though he's not the protaganist).
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by transient »

for class:
anne enright - yesterday's weather. irish short female short stories about infidelity. 6/10 i guess

for fun:
kenzaburo oe - a personal matter. a man deals with the birth of his birth-defect son, told over the course of a few days. intensely personal and dark, VERY powerful with an ending that im going to deduct points for because its too happy. 8/10
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by father of lies »

The Politics of Psychopharmacology - Timothy and Rosemary Leary - 7.5

A pretty entertaining read.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by StateScatologist »

Finished Robert Anton Wilson's Schrodinger's Cat trilogy. Not one of his better books, but entertaining and thought-provoking none the less. I'm gonna go with 7/10.

Just started "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by danox3 »

The Necronomicon - Donald Tyson -15/10

Must read. I'm basically re-reading it in his Novel "Alhazred", which is a novelization of the Necronomicon. And this isn't the stupid Sumerian paperback you can find in every teenage devil worshipers backpack. Tyson has adapted all of Lovecraft's creations into a sort of "Necromancer's guide to Ancient Middle East".
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by sugar mama »

replay - 8
the dark side - 7
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by transient »

dexter filkins - the forever war

bout 60 pages left to go. 336 pages. 8/10
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NANOplague
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by NANOplague »

danox3 wrote:The Necronomicon - Donald Tyson -15/10

Must read. I'm basically re-reading it in his Novel "Alhazred", which is a novelization of the Necronomicon. And this isn't the stupid Sumerian paperback you can find in every teenage devil worshipers backpack. Tyson has adapted all of Lovecraft's creations into a sort of "Necromancer's guide to Ancient Middle East".
I must check this out.
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by Admiral Dick Fart »

Albert Camus - The Fall - 8/10 - lots of weighty allegories and massively quotable lines. I need to read this again, a lot goes on in only 147 pages.

Coming up:
HP Lovecraft - The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
Bret Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction
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Re: Latest book you read (1-10 scale)

Post by father of lies »

NANOplague wrote:
danox3 wrote:The Necronomicon - Donald Tyson -15/10

Must read. I'm basically re-reading it in his Novel "Alhazred", which is a novelization of the Necronomicon. And this isn't the stupid Sumerian paperback you can find in every teenage devil worshipers backpack. Tyson has adapted all of Lovecraft's creations into a sort of "Necromancer's guide to Ancient Middle East".
I must check this out.
I want to check this out, as well. Donald Tyson is the guy that made the Necronomicon tarot deck, which is pretty cool... I think he's the guy that wrote the article about HPL in the Disinfo Book of Lies, but I'm not sure.
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