Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yoscott for this:
http://community.livejournal.com/found_objects/3655743.html
The Young Visiters 2008. YEAH!
yoscott for this:http://community.livejournal.com/found_objects/3655743.html
The Young Visiters 2008. YEAH!
do_not_lick reminded me of a favorite Internet book reviewer, and linked me to two of his critical pieces I had not seen. - Moby-Dick "The plot could be wholly told in about 15 pages, none ommitted. The rest is philosophy and whale-encyclopedia."
- Mrs. Dalloway "Just WTF is this book about ? Making fun of the London "drawing rooms" society of 100 years ago ? M...kay, whatever."
- The Odyssey "The style is heavy, but there's no other way out, I guess. They spake (hehe...) this way back then..."
I was soured after my trip to B&N and nicholasjamesb and I started riffing on the "publishing market." Here are some sure fire books we came up with:
Hitler's Secret Weapons: Your Success Advantage for Life
The Templars, 9/11, and God's Promise for Your New Life after Divorce
Chicken Soup for the Unholy Occult Secrets of the SS
Harry Potter and the Liberal Traitors of the Media
Donald Trump's lives of the Templars
Sylvia Browne Channels Gilles De Rais
Q is for Quagmire: Sue Grafton's Tour in Baghdad
Joel Osteen's TEMPLARMANIA! & workbook
Mein Kampf: The Essential Church Group Reading Guide
My Pants Got Wet: A Suburban Woman's Essentially Uneventful Life, Overexplained
A Wide Stance for America: The Larry Craig Story
Dr Laura's TEMPLAR DIET AND WORKBOOK
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM JOHN GRISHAM'S CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE NEW AGE TEMPLAR SOUL BY DAVE KOZ
any of the above + (THE DAILY MEDITATIONS JOURNAL)
nicholasjamesb and I started riffing on the "publishing market." Here are some sure fire books we came up with:Hitler's Secret Weapons: Your Success Advantage for Life
The Templars, 9/11, and God's Promise for Your New Life after Divorce
Chicken Soup for the Unholy Occult Secrets of the SS
Harry Potter and the Liberal Traitors of the Media
Donald Trump's lives of the Templars
Sylvia Browne Channels Gilles De Rais
Q is for Quagmire: Sue Grafton's Tour in Baghdad
Joel Osteen's TEMPLARMANIA! & workbook
Mein Kampf: The Essential Church Group Reading Guide
My Pants Got Wet: A Suburban Woman's Essentially Uneventful Life, Overexplained
A Wide Stance for America: The Larry Craig Story
Dr Laura's TEMPLAR DIET AND WORKBOOK
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM JOHN GRISHAM'S CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE NEW AGE TEMPLAR SOUL BY DAVE KOZ
any of the above + (THE DAILY MEDITATIONS JOURNAL)
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
( cut for highfalutin book meme thing )
( cut for highfalutin book meme thing )
IT MUST BE STIMPMAS
Jun. 14th, 2007 09:23 pmIn that I received out of the blue two things from my wishlist: A history of CURRY and a big coffee table book of picture of ATOMIC BOMB BLASTS, both courtesy of the lovely, talented, and much-appreciated rumplestimpskin!!!
Off to read one or both of them to the cat.
THANKS STIMPY!!!
rumplestimpskin!!!Off to read one or both of them to the cat.
THANKS STIMPY!!!
confession (and so it goes)
Apr. 15th, 2007 03:00 amedit: fixed markup so it actually makes cognitive sense
I didn't like Vonnegut.
He had one good book in him (Slaughterhouse-Five) and then he kept writing it again. Norman Mailer had a similar trajectory. The war, then The Naked and the Dead, followed by celebrity and admiration and a string of terrible books. Vonnegut had good ideas after that, but not very good books. He's a bad influence on other writers, and he was a bad influence on himself in the same way. That self-important, nearly echolalic fairy-tale storytelling style never varied. Reading Vonnegut never felt like hearing a story; it was more like being backed into a corner at a cocktail party by the man himself while he told his too-familiar stories yet again.
Like Tom Robbins and John irving, Kurt Vonnegut wrote young adult novels that were sold to grown-ups. Like other counterculture heroes and hippie gurus, he was an unmoveable conservative who never changed his style or his message. And like the Grateful Dead, he had armies of fans who would never doubt him.
