What are you Reading now ..... other than comics ? 7 7

[TupennyConan]

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

+1 A great book!

I just finished it and, while it's a bit dry at times, (the author is a economics professor) it's chock-a-block full of stories, incidents and quirks of all aspects of modern art, collectors, dealers, auctions etc. I could hardly put it down and would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys collecting, regardless of their interest in modern art.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Million-Stuffed-Shark-Economics-Contemporary/dp/0230620590/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327108582&sr=1-1

 

This sounds terrific. That's for the tip!

 

Here is the author's crazy pedigree:

 

Don Thompson teaches marketing and economics in the MBA program at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. He has taught at the London School of Economics and at Harvard Business School. He lives in London and Toronto.

 

I see he is at that school in Toronto where I keep a dorm room.

[TupennyConan]

Oops. Wrong, he's at York not University of Toronto. Canada, so confusing.

[This is water]

[delekkerste]

I'm 2/3rds of the way through with former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash's autobiography ("Slash" - Slash with Anthony Bozza). It's packed with lots of good stories/anecdotes; as a huge GN'R fan, I'm enjoying it a lot. My only gripe is that the book is riddled with glaring chronological inconsistencies. Still, it's a good read if you're a fan of the band or the '80s and early '90s rock/metal scene.

 

Finished the Slash autobiography (a great read - not quite as entertaining as Neil Strauss' "The Dirt" about Motley Crue, but very good nonetheless) and am now already halfway through Jonny Porkpie's "The Corpse Wore Pasties" (a Hard Case Crime crime novel).

[DailySuperpower]

I like to have 2 nonfictions, a novel, and a comic going simultaneously. My comic right now is From Hell. These are the others:

 

Almost done with this, it's basically an intro to physics concepts but instead of standard examples(pulleys, inclined planes, etc.) it uses examples from comic books (the Atom shrinking, Spider-Man trying to save Gwen, Flash running through a solid wall, etc).

 

This is the novel, it's very surreal, not much of a story but definitely a unique experience. I read another book by Coover that was similarly dreamlike.

 

Just starting this one but pretty excited about it.

[TupennyConan]

Game of Thrones.

 

Plenty of thoughts at the halfway point. Here is one I'll share now ~~

 

There is a harsh emphasis on marriage in the book's warring feudal structure. There are penalties for violating the family system. Bastardy is societal death but for the Wall it appears & rapers threaten all women, only less so the married women.

 

You finally started! Woohoo!

 

I just started the 4th book.

 

I'll give sort of a bottomline opinion once I finish GoT's. Should be Thursday or Friday.

 

I do want to say now that I don't believe the characters in the book to be human. It isn't relevant to my taxonomy that they haven't been identified as either human or some other species; nor does it matter that they are called man, woman, girl, boy, &c. These characters are not human beings.

[TupennyConan]

 

One of the best novels I have ever read.

[delekkerste]

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

 

It's a good one - I read it a few years ago when it first came out. I think I might re-read it now as I'm about to take an Art Business course at NYU starting next month in my spare time.

[iggy]

Currently reading In Cold Blood after watching P.S. Hoffman in Capote.

[Whizzer]

Currently reading In Cold Blood after watching P.S. Hoffman in Capote.

 

Great, great book, by a great author (thumbs u

[Ditch Fahrenheit]

A bunch of Andre Norton.

 

I liked her a lot when I was a tweenager. Now..

[CycleGirl]

Almost finished Atlas Shrugged. Starting The Fountainhead right after.

 

Beautiful stuff

 

Ayn Rand

 

I re-read The Virtue of Selfishness about a year ago, also by her. The first time I read it, many years ago, I wasn't really ready for it.

[WeR138]

Working my way through a compilation of Charles Dickens novels.

 

David Copperfield at present.

[chrisco37]

Game of Thrones.

 

Plenty of thoughts at the halfway point. Here is one I'll share now ~~

 

There is a harsh emphasis on marriage in the book's warring feudal structure. There are penalties for violating the family system. Bastardy is societal death but for the Wall it appears & rapers threaten all women, only less so the married women.

 

You finally started! Woohoo!

 

I just started the 4th book.

 

I'll give sort of a bottomline opinion once I finish GoT's. Should be Thursday or Friday.

 

I do want to say now that I don't believe the characters in the book to be human. It isn't relevant to my taxonomy that they haven't been identified as either human or some other species; nor does it matter that they are called man, woman, girl, boy, &c. These characters are not human beings.

 

Why don't you think they are human?

 

Although the book isn't set on "Earth Proper", I think there is enough evidence given to infer that they are "human".

 

They have all the physical & biological qualities of humans, they age like them, they behave like them, think like them, etc...

 

There are some characters that are supernatural, but the vast majority of them are "human".

[TupennyConan]

they behave like them, think like them

 

I don't think they behave or think like them. They lack these essentials of humanity. After 500 pages about a large number of characters, I've encountered almost no humanity.

