For some unknown reason I seem to be reading 17 books at once.
This one is good for the commute. So highly readable, cleverly written and funny. Like an interlocking set of short stories, flitting back and forth in time.
This one is making me want to listen to Holst and Grainger (I haven't got to the electrified folk rock stage yet). Great writing, that truly exposes most so-called music writers as the clumsy oafs they are.
This one makes my brain itch and regularly causes me to put it down and have a wonder. I read 'Ocean Of Sound' about 10 years ago and loved that. This one is about silence and memory and sound and music and is wholly awesome. I bought 'Sinister Resonance' at the same time, though I'll have to leave it a good while before getting into that one so as to give this the space it needs.
And this one is just going on and on... zzz. I want to get to the 3rd story - I'm stuck in the 2nd one and it's dragging. A bit like Bret Easton Ellis, who turns up in it, in Bret Easton Ellis style.. anyway, c'mon Will. I loved 'The Butt' and 'Liver' so much I was excited when I got this one but it's not 'got' me in the same fashion.
Just finished Neal Stephenson's latest, "REAMDE." Loved it. That's two in a row, after getting bogged down in that Baroque Cycle thing he did.
It is his first book based in modern times in a long time, and I guess has the most widespread appeal of any of his stuff. It has internets, PNW settings, terrorists, Russian mobsters. And he's still funny.
I'm reading this now. I think it's good, but I'm a little annoyed at how immensely verbose he is. (worse than that sentence, if you can imagine that). Somehow I'm ok with him taking 150 pages to explain random math theorems, but 150 pages of not much happening in Xiamen, kind of bores me.
Infinite Jest beckons, but damn that is one hell of an investment. Who's read it?
Read it, absolutely love it. Worth your time. As one person put it, "flaws and all, you'll never see the world the same way again. It makes the world a more interesting place."
"Sometimes A Great Notion," is my favorite book, "Moby Dick," is the best book I've ever read, but "Infinite Jest," is the book that means the most to me.
My wife has also just about banned me from talking about it...
I'm reading this now. I think it's good, but I'm a little annoyed at how immensely verbose he is. (worse than that sentence, if you can imagine that). Somehow I'm ok with him taking 150 pages to explain random math theorems, but 150 pages of not much happening in Xiamen, kind of bores me.
I felt that way in those Baroque Cycle books. Can't remember anything about them, honestly. Might've been the setting. Overall though, I really dig his crazy sidebars. This book picks up once all the players are established, so much so that you might find yourself looking for one of his rambling tangents again.
I know some of you dudes don't like to read too many words not enough pictures. The quality of Graphic Novels has gotten much better.. thought I'd throw some of these recommendations out there.
Daytripper is about a Brazillian writer who goes through a surreal journey of existentialism. He reflects on life and death and spirituality. If you're into reading a great comic not about a superhero. I can highly recommend it.
Phillip K. Dick is highly regarded as one of the most challenging science fiction writers of all time. This book is arguably his most acclaimed work. If you haven't read the book.. this is an alternative way to take it in. I know most people will argue the images in your imagination are what makes reading fiction exciting. For me this was just if good and in places much better.
This graphic novel is not an adaptation... It has every word from the book, with full color illustrations. I thought it was pretty dope, and a quick read. Blade Runner aint shit in comparison. I also saw alot of influences in movies today and also from Frank Miller's Hard Boiled.
If you're like me.. You've seen every episode, and you read the comics.. Well this book goes into the background on my favorite character from the series. The Governor. No brainer.
Since I'm speaking of Comics.. (I still avidly read spiderman.) I recently read through all of Jodorowsky and Moebius's output. I definitely reccomend:
L'Incal
The White Llama
Blueberry
Son of the Gun
Borgia
The Long tomorrow
Icaro
an excerpt:
If you have to rationalize why you bought a luxury item, you will probably find ways to see how it fits in with your self-image.
Branding builds on this by giving you the option to create the person you think you are through choosing to align yourself with the mystique of certain products.