I've felt this way about Vonnegut for a long time. There's been more violent opposition to this opinion is than most of my tiresome and admittedly annoying political and philosophical ideas or even my macaroni & cheese recipe. I have lost two "LJ Friends" over Vonnegut and I shouldn't talk books with some of my friends in case The Topic comes up.
I can't say so for sure, but I think Vonnegut himself tired of being a sacred object.
I didn't like Vonnegut.
He had one good book in him (Slaughterhouse-Five) and then he kept writing it again. Norman Mailer had a similar trajectory. The war, then The Naked and the Dead, followed by celebrity and admiration and a string of terrible books. Vonnegut had good ideas after that, but not very good books. He's a bad influence on other writers, and he was a bad influence on himself in the same way. That self-important, nearly echolalic fairy-tale storytelling style never varied. Reading Vonnegut never felt like hearing a story; it was more like being backed into a corner at a cocktail party by the man himself while he told his too-familiar stories yet again.
Like Tom Robbins and John irving, Kurt Vonnegut wrote young adult novels that were sold to grown-ups. Like other counterculture heroes and hippie gurus, he was an unmoveable conservative who never changed his style or his message. And like the Grateful Dead, he had armies of fans who would never doubt him.
I've felt this way about Vonnegut for a long time. There's been more violent opposition to this opinion is than most of my tiresome and admittedly annoying political and philosophical ideas or even my macaroni & cheese recipe. I have lost two "LJ Friends" over Vonnegut and I shouldn't talk books with some of my friends in case The Topic comes up.
I can't say so for sure, but I think Vonnegut himself tired of being a sacred object.
A final goodbye to Apollo Books
Jan. 15th, 2007 08:15 pmhttp://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/01/15/features/dpt-closed15.txt
They held on a few months after they announced their retirement, but now it's gone for good. The Apollo, in its original location at 18th & Newport, was a big part of my education. Others had the same experience; we found entirely new worlds in stacks of dusty paperbacks.
If I win the lottery I'm going to run a bookstore until I'm poor again.
They held on a few months after they announced their retirement, but now it's gone for good. The Apollo, in its original location at 18th & Newport, was a big part of my education. Others had the same experience; we found entirely new worlds in stacks of dusty paperbacks.
If I win the lottery I'm going to run a bookstore until I'm poor again.
book, cover, judged
Aug. 19th, 2006 08:56 pmI have no joke, I just like saying "Old Man Eggers".
edit:quisatsatterak wrote the best comment in that thread. Oh dear god that was good.
I want books written by the kids of today! With upgraded brand names and rock bands and haircuts! This "Moby-Dick" thing doesn't fit my TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC!
edit:
quisatsatterak wrote the best comment in that thread. Oh dear god that was good.I want books written by the kids of today! With upgraded brand names and rock bands and haircuts! This "Moby-Dick" thing doesn't fit my TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC!
I just ordered The Logic Of Failure ( at amazon ) ( at isbn.nu )
I like Amazon's SIPs, and I particularly like the ones for this book:
Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
storeroom experiment, bad participants, predator variable, reductive hypothesis, reverse planning, elaboration index, ballistic behavior, experiment director, good participants, moth population, problem sector, partial goals, regulator settings, watch factory, temporal configurations, experiment participants, planning game
I like Amazon's SIPs, and I particularly like the ones for this book:
Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
storeroom experiment, bad participants, predator variable, reductive hypothesis, reverse planning, elaboration index, ballistic behavior, experiment director, good participants, moth population, problem sector, partial goals, regulator settings, watch factory, temporal configurations, experiment participants, planning game
Wild and Wooly Semiautomatic Truck Bomb
Apr. 18th, 2006 03:07 amI went to Kéan today to get more coffee beans. They have the La Lucie, meaning the real La Lucie the way it used to be. Recommend you pick some up if you're local and like that dark roast Zimbabwean thing.
Neurofeedback today. Brainwaves are getting better (higher beta, lower theta, less gap between).
I thought for two hours that I had lost my "check card" VISA. I hadn't. It was caught in a snag in a jacket pocket, having fallen out of my wallet.
