Books

[Plotinus]

Just curious whether we have many habitual readers here, and what you're into.

Over the summer I joined some friends in a reading group for this behemoth:

It was my second time through, and a deeply rewarding experience. Still one of my all-time favorite works of fiction.

I'm now at work on this series:

A little tough to describe it. A college professor quits his job to move to the Kentucky countryside, where he falls in with astrologers, mystics, psychotherapists, a divorcee, and at least one shepherd. He's setting out to write an alternate history of the world, one which is premised on the question "What if once the world wasn't like it is now, but different? What if once, long ago, magic was real?" Interspersed with flashbacks to some 15th century monks and scholars. Pretty great stuff.

 

[jimbo]

Been re-reading the George R.R. Martin series 'A Song of Fire and Ice' and finished Joe Abercrombie's 'The First Law' trilogy, love hard-core fantasy!

 

[fidget]

Any of the old hippies here like Jim Dodge?
Fup, Not Fade Away, and Stone Junction are great reads.
He is director of Creative Writing at Humboldt State University

 

[elmomuzz]

I'm on book 4 of L Ron Hubbards Mission Earth series. It's hillarious.

 

[mattybass]

Don't read a lot, but I'm trying to get into it more. I'm reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac currently.

 

[AgentofChaos]

Just got done with:

Great book about the mind and how the ego controls us.
Currently reading:

&

 

[Plotinus]

matty, if you enjoy On the Road, I strongly recommend "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" as a kind of sequel for you. It follows some of the actual people that On the Road's characters are based on in a nonfiction account of the rise and fall of the 60s movements.

 

[fidget]

matty, if you enjoy On the Road, I strongly recommend "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" as a kind of sequel for you. It follows some of the actual people that On the Road's characters are based on in a nonfiction account of the rise and fall of the 60s movements.

Ken Kesey comes across as a bullying p rick IMO

 

[Plotinus]

You know, it's been a long time since I read that book but I also remember being thrown by Kesey at times. He certainly seems to have been a force of nature. I still think back to that scene where he shows up on stage at a Vietnam protest and scolds the protesters for being there, while intermittently playing a harmonica.

Still the real meat of that book, I think, is its portrayal of Neal Cassady (upon whom Dean Moriarty was based in On the Road.) His final scenes were certainly the most poignant, to me.

 

[B.]

 

[mattybass]

You know, it's been a long time since I read that book but I also remember being thrown by Kesey at times. He certainly seems to have been a force of nature. I still think back to that scene where he shows up on stage at a Vietnam protest and scolds the protesters for being there, while intermittently playing a harmonica.

Still the real meat of that book, I think, is its portrayal of Neal Cassady (upon whom Dean Moriarty was based in On the Road.) His final scenes were certainly the most poignant, to me.

In addition to the comments above, I'm aware the characters are based on these gents. Haven't really experienced Kesey in the book yet, I'm only about 1/2 way through... which character does he play? I almost feel that Cassady comes off as a raving lunactic... I guess I come from a generation that reads this and has to decipher what isn't actually insane from back then compared to what separates Cassady as uniquely odd Not to insult you oldtimers, but things are definitely different. There are events in this book that I take were probably actual events, and I'm blown away with what people could get away with, haha.

I think I will read Electric Kool-Aid at some point... I just haven't read as much in the past few days, but I love the story. I see myself reading more Kerouac after as well.

 

[Plotinus]

Kesey doesn't appear in On the Road, as far as I know. The through-line is really limited to Cassady and a few others (I think Ginsberg has roles in both books, for example.)

I don't think it's a misread to see Cassady as being basically insane. And I think Kerouac more or less acknowledges that in the text (the famous quote about the roman candles, the "mad ones".)

That's part of what makes the transition between the books so interesting to me. In On the Road you have these few countercultural rebels, stirring up trouble and frightening the squares. But somehow, by the time Kesey and the Pranksters are in there prime, the country at large has adopted this ethos of insanity to such an extent that they really aren't even that remarkable. Makes you wonder what was in the water back then (besides LSD.)

 

[aero18]

Currently reading:

 

[RussyRoo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_for_Civilisation:_The_Conquest_of_the_Middle_East

 

[PerseusStoned]

Psychedelic works(a la "On the Road" or "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test":
David Wallace anything
Headz the Novel
"Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce (if I read this sober, it puts me to sleep; if I read this tripping I can't stop)
Anything Mark Z. Danielewski (especially "House of Leaves"; very edgy new author)

"Gritty" works:
Anything Chuck Palahniuk I like "Rant" above all else; "Stranger than Fiction" is a trip and a half too, half of the stories are fiction, half are non-fiction, he never tells you which is which
"Lockpick Pornography" Assuming you're comfortable with transgender works (I've had some people tell me it made them queasy) it was written by one of the creators of the "A Softer World" webcomic. He originally posted part of it for free and got $1600 in donations in just a few months.
Anything Charles Bukowski (plus now you'll finally get all those indie references to Bukowski!)
This is some of the best free posted writing I have found on the internet. Even better, it is supposedly autobiographical.

Science Fiction: Anything Dan Simmons (long read), "Treason" by Orson Scott Card
Short Stories: "Maps in a Mirror" by Orson Scott Card
Short novels: Anything Garret Keizer
Medium novels: Sherlock Holmes collections
General unrequited love feelings (best if read in high school): Looking for Alaska, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Puff

 

[rabblerouser]

haven't been reading a ton lately, but it is arguably my favorite form of escapism.

The scroll edition of on the road will give you all the real names and a few extra bits that weren't in other versions. Having read it and reread it over the years, i was really psyched to finally read it as originally written.

the beats were failed seekers, never found what they were looking for, 'cept maybe ginsberg later on.

 

[curser37]

Antoine Broyard - Kafka was the Rage - a Greenwich Village memoir of the 40's

 

[Plotinus]

Has anyone picked up the new Franzen book? I really want to push through all four books in the series I'm working on right now but I have to admit all the hype is starting to make me think I should put them down and check this thing out.

 

[GreenLeaf]

Lately I have been reading a lot of biographical essays either by or about the author John Preston. I re-read Mr. Benson for the hot parts and comedy of it all. I'll start reading his Alex Kane series soon. I wish he hadn't died so young and they'd had protease inhibitors that they do now and they would have hopefully worked for him.

I'm also reading the new biography about author Samuel Steward AKA Phil Andros since I've enjoyed some of his stories about rough trade bisexual leathermen.

I've also been reading Pink Steam by Dodie Bellamy and so far I love it.