High time for another reading thread.
I'm reading AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, the second book in the Arkham House collected editions of H.P. Lovecraft.
I'm also reading MAN OF TWO WORLDS: MY LIFE IN SCIENCE FICTION AND COMICS by famed DC Goodwill Ambassador Julius Schwartz. He was a sci-fi literary agent for years (his clients included H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury), and later became an editor for DC comics.
I've got more lined up, but haven't decided what I'm going to read next.
I'm reading "The Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin"!! its pretty good!! IM NOT GOTH!
Most of my reading time gets taken up by the Weekly World News though.
Love,
Colleen
I'm reading this message board...do that count?
I have this bad habit of starting new books before I finish the last one. So I'm currently reading, all at various stages:
'Stupid White Men' and 'TV Nation' by Michael Moore
'All You Need to Know About the Music Business' by Donald Passman
Che Guevara's 'Bolivian Diaries' and 'Motorcycle Diaries'
'How To Make It in the Music Business' by Sian pattenden
'Label Launch' by Veronika Kalmar
'Fast Food Nation'
'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
'Cather in the Rye' by JD Salinger
'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton
'You Are Being Lied To' by Russ Kick and the disinformation people.
'The Book of the Sub-Genius' by JR Dobbs
And as far as comics go, I'm pretty new to them and own a few issues of 'Lenore' (hysterical twisted genius) and 'Milk and Cheese'.
So there's subversion, conspiracy theories, religious cult spoof and comedy based around a dead girl. I'll check myself in voluntarily.
This week I'm mostly reading 'Stupid White Men' and the 3 Music Business books.
The last book I finished was about 6 months ago finishing 'If Chins Could Kill'. I'm sure that book dosent need any explanation here.
Pete
i just finished From a Buick 8 and Bruce Campbell's auto-biography. Both great books and i recommend them to all horror fans.
Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.
"A Year At the Movies" by Kevin Murphy (excellent book by the voice of Tom Servo, and it's even poignant at times!)
"archy and mehitabel" by Don Marquis (Collection of free-form poems from the point of view of a free-form poet reincarnated as a cockroach; cool, offbeat satire from the 20s)
Also, I've been reading the Book of the Subgenius and Roger Corman's autobiography on and off for the past couple of years. Next up, I'd like to read some of the great hipster novels (On the Road, Naked Lunch, Fear & Loathing, etc.), Fight Club, and Armageddon: The Musical (a bizarre-looking book I found used a while ago and still haven't read).
Wait! i think i need an explanation! Is "If Chins Could Kill" about getting fat?! Cos thats what I think it is! Butt I dunno I'm probably wrong!
Love,
Colleen
I am currently reading (very sparingly I might add) Desolation Angels by Kerouac. Vermin Boy, on the road is prolly the best book of his to start with but angels is the best thus far (haven't read all his work or finished this one yet). As of next week I'll prolly be reading some boring social work texts required for my classes. They have a funny way of naming something that you do in everyday life and pointing out the very obvious (ie respect the families you are working with--no s**t, as a social worker I have to respect ppl?!) Can't wait to graduate.
Deena
Yeah, of the books I listed, I'll probably read that one next, as I'm pretty sure there's one floating around my house. If you haven't heard it, I recommend Rhino's Beat Generation 3-disc set. Great tracks by Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs, etc., plus some cool miscellaneous stuff, like a 50s news piece on Greenwich Village and the Christopher Colombus scene from High School Confidential.
I am reading A Tale of Two Cities (yes, or fun!)
However I made my girlfriend read Carrie and the Dead Zone. Next up, I gave her On the Beach, Cujo, The Old Man and the Sea and Rosemary's Baby
I just finished an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, and am about to embark on the Silmarillion. Lookin' forward to it.
Brother R
Colleen, 'If Chins Could Kill - Confessions of a B-Movie Actor' (to give it its full title) is the autobiography of Bruce Campbell (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Campbell,+Bruce+(I)) , star of the Evil Dead trilogy and various other things. I think even non-Ccampbell/evil dead fans should really enjoy the book.
Pete
I'm reading "A Year At the Movies" by Kevin Murphy and "The Gore" by Joseph Citro. Suprisingly, Citro writes excellently for being such an unknown author.
I am reading a spanish novel called "Aventis", by Juan Marse. It goes about the early years after the civil war. A group of pre-teen boys spend their time trying to survive and inventing stories (they call them "aventis") in which they include their own versions of real-life rumours and situations. It is quite good, but incredibly difficult to follow. Characters and POV are mixed, and narration is stream-of-conciousness-like. I don't know if I'll finish it.
