James Patterson, on NPR today, talked about a novel that both influenced his writing style and is his favorite recommendation, Mrs. Bridge by Evan Connell Jr. It's a fine American novel, one that probably goes unread thes days. Perhaps after Patterson's endorsement a few more people will give it a try.

Maybe not since Patterson is a hideously bad writer, or at least he was in the one book of his I ever tried to read.

:sigh: ok

I do like how you say "just another" as if this were a common, accessible them in mainstream literature and not, you know, the exact opposite. I don't think she is a particularly great example of libertarianism or anything but at least she provided AN example. And to some extent it's a reflection of the time it was written when the Great Depression and all of it's characters MORE absurd and extreme in real life than any Wesley mouch were fresher and even more revered as a triumph of government than it is today.

Whatever, I know what the catchphrase "magically solves everything" means. Stop politarding up the lounge IMO.

Try Pattons spaceship series especially if you like time travel and alternate realitys

Steven Kings "Under the Dome"

I'm 3/4ths of the way through the book and as of right now I think it's AWESOME.

If you like the Stand. You should like this book a lot. It's NOT AS GOOD AS THE DARK TOWER books (well only because no roland deschain)

But it's really good. Got some Sci-fi, Some Politard stuff, Rape, Necrophilla, Drugs, and a few characters you can really fall into.

Great book so far.

Is Ender's Game as "young adult" as it gets a rep for? I realize it's easy reading to some extent, but I don't remember thinking it was childish, even though every character is a child.

I just read Five Seconds of Panic, by Stefan Fatsis. He's a sportswriter who attends the Denver Broncos 2006 training camp as a place-kicker.

It's more about a behind-the-scenes look at the business of pro football than it is about kicking. It makes an NFL training camp look about as glamorous as a Tyson chicken factory. Fatsis does make friends with some of the players, and many, like Jason Elam and Jake Plummer, come off very well as complicated interesting people.

It's well-written, but it's not as interesting as Word Freak, Fatsis' first book, where he plays serious Scrabble, which was a better, more natural fit to his actual abilities.

OK finally got some time to finish this, and I know what you mean. Ridiculous godfight and leveling. No, that was my plan. A-ha! I fooled you! It was really my plan after all! Au contraire! Now you see! You're playing right into my hands! Make that, MY hands! HO HO!

When I ride my motorcycle I never really care where I end up, since the whole point is how I get there. I finally got there. I'm not too happy with where I ended up. But you know what? I'll happily jump on another Sanderson motorcycle immediately because the ride was pretty awesome.

Like, he and I don't see eye to eye on what constitutes a good ending, or what qualities are most useful in people. But either he's brilliant at making random things in previous books fit together after the fact, or he got exactly where he was trying to get from the start. And it was definitely a fun ride.

Whew. My thoughts exactly. You put it a lot better than I did.

Like, the letters from the HoA are awesome --- when we realize that

that is a true WOW MIND**** moment. buttttt, the stuff with vin and the other god(cant remember his name now)? Yikes. Cringeworthy, really. It took the "ah ha!" moment when we realize that whatever that evil god is to an absurd and boring extreme.

But I know exactly what you mean - I loved the trilogy and was very satisfied with it in spite of the ending.



James

Young adult is lit-speak for fantastical environment + child characters + fast read. The content in EG is pretty darned dark at times.

i have under the dome but havent started it yet....looking forward to it though.

anyone ever get through Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past?" I'm thinking of tackling it.

ALL of them? Or just Swann's Way?

If you're talking about all of them, well, I just might have to make a betty bet bet with you about it...you ain't never gonna finish them ALL...

Dominic, are you going to stand for this?

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11...tts-canad.html

What the heck do I have to do with it??

lol just a joke since you are such a Blindsight fan.

I just finished Allen Barra's Bear Bryant biography, The Last Coach. I started this book a year ago, no joke. Slow and steady. If only all sports biographies were written this well, readable history, like David McCullough or William Manchester. Bear Bryant was one helluva man. Arkansas boy, just like Johnny Cash.

Notice the Barra-Bear thing. So I look this guy up to read more of his books, and Barra's latest critically-acclaimed biography is about...Yogi Berra! Just released. I'm taking this as a sign that reading this man's books is integral to my destiny here on Earth.

I've been trying to read 2666 by Bolano but just can't get a good rhythm going so I'm going to pause it for a bit and read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion: Stories by DFW both of which I just got yesterday. I just got started on Hideous Men and so far it's as good as I thought it would be.

The hunger games is completely awesome, the sequel not so much.

The prose is simple, almost stark, so it can be read quickly. And it is not heavy on symbolism--his ideas are not hidden behind the prose. But the ideas presented are not childish or limited to young adults even though, as you say, most of the characters are children.

The next book, Speaker For the Dead, is a slower read and that can put some people off if they are expecting something more like Ender's Game II.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Insane Good.

Thanks for the Ender's reminders. I need to reread.

I finished The Know-It-All.

It was a really interesting little book. The guy reads the entire Britannica all the way through from A-Z and recounts some of the interesting facts as he writes little memoir stories. It's a fun read, although at times I felt like I was trudging through it. I can only imagine what that's like when you're reading an entire set of encyclopedias, instead of just a 350 page book.

Descartes had a thing for cross-eyed women, and Hawthorne was obsessed with the #64. I'm not sure I learned as much as I should have from the book.

I don't generally read much non-fiction unless it's things on the article, so it was nice to pretend I was getting smarter again. I've started DVRing Jeopardy again thanks to this read.

4*/5.

This may be the wrong forum, but there really is a human rights issue here. As far as I've ever been able to tell (as an ex-American living in Canada for the last 40 years), someone crossing the border has, when confronted by a U.S. border guard, no civil rights at all.

I just finished rereading John Irving's The Water Method Man. I love this book. It's brilliant. Hilarious, good-spirited, and a little sad. The misadventures of Bogus Trumper. It's as good as Irving's more famous novels like Garp, Cider House Rules, and Owen Meany, but it's not nearly as well known.

I just ordered Irving's new one, Last Night in Twisted River. It's supposed to be a return to form, and I hope it is.

yeah I didn't want to derail the thread but aside from a chance to make a joke, I thought the story was newsworthy and might interest his fans.

I have a hard time believing that Watts went nuts at the border crossing and had to be pepper sprayed and swarmed in order to be subdued. I'm sure the situation could have been resolved peacefully. There was apparently a witness in the car with Watts and he thinks the whole thing should have been caught on camera. Will be interesting to see if they are going to move forward with the felony charges.