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What are you reading right now?

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 10:27 am
by gills
I'm kind of a book slut and tend to read more than one at once. Here's what's going right now-

Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Diggin it. Very fluid style.
Starvation Heights, by Gregg Olsen. True Crime about a woman named Linda Hazzard circa 1911 who operated a sanitorum in Olalla, Puget Sound. She advocated that all diseases were diet based and prescribed fasting as a means to cure. She often starved her wealthy patients to death to fun her work. Creepy.
The Assassins, by Bernard Lewis. A history of a radical sect of Islam, in the 11th and 12th centuries known for high profile public executions of their enemies (mostly sunnis). Suppossedly these are the first 'terrrorists' or agents using terrorism for political gain. Super interesting when compared to the modern suicide bomber.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 11:04 am
by nm
Funny gills......I'm a book whore as well...always have at least three going at one time.

The Cave - Jose Saramago
Dora - you all know the one
One of Jimmy Carter's books.....(the name escapes me)
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (although....I just found out it made Oprah's list....so I may have to abandon it.)

Just finished Useless - Carol Shields

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 11:11 am
by gills
nmm wrote:Funny gills......I'm a book whore as well...always have at least three going at one time.

The Cave - Jose Saramago
Dora - you all know the one
One of Jimmy Carter's books.....(the name escapes me)
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (although....I just found out it made Oprah's list....so I may have to abandon it.)

Just finished Useless - Carol Shields


Don't let Oprah kick you out of that book. It's great. I loved it.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 11:14 am
by Spider
dora
catfish and mandala - andrew x. pham about a vietnamese american on a bike voyage to vietnam
the namesake - jumpa lahiri
you are being lied to- russ kick about rampant disinformation

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 11:58 am
by nm
Question to you gills................who translated Blindness?

'Cuz.....I'm not finding The Cave to be very fluid.....at least not yet. Of course, I'm only a third of the way into it. (Don't get me wrong.......I'm enjoying the book.........but you can tell it's a translation......if you know what I mean.)

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 1:31 pm
by Wilbur Kookmeyer
Feeling the Shoulders of the Lion - Rumi.

The Urge to Travel Great Distances - Robert Bly

Sonnets - Shakespeare

Anarchist's Cookbook - unknown

How to Dispose of a Dead Body - unknown.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:02 pm
by gills
nmm wrote:Question to you gills................who translated Blindness?

'Cuz.....I'm not finding The Cave to be very fluid.....at least not yet. Of course, I'm only a third of the way into it. (Don't get me wrong.......I'm enjoying the book.........but you can tell it's a translation......if you know what I mean.)


madame: it be translated by Giovanni Pontiero, I think the Cave is translated by an in house person. Saramago has a choppy style actually, incorporating his dialogue into the prose without punctuation seperation etc... and I find it to be more like my thought process so I find fluid. Others might not. But also, he got the Nobel for this one so I'm sure the publishers were keen on getting a good translation.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:07 pm
by thurgood jenkins
I need some good books to read and not this bs fiction shite.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:09 pm
by Stiffler
'Hondo, My Father', Becky Crouch Patterson

"Pearl Harbor Ghosts", Thurston Clarke

Trim. Anslow et al

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:50 pm
by gills
stiffler wrote:
Trim. Anslow et al


Just finished that one myself. A good read, a good read.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:52 pm
by Stiffler
im hoping to be a contributor on the next issue.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 3:20 pm
by Dano
I just read The Kite Runner which was pretty solid and am now, against my better judgement (figuring that if mainstream America - people who watch Reality TV and care that Split-knee Spears dropped her baby - liked it I sure as hell wouldn't), reading The Da Vinci Code. It is every bit as pulpy and contrived as I imagined which makes for good entertainment, but I still fail to see what all the fuss was about. I hear the movie sucks.

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 3:52 pm
by Foulweather
'Maximum City' by Suketu Mehta. Sort of a cultural history of Bombay (Mumbai)

'Against The MegaMachine: Essays on Empire and its Enemies' by David Watson. A collection of anti-civilization/ technology essays.

NMM please, please don't abandon '100 years of Solitude.' A stunning book.

If you enjoy it check out Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road' for more magic realism.

PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2006 7:53 am
by gills
Foulweather wrote:If you enjoy it check out Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road' for more magic realism.


ANd also, Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami--- not quite magical realism exactly, but an elaboration of it.

PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2006 8:10 am
by Stiffler
actually, Im reading the surfpage right now, in the same way that I read the shampoo bottle while sitting on the pot.