Also, Two of his "newer" books I really like are Operation Shylock and Everyman.

I haven't gotten to either yet. I did recently read Nemesis and found it solid but not up to the stronger works (including The Human Stain, which I didn't include in my top 5+2 list but also liked).

ive downloaded all these. i have a feeling i will go on a roth binge like i did DFW over this last summer.

dl'd this as well

thats actually the funny thing. i've always heard good things about roth, obviously; but i got my hands on "everyman" somehow and i'm 4/5th's through and its really good. and thats what led me to here to ask yall.

aside: random discussion point - roth says:

discuss amongst yahselves

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bcfc4554-9...#axzz1QU7khi94

look forward to your reviews. Outliers left the most lasting impression.

btw, I started "Blindsight" on your rec. I end up reading it late at night which is horrible for my comprehesion because there is certainly more to it than I'm getting...

It's pretty dense....I had to read it twice to understand it.

And my reviews on Gladwell's books are:

"Awesome!"

The Dark Tower (the 7-book series)

Phew, this has taken be about 20 years from starting the first book to finishing the seventh, on and off...

This sprawling epic of 4,000 pages, written by Stephen King, consists of 7 main books, and tells the story of Roland The Gunslinger and his friends as they quest to reach The Dark Tower, possibly to save creation.

This is most certainly a recommended read for King fans. For others, there is certainly entertainment to be had, but you'll need a lot of time on your hands. The books aren't all necessarily self-contained either. The first book does stand alone as a series of short stories linked by a greater arc, and is a fairly short book. It doesn't quite serve as a taster, as it doesn't have the richness of characterisation that comes in book 2 and onwards, but it's still nonetheless the perfect place to dip your toes in this particular pond.

Book 2 - The Drawing of the Three - is the book where Roland draws together his quest-friends, helping them in their former lives and bringing them into his world. Book 3 charts their progress as a group (and ends with a cliff-hanger), and Book 4 details part of Roland's past, and his first love affair. That makes it sounds bland and wishy-washy, but I believe it's by far the strongest book in the series, with excellent characterisation, and antagonists that aren't supernatural and offstage (which is much the case in the other books).

Book 5 details how Roland's 'ka-tet' defend a town against raider-robots after the town-children, and is also quite a good, standalone tale.

Book 6 is rather weak, and really doesn't stand alone as a read - it's really the lead-in to the final book; and you'd only read it if you were invested in the series at this point. Book 7 is the resolution of the whole saga, and probably the second-best book in the series.

I'll try not to give spoilers, but here's the good and the bad of it.

Good things: Major sections of this work were almost wholly unpredictable, both in terms of story and in terms of characters and incidents. It's hard to imagine a writer of exciting tales about a travelling quest deciding one of his major protagonists should have no legs, for example. Another good thing is that the ending is about perfect, in my opinion (though there's by no means universal agreement on this) - I'm a long-time King reader, and he really struggles with endings for his longer stories. This one was fine, however.

Bad Things: He introduces things from other stories (such as references to Harry Potter, and weapons called 'sneetches') or things that take you out of this story, somewhat fracturing the internal narrative (Stephen King is a significant character in the later books!). These take you out of this story quite a bit when you first get to them. There's also a little too much 'deus ex machina' going on, in that things get resolved by some convenient magic or gobledegook a little too often. I can't say more without spoiling the end of book 7, but the death of the final villain is probably the worst instance of this. And finally, some ofthe major villains in these books - who are built up as near-mythically-powered - are way too easy for Roland to tackle.

Overall, I would recommend this series, but I think you need to decide for yourself at the end of book 2 - that's the point you'll know well enough if you want to stay with Roland on his quest.


Rating: 8/10 (yes, I did like this a lot)

I really can't stand Gladwell. It seems like he packages and sells common sense as if it's profound truth he discovered in the lab.

My favorite Philip Roth books:
Portnoy's Complaint
Goodbye Columbus
Patrimony
Operation Shylock
I Married a Communist

I didn't think anything Gladwell has written about was common sense. In fact, the whole point to a lot of his stuff is that it is counter-intuitive.

He sells it as counter-intuitive.

I like Gladwell quite a bit. I loved Outliers and I might have liked What the Dog Saw even more. Any time he writes an article for the New Yorker I read it.

I haven't read Tipping Point or Blink.

I think its good and it sort of encourages you to think about things differently, to reject some of the everyday narrative fallacy that guides our beliefs about things like why a kid is good at hockey or why Bill Gates was so successful.

But he is a godawful scientist (which he only sort of "doesnt claim to be") so I wouldnt take any of his specific examples or arguments as particularly convincing or meaningful.

I havent read any Gladwell but from reading descriptions of his books it seems like he's one of those authors that makes up a lot of terms to describe things that have already been studied academically in the hopes that lay readers will think he's a real insightful author. I have nothing to back this up but a hunch as I have come very close to diving into some of his work but something in the back of my mind always stops me from actually going out and getting any of his books.

Loving kiedis' scar tissue. Anyone got other rock books to rec?

Well, don't let something like actually reading the books sway your opinion.

Meh, he sort of attempts to do what the Steph(v)en's do with Freakanomics, except that he is a journalist not an economist/scientist, and so his writing is marginally better and his science is demonstrably worse. Certainly still interesting and a sure bet to guide the average reader in the correct direction. The important part is that you dont read his books and say "See, all it takes is 10,000 hours and you could be Mozart!"

You have to consider his intended audience. It may be common sense to you but not to the average reader. For example, I'd consider the general idea of Blink to be something that's very intuitive to poker players (reads, tells, betting patterns that you pick up on subconsciously before you can actually verbalize your thoughts) but less so for Joe Average who works mindlessly in a cube 9-5 and gets his book recommendations from watching Oprah.

You don't like Gladwell because his writing panders too much to the LCD. That's fine. His stuff is not really intended for sophisticated gentlemen of leisure.

What about us who have an MFA, teach college literature courses and have has some success as a professional writer? Are we the LCD, as well?

Gladwell's books are fun, interesting and are teaching me some things I didn't know and/or hadn't really thought about before. If you already knew these things, good for you. Now stop being an elitist prick about it.

I'm quite fond of Gladwell's books, actually. I was just trying to look at it from kioshk's perspective. On the lounge scale I would guess I am quite a ways from being an elitist prick. I consider myself reasonably close to the average reader.

Saying that "Gladwell panders too much to the LCD" is not at all the same thing as saying "anyone who enjoys Gladwell's books is a brainless twit".

Given an infinite amount of time I would definately give him a shot but seeing as I have a huge to-read pile I am afraid I tend to miss out on the authors that I find marginally interesting. If you get something out of it that's great, Brian Green isn't something a physics grad would likely pick up but he does a great service to people like me who have no interest in working through a physics degree.

Isnt there a gladwell thread somewhere ffs

Brian Green recommendations, please?

I've only ever read The Elegant Universe, but it was really good. Even though his view of String Theory isnt accepted by all physicists he also goes over the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics in lay terms and so it would be beneficial for anyone to read it. Great intro to popular physics.

My favorite in that vein (har har) is the one Neil Strauss wrote with/about Motley Crue, even though I don't really like Motley Crue.

"The Help" by Kathryn Strockett is one of the better books I've read in a while. Some of the better suggestions I've pulled from this thread...

White Jazz - James Ellroy
Never Let me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

glad you liked it. I was on a mean stretch of basically reading an ellroy plus a bret easton ellis at all times. got kinda burnt out on both, despite how good they are. i felt like i wanted to do some evil stuff too often