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What are you reading now? vers. "So I don't end up being a fucking waffle waitress"

It's definitely written very engagingly in the few pages I've had a chance to read of it so far. This is my first Flannery book but I'll read them all eventually. I love that he was a palaeontologist because that was what I wanted to do up until year 10. Still would probably, but ecological biology is more my interest now.

A TAFE teacher recommended Future Eaters about 6 years ago but I've kept on forgetting about it. I was enthused again when he denigrated Howard accepting accepted Australian of the Year. What a champ. This Semester he guest lectured for one of my subjects (he's based at my uni) so once again starting to read his books was at the forefront of my mind. Then I saw Future Eaters in the window of a second hand book store this week. So, finally got there :)
 
I felt inspired recently by my ancient mythology course to pick up Homer's the Iliad (read the Odyssey in year 11). However, I can't help but picture Brad Pitt every time I read the name Achilles. I'm not sure if its because I've more patience than what I did in year 11 to read Homer's works or the fact the Trojan War is actually one of my favourite ancient Greece stories. But so far I am enjoying it.
 
From my brothers collection of books I'm about to start, The brain that changes itself by Norman Doidgem, M.D.
For all intents and purposes, I'm looking forward to getting into this one.
 
Reading The Last of the Mohicans by J. Fenimore Cooper. Not very engaging so far, I have a feeling it's going to be a movie better than the book kind of a deal. Though I'm not very far in so far, it's not very excitingly written.

Also reading Moby Dick by one Herman Melville on my phone as an eBook. Holy fuck are Queequeg and Ishmael gay. Like as gay as they could possibly be without rooting.
 
A shitty thread about what books other bluelighter's are reading.

But, no, I jest.

I'm pretty damn thin on reading materiel atm. Sort of half way through a history of the Battle for Stalingrad that I read when I was in Bolivia, but have just put it down for Paul Theroux's 'Dark Star Safari', a travel book about his journey from Cairo to Cape Town.

Recent pearlers;

Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (third or fourth read)

Killing Pablo - The title says it all, spent a month in Medellin recently so was quite enjoyable, again a second read.

Wolf of Wall St (again a second read, bloody god one at that!) and The Catching of the Wolf of Wall St - two cautionary tales about the foibles of excess, recommend it to any drug user.

And,

The Mayor of Casterbridge, classical pap, but eminently readable pap.

I guess the moral of the story here; if I've read it twice or more it is worth you reading at least once, you won't be disappointed (unless of course you aren;t into the same genre as me, but that's another story). The only problem being that I haven't read something original for over 8 months now :!
 
At the start Ishmael has to share a bed with Queequeg whom he hasn't met before because the boarding place is all booked out. Direct quotes:

# “Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife.
# “Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him.”
# “How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open to very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair.

http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/2007/03/reading-moby-dick-part-ii.html
 
lostpunk5545 said:
It's definitely written very engagingly in the few pages I've had a chance to read of it so far. This is my first Flannery book but I'll read them all eventually. I love that he was a palaeontologist because that was what I wanted to do up until year 10. Still would probably, but ecological biology is more my interest now.

A TAFE teacher recommended Future Eaters about 6 years ago but I've kept on forgetting about it. I was enthused again when he denigrated Howard accepting accepted Australian of the Year. What a champ. This Semester he guest lectured for one of my subjects (he's based at my uni) so once again starting to read his books was at the forefront of my mind. Then I saw Future Eaters in the window of a second hand book store this week. So, finally got there :)
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The Weather Makers ftfw!!!
 
up all night said:
Lostpunk: I haven't read In Cold Blood, but I've got a book called From Hipsters To Gonzo which is all about new journalism and there was a significant section dedicated to Capote's approach to that novel which I found really interesting. One of the minor things I really admire about Capote was that he never recorded anything and he didn't take notes. He did everything from memory (albeit with some help from the notes taken by Nelle Harper Lee of To Kill A Mockingbird fame) due to his belief that journalists/ writers who take notes are creating a barrier between themselves and the interviewee. He wanted his subjects to be as honest and open as possible and if there's a tape recorder, or if they can see you writing down what they say, they're more careful with their words.

Another interesting note is that even though Capote was obviously writing about things he didn't witness, the New Yorker (who first published the novel) fact checker claimed Capote was the most accurate writer he'd ever worked with. Tell me how it goes.
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So I wrote that over a year ago, and have fiiinally started reading the book I'd heard so much about.

Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (Thanks to lostpunk for loaning it to me!)

Whatever you may think about him, the man can fucking write. I'm not a true crime fan at all, but his fictionalised story-telling of the murder is compelling, detailed and exciting.

The people in the story are treated as characters, so they have colour and depth. There aren't many writers who could've pulled this off, and I know there are some critics about the level of 'artistic licence' Capote took in some parts of the story, but it just works so well.

Anyway, it's distracted me from hitting the 'Stumble!' button on my computer, which is no mean feat.
 
I know its young adult fiction but I really enjoyed the "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and have just finished the sequel "Catching Fire" (I found this book hard to put down).

A rather disturbing story about a futuristic USA in which the USA is divided into 12 districts and a capitol. Major themes are government control, big brother and just how far we would go in the name of entertainment (think the Running Man only the contestants are aged 12-17).
 
Tim Winton - Breath. Great little book - couldn't put it down. Highly recommended along with one of his other books Cloudstreet.

Now reading The Boat by Nam Le. So far, so good...
 
i found"someday this pain will be useful to you" in a bookstore in Darlinghurst. Very good book. I went through it in 3 days. written by peter cameron who also wrote "the weekend" - another good read and fast. Now reading david sedaris "naked". You have to check him out as well....he is a gay writer and rather funny. His sister is an actress and she owns a cafe in nyc's west village. She bakes cupcakes and writes too - sarcastic as her brother. I think she wrote some of the "sex in the city" stories. so she maybe is a lesbian...:-) (although I am not sure abou that)
 
Lovegrud said:
Am reading the classic Irvine Welsh 'Trainspotting'.

Having so much trouble with the written accent, Love it though.
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Part of the fun for me with Welsh's books is imagining the characters speaking in those accents while I read :)

expothead said:
Tim Winton - Breath. Great little book - couldn't put it down. Highly recommended along with one of his other books Cloudstreet.

Now reading The Boat by Nam Le. So far, so good...
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Yeah I'm a big fan of Tim Winton too. Reread The Turning a few weeks ago. Nice collection of short stories by him.
 
^that book is fucking awesome!! There's a lot of fantasy out there and I have pretty much stopped reading it but Perdido St Station is a corker!! I was lent it by a friend a year or so ago and ended up buying a copy - even my partner who is not into fantasy loved it. Very dark, good political elements, very strange - can't go wrong!
 
Nearly finished 100 Years of Solitude (my second attempt), loving the florid, majestic prose and the sense of the infinite Gabriel Garcia Marquez captures.

Just started Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, its quite good so far, very weird and very British. Can see where the Matrix got some of their concepts from...

Also have And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave on my list.
 
I wrote this on FB after reading Doors of Perception. I found it petty disappointing:

Having read a reasonable amount of Huxley's fictional works previously, this left me largely disappointed. In his fictional works, especially in books such as Point Counter Point and Brave New World, Huxley shows that he had a great interest in the science of the time and a very reasonable understanding of it.

Which is why in these two essays it is disappointing that he seems to stray from the world of science into that of pseudoscience. To his credit he was exploring fairly unchartered waters at the time in trying to tackle psychedelics scientifically.

My main problem with Huxley's whole point in these two essays is that he believes essentially that mescaline and LSD break down all the barriers our brains have put up that help us live our daily lives and show us reality as it truly is. When in fact it is much more likely that psychedelics are just showing us a different version of reality by altering our neurochemistry. Because our brains are structured to help us deal with reality in a way that helps us survive daily it is probably true that we are not perceiving the true depth of reality. But it is no more likely that psychedelics are showing us the true truth, rather than just a different version of it.

It's infinitely more likely that it is impossible for any biological creature to perceive reality as it actually is. Science is our best chance at doing this because it offers verification through experimentation, but science again fails in that it is a product of our our brains and how we perceive the world. Tinkering with our neurochemistry is not going to unplug all the biases we have, not going to take out the stopper that Huxley imagines we have and unleash true reality. It's just going to give us another altered version of it.

So if people are looking for some insights into how psychedelics work I would give this a miss altogether and just read Albert Hofmann's LSD: My Problem Child instead. However there is still a lot of interesting discussion of things such as art in these essays and they are worth reading for that alone. My favourite part of The Doors of Perception is this (besides me disagreeing with Huxley's general argument in these essays he is still a brilliant and insightful man):

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand in to the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.
 
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