Books!

[Reanna]

I already have a massive collection of books that I have not read yet, but I like buying books anyway. What are you guys currently reading (if anything) and do you reccomend any books that I should buy when I go out next?

 

[Autumn Falls]

I'm currently reading Ada, or Ardor by Nabokov and it's pretty nuts. Before that I read an awesome book by Azar Nafisi called reading Lolita in Tehran. A GREAT book. I've drank with her son too so that was fun.

BTW I went crazy over Nabokov this summer and read eight of his books.. you can't go wrong with him but I don't recommend South of the Border, West of the Sun first.

Peace.

Brandon

 

[Xfur]

As a librarian, I spend my public time reading Kerouac to impress the nubile green haired ladies and my private with the works of Jesse Ventura, Mick Foley, and Chyna.

 

[lizard]

if you're into fantasy, try John Marco's Tyrants and Kings trilogy; I bought his latest book, Eyes of God, this weekend.

 

[xfer]

i had a big Nabokov kick in the spring--well worth it, i think, to read at least five or six of his books (Lolita, Pale Fire, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Pnin, Speak Memory, and Glory, I guess I'd recommend).

right now I am reading Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong? and Stephen King's Everything's Eventual. i started James St. James' Party Monster (formerly called something like Disco Bloodbath i think) but I don't think I'll finish it because he's a shitty writer.

 

[subskull]

ANYTHING by J.G. Ballard. He's one of my faves. His stuff can be pretty varied though. Short story called High Rise - freakin awesome.

 

[Josh Seipp]

Bel Canto
You Shall Know Our Velocity!
Wicked

 

[xfer]

i'm going to see the stage show for Wicked in NYC this December, i think.

 

[goatschool]

i've decided, there's nothing like the smell and feel of a brand new softcover, with heft, and very small type

 

[Josh Seipp]

yes that is so true

 

[mindspell]

I am buying a few books from Amazon right now and I am getting intrigued by Nabokov. I wanted to know if Nabokov was too overwhelming for a poor second language reader like me. And with what should I start?

 

[xfer]

no, and in fact you might doubly appreciate him because his native language was Russian, yet he wrote some of the best English-language books in the history of humanity.

he wrote one short story, Mademoiselle O, in French, too!

this isn't my favourite, but you should start with Lolita. it pretty much deserves every good thing said about it and there's a TON of footnotes (if you get the annotated edition) in case you get stuck on a line. also, there's a LOT of French in it--so much that it's tough to read for me, an English speaker, without footnoted translations.

also, you are a perv and so is Humbert Humbert.

 

[xfer]

you would also enjoy how Nabokov/Humbert makes fun of the WASPy American housewife who thinks she's really high-class by knowing how to speak (mangled, bad) French. there's a few jokes I didn't get until I read the footnotes and it said stuff like, "Here Charlotte uses the GENITIVE form of the verb in French, so she's actually saying she's FROM the garbage!"

 

[mindspell]

also, you are a perv and so is Humbert Humbert.

Thanks for that. Me like me women to be at least 14 though. Thanks for the help. Lolita it will be...

 

[Nut Butter]

At least 14. One of my criteria as well...

I'm not doing much readin' these days, what with the new PC and throng of kick-ass games, but I am slowly working through a novel-length analysis/essay on the night entitled "Acquainted with the Night". Interesting read.