eyy? ahh, ohh! eyh!? waddayagettinfuckinfresh? ohh! it's a very difficult situation, eyy? ohh! a gabagool like yer mmmudder used ter make, ohh! a bounanima, two n***ers just stole my truck, can you belive that, eyy? ahh, ohh! don't know whether to fuck him or fight him -- ffffuck him or fight him! eyy? ahh! woah-heyy! Anthony, he knows what he said, funny how? ayy! ohh! eyyy! go get your fuckin shine box--mother fuckin mutt! eyy? ohh! a bounanima you fuck my wife, eyy! you fuck my wife!? ohh! you jew mudder-fucker you, ohh! ehhy!? you slice the garlic thin so it luquifies in the pan ohh! ehhy!? that's too many onions! ohh! ayy! a bounanima! we'll put the gun behintt the toilet, eh! woah! Mondeey Toosday Thurrsdeey Wenssdeey Friday Sardy Suuhnday, ohh! ehh! a gabbagoul! cancerr o' da prick! ohh! clean it up ya guinea brat! woah! bring it ovah! bring it ovah! defeating it's own purpose! ohh! ehhy! what did I tell you!? don't buy anything!? ya hear!? ohh! ehhy! Charlie M!!? Charlie M!!? eh? he was banging cocktail watresses twoatatime! ohh! ehh! a gabagoul! and this guys just in the middle going "eh, whadda ya want from me?"
DFW may be my fav author but ive never gotten a hold of Brief Interviews... How do you like it?
Ive also never gotten into Brautigan but have heard alot of great things (especially reading up on some of DFW's fav authors, hes one of them along with DeLillo (who im reading now)
DFW is incredible. Brief interviews is really light in comparison to his other works but I loved it. Way more tight and concise I thought.
Braughtigan... Just do it. His poetry got me hooked on him then everything else followed. "The pill versus the spring hill mine disaster". Great fucking read. I'll read that twice a year easy. Quick read. Hilarious stories and really dark poems that are hardly pretentious. Pretty basic but insightful.
Also, "in watermelon sugar" is surrealism. Weird af but I think it's well worth it if you give it a shot. I've given it to friends after they have suffered the loss of a loved one. Just seems fitting and all have seemed to really appreciate it. You can read it a dozen times and you'll still be thinking over it. Plus it's a small book and a quick read.
Go.for it.
You're turn, give a couple book ideas. I'm having a vacation in the next week and would like a to read at the beach or some shit.
Im going to check out Brautigan, just checked Amazon and theres a book with "Trout Fishing..." "watermelon Sugar" amd other stories in it that I just ordered
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall is really good. Heard of it first from Pepper Hicks on Ron and Fez amd checked it out and ended up beimg one of my favorite nooks ive read in the past few years
All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald- Unbelievable true atory about a huge Irish family from Southie. Crazy crazy stuff happens in it, a real life version of "The Town" or "The Departed" with all this Whitey Bulger talk/movies going on lately, this book should have been made into a movie before alot of the garbage they did make.
The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst is a good read. Autobio About a career long minor league baseball pitcher amd life on the road as a AAA relief pitcher.
Don DeLillo is awesome too. DFW called him his biggest influence. In the moddle of "White Noise" righy now and cant recommend it enough
And recently ive given some graphic novels a go. Marvels version of "The Stand" and "The Dark Tower" are great after already knowing the stories and getting to see artwork. But i cant recommend enought the "Preacher" series by Garth Ennis. Really dark story about a preacher doimg battles with angels, demons, trying to find answers while in the heart of Texas to endless questions about God/religion that have existed for eternity
Wow, great list! Thanks man. Getting white noise for sure and the shark book. Probably all cause fuck it Amazon prime makes it too easy.
Good call on The Preacher. Loved all I read back in the day. I remember it being way more dramatic than the basic premise leads you to believe.... fuck I wish I saved my comics. I had preacher, sandman, and plastic forks. Loved em all.
Thanks again. You just did all the shopping work for me. Cheers.
No problem, thanks to you ill be finally checking out Brautigan off of amazon as well, lol. And yea i never got into comics as a kid, but having "The Stand", a story i already knew and loved with visual aspect (although the early 90's mini series with Gary Sinise (who is excellent in it) is out there, but is terrible in almost every aspect except for Lt. Dan) got me into checking them out and "Preacher" is my fav. The story is great and would work as JUST a novel.
You memtioned looking for bio's, and even though hes not famous I cant recommend "All Souls" enough
And looking back at my post, im surprised you could decipher my dumb fingers constantly misspelling shit and not going back and correcting. I do it all the time but i want to snap my dumb thumb every time i write amd instead of and.
