Cardshark - Darwin Ortiz
Classic card handling, brilliant effects.

Prism - Max Maven
Mentalism. Simulating paranormal phenomenon for entertainment purposes.

"The Black Swan" and "Blink" got very cursory mentions earlier in the thread, but I think they're worth mentioning again.

Taleb moved me when he wrote "Fooled by Randomness" but I can't imagine it having a profound impact for most people. With "The Black Swan," he's really written a book that can change how people think, and how they reason.

"Blink" I think is noteworthy is a similar fashion, that it can give people a perspective much outside themselves. Gladwell has done a nice job of providing a look 'behind the closed door' of rapid cognition.

Neither book really counts as light reading, but they're both well-worth it for people who pride themselves on being thinkers.

I'll stop before this sounds too much like a sales pitch.

-jet

Those are terrific and incredibly unique reads Jet, I'd recommend both as well. As for myself, I'm moving on to Zen and the Art of Poker: Timeless Secrets to Transform Your Game. Cardplayer had a writeup on it a few months back and it just arrived in the mail.

World War Z- Book about a world wide zombie war.

This is the best book I've read in a loooonnng time.

I finished Freedom Writers Diary finally. I feel a little weird saying this, but for the casual reader, I would honestly say "just see the movie." I think that the movie got a lot of the essence of the book. Obviously the book is incredibly invaluable because you get the students' writing firsthand, but the movie is worth seeing if you can only do one and have a couple hours.

I'm starting Midsummer Night's Dream for class. I've read it a couple times before, but it's nice to get going into Shakespeare again.


govman,

What makes WWZ so good? I have it on my list of things to read, love zombie flicks, and am in the Halloween scare mood. Can you give me a few lines on why I should bump it up my list of books to read?

Going to try and get through a few Supreme Court books the next few days; Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court by Jan Crawford Greenburg, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, The Supreme Court: An Essential History by Peter Charles Hoffer, and Scalia Dissents by Kevin A. Ring.

Tonight and judging by the size of it for many nights to come I will be reading Dune.
Hopefully having seen the so-so movie won’t taint it too much for me.

I finished Midsummer Night's Dream last week. In class we talked a lot about love and how it is played out both in real life and in the play. It made a great segue for watching Before Sunrise tonight. Fantastic play and movie. Yay.

I also have "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" due for Tuesday. I read that today in one sitting. I really only thought it was "okay" but it was enjoyable on enough of a level that I kept reading. It was really interesting to see the narration from such a different tone (the kid is autistic).

Keep reading gents and ladies.

Dune is awesome. I don't think watching the so-so movie will taint it.

Is this for your own curiosity or for a class?
The other day while procrastinating, I was reading about famous trials. Trials can be very interesting.

Last year I went to a talk given by Sandra Day O'Connor. It was surprising how much work the Justices have to do on a daily basis.

Read this a few years ago. The novelty of the narration wore off quickly with me and the rest of the book seemed very mediocre.

Wow, this sounds like a thoroughly cool reading plan.

I wrote my term paper on the film, which was like 90% of our grade, of this done by Wilhelm Reinhard, who was the mentor of my professor, who absolutely revered him. Reinhardt was a monumental name in theater and pretty much invented the idea of the director. It was Mickey Rooney's debut. I totally trashed the film. I survived. Still, not one of my favorite pieces, no matter how expressed.

Reading The Push Cart Man and Other Stories, a collection of graphic stories. Very spare so far, and it's part of a series of unrelated stories published only after the guy had been writing for like 20 years, which is unfortunate. But it's black and white, and I love the inescapable pure simplicity of line art, how the images rise and fall on their own merit. So far, about four stories in, there's a sort of aggravated anomie and unexplained loneliness, which I dig a lot. I look forward to the rest of the book. It's only 200 pages or so, but it's a beautiful hardback that I got at Amazon for a great price. I'm barely started with this author, but I hope he is a bit eliptical and existential, and I love both those things a lot.

The novelty wore off for me too, at least to the point where I was no longer wowed by it. And yes, the rest of the book did seem pretty...bleh. I gave it 3/5* on Amazon and the other reviewers, on the whole, loved the heck out of this book. I don't get it.

We'll be discussing it the next two days in class, maybe I can understand why people love it so much.

I haven't seen a film version of this play that I liked yet. I haven't seen them all, but I didn't really care for some old 60s version, or the Kevin Kline version, or some tricked out version with lots of weird doors and streamers in a dream. I plan to watch "Get Over It" soon from Netflix, just to see if maybe a modern version makes me enjoy it.

I don't understand how I can like the play so much but not the film versions whatsoever.

That's funny to hear about you trashing the film though. Pretty risky, glad you survivied

I hope you'll keep us updated on what you're reading, if it turns out to be such. I like the same and wouldn't mind getting my hands on some decent material of this nature.

Okay, end my string of posts for now.

anyone have an opinion on Rant, Palahniuks latest novel?

jd salinger is 88 years old now, does he have any manuscripts hidden in his closet? what do you think? its hard to believe that he could just stop writing. writers are addicted to writing right?

No, some just have one story to tell. And when they get it out of them, they're done. Lots of people only have one novel in them, and many just stop with short stories and never get to the novel stage.

All, I am reading Transitions now. I only know of it because of recommendations on 2p2. It came up a few times in threads about books and I'm getting around to reading it. About a quarter of the way through, I am enjoying it, but realizing a lot of the point material is for people with more life experience than me.

Anyone here read it? By William Bridges.

Cannibals & Kings by Marvin Harris.

I am reading The Naming Of The Dead by Ian Rankin
but Conan just started and Jerry Seinfeld is on tonight so it will have to wait.
I have read all the "Rebus" books by Ian Rankin
and have enjoyed them all. The latest and apparantly last Rebus book was recently issued and
I will be reading it shortly. I am going to miss Rebus but I think it is neat how Rankin had the books develop in real time thus making it time for Rebus to retire.

Starting Wicked this weekend for class.

Finished Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis a few days ago. First read Tevis because I'd liked The Hustler, and found he wrote the book it was based on. Surprised to find that despite it being one of my favourite films, the book was better. Proceeded to read The Man Who Fell To Earth (basis of a bizarre Nicolas Roeg film), didn't enjoy it nearly as much, and concluded he was good, but perhaps a bit of a one-hit-wonder. [censored] was I wrong.

Queen Gambit is probably one of the ten best books I've ever read. It blows The Hustler away. It blows me away.

The central character, a female chess prodigy with issues, is a work of art. The tone used suits the character and the story perfectly. The tension created, purely because you care so much whether she wins or loses (and not just at chess) is incredible. Far greater than most thrillers that rely purely on tension. At one point I put it down, because I thought I knew what was coming and wasn't in the mood for that sort of scene - turns out I guessed wrong, and I just couldn't see that the way he wrote it was inevitable given the characters. The reversals and outcomes are credible, no deus ex machina. The ending is spot on.

It shares certain similarities with The Hustler, but whereas The Hustler was a really good book, Queen's Gambit is a great book. In another 25 years it will be on its 40th reprinting, someone will pick it up, and they'll be just as blown away by it as I was.