I read most of the rest of Hardcore Zen today. It's a damned good book. Thanks,hweimei for the recommendation!
At the angle I can see her, my sleeping cat currently looks like a fuzzy spheroid without features.
Neurofeedback today. Brainwaves are getting better (higher beta, lower theta, less gap between).
I thought for two hours that I had lost my "check card" VISA. I hadn't. It was caught in a snag in a jacket pocket, having fallen out of my wallet.
I read most of the rest of Hardcore Zen today. It's a damned good book. Thanks,
hweimei for the recommendation!At the angle I can see her, my sleeping cat currently looks like a fuzzy spheroid without features.
So, Muriel Spark died after a long and illustrious career. I was reminded that the band Public Image Ltd. named themselves after a novel of hers, which then made me think about literary-rock connections. I started to make a list in my head of Musical Groups Named After Things Literary. Add any you can think of! Note: I cheated and used Wikipedia for some of these. I'm not quite that smart!
Public Image
The Soft Machine
Steely Dan
The Boo Radleys
The Velvet Underground
Pere Ubu
The Thompson Twins
Aerosmith (disputed)
Steppenwolf
The Grifters
Heaven 17
Love and Rockets
Eyeless in Gaza (double Huxley/Milton score as pointed out by someone else)
As I Lay Dying
Veruca Salt
The Grapes of Wrath
Collective Soul
The Doors (double Huxley/Blake score)
The Fall
Hot Water Music
Moby
Public Image
The Soft Machine
Steely Dan
The Boo Radleys
The Velvet Underground
Pere Ubu
The Thompson Twins
Aerosmith (disputed)
Steppenwolf
The Grifters
Heaven 17
Love and Rockets
Eyeless in Gaza (double Huxley/Milton score as pointed out by someone else)
As I Lay Dying
Veruca Salt
The Grapes of Wrath
Collective Soul
The Doors (double Huxley/Blake score)
The Fall
Hot Water Music
Moby
hurray for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
springheel_jack!
Mar. 10th, 2006 09:42 pmI just got in the mail from him two books: Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps and Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato.
The Greene is wonderfully gloomy. Mr. G heads off to Liberia in the late thirties and wallows in the horrors of colonialism. Not only are things completely fucked-up, but reading it now I know how much worse they got. All of the gloom is worth it, though, for his prose.
Going After Cacciato is a wonderful novel that I read when it came out. I haven't had my own copy (I read my dad's) and hadn't re-read it since, although I have recommended it to others. It's a picaresque journey/magic realist fantasy set during the Vietnam war, but that doesn't do it justice at all.
Thanks Nat! That was really cool of you!
The Greene is wonderfully gloomy. Mr. G heads off to Liberia in the late thirties and wallows in the horrors of colonialism. Not only are things completely fucked-up, but reading it now I know how much worse they got. All of the gloom is worth it, though, for his prose.
Going After Cacciato is a wonderful novel that I read when it came out. I haven't had my own copy (I read my dad's) and hadn't re-read it since, although I have recommended it to others. It's a picaresque journey/magic realist fantasy set during the Vietnam war, but that doesn't do it justice at all.
Thanks Nat! That was really cool of you!
Dear the New York Times Book Review
Feb. 12th, 2006 04:07 pmPlease fact-check all of the quotes in the reviews you print, even those that repeat urban legend-quality garbage that happens to be fashionable at the moment. In case you forgot, that's a big part of your job.
Best wishes,
Recovering Entertainment Journalist
Best wishes,
Recovering Entertainment Journalist
FREE JAMES FREY! In defense of the post-truth memoir
Why bother with accuracy when the feelings are real? Was it three hours in an empty office, or three months behind bars? Doesn’t matter! What the writer felt when the stuff that really happened was going on is exactly the same as what his character feels when stuff that didn’t really happen goes on in the book. And that’s what the reader feels. Keep up with me here...
Why bother with accuracy when the feelings are real? Was it three hours in an empty office, or three months behind bars? Doesn’t matter! What the writer felt when the stuff that really happened was going on is exactly the same as what his character feels when stuff that didn’t really happen goes on in the book. And that’s what the reader feels. Keep up with me here...