But yea if you have any auggestions to drop on me im all ears
Or if you'd rather read something that's kind of like that but not crap, try The Tunnel by William Gass. He challenged himself to write an aesthetically great Nazi book and spent three decades trying to make it work. It does. If you like—not say you like, but like—tortuous monstrosities like Gravity's Rainbow and At Swim-Two-Birds, this is the shit.
I have all 62 of the original series, all 26 of Series 2000, all of the new Horrorland books, and a bunch of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I was a huge fan of Goosebumps growing up :)
It's a pity Tucker was such a sensitive little bitch. He had a great forum. There was always something entertaining going on, and despite being a douche he had the uncanny ability to attract damaged women.
When it was published in 1995 it seemed quite far fetched and many pointed to it as evidence of his insanity. When reading it in 2015 it is incredibly relevant and, most troubling, is that many of the author's thesis about the importance of real, human relationships and potential societal dangers spurred by technology don't seem so insane when viewed through the lens of 2015.
His premise is pretty much totally spot on, and he made some brilliant points -like the stuff about surrogate activities - but he was also a severely mentally ill man who lived in the woods and thought the best way to make a point would be to send out a bunch of mailbombs.
I think it is. Although if you are not a fan of pynchon you prob wouldnt like it. Its 1,100 pages long with 300 pages of endnotes, over 100 characters.
Personally it changed the way I look at books and read. Some people call it the most pretentious sanctimonious book ever written. I say its the obsessive work of a brilliant man who is smarter than anyone we will ever know.
Give some of his non-fiction a try( Consider The Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again) its digestable and will give you a taste of his writing style. He was really funny, "Big Red Sun" was him covering the AVN awards in the 90s and is laugh out loud hilarious.
David Foster Wallace is Hipster Lit 101, hes alot more than some hipster god though. And bc of his death and the way he wrote(and died) alot of hubub has been made in the past few years. Also Jason Segal is playing him in a movie coming out this year(which DFW would have opposed, as do I) You mentioned below you are into Franzen, him and David were very close friends
My problem with Pynchon isn't how prolific he is, or the tangents he goes on (well it kinda is), it's all the nonsensical, unimportant stuff that he shoehorns in. So take style outta the picture, just content wise is Wallace more of a Franzen or Pynchon. Cuz I can't stand Pynchon, I wanted to love him and ended up HATING him.
Also I just watched the trailer for that movie. It looks alright I guees, like I'll check it out in Netflix in a year but can't say I'm excited for it
Thats tough, id say hes more like Franzen because although he does shoehorn stuff in, its not nonsensical and almost always plays a major role later, even if you may think it wont. But people are correct in comparing Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow, because of length, amount of characters, etc.
But man, id say at least give Imfinite Jest a shot. Give it 100/200 pages and if you hate it you hate it. Ill give it a quick tease by saying: In the near future a form of visual entertainment exists where the viewer is left in a hypnotic trance reduced to a vegative state. At the same time a reorganized set of nations exists where the president of the U.S. Is a germaphobe ex-vegas nightckub act who subsidizes time to corporate sponsors (Instead of 2015 they would refer to it as something like Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment ) and turns most of New England and French Canada into a dumping ground for waste known as the concavity. Also at the same time the director of the entertainment's son is in High School at a private Tennis Academy his father Founded. Also next door to the school is a drug rehab/halfway house with all sorts of crazies. They try to find answers to the hypnotic entertainment, deal with high school problems, attempt to get/stay off drugs, AA meeting and almost all of the characters cross paths and are connected with back storoes... Amd im giving you a light recap of about 0.01 % of the story. Its hilarious, batshit crazy, dead serious,etc.
Oh man, gravitys rainbow? Of all things you had to compare it to that? Lol.
But for real I think you sold me. I just gotta read all the GOT books first and I'm only on the second one right now, so it might be awhile. Although maybe I should read it before the movie comes out to look cool like the fake hipster douche cunt that I am
The last thing in the world DFW would have wanted would have been for the guy from How I Met Your Mother and the kid from the Facebook movie to make a movie about his life, so i think its safe to say most fans of his (and his family) are highly opposed to this movie coming out. It doesnt look like anything special.
Also: read that book instead of seeing the movie. Its called "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" by David Lipinski. Its about the tour DFW goes on to promote Infinite Jest and his hatred for any and everthing that goes hand in hand with promo for a book.
Chuck palahniuk, kurt Vonnegut, Jonathon Franzen are probably my favorite fiction authors. Obviously Stephen King has a ton of amazing shit. I'm currently reading the GOT books, and even though I watch the show im still reading these things faster than anything ever, they're awesome
For non fiction, I can reccommend Flyboys. Jeremy Scahill wrote a good book all about Blackwater. Everything by Michael Lewis (who wrote Moneyball) is good. If you like sports I would definitely go with Bill Simmons BIG BOOK OF BASKETBALL. I don't know there's a ton. I don't know you so it's hard to rec. honestly go with Chuck Pahlaniuk, almost all his books are great (he's the dude that wrote Fight Club)
I liked Choke and Survivor but havent really gotten into mich beyond that. I read 100 pages of Doomed and wanted to throw it in a fire pit. What would u recommend from him besides what i mentioned?
