You read for fun?!

[Yeahduff]

Just finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. Not sure what to make of it yet.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I read The Plague once. Most of it anyway.

[Mo]

Still reading that book on blues.. err... "Feel like goin' home". I can't remember the author's name right now.

But I'm also reading "The Rorschach method" by various Norwegian authors. Which is more for interest than for fun though.

[PortableNuke]

The last book I didn't finish was Boomeritis by Ken Wilbur, I moved and left it in storage. Very cool book about different levels of conscienceness. After that I have Gravity's Rainbow to start on.

I'm currently in the middle of an O'Reilly book about C#, and have a book about Monad, Microsoft's new command line shell waiting for me.

I live a life filled with danger and suspense.

[Yeahduff]

Bill O'Reilley's new piece of crap? Or is that someone else?

Monad, eh? Ever read Monadology?

[PortableNuke]

Bill O'Reilly? Hell no that guy's a twit, and knows nothing about programming languages.

O'Reilly Books publishes computer related technical books. It's pretty well known, and the books are generally well written and informative.

I haven't heard of Monadology. What's it about?

[Yeahduff]

Sorry I've insulted you. I don't know much about programming, and that jackass has a new book out, sooooo....

It's been a while since I've read Monadology. I forget if it was an excerpt from a book or just an essay that I read, but it's pretty wild. Basically, the monad is a tiny mind, and it's the smallest possible thing. Over a trillion of them can fit in the period at the end of this sentence. But they don't really have any physical attributes (this was a philosopher writing theis, after all, not a cientist). Everything in the world is made up of these tiny monads, and they all move in sync with each other. They're programmed with dancesteps and they all dance, each step scripted, even if it seems like it's a reaction from another monad. For instance, if I throw a brick at Colin's head, it will look like his head will be knocked back from the force of the brick, but really the brick monads and his face monads will come close to each other and then quickly seperate, as they are programmed to do. Some monads get bigger when they get more knowledge and become more complicated, and these monads become our brains. And when we die, it's not really death so much as our brain monad just becomes regular sized again and rejoins the vast sea of monads that make up the world. So we don't really die, we just become much simpler.

It kinda doesn't make any sense, and I imagine the original writer did a much better job than I did, but it's just one of those neat theories about existence. Squee.

I'm now reading a book by Violet Incredible.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I like watching the O'Reilly Factor, as I like listening to other viewpoints. I can't stand Sean Hannity though. Tucker Carlson is a weenie too.

[Orphevs]

I got halfway through Rosecrantz and Guildensern Are Dead before realizing I needed to re-read Hamlet. So yhea, those two. Sort of juggling between the two. Also lots of evil junk about circuits and digital logic, with a philosophy primer, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and a big ol' book about med school in the wings. Lord, I'm never gonna finish all that. I tend to make plans too over-zealously.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

The Inferno. Everyone read it. Especially the John Ciardi translation.

[Mo]

I'm going to drop the books I've started reading and start reading Robert Harris' "Fatherland".

[Cryabetes]

"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck: It's not just for soccer moms anymore.


Oh who the fuck am I kidding? it totally is.
Not to say it isn't good.
Just saying it is totally an oprah book.

[Yeahduff]

Oprah makes some pretty good picks. And it's John Steinbeck. I think you're cleared.

I'm going to drop the books I've started reading and start reading Robert Harris' "Fatherland".

What's it about?

[PortableNuke]

Steinbeck and Hemingway pretty much get byes on whoever recommends them.

[Cryabetes]

I just finished "Island" by Aldous Huxley. It put me in a rather good mood (as a 'happy' Brave New World sans actual-plot-until-the-end will tend to do) so I took to "Anthem" by Ayn Rand, expecting it to put me in a Steinbeckally pessimistic mood. No. I enjoyed it. Immensely. Also, I recommend both immensely. Go, good peoples, go, read and be rad.

[Mo]

I'm going to drop the books I've started reading and start reading Robert Harris' "Fatherland".

What's it about?

I actually read it in one go last Sunday. It was so scary... errm, it's set in Germany 1964 - not the real '64, but the '64 that could have been if Hitler had won WW2. I don't have time to go any more in detail right now, but I thought it was really good... kind of had a "1984" vibe, but I liked it more than I liked "1984".

Now I'm going to read Agatha Christie's "Sleeping Murder". I think.

[Yeahduff]

The last third of 1984 was a bit much. Definitely worth reading, particularly when you're in high school, but not great. This Fatherland sounds interesting. You wouldn't know if there's an English version, would you?

Finished a book by Sarah Vowell, the voice of Violet Incredible. It's called Take the Canoli, and it's awesome. It's a collection of short non-fiction stories that typically combine historical elements with the personal in almost a journalistic style, but in a strong, humorous voice. She visits Disneyland, the Chelsea Hotel, and the Trail of Tears, learns to drive, and becomes a goth. By the end of the book, I really wanted to be Sarah's friend. I'm eager to find more of her books.

A guy I work with let me borrow Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which is.... fun. It's about a serial killer who targets bad people: child murderers, rapists, etc, anyone who the police don't catch. Not exactly Faulkner but it's a fun read. I think it got turned into a show on Showtime.

[Mo]

The last third of 1984 was a bit much. Definitely worth reading, particularly when you're in high school, but not great. This Fatherland sounds interesting. You wouldn't know if there's an English version, would you?

It is an original English book, and I read it in English.

[Yeahduff]

Heh, I'm threatened by multilinguists.

[Bustertheclown]

I've found that short story anthologies suit me best, because I get too into reading anything long. That said, I've read a lot of Grimm's Fairy Tales lately. Also, The Running Man paints just as good a distopic future as any of the most celebrated titles of the genre. A world run by corporate interests, and controlled through the sale of sex, drugs and reality game shows? How is that a less realistically scary prospect than Orwellian communist paranoia?