I can’t recommend books by William Gibson enough. If you only read one cyberpunk author, check him out immediately.
Also pretty much everything Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palahniuk ever wrote.
For music related books, I loved ‘Perfect Sound Forever’ which is the definitive book about Pavement. Also there was some book I read in one sitting in the campus library that was all about Miles Davis’s Electric period (roughly covered 67 to his death). It had an interesting Zen-bent to it, and went into a lot about improvisation (much of what he talked about reminded me of what Phish was trying to do/did with the Funk in 97).
I am a history junkie, in that every so often I read a random history book. Maybe you’ve heard of it, but ‘A People’s History of the United States’ is amazing and frightening at the same time. It’s really long, but it tells you everything you didn’t know/were lied to about in history classes.
i’m reading “righteous victims” by benny morris at the moment. one of the few well rounded histories of the israeli/palestinian conflict. good read so far, but i’m not through yet, so don’t tell me how it ends…
My friends all just read Heinlen all day…I don’t think I could really get into SciFi, but they swear by it…I mean they are absolutely obsessed…Personally…I am reading the Chronicles of Narnia right now…It’s a bit below my reading level, but they are still some pretty far out stories…I guess if people my age can read Harry Potter then I can read C.S. Lewis.
the rum diary by hunter s. thompson
anything by hunter thompson…
also i suggest “mr nice” by howard marks…if you like smuggling stories this is the wy to go…
i just finished reading “memoirs of a beatnik” by diane di prima…and also finished “drugstore cowboy” by james fogle…
the “memoirs” is just all about sex and beatniks and art and more sex and then a little more sex.
“cowboy” is a great read…fucking junkies…
Sex drugs and Cocopuffs by Chuck Klosterman
The Illuminatus! Trillogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Hunter S. Thompson is the man. I may be going as him for Halloween.
someone just posted this on another board i frequent…
so whats it all about, pal? clue me in…
Anyone here dig Mark Leyner?
The man is a mental genius. His books are hillarious.
Wait…you frequent other boards? You whore! Anyone else wanna come clean?
Vernixx…Vernixx…where do you go when the lights go out?
House of Leaves is one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is about a man who discovers the writings of another man who discovers a house that is physically bigger on the inside then on the outside. The book is written from both mens’ perspectives, each in its own font. Then as the man decends into the house and discovers it’s cavernous depths, the formatting of the text seeks to imitate their journey. I know this sounds confusing, but it is not half as confusing as the book itself. There are a lot of
pages
formatted
like
this.
It is meant to also imitate a maze or labyrinth; a major theme in the book. House of Leaves is an interesting and thrilling read, but only look into it if you are not afraid of being confused or having to re-read. My other selection, The illuminatus! Trillogy is also a difficult read. It is kind of like reading an acid trip. Both are highly recommended.
“The Stand” by Stephen King is one of my favorite books of all time. Great reading for a gloomy, dark weekend.
Haruki Murakami…Did he write Hokido Popsicle? I read that but cant remember the author. It certainly sounds like the same author and character. If so your right. He’s like a younger, funnier, and hipper Nick Hornby with much better taste in music.
Yeah! Very funny stream of consciousness wierdness. He’s also done some writing for music press, but I haven’t seen anything in a while.
Icculus, I saw that you mentioned something about WWII, if anyone else is enterested in WWII books, then check out Stephen E. Ambrose. Any of his books are great and give amazing recollections of the war. I have read several of them and they are great reads.
Also another really good WWII book would be The Longest Winter, by Alex Kershaw. Great story about the 394th I&R Platoon at The Battle Of the Bulge.
Didn’t Stephen Ambrose get into trouble right before he died over a plagarism issue???
Hey, thanks alot ICCULUS, Ill definatley check that out, that’s one of the main reasons I love reading WWII books. I love reading about those regiments that when they went into the battle had very little, and came out on top. And there are so many great stories like that…
Not to sure about the Ambrose getting into trouble over plagarism, i sure hope he didn’t. But maybe with all those interviews that he used to write his books he made a mistake?..i only hope so…
Not to sure if any of you were concerned on this “plagiarism issue” that ghost mentioned. But it got me thinking and I did some searching around becasue Ambrose is one of my favorite WWII historians.
The issue that many are calling plagiarism is because he left out a few quotation marks…well…several quotation marks in 2 or 3 of his books, but he gave credit to who really wrote it in the footnotes…its just a minor error on his part. Like it says in the article, if he really wanted to plagiarize, he wouldn’t have given credit at all…
here’s the link if anyone was interested in this matter:
http://www.forbes.com/home/2002/02/27/0227ambrose.html
has anyone ever read any Richard Brautigan? They guy is crazy. I’d reccomend The Hawkline Monster. I’m reading Cannery Row right now, classic John Steinbeck.
reading 1984 - george orwell right now…what a great book
then its back to my geeky dragonlance novels