Apple advertising, for instance, doesn???t mention how good their computers are. Instead, they give you examples of the sort of people who purchase those computers. The idea is to encourage you to say, ???Yeah, I???m not some stuffy, conservative nerd. I have taste and talent and took art classes in college.???
Are Apple computers better than Microsoft-based computers? Is one better than the other when looked at empirically, based on data and analysis and testing and objective comparisons?
It doesn???t matter.
Those considerations come after a person has begun to see themselves as the sort of person who would own one. If you see yourself as the kind of person who owns Apple computers, or who drives hybrids, or who smokes Camels, you???ve been branded.
This is maybe the best book I've read in a long time. Therapeautic healing, lucid dreaming and creativity lessons Jodorowsky style.
Hey Spidey, I just wanted to sincerely thank you for this recommendation. I've been going through some life changes recently, and Jodorowsky's writing came at the absolute perfect moment. I've seen his films, of course, and knew about his comics, but did not know about Psychomagic. I watched an hour long thing on Psychomagic on youtube, read his Spiritual Journey first, and now this, and I find much of the content truly exhilarating. I'm sure it's a bit too far out there for most people, but I loved it, so thanks.
Just finished this. One of the most disturbing books I have ever read, but I could not put it down.
Now I'm reading "Tokyo Vice" and it is great. I was living in Saitama-ken, Omiya City during the early 90s when Adelstein was working there. I remember some of the cases from the book. Anyone with an interest in modern Japan should read this.
Book Description
Publication Date: October 13, 2009
From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.
At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan???s most infamous yakuza boss???and the threat of death for him and his family???Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back.
In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter???who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor???to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.
I know some of you dudes don't like to read too many words not enough pictures. The quality of Graphic Novels has gotten much better.. thought I'd throw some of these recommendations out there.
Daytripper is about a Brazillian writer who goes through a surreal journey of existentialism. He reflects on life and death and spirituality. If you're into reading a great comic not about a superhero. I can highly recommend it.
huge cosine, this is a great work.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
This is maybe the best book I've read in a long time. Therapeautic healing, lucid dreaming and creativity lessons Jodorowsky style.
Hey Spidey, I just wanted to sincerely thank you for this recommendation. I've been going through some life changes recently, and Jodorowsky's writing came at the absolute perfect moment. I've seen his films, of course, and knew about his comics, but did not know about Psychomagic. I watched an hour long thing on Psychomagic on youtube, read his Spiritual Journey first, and now this, and I find much of the content truly exhilarating. I'm sure it's a bit too far out there for most people, but I loved it, so thanks.
Cool man, I'm glad you got something from tgat book. I've been re-reading bits of it just to analyze his thought process, and explanations. I feel like observing his thoughts has definitely help lift my creativity to another level.
On Saturday afternoon I posted a pic (on FB) of this book that I'm reading while at lunch at the university campus. I was only two chapters in but I was compelled to share it to see if any of my friends were up on it, especially my old graf buddies. As it turns out, the author's a friend of O-Dub and by some weird coincidence, the dude was speaking at the book festival at the same time I posted a pic at the same university. (He was literally across the street from where I was having lunch. I had absolutely no idea.) Less than 24 hours later I'm hanging out with the dude eating Mexican food and taking him to some local record spots. Social networking is a TRIP.
As far as the book goes...like I said, I'm only two chapters in but I'm really diggin' it. I don't know where the story goes yet so I don't know who to recommend it too, but I will say the first couple chapters had me itchin' to rock a burner and I haven't touched a can in ages!
P.S. Dude also wrote Go The F*k To Sleep.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Comments
This one is good for the commute. So highly readable, cleverly written and funny. Like an interlocking set of short stories, flitting back and forth in time.
This one is making me want to listen to Holst and Grainger (I haven't got to the electrified folk rock stage yet). Great writing, that truly exposes most so-called music writers as the clumsy oafs they are.
This one makes my brain itch and regularly causes me to put it down and have a wonder. I read 'Ocean Of Sound' about 10 years ago and loved that. This one is about silence and memory and sound and music and is wholly awesome. I bought 'Sinister Resonance' at the same time, though I'll have to leave it a good while before getting into that one so as to give this the space it needs.
