What amazing book should I re-read? You have 3 choices:

1) The Sellout
2) Martin Dressler
3) Wittgenstein's Mistress [re-read once already]
4) Visit from the Goon Squad.

tia,

The Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith.

Pretty funny. A great work of art is its own, self-contained world, with an internal logic both irresistible and absurd. And how much champagne, whisky and port wine the Victorian lower middle classes drank. No gin, however.

Been reading & enjoying The Caesars Palace Coup:

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Palac.../dp/163576677X

So far (as of Ch 6) it reads much like Barbarians at the Gate (debt is king, especially the details of that debt). Though the transactions aren’t as large as in Barbarians, and where Barbarians ends (KKR wins the bid) is basically Chapter 2-3 of Caesars.

Also has a large cast of characters that are (so far) developed well.

I haven't read The Sellout; in fact, except for work stuff, I barely read at all anymore. But I would gladly reread the other three.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

Reread Wittgenstein's Mistress, then blog a page by page summary/analysis in this thread.

kthxbai

dad still recovering from surgery on his toe and bailed on my mom today so she called me up and said "rickroll, we're going to the symphony"

turns out dan brown wrote a symphony to accompany his new children's book and he narrated some passages and then the orchestra would play

never read dan brown but i think it's kind of a cool project he's doing, worth taking your kids too imo

these sounded so much better live, can't believe how disappointing it sounds on youtube

Wittgenstein was a fool who attacked the brilliant Georg Cantor relentlessly.

I just gave up on John Darnielle's Devil House 100 pages in, it's just awful. He's the Mountain Goats guy btw and his first 2 books were quite good so this is disappointing.

Still meandering my way through Magic Mountain. God, it's long.

Started Killing Commendatore, not loving it so far. 25% done.

Read the first of Auster's NY Trilogy, mostly enjoyed it.

Also finishing off Invisible Cities. Man, Calvino is something else.

My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places - Mary Roach

She's much better know for her award-winning popular science books, but this is a collection of articles she wrote while at Reader's digest, detailing everyday life with her husband. I loved it, the pieces are very short and often very hilarious.

I'm in the middle of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. I read that she said she had been inspired by Desert Solitaire, a book I enjoy. I'm glad I did. It is just top-notch writing.

The Sellout may be the best American novel since Catch -22

Exhilation: Stories by Ted Chiang was damn good. I love short story collections and wish I'd read them more often, although it's possible a large part of the appeal is that I don't read them that often.

All of the stories were good, but a few definitely stood out for me. The opening story really drew me in, largely due to the setting being in medieval Baghdad. Not only do I love the setting and timeperiod, but it was an interesting start to what I had heard was a sci-fi book.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects really blew me away and I wasn't too sure why until Ted explained it to me after the story was told (my version has some notes from him on the story at the end of each one).

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes short stories, sci-fi, or both.

Re-reading Goon Squad, very enjoyable again.

The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. It's about how English came to be what it is today, and came to be the dominant language for most of the world. Pretty interesting. While not a scholarly book, it's obvious that Bryson has done a ton of reasearch and it's a subject about which he has quite a bit of passion. What you'd expect from Bryson, witty and warm. He does a good job of distilling scholarly works he references for the layman.

Romancing the Islands by Kim Gravelle. A photojournaltist, it's a collection of his experiences in the South Pacific. Copyrighted 1997. So, the stories might be a little dated, but it's interesting to hear of his travels back then. OK reading, not great.

Interested in that second book as I lived in the S. Pacific when I was young. Can't seem to find it anywhere though.

Hmm. I get results on amazon and ebay. You're in the UK, right? Maybe not available there?

The results I get want ~$37 though. Definitely not worth that for a paperback.

I'd be glad to give you my copy if you' want to come to Denver.

I haven't read anything by Bryson in a long time and that sounds really interesting, going to pick it up

I'm reading an excellent biography of Václav Havel by his friend and former press secretary Michael Zantovsky, Havel: A Life. This Havel fellow was a moral giant that walked among us, a man who stood up to monstrous evil and prevailed. Something very special happened there, never forget.

That guy has more great quotes attributed to him than Marilyn Monroe.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir was awesome. I loved the movie The Martian enough to then read the book, which I also enjoyed, but thought Hail Mary was even better.

If someone even remotely enjoyed Martian, I'd recommend this. It's a lot of fun and the quality of Weir's writing has improved in every sense. The plot structure was fantastic and the humor was much much much better.

Yeah Ryan Gosling is going to win his first Oscar for that one.

I'm really looking forward to it. First thing I did after finishing the book was look up if it was being made into a movie.

In July he plays the Gray Man - an outstanding book series that the Russo Bros are adapting to the screen.

Agreed about Exhalation. Here are some other recent titles I'd recommend to you: Danielle Evans' The Office of Historical Corrections (2020); Lesley Nneka Arimah's Nigerian short stories in What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky; Lauren Groff,'s Florida (2018); and, of course, every story written by William Trevor and Alice Munro.

are you talking about the book about punk rock or something else?