Aha, Dickens - surprisingly enjoyable, I have found!
My reading list currently includes:
1) The Day of the Triffids,
2) Barbarians at the Gate,
3) The Sands of Valour
4) Just Tell Me When to Cry
5) The English Civil Wars
6) Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships 1914
7) Beyond the Front Line
8) various early copies of 2000AD
9) Give War A Chance
The Official Godzilla Companion by J.D. Lees and Marc Cerasini.
and
The Reckoning by James Byron Huggins - a Men's Action novel (think David Morrell) so dripping with macho testosterone that, if I don't finish it soon, will have me shaving two or three times a day.
Next on the reading deck...
A Winter's Haunting by Dan Simmons
The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (this will be my second attempt at reading the book, I couldn't finish it the first time)
"If Chins Could Kill." When I first read that it conjured up strange images, all in black and white strangely enough (AAAAH! The Chin! We must flee!).
I just finished reading "On Basilisk Station" by David Weber. This is the first book in the Honor Harrington series. This series has been described as Horatio Hornblower in outer space. I know little about Hornblower, so I can't say if this is true or not. It's a good book if you like military SF.
Currently I am reading "The Ophiuchi Hotline" by John Varley (science fiction). This is Varley's first novel. Good stuff. I'm a huge John Varley. Unfortunately, he's not a prolific writer (he wrote "Steel Beach" in 1989, and then his next one was "Golden Globe" in 1997). His short stories are the best. If you can find his collection "Blue Champagne" anywere, get it. That's some of his best work. The Gaean Trilogy is good as well (Titan, Wizard, and Demon are the titles).
Next I'm going to read either "Requiem for the Sun" by Elizabeht Haydon (book four in the Rhapsody series) or "Honor for the Queen" (book two in the Honor Harrington series).
Silmarillion is great, though the first hundred pages can be a bit slow (sort of Old Testament like). For the movies, I reread it, then The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Rings, and am currently rereading the Two Towers. I'm also reading "Nothingness" about the physics of empty space. (just don't ask me about the math involved)
Brother Ragnarok wrote:
>
> I just finished an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, and am about
> to embark on the Silmarillion. Lookin' forward to it.
>
> Brother R
Err... Tomas Aquinas Selected Writings, Esential Augustine, Philosophy on Mind, Elements of Mind... Guess who's studing Philosophy in college! 8-D
I'm in the Middle of "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore. Very interesting, especially from an "outsider's" perspective (I'm British).
Bret Easton Ellis' novel Glamorama
"The Day After" by David Machintyre, Sean Catlett, and Stephen Zacharus. A great read, highly recomended.
I recently have read "The Hours", "Virgin Suicides", "Confederacy of Dunces", "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", and "The Crucible". Next up is "Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the west", "High wind in Jamaica", and "A Void" by Georges Perec, a mystery novel that manages to never use the letter "e".
I'm finishing off the Necroscope series right now and that's to be followed by a reread of Heavier Than Heaven, a great Cobain biography, and after that I need to read something by Lovecraft. It's been too long.
the "letters from a nut" series.
highly recommended for those with a warped sense of humor. Absolutely true stories of one mans dedication of writing the most ludicrous letters to companies in order to see how they would respond
>highly recommended for those with a warped sense of humor. Absolutely true
>stories of one mans dedication of writing the most ludicrous letters to companies
>in order to see how they would respond
This reminds me of a web site I found once where they had a section containing letters they'd written to different places and the responses they received. The longest series of exchanges was when they wrote to a hotel chain and told them that they felt a little uncomfortable with the hotel's new policy of having the restroom attendant hold their penis while they stood at the urinal. :)
>>This reminds me of a web site I found once where they had a section containing letters they'd written to different places and the responses they received. The longest series of exchanges was when they wrote to a hotel chain and told them that they felt a little uncomfortable with the hotel's new policy of having the restroom attendant hold their penis while they stood at the urinal. :)<<<
LOL! Well this guy has questions from the absurd (like asking a hotel chain if he can bring his ant farm along which he lets out of the box but they are trained) to interesting questions that could happen (like asking a cruise liner company if they could accomodate him as he has a bad case of terrets syndrome..where he also writes spurts of profanity throughout the letter) heh
Somehow, stuff like that amuses me