And this one is just going on and on... zzz. I want to get to the 3rd story - I'm stuck in the 2nd one and it's dragging. A bit like Bret Easton Ellis, who turns up in it, in Bret Easton Ellis style.. anyway, c'mon Will. I loved 'The Butt' and 'Liver' so much I was excited when I got this one but it's not 'got' me in the same fashion.
just finished these on a recent trip, brian greene is a genius
I'm reading this now. I think it's good, but I'm a little annoyed at how immensely verbose he is. (worse than that sentence, if you can imagine that). Somehow I'm ok with him taking 150 pages to explain random math theorems, but 150 pages of not much happening in Xiamen, kind of bores me.
Read it, absolutely love it. Worth your time. As one person put it, "flaws and all, you'll never see the world the same way again. It makes the world a more interesting place."
"Sometimes A Great Notion," is my favorite book, "Moby Dick," is the best book I've ever read, but "Infinite Jest," is the book that means the most to me.
My wife has also just about banned me from talking about it...
I felt that way in those Baroque Cycle books. Can't remember anything about them, honestly. Might've been the setting. Overall though, I really dig his crazy sidebars. This book picks up once all the players are established, so much so that you might find yourself looking for one of his rambling tangents again.
Daytripper is about a Brazillian writer who goes through a surreal journey of existentialism. He reflects on life and death and spirituality. If you're into reading a great comic not about a superhero. I can highly recommend it.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Phillip K. Dick is highly regarded as one of the most challenging science fiction writers of all time. This book is arguably his most acclaimed work. If you haven't read the book.. this is an alternative way to take it in. I know most people will argue the images in your imagination are what makes reading fiction exciting. For me this was just if good and in places much better.
This graphic novel is not an adaptation... It has every word from the book, with full color illustrations. I thought it was pretty dope, and a quick read. Blade Runner aint shit in comparison. I also saw alot of influences in movies today and also from Frank Miller's Hard Boiled.
If you're like me.. You've seen every episode, and you read the comics.. Well this book goes into the background on my favorite character from the series. The Governor. No brainer.
Since I'm speaking of Comics.. (I still avidly read spiderman.) I recently read through all of Jodorowsky and Moebius's output. I definitely reccomend:
L'Incal
The White Llama
Blueberry
Son of the Gun
Borgia
The Long tomorrow
Icaro
- spidey
I'm addicted to this book, and this website.
You are not so smart
- spidey
Hey Spidey, I just wanted to sincerely thank you for this recommendation. I've been going through some life changes recently, and Jodorowsky's writing came at the absolute perfect moment. I've seen his films, of course, and knew about his comics, but did not know about Psychomagic. I watched an hour long thing on Psychomagic on youtube, read his Spiritual Journey first, and now this, and I find much of the content truly exhilarating. I'm sure it's a bit too far out there for most people, but I loved it, so thanks.
Just finished this. One of the most disturbing books I have ever read, but I could not put it down.
Now I'm reading "Tokyo Vice" and it is great. I was living in Saitama-ken, Omiya City during the early 90s when Adelstein was working there. I remember some of the cases from the book. Anyone with an interest in modern Japan should read this.
Book Description
Publication Date: October 13, 2009
From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.
At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan???s most infamous yakuza boss???and the threat of death for him and his family???Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back.
In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter???who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor???to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.
huge cosine, this is a great work.
Enough that I'm reading this one now...
With this one on deck...
Seems interesting, I guess I gotta peep this, too, then.
Cool man, I'm glad you got something from tgat book. I've been re-reading bits of it just to analyze his thought process, and explanations. I feel like observing his thoughts has definitely help lift my creativity to another level.
saludo,
- diego
- spidey
As far as the book goes...like I said, I'm only two chapters in but I'm really diggin' it. I don't know where the story goes yet so I don't know who to recommend it too, but I will say the first couple chapters had me itchin' to rock a burner and I haven't touched a can in ages!
P.S. Dude also wrote Go The F*k To Sleep.