Posted by Drie Just finished "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genuis", by David Eggers. It was pretty good, if you don't mind the fact that it makes you a wee bit depressed.

What's it like? It can't be more depressing than the later Mark Twain writings I've been reading, though I recommend them (see slipped in a recommendation there) to those with a darker view of the human condition. Myself for instance.

~D

Posted by D-Funked What's it like? ~D

From Barnes and Noble dot com:
The Barnes & Noble Review
It's an all-too-rare book that can be said to break new ground, but Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius does just that. Rather than take its place in what is now a seemingly unending queue of memoirs by people whose lives have been altered by tragic events, tough times, and difficult lessons, Eggers's book starts a new line altogether, one that very few authors will be allowed to join.

Yes, Eggers lost both his parents to cancer within a matter of months when he was only 22, and yes, it is left to him (with the aid of his older sister and, to a lesser degree, his older brother) to raise his eight-year-old brother. Yes, he and Toph pick up and move from their Chicago-area hometown to the San Francisco Bay region (as though their lives had not already been seen enough disruption), where Eggers fashions for Toph a safe -- which is not to say traditional -- environment. But the reader who buys this book expecting a sort of "Party of Two" soap opera is bound to be disappointed. And those looking for a good cry would be well advised to look elsewhere, too.

Which is not to say that this work is not...well, heartbreaking. But Eggers avoids the bathos so often associated with the "I got it bad and that ain't good" school of memoir-writing. You'll laugh as often as you cry, perhaps more often, and even when Eggers does focus on the grieving and sense of loss he and his siblings naturally endured, his thoughtful, introspective approach avoids navel-gazing. He's as hard on himself as on anyone else (well, almost), and that frank self-assessment serves the book well.

Eggers's deft blend of outrageously amusing tales and implied social commentary is also winning. We follow his progress as he strives to be a part of the San Francisco cast of MTV's "Real World" (a goal he is more than a little conflicted about), as he and a small but intrepid group of friends with little combined experience and even less capital launch a magazine intended to change forever the world of periodical publishing, and even, on occasion, as he tries to get over on a young woman.

But it all works, and in a fashion quite unlike anything you've ever read before. You'll likely begin the book thinking the title an amusing and ironic overstatement, but by the time you've finished reading it, you might just decide, as I did, that it is instead an admirable example of truth in packaging.

Excerpt from inside jacket:
Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided that after our parents died he just didn't want any more fighting between what was left of us. He was twenty-four, Beth was twenty-three, I was twenty-one, Toph was eight, and all of us were so tried already, from that winter. So when something world come up, any little thing, some bill to pay or decision to make, he would just sigh, his eyes tired, his mouth in a sorry kind of smile. But Beth and I...Jesus, we were fighting with everyone, anyone, each other, with strangers at bars, anywhere -- we were angry people wanting to exact revenge. We came to California and we wanted everything, would take what was ours, anything within reach. And I decided that little Toph and I, he with his backward hat and long hair, living together in our little house in Berkeley, would be world-destroyers. We inherited each other and, we felt, a responsibility to reinvent everything, to scoff and re-create and drive fast while singing loudly and pounding the windows. It was a hopeless sort of exhilaration, a kind of arrogance born of fatalism, I guess, of the feeling that if you could lose a couple of parents in a month, then basically anything could happen, at any time -- all bullets bear your name, all cars are there to crush you, any balcony could give way; more disaster seemed only logical. And then, as in Dorothy's dream, all these people I grew up with were there, too, some of them orphans also, most but not all of us believing that what we had been given was extraordinary, that it was time to tear or break down, ruin, remake, take and devour. This was San Francisco, you know, and everyone had some dumb idea -- I mean, wicca? -- and no one there would tell you yours was doomed. Thus the public nudity, and this ridiculous magazine, and the Real World tryout, all this need, most of it disguised by sneering, but all driven by a hyper-awareness of this window, I guess, a few years when your muscles are taut, coiled up and vibrating. But what to do with the energy? I mean, when we drive, Toph and I, and we drive past people, standing on top of all these hills, part of me wants to stop the car and turn up the radio and have us all dance in formation, and part of me wants to run them all over.

i'm a big geek, so i'll stick with what i was raised on:

William Gibson (neuromancer, count zero, mona lisa overdrive.)
Neal Stephenson (anything! from 'the Big U' to his latest novel, it's all great! 'Snow Crash' and 'Cryptonomicon' are the standouts, tho.)

other than that, i'm big on modern classics.

Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, etc.

--dev

I reccomend anything by John D. MacDonald. He is an exellent paperback writer.

Any book with a color in the title is part of his Travis McGee series, which is also highly recommended. One thing, however. Do not read "A Lonely, Silver Rain" until you have finished all the other Travis McGee books. That was MacDonald's very last book he wrote before he died, and it is quite clear he knew he was dying.

I am in the middle of "Wine of the Dreamers", which is a wierd sci-fi thing he did.




Oh, one more book for all you math/computer freaks out there. "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" is a massivly intellectual book, but woth a read.

I just finished "The Da Vinci Code". I was skeptical, because the book got so much hype, but it really was very good. There's so many plot twists I couldn't even begin to explain it, but if you like a very fast paced and easy read, check it out. The characters could have used some more filling out, but there is no doubt that the amount of research that went into the book was immense. I actually learned a whole bunch of stuff!