Haunted is probably my favorite. Snuff is pretty hilarious and worth the read. Lullaby is good. Invisible Monsters is great. I guess I'd go 1. Haunted 2. Invisible Monsters than give yourself a break from Chuck and later get back with Snuff and Lullaby
Theyre told in the found diary format of a 19th century cavalry officer called Harry Flashman. His public reputation is one of gallantry and honor but his own diaries confess the extent of his private cowardice, caddishness and him just being a bastard. The books are basically historical black comedies which put flashman in different periods and countries of the british empire meeting or interacting with major historical figures who (barring Lincoln) are treated with almost universal disdain. Theyre extremely well written, genuinely funny and quite cynical about human nature.
The strongest ones in the series, i think, are Flash for Freedom and Flashman's Lady.
An O&A fan and a Flashman fan - we'd have been friends mate. Flash for Freedom and Flashman in the Great Game are mine. The Indian mutiny onwards is just nail-biting, engaging and hysterical.
Great line on fortune from Great Game: "Luck, as I've often observed, is a most agile sprite, who leaps both ways in double quick time"
oh man, i really hated the great game. it was the one novel where flashman genuinely fell in love with the rani and tried to do the heroic thing by helping his country. his momentary burst of decency felt so out of character and forced. i thought his back and forth agonising over elspeth being kidnapped in Flashman's lady was better because it was more a fear of him being cuckolded as well as wondering if he actually loved her. I think Flash for Freedom was probably the best, followed by Flashman and the Redskins. dont know how Fraser made running slaves both horrifying and hilarious.
I was hoping I'd see Ellroy in this thread. Just read perfidia, wasn't as good as the underworld usa but it was cool having dudley smith as a narrator, not to mention a young ward Littell and scotty Bennett.
Kill your Friends - John Niven. So good I read it twice in one week on holiday last year. The hotel staff asked me to go to a more isolated bit of the beach area because my laughing was ruining people's days (I have a loud and extremely annoying laugh)
I'm a fantasy faggot. Right now I'm reading Bad Mojo, which is an urban fantasy similar to The Dresden Files, main character is more of a charming bastard though.
Next I'm reading Mort by Terry Pratchett, which is supposed to be one of the best Death books.
I was thinking of joke answers but I'll take this one seriously. I recently finished Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, and White Noise by Don Delillo. I enjoyed all three immensely and I recommend them. Right now I'm reading a collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories and Ulysses. Enjoyed both so far.
the greatest book I've ever read is "As Simple As Snow" by Gregory Galloway. Story of a highschool kid who falls in love with a new "strange" girl, who is interested in ghost stories, magic, riddles, etc. One day she disappears, the only clue left behind is her dress laying on a frozen pond, but it doesn't appear as though she had drowned.
The author said there IS a definite answer to what happened to her, and you're supposed to re-read the book and search for "clues" in her speech and actions to figure it out. To this day, no one has found the answer to it.
another great book is "Elsewhere" by Gabrielle Zevin. About a teenage girl who is killed in a hit & run, when she "awakens", she's in a land called Elsewhere, where you age backwards, and once you become a baby you are sent back to Earth to be reborn as a new person.
At one point in the story, the characters are told the last words they spoke before dying. One girl, who was shot in the head by stray bullets, her last words were "OH FUCK!!! I GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD!!!"
I'm working my way through the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels, pretty entertaining old-fashioned spy fiction.
Supergods by Grant Morrison was a fascinating narrative of the history of the comic book industry by a guy who's worked in it half his life.
The Sprawl Trilogy by WilliamGibson--Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive--some of the first and best cyberpunk sci-fi.
On Writing by Stephen King--it's half autobiography, half talking about his own process. It's refreshing to read a book about writing free of pretentious bullshit.
Some of my favourites:
Last exit to Brooklyn - Hubert selby/
Naked lunch - Burroughs/
The trial - Kafka/
Don Quixote - Cervantes/
Keep the aspidistra flying, 1984 - Orwell/
Colour of magic (most disc world's are good, color of magic is just the first) - terry Pratchett/
Mirgorod - Nikolai gogol/
Slaughterhouse 5, cats cradle, sirens of titan - Vonnegut/
Notes from the underground - Dostoevsky/
Anything by poe.
Finnegan's wake - Joyce (read it aloud while drunk and don't even attempt to understand it)
I liked Choke and Survivor but havent really gotten into mich beyond that. I read 100 pages of Doomed and wanted to throw it in a fire pit. What would u recommend from him besides what i mentioned?
Thats tough, id say hes more like Franzen because although he does shoehorn stuff in, its not nonsensical and almost always plays a major role later, even if you may think it wont. But people are correct in comparing Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow, because of length, amount of characters, etc.