 

Let me finish the book & I'll let you know more fully what I mean & I'll let you know if I change my opinion.

 

 

[chrisco37]

they behave like them, think like them

 

I don't think they behave or think like them. They lack these essentials of humanity. After 500 pages about a large number of characters, I've encountered almost no humanity.

 

Let me finish the book & I'll let you know more fully what I mean & I'll let you know if I change my opinion.

 

 

The characters are definitley "hard" & "cold", a by-product of the world and conditions in which they live. The strong survive, and the weak follow or get eliminated.

 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts once you're finished.

[generic user]

Just finished reading Replay by Ken Grimwood

 

http://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327081874&sr=8-1

 

Super book if you are into time travel. What exactly would you do differently if you had the opportunity to live your life over from 18 years old-43 years old multiple times and what would the consequences be if you changed up certain things. Great stuff.

 

Glad to see that one is back in print. I'll have to dig out my hardcover one day to reread.

[CAMPER49]

The Holy Bible (NLT Version)...just finished Genesis.

Started on Jan 5th, hope to have it completely read by the end of 2012.

[TupennyConan]

Game of Thrones

 

Worthy pulp fiction & genre based family gothic.

 

I’m eager to read book II but I think I’ll give it a rest while I take up something else first. I hope I’ll find the series maintains its brisk pace of 10 page chapters, virtually each one ending in a climatic surprise, most being quite shocking. Its chapters don’t end in cliffhangers, they end in plot shifting payoffs. Plenty of attention-keeping entertainment in its multiple plotlines featuring dozens of characters spanning thousands of years with interpersonal & action packed moments filling every chapter.

 

Now I know what those Targaryen red dragons are all about on such things as t-shirts & posters around comic shows & malls.

 

I also recognize that the novel is an extended 800 page rape fantasy. I’d like to read the statistics on the frequency of the word rape & variations thereof, the numbers of rape scenes, rape references, rape imagery, & so forth. There’s lots of it, including gang rape, incestuous rape, murder rape, torture rape, revenge rape, spite rape, instructive rape, monster rape, corpse rape, public games rape before king and court, & other exotic & unexpected forms of rape. The rape, I believe, is exclusively a crime against women by men or by male beings. I think that there was a passing & short reference to homosexuality in the novel but I didn’t make a note & may be wrong.

 

While women suffer the most in Game of Thrones, humanity suffers too – what little of it can be found. Most of the characters mention honor, few characters have any.

 

Ned Stark & the Stark children are the strongest exception. To those who have read the book, you know how Ned’s character falls into question over Jon Snow. Though son of a king, Jon’s social status is a notch above wildling. How the reader views Ned’s transgression & rates it on the scale of sins or crimes by and against humanity probably greatly differs than how the novel’s culture does.

 

It’s a tidy little irony that Jon is the story’s most honorable & heroic character. Sure Jon displays pragmatic leadership skills offered to the greater good of the Wall detachment when halfway through the book he diverts Sam’s destiny; but Jon is also driven by sympathy, compassion, and selfless loyalty to Sam, his friend. In fact there is an additional layer of ironic complexity. On the Wall, selfless loyalty appears to be the prime virtue.

 

%20did%20you%20ever%20wonder%20why%20the%20men&f=false'>Maester Aemon contrasts love with honor. When he defines honor to Jon, he set’s honor in conflict with human nature. ”…for love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.” “We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” It’s peculiar for any character to dwell on love and love’s relationship to humanity. I don’t know what kind of love the women might think he means.

 

I’d like to read a detailed lambast of GoT’s from a feminist perspective. The honorable women are those who behave like the men – ruthless, bloody, & self-motivated. Sansa is Jon’s distaff counterpart. If only she had a p*e*n*i*s, right? Daenerys is the anti-Jon. She knows how to take charge. We know her star is on an upward trajectory when she convinces Khal Drogo to let her get off all fours & for him to go prone on his back. She shocks us more than a beheading by poleaxe when, to her Dothraki warriors & Ser Jorah, she commands “make them (a pack of public rapists raping in public) stop” & proclaims “I want no rape.”

 

The Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. The novel ends with a new vision of motherhood. Daenerys’ womb is more tomb; her stillborn pregnancy more necrotic than ectopic. She assumes the role of adoptive mother of b*a*s*t*a*r*d children in a way that would shock & offend Catelyn. As if women weren’t badly treated enough by this wintery world, the climax is a black arts assault on wet nurses.

 

Anyway, the book was fun, I’ll continue reading, & I'll continue wondering where our own culture is headed as we cheer on from the box seats to the Game of Thrones.

 

[TupennyConan]

To trooper:

 

You might want to go into Barnes & Noble & read the February issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

 

There's a nice article on Boz, discussing the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth, his love life, the Dickens theme park, the books, the legacy, & all that cool stuff.