Book 'em, Danno

HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
edited July 2010 in Strut Central
Whatcha reading?

Me as of late...











Got this on deck...

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  Comments


  • Garcia_VegaGarcia_Vega 2,428 Posts
    Are you reading all of those books at the same time? How much do you read per day, and how long does it take you to finish them on average?

    And for the sake fo the thread I just started reading One Police Plaza, good sort of trashy summer book:

  • gloomgloom 2,765 Posts

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Garcia_Vega said:
    Are you reading all of those books at the same time? How much do you read per day, and how long does it take you to finish them on average?


    Finished Killing Yourself to Live, Tapping the Source, and Saltwater Buddha within the past few weeks. I'm in the middle of Asphalt Gods and I read the Maravich jammy in random pieces on the side.

    If I like a book, it usually takes me maybe 4-5 days to plow through it. If I don't like a book, I typically don't get past about 40 pages before tossing it. All of those I listed I like(d) alright.

    I have serious surfer envy.

  • i started re-reading puzo's "the godfather" last night and its such a page-turner but its waaay more pulpy than i remembered. got some elmore leonards lined up after that including "be cool" (the sequel to "get shorty"--love those marvin gaye monolgues).

    can anyone recommend some good page-turning "true crime" novels a la "helter skelter", "serpico" or "the "valachi papers"? thinking of checking "tough jews"; anyone read that one?


  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    ...

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    crabmongerfunk said:


    can anyone recommend some good page-turning "true crime" novels

    It's been a decade plus since I read it, but I remember liking this one...


    Edit: Okay, so it's not actually a "true crime" novel, just a novel.


  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    I'm working on the complete works of Raymond Chandler right now. Got a couple of Library of Congress bound editions. Good stuff. I'd post pictures, but they're just blue library binding, so not much to look at.

  • HarveyCanal said:
    Whatcha reading?


    read this one a few months ago. i thouroughly enjoyed it, and it made me want to read more crime/detective fiction and non-fiction. everybody who has seen it around my house has--after reading the back--picked it up and started reading. my brother, who hasn't read a book since he read "the outsiders" 20 years ago is currently tearing his way through it.

    recent reads include



    which i didn't care for. adinolfi didn't do a very good job tying together all the genres he lumped under "exotica," and spent significant portions of the book discussing "exotica" without being clear about whether or not he was writing about the genre as it existed in the 50s-60s, the genre as it existed filtered through the "cocktail generation"--a term he never bother to define in a useful/meaningful way--or some combination of both.




    great stuff. it feels real. it feels accurate. the grimness can be a bit overwhelming.




    still haven't made up my mind about this. i had a few reservations throughout the book--his "this is your future" claim is is troublesome and seems to ignore all the conditions that, by bowden's own claims, make life the city what it is--but over all i enjoyed it until i got to the appendix, which is baffling. i'm not sure what purpose the articles are supposed to serve. are they supposed to get to a truth that the book couldn't, are they supposed to be an accurate reflection of 6 months in the city? after he spends 200+ page detailing the depth of corruption in the city, are we supposed to take the stories at face-value?




    awesome. too bad the cover sucks. does the kid who represents jim really need to be wearing jordan-esque shoes on the cover to appeal to a contemporary audience?



    based on reviews i've read, i seem to be in the growing minority of people who like this book. it is entertaining and captures it's time well. yeah, it's slight. yeah, it's a bit silly. yeah, it's not exactly necessary. but it fares better than a slight, silly, unnecessary sequel can be expected to.

  • Tough Jews is a great read. Recommended.

    Dress

  • willie_fugalwillie_fugal 1,862 Posts

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:





    Great book.

    Currently reading



    Lay The Favorite by Beth Raymer, really great memoir

    and recently found a few volumes of this series on clearance at Borders



    great modernist eye candy if you enjoy architechture

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    crabmongerfunk said:
    i started re-reading puzo's "the godfather" last night and its such a page-turner but its waaay more pulpy than i remembered. got some elmore leonards lined up after that including "be cool" (the sequel to "get shorty"--love those marvin gaye monolgues).

    can anyone recommend some good page-turning "true crime" novels a la "helter skelter", "serpico" or "the "valachi papers"? thinking of checking "tough jews"; anyone read that one?


    Homocide and The French Connection if you have not read them already.
    The Corner is true and it has crime, but it is not page-turning in a suspence/thriller way.

    I just finished Herbert Simmons' Corner Boy.
    I just started Ballard's Crash but am going to put it down - I can't stand his writing style.

  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    willie_fugal said:

    This is great, as are Sublette's two other books: its companion, The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans, and his first book, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.

  • onetetonetet 1,754 Posts

  • willie_fugalwillie_fugal 1,862 Posts
    faux_rillz said:
    willie_fugal said:

    This is great, as are Sublette's two other books: its companion, The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans, and his first book, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.

    haven't read the former, but the latter i always highly, highly recommend.


  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    DB_Cooper said:
    I'm working on the complete works of Raymond Chandler right now. Got a couple of Library of Congress bound editions. Good stuff. I'd post pictures, but they're just blue library binding, so not much to look at.

    i've read all of Chandler many times. Great stuff. if you haven't read Hammett, read him when you are done.

    Now readng ths.


    The topic is fascinating. History and science. But the writing sucks.

  • SIRUSSIRUS 2,554 Posts
    onetet said:

    is this any good?

  • onetetonetet 1,754 Posts
    SIRUS said:
    onetet said:

    is this any good?