But man, id say at least give Imfinite Jest a shot. Give it 100/200 pages and if you hate it you hate it. Ill give it a quick tease by saying: In the near future a form of visual entertainment exists where the viewer is left in a hypnotic trance reduced to a vegative state. At the same time a reorganized set of nations exists where the president of the U.S. Is a germaphobe ex-vegas nightckub act who subsidizes time to corporate sponsors (Instead of 2015 they would refer to it as something like Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment ) and turns most of New England and French Canada into a dumping ground for waste known as the concavity. Also at the same time the director of the entertainment's son is in High School at a private Tennis Academy his father Founded. Also next door to the school is a drug rehab/halfway house with all sorts of crazies. They try to find answers to the hypnotic entertainment, deal with high school problems, attempt to get/stay off drugs, AA meeting and almost all of the characters cross paths and are connected with back storoes... Amd im giving you a light recap of about 0.01 % of the story. Its hilarious, batshit crazy, dead serious,etc.
75 comments
13 oldchunkofcoal 2015-05-29
--crickets--
9 MylesNorth 2015-05-29
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
EDIT: Good read. Cormac is a true badass.
9 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
Cormac Mccarthy is so great and Blood Meridian is his best work. Although The Road did actually make me cry at the end. Im a puss.
8 DoubleGuns 2015-05-29
A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man...
eyy? ahh, ohh! eyh!? waddayagettinfuckinfresh? ohh! it's a very difficult situation, eyy? ohh! a gabagool like yer mmmudder used ter make, ohh! a bounanima, two n***ers just stole my truck, can you belive that, eyy? ahh, ohh! don't know whether to fuck him or fight him -- ffffuck him or fight him! eyy? ahh! woah-heyy! Anthony, he knows what he said, funny how? ayy! ohh! eyyy! go get your fuckin shine box--mother fuckin mutt! eyy? ohh! a bounanima you fuck my wife, eyy! you fuck my wife!? ohh! you jew mudder-fucker you, ohh! ehhy!? you slice the garlic thin so it luquifies in the pan ohh! ehhy!? that's too many onions! ohh! ayy! a bounanima! we'll put the gun behintt the toilet, eh! woah! Mondeey Toosday Thurrsdeey Wenssdeey Friday Sardy Suuhnday, ohh! ehh! a gabbagoul! cancerr o' da prick! ohh! clean it up ya guinea brat! woah! bring it ovah! bring it ovah! defeating it's own purpose! ohh! ehhy! what did I tell you!? don't buy anything!? ya hear!? ohh! ehhy! Charlie M!!? Charlie M!!? eh? he was banging cocktail watresses twoatatime! ohh! ehh! a gabagoul! and this guys just in the middle going "eh, whadda ya want from me?"
3 Jackthejew 2015-05-29
I can't look at that title without laughing what a horrendous book
2 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
lingua!
2 PacinosWig 2015-05-29
Ah bah fongool!
7 amaral69 2015-05-29
Shakespeare really is delightful.
7 humblebrag 2015-05-29
Brief interviews with hideous men.
The wind up bird chronicles.
Confederate General in big sir.
Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72. Non-fiction.
Trout fishing in America. Non-fiction.
Paradise lost. Non - fiction about the west Memphis three.
Also I'm currently interested in biographies if any of y'all got some suggestions.
2 duncanhills 2015-05-29
I read the trilogy of Teddy Roosevelt biographies by Edmund Morris last summer, they were fucking great.
1 humblebrag 2015-05-29
Heard about this, dammit, I'm gonna have to get it.
0 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
DFW may be my fav author but ive never gotten a hold of Brief Interviews... How do you like it?
Ive also never gotten into Brautigan but have heard alot of great things (especially reading up on some of DFW's fav authors, hes one of them along with DeLillo (who im reading now)
2 humblebrag 2015-05-29
DFW is incredible. Brief interviews is really light in comparison to his other works but I loved it. Way more tight and concise I thought.
Braughtigan... Just do it. His poetry got me hooked on him then everything else followed. "The pill versus the spring hill mine disaster". Great fucking read. I'll read that twice a year easy. Quick read. Hilarious stories and really dark poems that are hardly pretentious. Pretty basic but insightful.
Also, "in watermelon sugar" is surrealism. Weird af but I think it's well worth it if you give it a shot. I've given it to friends after they have suffered the loss of a loved one. Just seems fitting and all have seemed to really appreciate it. You can read it a dozen times and you'll still be thinking over it. Plus it's a small book and a quick read.
Go.for it.
You're turn, give a couple book ideas. I'm having a vacation in the next week and would like a to read at the beach or some shit.
