what do you read?

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
what do you like to read (when not watching scrubs or lost or 24...or 2.5 men)?

i've always been a huge dean koontz fan (probably read 20 or so of his books) as well a criton. i like dan brown and recently i've read a bunch of stuff by james rollins. i read 12 books last year, which was a new years resolution that i actually followed. so, what are you reading?

before you even post it norm, penthouse letters doesn't count. :D
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I spend a lot of time on the train and enjoy reading, so I read a lot. Currently rereading Still Life With Woodpecker (Tom Robbins). Robbins, Vonnegut, and Salman Rushdie are probably my favorite authors. Just finished a Paul Auster book (New York Trilogy) which I quite enjoyed. Jhumpa Lahiri (excellent new-ish author), Christopher Moore, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Jonathan Carroll, Terry Pratchett for a quick laugh, Ann Patchett, etc, that line of author.
 

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
if you like still life, make sure you read jitterbug perfume. it is (IMHO) robbins' best. i can't remember if i read 1/2 asleep in frog pajamas, but i know i read skinny legs and all. i recall that being good as well.

can you recco any books from the folks you mentioned? you should read freakanomics too if you haven't. i'm pretty sure you'd really like that too.
 

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
So far this year:
-Stephen Batchelor Buddhism Without Beliefs
-Alan Watts Buddhism-The Religion of No Religion
-Eugen Herrigel Zen in the Art of Archery
-Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited
-Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses (re-read)

Currently:
-Alan Watts Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks 1960-1969

On deck:
-Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves

Great thread idea, btw.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I agree that Jitterbug is probably Robbins' best. Of the authors I mention I would go with anything from Vonnegut (though Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle stand out for me), Satanic Versus or Midnight's Children from Rushdie, New York Trilogy (Auster), The Namesake (Lahiri), Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (Moore), The Club Dumas (Perez-Reverte), Sleeping in Flame (Carrol - but beware Carroll is not for everyone), anything from Pratchet, Bel Canto (Patchett).

Other ideas are Life of Pi (Yann Martel, outstanding), Me Talk Pretty One day (Sedaris), George RR Martin if fantasy is your thing, Waiting (Ha Jin), just about anything from Hiaasen, and I also like Updike a lot.

I also like non-fiction such as Guns Germs and Steel (Diamond), Through a Window (Jane Goodall), Bright Shining Lie (Sheehan, Vietnam book), and Krakaur's Into the Wild.

Did not care for DaVinci Code, the Curious Incident book, nor Michener's colossal books.
 

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
i read into the wild a few years ago and loved it. i also read the perfect storm and was facinated right up to the point the speculation started. the book lost me at that point.

you didn't like the davinci code, huh? personally, i thought i was really good. i wasn't a huge fan of angles and demons though.

if you like crichton, his new one, next, is a pretty good read. so far that's the only book i've read this year. but, i'm travelling a lot in the next month so i'll probably have 3 or four added to the list. want to read at least a dozen books again this year.
 

anrothar

entirely thrilled
-Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses (re-read)

great book!

this year for me:

The Tain thomas kinsella's translation An Tain Bo Cuailnge(reread)

Stranger To The System: life portraits of a new york city homeless community by jim flynn

Nuascealta Sean O Mainnin a chnuasaigh

currently:

Hurlamaboc by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
 

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
great book!

this year for me:

The Tain thomas kinsella's translation An Tain Bo Cuailnge(reread)

Stranger To The System: life portraits of a new york city homeless community by jim flynn

Nuascealta Sean O Mainnin a chnuasaigh

currently:

Hurlamaboc by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Sean, please tell us more about the folks on this list. I'm intrigued.

As for All the Pretty Horses, Cormac is the man, as far as I'm concerned. He's got to be on a short list of the greatest living American authors. Everything he's done is simply scorching. His new one, The Road, is no exception. 40 years+ of brilliant writing.
 

SpartaBard

Well-Known Member
Authors I regularly read:

Bernard Cornwell
Nelson DeMille
John Grisham
Jeff Shaara
Daniel Silva
David Baldacci
Simon Scarrow
Randy Wayne White
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Simon Winchester
John McPhee
Dan Brown
Vince Flynn
Tom Clancey
Neal Stephenson
Ken Follett
Michael Crichton

I am also still trying to read all of Robert Ludlum's books. I occasionally read Dean Koontz and a few others. The above list I will read anything of theirs that comes out. I am sure there are others but nothing else is coming to mind.
 

anrothar

entirely thrilled
Sean, please tell us more about the folks on this list. I'm intrigued.

