[P1d40n3]

The B&N that was right under the place I work closed last year.

:(
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[negativedge]

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

compassionate conservatism

[CubaLibre]

To be fair I also treat rote pleas by employees of giant corporations to give them more money so that they can give it to a charity I know nothing about as fairly laughable.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Adilegian]

[108]

[negativedge]

tim I spoiled your mother last night

[Adilegian]

[diplo]

i am reading karen armstrong's the case for god (thought armstrong to be an atheist, but i was apparently misinformed . . . or she's changed positions), dostoyevsky's the brothers karamazov, edward said's music at the limits, and jonah lehrer's proust was a neuroscientist. i'm having a hard time getting worthwhile content out of the last book, which seems to stretch a lot of isolated trivia so it can all connect to a central thesis; for example, i doubt that stravinsky's "the rite of spring" being dissonant was the sole factor in instigating the riot and its associated violence. on the other hand, i appreciate the same article said example is taken from for its, however brief, topic re: the unpredictability of music affecting the brain. i want to read an entire book devoted to this (if anyone has recommendations, please let me know), as i increasingly find that it's kinda central to why i enjoy most of the music i enjoy. i mean, i'm not sure how far you could extend the topic on a purely scientific basis (pattern disruption triggering dopamine), but i think you could totally apply it for a musical-theory-based argument as to why, like, bach's music is generally so much more interesting and rewarding for people to listen to than, say, handel's.

[Adilegian]

Said is pretty swank! His cultural critique of Orientalism is good work.

I'm reading George Eliot's Felix Holt. I'm about 60 pages into it, and it's a really good piece of work. It does such a good job of revealing how poorly most of us are equipped for acting within political theaters of the size we're expected to enter these days -- and, actually, how poorly most of us are equipped for really understanding theaters of that size.
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[mothman spirit]

I've been reading Borges, Kafka and Murakami. Only the short stories, though. I'm in the mood for short stories.

[Renfrew]

I wanted to share this passage from Ramonace of the Three Kingdoms with you guys.

Ts'ao smiled and tried to cheer up his guest. He plied him with wine so that he became quite intoxicated and sat stroking his beard and saying, "What a useless thing am I! I could do no service for my country and I have parted from my elder brother."
"How many hairs in your beard?" suddenly asked his host.

"Some hundreds, perhaps. In the autumn a few fall out, but in the winter it is fullest. Then I use a black silk bag to keep the hairs from being broken," replied Kuan.

Ts'ao had a bag made for him to protect his beard. soon after when they were at Court the Emporer asked what was the bad he saw on Kuan Yu's breast.

"My beard is rather long. Your Majesty," said Kuan. "So the Minister gave me a bag to protect it."

The Emporer bade him take off the bag and show his beard in all its fullness and it fell in rippling waves below his breast.

"Really a most beautiful beard!" said the Emporer.

That is why people call him "The Duke with the Beautiful Beard."

[rabite gets whacked!]

Read this and ordered a couple of Susan Mitchell's books. First poetry I've bought in a long while.
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[vonlenska]

rabite, I liked that. Thanks for the reference.

[shrugtheironteacup]

a dictionary of borges
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[elvis.shrugged]

[negativedge]

[Winona Ghost Ryder]

An excellent interview with Cormac McCarthy and John Hillcoat. McCarthy reveals his next book, a novel set in New Orleans during the 1980's.

[Isfet]

re: Norwegian Wood. i enjoyed the book, but it wasn't really my favorite Murakami by any stretch of the imagination. it's a little too...straight. there are hints of weirdness, but it lacks a lot of the surrealness that i enjoy from his other work. plus, i don't really care about The Beatles.

currently in the process of reading Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. it's reealllllly enjoyable to read and i like Rushdie's phrases and word usage. aside from the whole controversy that surrounds the book, it tells a fairly interesting story that blends of a lot of odd things into a semi-realistic world. though, honestly, without some kind of familiarity with the cultures discussed in the book, i'm not entirely sure what would be expected of the reader.

[shrugtheironteacup]

[Adilegian]

[Dracko]

The annual Supervert competition is on.