2 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
Im going to check out Brautigan, just checked Amazon and theres a book with "Trout Fishing..." "watermelon Sugar" amd other stories in it that I just ordered
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall is really good. Heard of it first from Pepper Hicks on Ron and Fez amd checked it out and ended up beimg one of my favorite nooks ive read in the past few years
All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald- Unbelievable true atory about a huge Irish family from Southie. Crazy crazy stuff happens in it, a real life version of "The Town" or "The Departed" with all this Whitey Bulger talk/movies going on lately, this book should have been made into a movie before alot of the garbage they did make.
The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst is a good read. Autobio About a career long minor league baseball pitcher amd life on the road as a AAA relief pitcher.
Don DeLillo is awesome too. DFW called him his biggest influence. In the moddle of "White Noise" righy now and cant recommend it enough
And recently ive given some graphic novels a go. Marvels version of "The Stand" and "The Dark Tower" are great after already knowing the stories and getting to see artwork. But i cant recommend enought the "Preacher" series by Garth Ennis. Really dark story about a preacher doimg battles with angels, demons, trying to find answers while in the heart of Texas to endless questions about God/religion that have existed for eternity
2 humblebrag 2015-05-29
Wow, great list! Thanks man. Getting white noise for sure and the shark book. Probably all cause fuck it Amazon prime makes it too easy.
Good call on The Preacher. Loved all I read back in the day. I remember it being way more dramatic than the basic premise leads you to believe.... fuck I wish I saved my comics. I had preacher, sandman, and plastic forks. Loved em all.
Thanks again. You just did all the shopping work for me. Cheers.
2 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
No problem, thanks to you ill be finally checking out Brautigan off of amazon as well, lol. And yea i never got into comics as a kid, but having "The Stand", a story i already knew and loved with visual aspect (although the early 90's mini series with Gary Sinise (who is excellent in it) is out there, but is terrible in almost every aspect except for Lt. Dan) got me into checking them out and "Preacher" is my fav. The story is great and would work as JUST a novel.
You memtioned looking for bio's, and even though hes not famous I cant recommend "All Souls" enough
And looking back at my post, im surprised you could decipher my dumb fingers constantly misspelling shit and not going back and correcting. I do it all the time but i want to snap my dumb thumb every time i write amd instead of and.
But yea if you have any auggestions to drop on me im all ears
2 humblebrag 2015-05-29
This has been too nice of an exchange for this sub. Feels weird.
7 burner989 2015-05-29
You're actually asking O&A fans for book recommendations.
6 I-take-beast-shits 2015-05-29
Mein Kampf
3 Pat_Battle_Storage 2015-05-29
Or if you'd rather read something that's kind of like that but not crap, try The Tunnel by William Gass. He challenged himself to write an aesthetically great Nazi book and spent three decades trying to make it work. It does. If you like—not say you like, but like—tortuous monstrosities like Gravity's Rainbow and At Swim-Two-Birds, this is the shit.
Couple other Hitlery classics here and here.
1 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
All modernists?
6 RearNakedGrope 2015-05-29
Goosebumps had some good stuff.
1 chris2webby 2015-05-29
I have all 62 of the original series, all 26 of Series 2000, all of the new Horrorland books, and a bunch of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I was a huge fan of Goosebumps growing up :)
5 melexmaster 2015-05-29
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - Tucker Max..It's an amazing book filled with truthful tails.
8 turdthief 2015-05-29
No its not. And no it doesn't.
12 gfunke 2015-05-29
Oh literal turdthief
2 Ant_Sucks 2015-05-29
What is it, 2006 again?
It's a pity Tucker was such a sensitive little bitch. He had a great forum. There was always something entertaining going on, and despite being a douche he had the uncanny ability to attract damaged women.
1 erockarmy1 2015-05-29
I wish he would come back on. I want to see Tucker and Opie try and out bro each other with bullshit.
4 HighLightEternal 2015-05-29
the bonfire of the vanaties by tom wolfe
0 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
fuck you
2 HighLightEternal 2015-05-29
no
4 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
On June 9th- Colin Quinn's Coloring Book comes out. Cant wait, hes been talking about his manifestos for years.
Right now im reading White Noise by Don DeLillo. Very Good.
As far as recommendations for O&A fans:
Kurt Vonnegut- Cat's Cradle, Mother Night, Slaughterhouse Five
David Foster Wallace- Consider The Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again, Oblivion
Steven Hall- The Raw Shark Texts (Recommended by Pepper Hicks, Good read. Its like Memento meets Jaws)
Cormac Mccarthy- Child Of God, Blood Meridian
John Kennedy Toole- A Confederacy Of Dunces (Colin's favorite book which he constantly recommends to any and everyone)
Non Fiction-
Michael Patrick MacDonald- All Souls (about a South Boston Irish family)
Nick Flynn- Another Bullshit Night In Suck City (Movie made about it titled "Being Flynn" Starring Deniro)
Jeffery Toobin- The Run Of His Life (OJ Simpson book, my fav non fiction book out there)
Charles Brandt- I Heard You Paint Houses (Hoffa amd his Irish Hitman)
Jon Krakauer- Under The Banner Of Heaven (Crazy Mormon Fundamentalists)
Lawrence Wright- The Looming Tower (9-11)
3 thebudgetgamer 2015-05-29
A Tale of Blood and Sweat socks was a good read.
