A Walk in the Woods is a quick, entertaining read. Interested to hear your impressions. I thought it was a good half of a book... the second half was less funny and more preachy

I read Frankenstein for the first time several years ago, and I thought it was great.

yeah, frankenstein isn't a high school age only book.

I am finishing up Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. I just got into Kerouac, finishing On the Road about two weeks ago. In between I also read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. Easily the most reading I've done. After Bums I'm going to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Invisible Man is pretty fun. Frankenstein is a pretty well-regarded book. Dracula's writing is often criticized, and it can feel a bit slow.

You can't fall off a mountain...

My favorite JK book.

I agree. I recently bought another Bryson book, because I really enjoy his writing. A Walk in the Woods was a very pleasant read. I also live on the Appalachian Trail so it was fun to read about it.

I finished To Kill a Mockingbird a couple days ago. I still think too much of it was slow moving, but it picks up really well in the second half. I watched the movie the night I finished the book and thought that Atticus in the movie was way more of a forefront character than in the book. I understand why this was necessary in the movie, and I really liked the change.

I started Perks of Being a Wallflowr yesterday and finished it this morning. It was a really quick read that I enjoyed throughout. There weren't too many downspots. The novel as a whole is a little extreme/unrealistic, but if you take it bit by bit, it's a pretty entertaining novel that is probably worth reading by the older high school crowd.

I'll be starting on Skeleton Crew by Stephen King tonight or sometime this week. Mostly, this is because I want to read "The Mist."

Hope everyone still has their noses in some good books!

Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke

I wead the scweenplay of The Life of Bwian last night. It was both wiveting and weally funny. The scwipt is hilarious, even though I had alweady seen it on the big scween.

I just finished two books and I would highly recommend them both.

The first is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. It was a little slow at the start, but quickly turned into a highly entertaining read. I definitely won't be ordering seafood at a restaurant on a Monday from now on, after reading this.

The second is Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi. It is a really amazing story of an 18 year old girl who becomes the first American woman and the youngest person to sail alone around the world. Think about that: sailing around the world, alone! I could hardly put it down and read it in two sittings. It's a very inspiring read.

Not quite sure what I will be reading next, but I'll definitely peruse this thread for ideas.

Just picked up Miranda July's short story collection No One Belongs Here More than You on the strength of her film, which I just recently saw, and also the book's awesome website.

Kitchen Confidential is great. Try his follow-ups, A Cook's Tour, and he's got another one or two out there. I just finished a collection of his short pieces that was fun too. And of course his blogs are always great.

I'm reading Desire Under The Elms by Eugene O'neill and quite a lot of romantic poetry at the moment.

I think Long Day's Journey into Night is better though.

I just finished "The Mist" by Stephen King. I would recommend this, though I'm a poorly qualified horror writing critic.

The atmosphere in this novella is pretty amazing. King somehow manages to over explain everything and rather than it get annoying, it really adds to the atmosphere and lets your imagination run with it. I was able to really picture the mood of the story and see a "movie version" in my mind.

There is a "radio show" type of program I'm going to listen to based off of the story. And of course, there is the Darabont movie version coming out in November.

Whatever, I recommend this to anyone who wants a good eerie story for a night. I haven't read enough Lovecraft to compare it to, but I have trouble imagining that there are too many better horror stories that paint the atmosphere so well (This of course simply means I'm in for a treat once good horror recommendations come rolling in).

Has anyone else read "The Mist" and have some comments?

the eyre affair jasper fforde

Horror is at least half atmosphere. The monsters themselves can be almost arbitrary, and sometimes you don't even need a monster.

I enjoyed King's earlier works, but then they started losing a lot of punch, and I eventually just got fed up. I think he still has some power when doing short stories, though. His first collection, Night Shift, had some really great stories, and even the lesser ones, some of which were pretty silly, were done very well. I've read a rare short story here and there which was more recent, and he seemed to be okay.

I'd recommend picking up some of the yearly collection of horror short stories. I've come across a whole lot of gems in those. The Mammoth Collection of New Horror is one of them. Also, if you've never read the first Clive Barker stuff, he did a series of story collections called The Books of Blood, and a lot of the stories were quite inventive and pretty good. Two well-regarded anthologies are Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, and The Dark Descent. Both are available on Amazon. And of course, read plenty of H.P. Lovecraft if you haven't already. And Dennis Etchison can hit or miss, but is a very talented writer and is a stunner when he's at his best. Some of the stories in Red Dreams were fantastic, and sometimes very melancholy and lonely. They're worth reading despite the variety of the quality between stories, just to see someone trying to do something really excellent, and occasionally knocking one out of the park.

Just finished "Cryptonomicon". I liked it a lot, I already bought "Quicksilver" to continue reading Stephenson. So many things in the book are pretty cool, being a mathematician (with a focus on number theory), my favorite parts where the ones involving Lawrence Waterhouse. I like how the narrative changes depending on who is the main character in the section.

What did you think when you finished it? It sounds interesting. Seems like it would be a very unnerving thing to have to try to get away with.

Blarg, thanks a ton for the recommendations. I'm trying to use this month to get some horror reading in since after Halloween passes, I'm sure I won't care quite as much to read the stuff until the thickness of depressing winter sets in.

SoloAJ, no problem, I love discovering new horror stuff. When it works, it really really works! And a cold winter night is indeed a great time to snuggle up with a horror story. Especially if the wind is howling ...

I'm about half way into this one. Very interesting - I didn't fully appreciate the importance or influence of evolution before reading.

-Craig

Did you read and enjoy "The Mist" Blarg?

Reading the story and listening to the decent radio show thing got me pretty pumped about the movie coming out. It's got a good King-director in Darabont and I am a fan of Thomas Jane.

I've never read that one, SoloAJ. I try not to get too excited about horror movies because they usually have at best one or two good moments, but like all true horror fans, that's often enough for me to see a movie. Just not enough to recommend anyone else see it! I kinda cross my fingers and hope for the best when it comes to horror flicks. I want to see a lot more Japanese horror flicks. They are pretty good with ghosts, and their ghosts are sometimes as much demon as ghost. I think I want to gives some Japanese horror manga a crack, too.

I've been playing Diablo 2 lately, and it has reminded me how much I love those spooky/demonic thrills. I feel like picking up a short story soon myself. I might buy that The Dark Descent collection from Amazon.

I'm officially recommending reading "The Mist" if you like the tense atmosphere sort of stuff. It's quite effective and spooky. I would equate it to how I remember "Alone in the Dark" (the original polygon game) being when I played it when I was younger. There wasn't anything jump out at you scary necessarily, just like...you can feel the character's fear sort of. Shrug, hard to explain. Give it a try when you get some time

And I hear that praise for Japanese horror all of the time. I really wish I would get through every other kick I'm on right now (Classic movies, cheap slasher horror, books based on movies) and move onto my Japanese film kick. I hear great things and I just haven't gotten around to watching any of them.