Reading anything?

[AndyC]

Got in the mood for something Lovecraftian, so I picked up Cthulhu 2000. It's an anthology of Lovecraft-inspired stories, published around 1995. Pretty good so far.

[JaseSF]

I've started reading The Big Book of UFOs by Chris A. Rutkowski. Cool so far...

[RCMerchant]

I've started reading The Big Book of UFOs by Chris A. Rutkowski. Cool so far...

That sounds like something I would enjoy. Im a big UFO buff.

[JaseSF]

The book is like a general overview of the complete history of UFOs...so far there's been little in it I hadn't heard about before somewhere or another along the line but it does mention many Canadian sightings in there which are of particular interest to me. The author Chris A. Rutkowski is Canadian and he's put out several previous UFO books. The cover art is excellent.

[Mofo Rising]

Still making my way through Infinite Jest, only 300 or so pages to go.

Also reading:

The Time Dweller by Michael Moorcock, a collection of short stories. Not all that great.

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk. First book I've read by him. A couple of chapters in and I don't think I'm going to like it very much.

The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies. Part of my Modern Library reading list. Not far enough in to make any statements.

The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick. Alright so far. I'm guessing it isn't the greatest Dick book. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life by Mark Evanier. A collection of columns written by Evanier (half of Groo) written for a magazine I can't place at the moment. A joy to read. Evanier has been working in the comic and animation industry for forever now, and he has plenty of warm-hearted and enlightening anecdotes about the unsung creators of comicdom (also a bunch of stories about his wayward youth as a comic fan). A great picture of a pre-Internet era when comic fans had only the letters page as an outlet. He's got a website, POV Online, which I highly recommend to anybody interested in either comics or animation.

[Used Meathook]

The I-5 killer by Ann Rule.

[Rev. Powell]

Just hours away from starting on



The original "Cult Movies" is one of my favorite movie books.  I need to track down volume 2 someday as well.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es..

Nicole LaPorte's "The Men Who Would Be King"

Subtitled: "An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called Dreamworks"

The Goods
(1) She makes the business side of Hollywood very interesting.
(2) What good have been a hard slog, she makes into an easy read.
(3) She's fair to everyone, pointing out both their good points and theri bad points, and everyone in the tale has both their good and bad points.
(4) And she even makes the unsympathetic sympathetic.

The Bads
(1)The epilogue at the end helps, but its a confusing tale, which is as confusing at the beginning of the book as it is at the end of the book. Part of it is . . .
(a) The nature of Hollywood, which is a place you can be born, live all your life, and on the day you die, you'll still not know all the ins and outs.
(b) Her emphasis. While she does go somewhat into the psychological movtivations of the players, she should have done more of it, because that's the only way you are going to understand the story.

The Interestings
(1)The prime demographic of Hollywood is the 13-year-old boy. If you can get their seats into the seats then you'll probably have a hit.
(2)Why some liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have a love/hate affair with Washington. It's the mirror image of Washington, D.C. So much so, you could call Washington, D.C. the Hollywood of the Potomac and Hollywood the Washington, D.C. of the Pacific.
(3) Maybe because she was a member  of the Hollywood Press, it comes off badly in the book. As being unable to ask the big question, as being vindicative, as blaming others for their mistakes, wanting to fan the flames of a story instead of dousing the flames,  and taking sides in a story.
(4)Why Eisner and Katzenberg had an acrimonious breakup. They were more alike than different. When one looked in the mirror, one saw the other one.
(5) But probably the most interesting fact coming out of the book was that Eisner was right. He could have handled the situation better. He could have handled the situation alot better, but in 1994, Katzenberg was unqualified for the job he wanted at Disney.  You only need to see how he ran Dreamworks into the ground to see that.

Next time: Stud Terkel's "Working"

[Mofo Rising]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I finally finished up my second reading of Gravity's Rainbow (with annotations), so a new 1100 page novel is right up my alley.

An impressive and imposing book.  My advice is to consider each segment as a short story; if you expect all the different threads Wallace creates to come together in the end in a satisfying way, you may be disappointed.  I did like the entire Don Gately arc a lot.  Another tip: once you reach the end of the book (which should occur sometime in 2014), go back to the beginning and re-read the very first segment. 

Finished, and three years ahead of schedule!

You're right about that first chapter, seems to be a void at the heart of the book. A darkness, if you will.

Well, since the current literary fad is to appropriate old text and insert b-movie elements into it, I plan to fill that void. Expect my novella Infinite Jest and Zombies to come out sometime in 2014.

[SPazzo]

I'm reading The Piano Man's Daughter right now for English class.  I'm really enjoying it, although the in-class essay on it next week is looming over my head.

Oh, and don't watch the Whoopie Goldberg produced made-for-TV movie based on it.  My professor laughed when I asked about it.

[metalmonster]

CIRQUE DU FREAK : BOOK 1 A Living Nightmare

[indianasmith]

DECISION POINTS by George W. Bush

I realize the former President doesn't have a lot of fans on this board, but he wrote a good memoir, discussing the most important decisions in his life and Presidency.  The book is a lot like the man himself: simple, straightforward, and easy to understand - but not stupid.  I really enjoyed it.

[Rev. Powell]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I finally finished up my second reading of Gravity's Rainbow (with annotations), so a new 1100 page novel is right up my alley.

An impressive and imposing book.  My advice is to consider each segment as a short story; if you expect all the different threads Wallace creates to come together in the end in a satisfying way, you may be disappointed.  I did like the entire Don Gately arc a lot.  Another tip: once you reach the end of the book (which should occur sometime in 2014), go back to the beginning and re-read the very first segment. 

You're right about that first chapter, seems to be a void at the heart of the book. A darkness, if you will.

Someone said the narrative structure is like a circle that's three-quarters complete.  A crucial part of the story is left untold.  I found it frustrating, needlessly so.  But I loved a lot of the individual incidents.

[Nukie 2]

Super Freakonomics- Levitt & Dubner

It's just like applying economics principles to everyday things, it's interesting but they seem to go off on tangents--rather informative tangents.

[Hammock Rider]

I'm re-reading volume 2 of Sherlock holmes: The Complete Novels and Short stories. Apparently I somehow have missed the Adventure of the Lion's Mane, which is told first person by Holmes! Wow!