3 BrainPainter 2015-05-29
The 48 laws of power
Interesting look into how we function as a society
2 867-5309- 2015-05-29
935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity by investigative journalist Charles Lewis.
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S Thompson.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt.
Hellhound On His Trail by Hampton Sides
Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore Kaczynski
Media Control by Noam Chomsky
No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society by Robert O'Harrow, Jr.
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's Counterterrorism Wars by Robert Baer and Seymour Hersh.
The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson.
Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History by Maureen Orth
2 NihilistKnight 2015-05-29
How is the Unabomber Manifesto? I've heard opinions ranging from completely batshit to prophetic criticism.
1 867-5309- 2015-05-29
When it was published in 1995 it seemed quite far fetched and many pointed to it as evidence of his insanity. When reading it in 2015 it is incredibly relevant and, most troubling, is that many of the author's thesis about the importance of real, human relationships and potential societal dangers spurred by technology don't seem so insane when viewed through the lens of 2015.
If anyone is interested in reading it, it's free on the internet archive:
https://archive.org/stream/IndustrialSocietyAndItsFuture-TheUnabombersManifesto/IndustrialSocietyAndItsFuture-theUnabombersManifesto_djvu.txt
1 loabaron 2015-05-29
His premise is pretty much totally spot on, and he made some brilliant points -like the stuff about surrogate activities - but he was also a severely mentally ill man who lived in the woods and thought the best way to make a point would be to send out a bunch of mailbombs.
1 humblebrag 2015-05-29
Fuck these down votes those are some great books you have here.
2 Genericscreen 2015-05-29
Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, Animal Farm.....Mein Kampf
2 E-rockComment 2015-05-29
Brave New World-Aldous Huxley; Moral Man, Immoral Society-Reinhold Niebuhr; The Old Breed-Eugene Sledge. Good thread idea OP, let's get cultured.
2 ncervo 2015-05-29
Infinite Jest
Gödel Escher Bach
Foundation
2 maynardsabeast 2015-05-29
Is Infinite Jest really that great. I wanted to read it and then heard the author compared to Pynchon which immediately turned me off
2 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
I think it is. Although if you are not a fan of pynchon you prob wouldnt like it. Its 1,100 pages long with 300 pages of endnotes, over 100 characters.
Personally it changed the way I look at books and read. Some people call it the most pretentious sanctimonious book ever written. I say its the obsessive work of a brilliant man who is smarter than anyone we will ever know.
Give some of his non-fiction a try( Consider The Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again) its digestable and will give you a taste of his writing style. He was really funny, "Big Red Sun" was him covering the AVN awards in the 90s and is laugh out loud hilarious.
David Foster Wallace is Hipster Lit 101, hes alot more than some hipster god though. And bc of his death and the way he wrote(and died) alot of hubub has been made in the past few years. Also Jason Segal is playing him in a movie coming out this year(which DFW would have opposed, as do I) You mentioned below you are into Franzen, him and David were very close friends
2 maynardsabeast 2015-05-29
My problem with Pynchon isn't how prolific he is, or the tangents he goes on (well it kinda is), it's all the nonsensical, unimportant stuff that he shoehorns in. So take style outta the picture, just content wise is Wallace more of a Franzen or Pynchon. Cuz I can't stand Pynchon, I wanted to love him and ended up HATING him.
Also I just watched the trailer for that movie. It looks alright I guees, like I'll check it out in Netflix in a year but can't say I'm excited for it
2 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
Thats tough, id say hes more like Franzen because although he does shoehorn stuff in, its not nonsensical and almost always plays a major role later, even if you may think it wont. But people are correct in comparing Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow, because of length, amount of characters, etc.
But man, id say at least give Imfinite Jest a shot. Give it 100/200 pages and if you hate it you hate it. Ill give it a quick tease by saying: In the near future a form of visual entertainment exists where the viewer is left in a hypnotic trance reduced to a vegative state. At the same time a reorganized set of nations exists where the president of the U.S. Is a germaphobe ex-vegas nightckub act who subsidizes time to corporate sponsors (Instead of 2015 they would refer to it as something like Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment ) and turns most of New England and French Canada into a dumping ground for waste known as the concavity. Also at the same time the director of the entertainment's son is in High School at a private Tennis Academy his father Founded. Also next door to the school is a drug rehab/halfway house with all sorts of crazies. They try to find answers to the hypnotic entertainment, deal with high school problems, attempt to get/stay off drugs, AA meeting and almost all of the characters cross paths and are connected with back storoes... Amd im giving you a light recap of about 0.01 % of the story. Its hilarious, batshit crazy, dead serious,etc.
