Favorite books / What are you reading?

I'm trying to read Against the Day by Pynchon again. It took me the last half of my senior year to read Gravity's Rainbow. I love his style but, like Joyce he's one of the most difficult authors I've read/

 

Joyce is a good comparison. I wish I could like reading that stuff, but it's so dense with references and irony it drives me nuts.

I had an English professor in college who claimed he'd met Pynchon once because he was flipping through a phone book in San Francisco and noticed a number for Tyrone Slothrop. He called the number and asked for Tyrone, and had to go through a couple of intermediaries before eventually getting an invitation to lunch. "Slothrop" never admitted to being Pynchon, but that's what my professor suspected afterward. When he called back a year later, "Tyrone Slothrop" didn't live there anymore.

 

I read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man twice for school (one for High School and again for my first semester of college last year), and have tried to read Ulysses, but each time thwarted by other more important things, and don't even get me started on Finnegan's Wake... took me an hour to get through the first 3 pages, now thats a challenge.

That sounds like something Pynchon would do, I'm surprised he's stayed out of sight for this long, but I guess it easier for literary "stars" to hide, especially with the way our media is. I'd love to meet him, then sneak a picture, just for myself

 

I've heard when he was in college he painted his dorm room all black and blocked up the windows so no light could get in.

Because I'm not nearly as intelligent as Thomas Pynchon, I've been rereading my old Doctor Who novels. They're quite fun.

Curse of Peladon, The Ice Warriors, Ark in Space (my all-time favorite TV episode, BTW), State of Decay, The Power of Kroll, Terminus, The Mutants...

 

Pynchon does have his wacky side, that's what I like most about him.

Currently reading Snow Crash from Neal Stephenson.
I heard this was on par if not better than Neuromancer, but I prefer Gibson's noiry, seamy, Burroughs-esque pathos. Snow Crash is trying to be too cute for my tastes. Still, it's densely packed with goodness.

 

1984 hands down...best book...ever...

 

Finishing "Thunderhead", got two books to choose from next. I don't know either of them, but they have both have been strongly recommended to me.

One is "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez. Something about the death of a famous programmer who leaves behind an intricate set of programs that trigger after his death and wreak havoc.

The other is "The End of the World & Hard-boiled Wonderland" by Haruki Murakami. It's got no introduction, no background on the sleeve, but people say it's amazing and philosophical.

Anyone know any of those books? Opinions?

 

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - much more realistic vision of Huxley's future and our present.

Robert Lougee's Paul de Lagarde 1827-1891: A Study of Radical Conservatism in Germany

 

I never finished "Brave New World".
And I never finished "1984", either.

I will burn in book-reading hell for this. There will be copies of those books everywhere, but when I open them, it will only be Harry Potter and Twilight books on the inside. Oh the torture!

 

I need to get me 1984, been meaning to read it for weeks.

Currently reading "Wahoo" and "Clear the Bridge" by Richard O'kane. Bit of a Submarine enthusiast, so it makes for very interesting reading!

 

Currently reading Foundations of Marketing (2009), 3rd edition (John Fahy & David Jobber). It is a good book and the layout is very nice and easy to understand. One of the better learning books I have read actually.

Also reading a book by two Norwegian doctors who were in Gaza when Israel attacked (again) in 2008-2009. It is basically an eye witness story about the suffering of the civilians during the conflict, but it is also a very educational book about war time surgery and how a large hospital operates in times of crisis. Very interesting reading.

 

Hunter S. Thompsons Hells angels. Classic shit.

 

The poor Wahoo. Fleet Boats kick ass.

 

The Prose Edda, basically the Norse mythology bible.

 

Only in the widest sense. Remember it was written by christians. There can be no real bible for paganism.

 

Hence the basically . It's still a pretty good read. Norse mythology has always interested me. I'm going to read Wagner's Ring cycle again as well some time soon.

 

H.S Thompson's Kingdom of Fear

Kinda sad book. I can't help the feeling that we as a western countries, are sacrificing freedom to a security.
There will always be crazy people and terrorist's. Even if we nuke carpet bomb middle-east they gonna be there. Asian ones, European one's and American one's.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is next step. Fuck this shit

 

Right now I am reading Pity The Nation by British Journalist Robert Fisk. It is basically him telling his stories about what he encountered while reporting for The Times during the Lebanese Civil War. It is 650 pages long, so I should be at it for a while but so far i have really enjoyed it.
I am also getting into the Walking Dead graphic novels, my sister got me the first two for Christmas and I just ordered two more on Amazon.

 

Just recently finished "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", i would call it quite nice, not exactly my thing, but well...

Reading The Art of Deception from Kevin Mitnick. Quite an interesting read, but somewhat repetitive.

After that i'm thinking about getting "Vom Kriege" as a real book, because i wasn't able to read through it in pure digital form.

-edit-
Never finished readin 1984 because it really seems somewhat dull compared to the technical possibilites we've today - the problem of most sci-fi, i guess, when times goes on. I liked "Fahrenheit 451" though.

 

Finishing Daniel Suarez's DEAMON - awesome book. It feels like someone combined the atmosphere and ideologies of Fight Club with The Matrix and placed it in a realistic setting.

It has some great information on technology and the power of distributed intelligence, hackers, gaming etc. Everything 100% plausible too, the guy is referring only to existing technology.

Reading this book makes me intrigued about the future of the Internet and our society in general. Very exciting times.