All you need to do is submit your e-mail address for a chance to win a copy of either Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish or Necrophilia Variations.

And on that note the deadline for the Ballardian.com flash fiction competition has been extended until the 15th.

[shrugtheironteacup]

[Dracko]

Read up on Oscar Wilde's lost pornographic oeuvre. Maybe.
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[mothman spirit]

Let's see. I finished Lolita yesterday and I kind of really liked it. I read a Murakami short story compilation, The Elephant Vanishes. It was only okay. Out of it, I only liked a few of the stories. I really liked "The Second Bakery Attack" and "The Dancing Dwarf", and I kind of liked "Sleep" and "The Silence". I couldn't read more than one story maybe every two days, and it pretty much drained any desire I had to read. I'm pretty sure that's because most of the stories were kind of boring. Like "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women". I'm pretty sure that one sucked. I recommended Sputnik Sweetheart to a friend (She recommended a collection of stories and poems by Poe) on the basis of this thread, because there was something or other that I liked about Murakami, even in the worse stories. I checked out Kafka on the Shore and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (another short story compilation) from the library, though I doubt I'll be reading either any time soon, especially since I've just started Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, which seems pretty good.

So, Borges. I really really really like his writing, and I'd probably like him if I ever met him. I've read Doctor Brodie's Report and most of The Aleph, and I read "The Library of Babel" from Ficciones, which is likely my favorite of his. Not a single story of his I've read has been boring.

I read Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk, which I liked.

I read The Glass Castle for a class. I though it was good, but only because it was a memoir. What I like most about it is that it actually happened to someone, if that makes sense.

In summary, I like some books but not others, and I can't quite place my finger on why.

[Adilegian]

Finished reading Eliot's Felix Holt. Lovely overall, though I felt the characters were difficult to connect to. The intrigues were mostly based in Victorian English legal statutes, which isn't the most engaging material.

I'm going to start Robert Penn Warren's Flood.
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[robotdell]

I just recently got a major influx of literature TODAY. My buddies decided to give me my Christmas presents early and this is what I received:

Notes from the Underground
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
The Trial
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Lolita

and

Catcher in the Rye

What should I read first? SO MANY CHOICES

[somes]

I like borges but get irritated by his jokes sometimes.

the uncivil teacher of court etiquette, kotsuke no suke (or whatever it is--something like that, im too lazy to look it up) is my favorite story of his.

[Dracko]

[negativedge]

Notes From the Underground is short and iconic. you could even spin it off as highly relevant to both The Trial and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

(he says despite having never read the later two novels)

[robotdell]

Yeah, I noticed that Notes was only 130 pages and this text is HUGE (not metaphorically). I've heard Dostoevsky's other works (mainly Crime and Punishment) drone on and on without having a cohesive narrative. But that's just from hearing from my idiotic, illiterate friends.

[CubaLibre]

You may rest assured that they are idiotic and illiterate.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[eden]

Just finished "An Artist Of The Floating World". Have been on a bit of an Ishiguro kick lately- read "Never Let Me Go" and "The Unconsoled" before that. They're all very good.

[Dracko]

Please read Death in Paris.

[shrugtheironteacup]

But.
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[Dracko]

Do it, shrug!
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[shrugtheironteacup]

What curious purposing of cliches.
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[Dracko]

"pornography has no time for your posturing and your irony because people only masturbate sincerely"

[negativedge]

nothing is sincere in literature. by default. life is sincere. literature is what happens when you just can't take that anymore.

[Adilegian]

Currently reading Robert Penn Warren's novel Flood. Will probably read some of his poems while I'm at it. I like his poem about Audubon right now.

So stirs, knowing now
He will not be here when snow
Drifts into the open door of the cabin, or,
Descending the chimney, mantles thinly
dead ashes on the hearth, nor when snow thatches
These heads with white, like wisdom, nor ever will he
Hear the infinitesimal stridor of the frozen rope
As wind shifts its burden, or when

The weight of the crow first comes to rest on a rigid shoulder.
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[Levi]