2 maynardsabeast 2015-05-29
Oh man, gravitys rainbow? Of all things you had to compare it to that? Lol.
But for real I think you sold me. I just gotta read all the GOT books first and I'm only on the second one right now, so it might be awhile. Although maybe I should read it before the movie comes out to look cool like the fake hipster douche cunt that I am
1 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
The last thing in the world DFW would have wanted would have been for the guy from How I Met Your Mother and the kid from the Facebook movie to make a movie about his life, so i think its safe to say most fans of his (and his family) are highly opposed to this movie coming out. It doesnt look like anything special.
Also: read that book instead of seeing the movie. Its called "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" by David Lipinski. Its about the tour DFW goes on to promote Infinite Jest and his hatred for any and everthing that goes hand in hand with promo for a book.
1 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
And god, im an annoying cunt. But i just remembered this (since you said you like Jonathan Franzen) its his eulogy if David Foster Wallace from 2008.
http://poetry.arizona.edu/newsletter/0409/elegy-david-foster-wallace
1 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
Isn't that the plot of Arrested Development season 5?
2 maynardsabeast 2015-05-29
Chuck palahniuk, kurt Vonnegut, Jonathon Franzen are probably my favorite fiction authors. Obviously Stephen King has a ton of amazing shit. I'm currently reading the GOT books, and even though I watch the show im still reading these things faster than anything ever, they're awesome
For non fiction, I can reccommend Flyboys. Jeremy Scahill wrote a good book all about Blackwater. Everything by Michael Lewis (who wrote Moneyball) is good. If you like sports I would definitely go with Bill Simmons BIG BOOK OF BASKETBALL. I don't know there's a ton. I don't know you so it's hard to rec. honestly go with Chuck Pahlaniuk, almost all his books are great (he's the dude that wrote Fight Club)
1 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
I liked Choke and Survivor but havent really gotten into mich beyond that. I read 100 pages of Doomed and wanted to throw it in a fire pit. What would u recommend from him besides what i mentioned?
1 maynardsabeast 2015-05-29
Haunted is probably my favorite. Snuff is pretty hilarious and worth the read. Lullaby is good. Invisible Monsters is great. I guess I'd go 1. Haunted 2. Invisible Monsters than give yourself a break from Chuck and later get back with Snuff and Lullaby
1 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
So did George RR Martin. Tsst.
2 JohnQNo1 2015-05-29
The Flashman Papers are my favourite book series.
Theyre told in the found diary format of a 19th century cavalry officer called Harry Flashman. His public reputation is one of gallantry and honor but his own diaries confess the extent of his private cowardice, caddishness and him just being a bastard. The books are basically historical black comedies which put flashman in different periods and countries of the british empire meeting or interacting with major historical figures who (barring Lincoln) are treated with almost universal disdain. Theyre extremely well written, genuinely funny and quite cynical about human nature. The strongest ones in the series, i think, are Flash for Freedom and Flashman's Lady.
2 BatKnuckles 2015-05-29
An O&A fan and a Flashman fan - we'd have been friends mate. Flash for Freedom and Flashman in the Great Game are mine. The Indian mutiny onwards is just nail-biting, engaging and hysterical.
Great line on fortune from Great Game: "Luck, as I've often observed, is a most agile sprite, who leaps both ways in double quick time"
1 JohnQNo1 2015-05-29
oh man, i really hated the great game. it was the one novel where flashman genuinely fell in love with the rani and tried to do the heroic thing by helping his country. his momentary burst of decency felt so out of character and forced. i thought his back and forth agonising over elspeth being kidnapped in Flashman's lady was better because it was more a fear of him being cuckolded as well as wondering if he actually loved her. I think Flash for Freedom was probably the best, followed by Flashman and the Redskins. dont know how Fraser made running slaves both horrifying and hilarious.
2 mintwaltman 2015-05-29
Rentboys is good
1 [deleted] 2015-05-29
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1 Spew42 2015-05-29
Chump Change by Dan Fante. Amazing fiction.
1 LouisCGhey 2015-05-29
King of Kong, Frag - The Movie
Both videogame documentaries if you care.
1 chris2webby 2015-05-29
that's funny, I heard a tale of King Of Kong going to Hong Kong....
1 fawkkyall 2015-05-29
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15766248-how-to-kill-yourself
2 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
hey wait a second...
1 [deleted] 2015-05-29
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1 McGowan9 2015-05-29
Anything by James Ellroy, particularly his Underworld USA trilogy- American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's A Rover.
1 The_Teachers_Ass 2015-05-29
I was hoping I'd see Ellroy in this thread. Just read perfidia, wasn't as good as the underworld usa but it was cool having dudley smith as a narrator, not to mention a young ward Littell and scotty Bennett.
