OT Friday Poll

[s-man]

What was the last book (non-comic) that you read? And would you recommend it??

 

My last: Shawshank Redemption (S. King, of course!) And yes, I highly recommend it...its just as good as the movie!

[kiltman]

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Not finished it yet though so can't recommend it yet.

[Zonker]

The 2nd to last 87th Precinct book Ed McBain published before his death: Fat Ollie's Book . All the 87th Precinct books are great (though I thought the previous Money Money Money was a bit over the top).

 

Next up: The Frumious Bandersnatch, hopefully over the 4th of July break.

[RedRaven]

Just finished reading

Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood . TwoMorrows Publishing

And will start

RGK. The Art of Roy G. Krenkel. Vanguard Productions.

Sometime today (hopefully) , as Amazon reports the book is out for delivery.

[Red Hook]

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

 

Here's a review from Booklist....

 

Easygoing young Kenji makes good money guiding Americans through Tokyo's seamy nightlife. His teenage girlfriend has no objections, as long as he reserves New Year's Eve for her. But Kenji's latest client, a simmering psychopath called Frank, disrupts those holiday plans. He wants to regale Kenji with crazy monologues as he hypnotizes low-level sex workers. A fat man with superhuman strength, skin that's metallic to the touch, and an unsettling habit of telling contradictory lies, Frank immediately raises the guide's hackles. Kenji even suspects that this ugliest of Americans dismembered a local schoolgirl and immolated a homeless man. But until he can prove his suspicions--and for a disturbing while after--Kenji will keep leading this monster man from one bizarre scene to another. It's a compelling nightmare for Kenji and the reader, who both hope he'll either wake up screaming or escape and alert the cops. Instead, everyone remains in evil's thrall until it's too late. A wicked meditation on the worst traits of American and Japanese society, this is a creepy culture clash indeed.

 

It was all that, and more. Very quirky. David Lynch meets Mishima. I recommend it.

 

[delekkerste]

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

 

Stop wasting time with this pornography and finish "The Long Emergency", slacker!

 

I just finished "Jim Cramer's Mad Money - Sane Investing in an Insane World" (good, though more for the novice investor) and "Empire of Debt" by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin (should be a must-read for every U.S. citizen).

[GACollectibles]

Book two of the "Redemption" trilogy by Alastair Reynolds....

 

Double Sci-fi read

[Red Hook]

Jim Cramer went off the deep end. (Talk about pornography....!) Is this really who you want to be getting your investing advice from?

 

 

 

 

 

As far as The Long Emergency goes.....I need to find a therapy group to help me finish it. Either that, or I suggest future editions have a .22 packaged at the back of the book so you could just end it then and there once you're done reading.

 

 

Oh, and I did read Credit Card Nation a couple years ago. I am a total adherent of doing things with as little help from plastic-suicide as you can.

[rob_react]

Why Black People Tend to Shout by Ralph Wiley.

[Davenport]

I really enjoy well written continuity and character development in "series" type books (I blame comics). Tough to find though.

This is a good one: the "Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro" PI series by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River). Their psychopathic friend "Bubba Rogowski" has to be one of the best supporting characters in noir fiction imho.

 

"...he hates everything and everybody except Angie and myself, but unlike others of similar inclination, he doesn't waste any time thinking about it. He doesn't write letters to the editor or hate mail to the president, he doesn't form groups or stage marches or consider his hate as anything other than a completely natural aspect of his world, like breathing or the shot glass. Bubba has all the self-awareness of a carburetor and takes even less notice of anyone else--unless they get in his way. He's six feet four inches, 235 pounds of raw adrenaline and disassociated anger. And he'd shoot anyone who blinked at me the wrong way." - A Drink Before the War

 

 

In order:

A Drink Before the War

Darkness, Take My Hand

Sacred

Gone, Baby, Gone

Prayers for Rain

 

[mica]

[Darrell F]

Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive by John Eldredge

 

[maxstuf]

This question piqued my interest, as I do not often share insight into what I am personally doing often on the internet. You see I am again in college and happen to taking a one month English 102 class throughout June. I had hopes of doing some interesting reading. That however has not turned out to be the case. We have just finished 2 and a half weeks of reading Oedipus, a good story, but 13 days of class on This one story. UUGGGH. Then we were asked to write 3 paragraphs as to whether or not Oedipus in fact had the oedipus complex.

 

I should note that my instructor is a self-Professed "Short Fat Socailist Aethiest" who, oh yeah, just happens to be a lesbian.

 

Who cannot stop talking about what an insufficiently_thoughtful_person her own mother is for being a "Pagan Catholic."

 

And just a barrel of laughs.

 

Good reading, Thank God I have comics to come home to.

 

Now that we have moved on and started Poetry, her idea of great poets, was to turn down the lights and have us endure an hour of HBO's "Def Poetry Jam"

 

I do not recall hearing as much profanity in 1986 when i was in the port of Manila "Subic Bay" and the Fleet came in.

 

I hope all your summer reading projects have ended better than mine.

[skybolt]

Finished reading the first 2 parts of the Eragon trilogy ("Eragon" and "Eldest"). It's a lot of fun, especially if you're into the "Lord of the Rings" type mythos. Plus, the $100+ million Eragon film will hit theaters this December.

[seank]

I've got several books going. I'm partway right now through Jonathan Carroll's "White Apples" and also dabbling in several card magic books. I recently read several books about food and cooking the wife brought home from the library.

 

If you haven't read Jonathan Carroll, I highly recommend his work, especially if you're a Neil Gaiman or Vertigo fan.

[arexcrooke]

Gideons Spies: A History of the Mossad

Now reading: Day of Infamy

[The Troll King]

Wicked: the Untold Story of the Wicked Witch of the West

[october]

Just finished two re-reads:

 

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

 

Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney

 

 

Now onto another re-read of a personal favorite:

 

Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan (everyone should read this book)

[DiceX]

The July issue of Big 'Uns.

Highly recommended.

[october]

 

I always lumped Dennis Lehane in with all the other hack pop authors like Grisham, Patterson, King, ect. My mistake. My BIG mistake. I read Shutter Island and it knocked my [embarrassing lack of self control] socks off.