    I'm enjoying it, some essays more than others. It's a lot more intimate than most of his past writing -- He reveals more of his personal history (including one very shocking and tragic incident) than I remember him doing in previous works. He also engages some of his glib previous writing (esp. re: the Manson family) from an interestingly repentant perspective.

    I like it better than his last three films.

  • SIRUSSIRUS 2,554 Posts
    i'm sold.

  • CosmophonicCosmophonic 1,172 Posts
    I feel like I'm on a very good roll concerning books at the moment.

    At the moment:



    Read "Dharma Bums" last summer and and loved it, this is promising thus far.



    Struggling with this, but the style is amazing.



    Surprisingly bad.


    Recently finished:



    Probably one of the greatest books I've ever read. Absolutely perfect.



    Very, very good. I'm reading "Beneath the Wheel" as soon as I get the chance.


    Also just finished a collection of HP Lovecraft stories.

  • Mr_Lee_PHDMr_Lee_PHD 2,042 Posts

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:




    I remember when Kellogs, in all of their wisdom, thought that the UK version of Cocoa Puffs should be homogenised and re-branded to the same name as the US.
    That lasted about two months, probably cost them more money than they thought they'd save using the same name.


  • MjukisMjukis 1,675 Posts
    Mr_Lee_PHD said:

    I enjoyed Tricks of the Mind. I had this NLP phase a couple of years ago when I read an introduction book, also the classic Frogs into princes and The Hypnotic patterns of Milton Erickson. It's interesting stuff but you have to take it with more than a few grains of salt. Derren Brown explains it pretty well actually, as he says he's not a "true believer", and is a bit skeptical to some of the outlandish claims of the NLP community...

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    DB_Cooper said:
    I'm working on the complete works of Raymond Chandler right now. Got a couple of Library of Congress bound editions. Good stuff. I'd post pictures, but they're just blue library binding, so not much to look at.

    i've read all of Chandler many times. Great stuff. if you haven't read Hammett, read him when you are done.

    Oh yeah ??? I've read all the Hammett stuff. The archetype, really. I just finished a couple of David Markson's early novels. Before he got into experimental stuff, he wrote some great pulp-type stuff. I'd recommend this:


    Two of his detective novels set in late-50s/early 60s Manhattan, mostly in the Village. They're great. I'm looking to pick up John. D. MacDonald's stuff next.

  • Mr_Lee_PHDMr_Lee_PHD 2,042 Posts
    Mjukis said:
    Mr_Lee_PHD said:

    I enjoyed Tricks of the Mind. I had this NLP phase a couple of years ago when I read an introduction book, also the classic Frogs into princes and The Hypnotic patterns of Milton Erickson. It's interesting stuff but you have to take it with more than a few grains of salt. Derren Brown explains it pretty well actually, as he says he's not a "true believer", and is a bit skeptical to some of the outlandish claims of the NLP community...



    I studied NLP and hypnosis for couple of years and the NLP stuff has some good useful elements to it.. anchors, reframing techniques, swish pattern, eye accessing cues, the meta model etc, but some of the stuff is just too far fetched... and some people take it waaaay to far, like its some kind of religion. Plus, Milton Erickson gets a bit blown out of proportion too. The ericksonian handshake is cool though.

    What really makes me chuckle is how many of Derren Brown's magic and mentalism tricks the hardcore NLP'ers try to pass off as feats of pure psychological mastery (like he's flying the flag for them or something) when they are actually just simple magic tricks presented and dressed as psychology.

  • deathvalley90210 said:



    ive been meaning to pick this up because i really like ellis a lot but i hate hardback books. i have a shit ton of books and between those and records, i dont need to add more weight.

    i just finished this:


    and it was amazing. a nice mix of surreal fiction b/w autobiographical elements. kind of reminds of lethem's short stories or murakami's dance dance dance.

  • onetetonetet 1,754 Posts
    smoking_robot said:
    deathvalley90210 said:



    ive been meaning to pick this up because i really like ellis a lot but i hate hardback books. i have a shit ton of books and between those and records, i dont need to add more weight.

    i just finished this:


    and it was amazing. a nice mix of surreal fiction b/w autobiographical elements. kind of reminds of lethem's short stories or murakami's dance dance dance.

    Somehow I missed that Imperial Bedrooms was already out. Definitely want to read that, although I should maybe re-read Less Than Zero first. Lunar Park had a lot of promise but fell kinda flat for me -- but still had some great passages, and was the first book from him that didn't do it for me.

  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    crabmongerfunk said:
    i started re-reading puzo's "the godfather" last night and its such a page-turner but its waaay more pulpy than i remembered. got some elmore leonards lined up after that including "be cool" (the sequel to "get shorty"--love those marvin gaye monolgues).

    can anyone recommend some good page-turning "true crime" novels a la "helter skelter", "serpico" or "the "valachi papers"? thinking of checking "tough jews"; anyone read that one?



    Meyer Levin, Compulsion
    In Cold Blood
    Dryer, American Tragedy
    Waller, Kidnap Story of the Lindbergh Case
    Maury, The Ultimate Evil (I read this book in like 3 days. When I was finnished I felt like maybe I knew too much and that I would be in danger. I ended up giving the book to salvation army because it creeped me out to have it in the house anymore)


    In the Pulp Fiction/Noir vein, although not true-crime, Woolrich Waltz into Darkness.

  • any science fiction fans got a series of books to recommend? i'm about to finish herbert's "dune" series--the original books, not the stuff his son co-wrote--and am looking for a series to jump into next. before the "dune" series i read stephenson's "baroque cycle" books, if that helps with recommendations.
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