Posted by Drie I just finished "The Da Vinci Code". I was skeptical, because the book got so much hype, but it really was very good...

I bought that book as a Christmas present for my Dad--I started flipping through it thinking "This probably isn't very good," and I ended up reading the whole thing in one very long sitting.

I just finished reading Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan. It's a non-fiction book about, well, rats. Mr. Sullivan spends a lot of time in a New York alley watching rats, thinking about rats, and talking to rat exterminators and rat experts. I'm probably not describing it well, but it really is a very good book. I think anyone interested in the ignored aspects of our urban landscape would like it.

-N

Hey, if you like sci/fi or Margaret Atwood or thinking about the books you read, check out Oryx and Crake. It's set in a future with gene mod gone terribly wrong, but Atwood turns it into an actual novel with substance and theme. It's really great! Excellent for thinking about and reflecting on, after it's done. I highly recommend it!

Also Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere - he's the Sandman dude, you might have heard of him, I love the way this book blends fantasy elements with real settings (the London tube system). Also it has a great plot twist at the end! So if you like fantasy, or Neil Gaiman's other stuff, this is great. But note: it's not "fantasy" fantasy, it's very appealing to a wide range of tastes.

Posted by scarlett Also Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere - he's the Sandman dude, you might have heard of him, I love the way this book blends fantasy elements with real settings (the London tube system). Also it has a great plot twist at the end! So if you like fantasy, or Neil Gaiman's other stuff, this is great. But note: it's not "fantasy" fantasy, it's very appealing to a wide range of tastes.

Neil Gaiman's childrens books are amazing....

Posted by nightbird Neil Gaiman's childrens books are amazing....

Neil Gaiman is amazing. Period! He also wrote a book called Stardust. If you liked Neverwhere, you'll also like that It's good!

Posted by Noah Vale I'm reading Jinx's "Invisible Frontier" right now. Though it hardly qualifies as "literature" in the usual sense of the word, it's not as terrible a read as alot of urbexers have painted it. Though their...cockiness (maybe that's not the best word but if you read it you'll understand what I'm talking about) and sense of self-importance is somewhat undermining. I'll give a fuller review when I finish it.

I've corresponded a bit with L.B. Deyo recently and he said he was sad that many people interpreted their writing style as "cocky" and "self-important." He said it was supposed to be tongue in cheek and ironic, that you're supposed to take the suits and the philosophy quotes with a grain of salt. I can certainly understand the confusion though, the first time I logged onto the Jinx web site I thought they were genuinely insane, it wasn't until a year or two later that I realised they were just joking around. That's New York for you.

I really appreciated the research that was done into their locations, it really helped bring them to life and I think that the book was generally quite well written. I enjoyed it a lot, it actually helped restore my faith in UE because you can see not only that they really care about what they do but they have fun doing it.

Regarding the DaVinci Code I've heard from a lot of different people, including biblical scholars that its full of inaccurate and plain ficticious material, which is sad because a lot of people think its true. Additionally anyone who thinks that its an innovative original work should try to read Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum." I say "try" for good reason, Eco's writing is incredibly dense, but the story and ideas presented are incredible for those who are patient.

Just finished "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Freaking amazing. Basically, without giving too much away, it's about a boy growing up as a zookeepers son in India in the 1970's. Family flees to Canada via ship with animals in tow, and ship sinks. Pi gets shipwrecked with a tiger, zebra, oragutan, and hyena on his life raft. It's a beautiful story. Seriously.

That reminds me of a book that I read when I was very little called "The Education of Little Tree". It was a very, very moving book.

Posted by Drie I just finished "The Da Vinci Code". I was skeptical, because the book got so much hype, but it really was very good. There's so many plot twists I couldn't even begin to explain it, but if you like a very fast paced and easy read, check it out. The characters could have used some more filling out, but there is no doubt that the amount of research that went into the book was immense. I actually learned a whole bunch of stuff!

You should read "Decoding the Da Vinci Code" it gives you an idea about whats true.
You can also go here:

http://opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&p=7017

And see what the people of Opus Dei have to say about the book. Been studying Opus dei a bit if anyones interested in them PM me....

But this leads me to a book I am reading, "Rule of Secrecy" by Jim Marrs, it talks about the freemasons, Rosicrucians, etc etc, and is pretty interesting.


An unrelated recommendation is "Blindness", by Jose Saramago, amazing book.

EDIT: Da Vinci Code is being made into a movie, I am interested in how that will come out....

Also anything by Richard Laymon, especially to Stephen King fans.

blindness! whoo!

*thumbs up*

Just finished "The Crazed" by Ha Jin. Although written in English, it portrays Chinese culture very convincingly, and made me feel like I'd gained some insight into this place and time (set in the 80s, around the Tiananmen square incident). Also, was re-reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and came across a prose poem called _________ can't remember. It's in his "San Francisco poems" collection, and it's excellent. It's about the fifth poem in, and begins "Where the land ends and the ocean begins" or something like that. Check it out, you don't read enough poetry.

Sorry, the name of the Ferlinghetti poem is "Great American Waterfront Poem".

Currently reading "America" Jon Stewart. It is hilarious and I would reccomend it to anyone.

Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss is a good sci-fi read. I cant recommend the second instalment on the trilogy -Helliconia Summer, I just couldnt get halfway through that book. As for the last installment -Helliconia Winter, I have no idea, I cant find that book anywhere.