Tain Bo Cuailnge is an early Irish epic. litteral translation is Cattle Raid of Cuailnge(Cooley anglicized). very violent and dramatic. it was passed on from generation to generation, and finally recorded by several authors. most those were monks, who surprisingly didn't remove much of the original polytheistic themes in the tale. it's part legend, part mythology, part epic.

Stranger to the System is a series of long term interviews and character profiles of some of the members of the homeless community in thompkins square park in nyc. my sister and mom were walking around in the city when they stopped at a street vendor selling books. my sister saw it and thought i would like it, so bought it for me for x-mas. really interesting stories, and i had met a few of them when i was living in nyc, so it had a bit more meaning.

Nuascealta is a collection of new short stories in Irish(gaelic). Nua means new, scealta is genitive plural of story.

Hurlamaboc is a novel in Irish. means commotion. it's about the colliding lives of three teens in Dublin. just started reading it.
 
You guys are a bunch of book geeks. I love it.

I am currently rediscovering Ralph Waldo Emerson and taking my time to savor the naturalist philosophy. I tend to write in my journal a lot about what I read, so the going is slow but the learning is intense.

I tried to start Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking but it is just too sad and I am not in the mood to be depressed.

Reading for pleasure has been foreign to me for quite some time; I feel like I have been going to school forever and have not had the time to savor a good book in years.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
you didn't like the davinci code, huh? personally, i thought i was really good. i wasn't a huge fan of angles and demons though.

I thought the actual story was really bad. The whole intrigue aspect of it was neat, but in the end it couldn't really live up to that. When you look at the actions of the characters it was downright silly at times. Then when I learned the "intrigue" part was copied almost word for word from a book written in the 70's (Holy Blood Holy Grail). At that point it really fell in my eyes.
 

NJ Jess

Active Member
Nice idea

But for a person who has 2 book shelves per room, I barely have time to read. I enjoy quick reads like, Bike mag, DirtRag, etc. I do read a lot of nutrition stuff though. I just saw Night at the Museum. It was my first movie in over 2 years. Gee, I work too much,....no,..I do not ride too much,....
 

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
useless

i just read some james patterson for the first time and found it a decent read but know that i don't really ever need to read anything by him again.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Janet Evanovich is some good mindless reading for the train/airplane. At least One for the Money was. Just finished that last week. Now reading Waiting for Godot as well as some Foundation stuff by Assimov. Yes I'm a dork.
 

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
norm, tell me more about that carroll guy you referenced. you say he's not for everyone...how so? i'm on a plane & in airports four times in the next month and a 1/2 so i need something to do.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
He writes magical realism, which can be odd. I find his style easy to read. Also check out Club Dumas by Perez-Reverte - a solid book. I read All the Pretty Horses as mentioned in this thread and found the first 200 pages good enough, but the last 100 outstanding. Really if you want just come to my house and I can lend you a bunch of stuff. Or next time we ride. I have a bunch lent out right now but they "should" be coming back this weekend.
 
He writes magical realism, which can be odd. I find his style easy to read. Also check out Club Dumas by Perez-Reverte - a solid book. I read All the Pretty Horses as mentioned in this thread and found the first 200 pages good enough, but the last 100 outstanding. Really if you want just come to my house and I can lend you a bunch of stuff. Or next time we ride. I have a bunch lent out right now but they "should" be coming back this weekend.

Interesting that you bring up magical realism. I am knee deep in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. Fantastic book. When it comes to magical realism, I think Marquez may be the one true Master.

Jake, if you like Carrol and magical realism, give Gabriel Garcia Marquez a read. He has some fine anthologies of short stories that will introduce you to his work. "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" is a good start, and the collected short stories of Leaf Storm are pure beauty.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Interesting that you bring up magical realism. I am knee deep in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. Fantastic book. When it comes to magical realism, I think Marquez may be the one true Master.

Interesting, as this book, like All the Pretty Horses was, is also on my bookshelf but as yet unread. Perhaps this will be next up in the queue. I often allow the random things in life to dictate what I read next. I'm one of those people with probably 100+ unread books stacked in the basement.
 
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