I think a good way to understand Cryptonomicon is to see it as about the coming into being of the computer--and more generally of the cyber-age (especially in its dot.com manifestation) and its impact on our relationship to money. The Baroque Cycle that follows develops this coming-into-being of our contemporary age in many ways that grow out of Cryptonomicon.

I thought the adventure plot(s) that frame all this made the book a page-turner myself. But then I like Pynchon ...

No worries. I umm... found uh... well, there was a pretty nice summary hidden in the first few pages of the book.

Anyway, the guy is a stellar writer. Fifty so or more pages and I was hooked with or without the premise.

I recently finished The Count of Monte Cristo. I was blown away by this book. It is paced really well and there is very little "fluff" or filler material, which surprised me considering it was 1200+ pages and the plot is basically:
- guy gets screwed over
- guy gets revenge

At times I was a little confused about how everyone was related to each other but eventually it all made sense. It was a very intricate tale that I enjoyed immensely. It is probably one of my favorite books.

5/5

I also just finished When Genius Failed. I like Lowenstein's writing style and found the book amazingly applicable to our current economic crisis. In fact, I believe the story told in this book foreshadows the situation of today - it's basically the same problem and he criticized the government involvement in the Long Term Capital situation.

My problem with this book is something that may be unavoidable - it deals with complicated financial concepts and therefore it is tough to understand unless you have a certain level of knowledge. Maybe he could have spent a lot more time explaining these things, or included an appendix with some explanation, but at times I was very confused other than to know something weird was happening. The stuff that happened in this book is all related to "derivatives", credit swaps, and arbitrage. Arbitrage I understand but derivatives and credit swaps seem very mystical and I would have appreciated it if the author had spent more time to explain these concepts. Basically he describes them as "bets", but that doesn't tell me a lot.

With that criticism aside the book is well paced, short, and interesting. If you are at all interested in our current economic crisis you will probably enjoy this as the stuff that happened in this book strongly relates to what happened in our crisis. It's amazing that wall street / government didn't learn anything from the Long Term Capital fiasco.

4./5

Edit: Currently I am reading "Cities of the Plain" by McCarthy. So far so good, much better pacing then "The Crossing".

Bone In The Throat by Anthony Bourdain

Bourdain's first novel. He writes about what he knows, which is basically the restaurant biz, drugs, and semi-competent criminals.

I wonder how much of the story was based on actual events of his life.

The story is compelling, but the cliche NYC-wise-guy slapstick gets tiresome after a while.

From King's Danse Macabre, page 221 of the paperback edition:

LOL I find this more than a little ironic considering popular opinion on his own work these days. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

From King's Danse Macabre, page 221 of the paperback edition:

LOL I find this more than a little ironic considering popular opinion on his own work these days. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

lol no doubt. I like King a lot (his old stuf at least) but he really is a stuck up snob when it comes to evaluating fiction. It ticks me off that he tries to appear meek about his own abilities while at the same time dumping on other authors and indistries.

One thing I did find funny recently (I'll have to look for the article again) Is that when King was asked to comment on the popular "Twilight" series in an interview he ripped Stephanie Meyer's writing ability to shreds. I happen to agree with him there.

Every once in a while I think about picking another King book up, but then I remember "The Stand."

Hmm, sounds kinda funny. Artists ripping on each other usually is. Got a link to it?

heres the first link I found
http://futuregossip.blogs.eplay.com/...outpoetically/

Nobody could quite put down another author like Oscar Wilde:

In the 1890s, poet Sir Lewis Morris complained to Wilde because he was not to be named England's poet laureate. "It's a complete conspiracy of silence against me," Morris said, "a conspiracy of silence! What ought I to do, Oscar?"

"Join it!" Wilde replied.

Nice. I didn't know much about the writer of Twilight or the series itself, but the commentator's excerpt made a few things a lot clearer right away:

If you haven't seen it, I think a really good followup is a documentary called Everest: Beyond the Limit. It's like the Deadliest Catch of Mt. Everest. It follows a climbing expedition from start to finish, base camp to ABC, the North Col, and on up on their quest for the summit. Includes a double amputee, a biker with more screws in his body than about anyone i've ever seen, a guy going without oxygen... There is good weather, bad weather, and mutiny! People get sick, people lose fingers, and people die.

My only minor complaint was I felt sometimes the producers wanted to make certain events more dramatic than they really were (same thing happens in deadliest catch, ice road truckers, etc).

I blazed through season 1 (available as "watch instantly" on netflix) and looking forward to season 2.

Lol Blarg
i'd say something but we've argued the stand issue to the ground already.

Im surprised you picked that one to put in your joke though. Theres much worse by him.

I hope to god there are none longer, though. That would prove he hadn't learned his lesson.

i started reading The Complete Stories of Kafka the other day...so far i've gotten through one of his short stories (about 50p) called "Description of a Struggle" I had no freaking idea what was going on, its so disjointed and random...then i read a bit about it on wiki and it says that people new to kafka shouldn't start with it because its one of his lesser works and is very disjointed and random

According to reports from him about his next novel, I have to tell you he hasn't.

Uh oh. Here comes another 200 pages of story and 1000 plus of corn, then.

LOL yup.

everytime i see that dude on discovery channel i joke with friends that taht dude will actually eat **** and would enjoy it lol. some of the food he eats is really gross.

Just finished Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I'm kind of on a kick where I'm reading popular works that I feel I should have read when I was younger. I liked it but a lot of the narrative is repetitive. A lot of religious description throughout but the story itself was pretty solid.

Not only that, he'd think you were a dick if you didn't eat it too.

thanks for the suggestion, i'll have to check this out.

I do not think either of you have tried "Needful Things". I have not read all King's Literature including "The Stand", but I have read "Needful Things" and it is awesome. It is a long read, but it has excellent character development and I recommend it.

Oh, The girl at the bookstore the other day told me "The Stand" was her favorite book while I was buying it. It will be my next read.

Oddly enough, I saw Bourdain last night on his show eating fried pig anus in Colombia.
(Travel Channel, btw)


edit: Think he might've eaten pig testicles as well