Anybody read any good books lately?

[MedStudent 56]

I'm on vacation from March 5 - March 16. First two days, I'll be in Vegas with some classmates. Then I don't have any plans except lounging around the pool and reading for pleasure. A friend gave me the book "Closely watched trains" By a Czech writer. Need some other suggestions. I'll probably read 2 or 3 books depending on the length. I'll read just about anything except romance novels and science fiction.

[Voltaire 5,538]

Since John Updike just passed away recently, you could try Rabbit, Run.

[Me_2006 14]

The Rum Diary (Hunter S. Thompson) is good for vacation reading. Lots of booze and such involved. Not that long either.

[MedStudent 56]

Since John Updike just passed away recently, you could try Rabbit, Run.

 

I actually started reading that once and put it down and never picked it up again. I think you need to be married with kids to appreciate it.

[Voltaire 5,538]

I actually started reading that once and put it down and never picked it up again. I think you need to be married with kids to appreciate it.

 

I read it long before I was married with kids. Liked it so much I read the whole series.

[posty 2,867]

If you like fiction, Obama has a couple of books he has "written"...

[MedStudent 56]

If you like fiction, Obama has a couple of books he has "written"...

 

I prefer tragic comedies so I was thinking about picking up a few books written about the Bush administration.

[posty 2,867]

I prefer tragic comedies so I was thinking about picking up a few books written about the Bush administration.

 

Maybe, but Obama's would be sufficient as well...

[FeelingMN 273]

I like Chuck Palahniuk. Quick read. Well written. Descriptive. I haven't yet read Fight Club, but Choke and Survivor are worth checking out.

 

Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road. Hard to find though, unless you buy it.

 

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

 

Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son or Angels.

[TD Ryan2 316]

The Road - Cormack McCarthy

 

The Gold Coast - Nelson DeMille

[jerryskids 7,251]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is remarkably prophetic to the attitude of our society and government today.

 

Bit of a long read tho.

[Frank M 181]

I'm reading Greedo's The End of Heroes right now. It's pretty good so far.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Here's a few things I've really enjoyed in the last couple of years... I assume you can look up plot summaries and reviews on Amazon, so I'll be brief in mine.

 

I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe - A rather scathing look at Generation X/Y. A brilliant country girl leaves her home to attend college at an elite American University, expecting to find her long awaited "life of the mind." Instead, she finds a world obsessed with sports, drugs, sex, and vulgarity. Very good read.

 

A Man In Full, by Tom Wolfe - Set in Atlanta, this novel weaves many different characters together, showing the strains and interplay of the races and social classes in modern America.

 

Empire Falls, by Richard Russo - An excellent novel set in a dying small new england town. Really very good, won the pulitzer.

 

The Seven Stages of Ambiguity, by Elliot Pearlman - Kind of an existential decay of modern society kind of book. Excellent.

 

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, by Joshua Braff (Zach's brother) - A kid grows up in an extremely strange, extremely strict Jewish family. Funny at times, sad at others. Very entertaining quick read.

 

Enjoy your vacation!

[patweisers44 876]

The Man, The Foil, The Legend by Dave Hanson of Slap Shot Fame

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is remarkably prophetic to the attitude of our society and government today.

 

Bit of a long read tho.

 

A must read. It will change your life, and the way you look at the world.

 

Don't start reading it unless you have a month to kill though, as it is a weighty tome, and you will be hooked. And get the hardback, the paperback will cause blindness.

[Snuff 10]

Lone Survivor

 

Just finished this about a month ago, very good.

[MedStudent 56]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is remarkably prophetic to the attitude of our society and government today.

 

Bit of a long read tho.

 

I think this may be a good choice. Maybe I just read this 1 book. I just browsed it on Amazon.com and initially like her prose. It will only be a little over 100 pages a day for me to read. I'm just going to hang around LA and get to know this City a little better. I've been here for 7 months and still have not seen a lot of it. I'll read the book at home and when I am outside having coffee or lunch. maybe some hot intellectual chick will notice me reading Ayn Rand and will invite me to her place.

[posty 2,867]

Here are a couple of quality books...

 

Book 1

Book 2

[jerryskids 7,251]

I think this may be a good choice. Maybe I just read this 1 book. I just browsed it on Amazon.com and initially like her prose. It will only be a little over 100 pages a day for me to read. I'm just going to hang around LA and get to know this City a little better. I've been here for 7 months and still have not seen a lot of it. I'll read the book at home and when I am outside having coffee or lunch. maybe some hot intellectual chick will notice me reading Ayn Rand and will invite me to her place.