1 panjshirlion 2015-05-29
Dune has been my favorite book for over a decade.
Reading it after history grad school, I've become increasingly impressed by how much Frank Herbert knew about so many goddamn things.
1 BatKnuckles 2015-05-29
Kill your Friends - John Niven. So good I read it twice in one week on holiday last year. The hotel staff asked me to go to a more isolated bit of the beach area because my laughing was ruining people's days (I have a loud and extremely annoying laugh)
1 thedeliriumtrigger 2015-05-29
I'm a fantasy faggot. Right now I'm reading Bad Mojo, which is an urban fantasy similar to The Dresden Files, main character is more of a charming bastard though.
Next I'm reading Mort by Terry Pratchett, which is supposed to be one of the best Death books.
1 NihilistKnight 2015-05-29
I was thinking of joke answers but I'll take this one seriously. I recently finished Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, and White Noise by Don Delillo. I enjoyed all three immensely and I recommend them. Right now I'm reading a collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories and Ulysses. Enjoyed both so far.
1 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
I notice most of the answers ITT have been modernists.
1 chris2webby 2015-05-29
the greatest book I've ever read is "As Simple As Snow" by Gregory Galloway. Story of a highschool kid who falls in love with a new "strange" girl, who is interested in ghost stories, magic, riddles, etc. One day she disappears, the only clue left behind is her dress laying on a frozen pond, but it doesn't appear as though she had drowned.
The author said there IS a definite answer to what happened to her, and you're supposed to re-read the book and search for "clues" in her speech and actions to figure it out. To this day, no one has found the answer to it.
1 chris2webby 2015-05-29
another great book is "Elsewhere" by Gabrielle Zevin. About a teenage girl who is killed in a hit & run, when she "awakens", she's in a land called Elsewhere, where you age backwards, and once you become a baby you are sent back to Earth to be reborn as a new person.
At one point in the story, the characters are told the last words they spoke before dying. One girl, who was shot in the head by stray bullets, her last words were "OH FUCK!!! I GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD!!!"
1 Chipswolfwolfie 2015-05-29
God is not great- Christopher Hitchens...Oldie but a goodie
1 Knightscribe 2015-05-29
I'm working my way through the original Ian Fleming James Bond novels, pretty entertaining old-fashioned spy fiction.
Supergods by Grant Morrison was a fascinating narrative of the history of the comic book industry by a guy who's worked in it half his life.
The Sprawl Trilogy by WilliamGibson--Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive--some of the first and best cyberpunk sci-fi.
On Writing by Stephen King--it's half autobiography, half talking about his own process. It's refreshing to read a book about writing free of pretentious bullshit.
1 loabaron 2015-05-29
Some of my favourites: Last exit to Brooklyn - Hubert selby/ Naked lunch - Burroughs/ The trial - Kafka/ Don Quixote - Cervantes/ Keep the aspidistra flying, 1984 - Orwell/ Colour of magic (most disc world's are good, color of magic is just the first) - terry Pratchett/ Mirgorod - Nikolai gogol/ Slaughterhouse 5, cats cradle, sirens of titan - Vonnegut/ Notes from the underground - Dostoevsky/ Anything by poe. Finnegan's wake - Joyce (read it aloud while drunk and don't even attempt to understand it)
1 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
I liked Choke and Survivor but havent really gotten into mich beyond that. I read 100 pages of Doomed and wanted to throw it in a fire pit. What would u recommend from him besides what i mentioned?
2 RahnBayngtin 2015-05-29
Thats tough, id say hes more like Franzen because although he does shoehorn stuff in, its not nonsensical and almost always plays a major role later, even if you may think it wont. But people are correct in comparing Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow, because of length, amount of characters, etc.
But man, id say at least give Imfinite Jest a shot. Give it 100/200 pages and if you hate it you hate it. Ill give it a quick tease by saying: In the near future a form of visual entertainment exists where the viewer is left in a hypnotic trance reduced to a vegative state. At the same time a reorganized set of nations exists where the president of the U.S. Is a germaphobe ex-vegas nightckub act who subsidizes time to corporate sponsors (Instead of 2015 they would refer to it as something like Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment ) and turns most of New England and French Canada into a dumping ground for waste known as the concavity. Also at the same time the director of the entertainment's son is in High School at a private Tennis Academy his father Founded. Also next door to the school is a drug rehab/halfway house with all sorts of crazies. They try to find answers to the hypnotic entertainment, deal with high school problems, attempt to get/stay off drugs, AA meeting and almost all of the characters cross paths and are connected with back storoes... Amd im giving you a light recap of about 0.01 % of the story. Its hilarious, batshit crazy, dead serious,etc.
1 BoboOrban6 2015-05-29
So did George RR Martin. Tsst.