Cool, go give me some points to compete with Big_Pete's cack vid in the competition.

[SUXBNME 1,639]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is remarkably prophetic to the attitude of our society and government today.

 

Bit of a long read tho.

 

We know that you like Ayn Rand. You can shut up about it now.

 

 

[jerryskids 7,251]

 

We know that you like Ayn Rand. You can shut up about it now.

Here's a book for you, Sux.

[RLLD 4,283]

First into Nagasaki.....

 

Pretty good overall, the first-hand accounts from prisoners gets a little tedious, but you are reading first hand accounts both from them and from the correspondent. These accounts were censored by MacArthur, and thought to be lost, but the guys kid found the carbon copies a few years back, made it into a book.

 

You read this book and you understand why WWII generation people refuse to NOT hate the Japanese....

[peenie 2,035]

i read two books recently:

ni99er - the autobiography of d1ck gregory

naked - a book of many short stories written by black women about their body image

^they were christmas gifts along with a million little pieces.

 

i am currently reading pulling your own strings - by wayne dyer, it's helping me not act like a victim or allow myself to be treated like one

[Brad GLuckman 519]

"The Family" By Mario Puzo....my favorite book

THE FAMILY brings the lawless world of 15th-century Rome to vivid life, revealing the secrets of the Vatican just as Mario Puzo once laid bare the mysteries of the Mafia. This extraordinary epic revolves around Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, a larger than life hero propelled by a myriad of passions-power, faith, luxury, women, and an all-powerful love of family. While his blessings are sought by kings and peasants alike, enemies from within and abroad plot his demise. As Alexander strives to restore glory to the Catholic Church and unify the city-states of Italy, he also seeks to direct the lives of his beloved children. But for all Alexander's love and might, he cannot reverse the legacy of sin that is revisited upon his children.

 

Alexander's son, the passionate Cesare, is torn between his father's wish that he serve the Church, and his own desire to be a warrior. The story of Cesare's rise and fall is a cautionary tale of obsession and arrogance, a story at once mythic and viscerally suspenseful. He and his sister, Alexander's beautiful and sensitive daughter Lucrezia, are jointly cursed by an unthinkable secret, served unto them by their father. And the violent fate of Alexander's heartless son Juan is eventually echoed by the deadly vengeance of the Pope's neglected son Jofre. Torn between familial love and their own irresistible motivations, the Borgias are by turns each other's most steadfast saviors-and each other's greatest threat.

 

At the time of his death in 1999, though he had reached the end of the story-including writing the epilogue-Puzo had left several chapters unfinished. Working directly from his detailed notes and outline, his longtime companion, novelist Carol Gino, completed the work soon thereafter. "Mario was fascinated with Renaissance Italy, and especially with the Borgia family," Gino writes in her Afterword to the book. "He swore that they were the original crime family, and that their adventures were much more treacherous than any of the stories he told about the Mafia. He believed the Popes were the first Dons-Pope Alexander the greatest Don of all."

 

An unforgettable saga of grand scope and dark intrigue, THE FAMILY is the crowning achievement of one of the most gifted storytellers of our time.

[MedStudent 56]

naked - a book of many short stories written by black women about their body image

 

i think i'll pass on that one.

[peenie 2,035]

^lol, i thought it was good, but yeah, not a book for you. i didn't even read you post. i just responded to, "read any good books lately?"

[Mungwater 601]

i think i'll pass on that one.

 

I wouldn't write it off yet.. Is it a pop-up book?

 

ETA: I finished Debil in the White City by Eric Larson (I think-- can't find it now). Its a very entertaining and quick read. its about the Worlds Fair in Chicago during a time that the city had a serial killer on the loose. All based on facts and records, I recommend it.

[MedStudent 56]

I wouldn't write it off yet.. Is it a pop-up book?

 

ETA: I finished Debil in the White City by Eric Larson (I think-- can't find it now). Its a very entertaining and quick read. its about the Worlds Fair in Chicago during a time that the city had a serial killer on the loose. All based on facts and records, I recommend it.

 

i read that. Great book.

[Mungwater 601]

i read that. Great book.

 

He has another one about the hurricane that destroyed Galveston in 1900s that I heard was pretty good. I want to pick it up, but haven't had the time to go to the store.

[shotsup 836]

dude I'm all for reading - do it all the time but you are going to be in Vegas and you are looking for 2 or THREE books to read ??? When are you going to find the time with a ll of the booze - chicks and gamblin'??

 

I just need one book for the um "reading room" and thats after I went through the comlete complimetery USA Today.

 

 

PRIORITIES DUDE !!!!