read any good books lately...

flipping through some Kafka
not sure what to read though

I just finished "Time out of Joint" by Philip K. Dick and started "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" by Salman Rushdie.

I've just read two of Neil Peart's writings, Ghost Rider (which I'm not finished with, but very close to) and Traveling Music. Both are very well written and give insight into the personality of Peart.

The Wizard wrote: Read one flew over the Cuckoos Nest...It's the best book ever.

               It's probably not the best but sitill very good.

Cygnus X-2 wrote: I've just read two of Neil Peart's writings, Ghost Rider (which I'm not finished with, but very close to) and Traveling Music. Both are very well written and give insight into the personality of Peart.

I'd recommend 'masked rider' too - his account of a cycling trip he took with a group of others in Cameroon, West Africa - the man does not suffer fools (or those he perceives to be fools) gladly...

Currently reading 'Lost Voices Of The Holocaust', edited by Lyn Smith; a sometimes harrowing, sometimes uplifting & occasionally (surprisingly) very funny collection of interviews with those who survived through the nazi persecutions, ghetto system, deportations, concentration/extermination camps and death marches of the 1930s & 1940s - not exactly light reading, but highly recommended.

zappaholic wrote: currently plowing my way through "godel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid" by douglas r. hofstadter.  (i was a math major in college, and i'd heard some good things about it.) warning: if you don't like dealing with math, logic or all sorts of abstract concepts, DON'T READ IT. otherwise it's an interesting way of looking at life and philosophy from a mathematical perspective. last fiction i read was "to kill a mockingbird".  before that it was "catch-22".

Good recommendations all around. Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach" did not win the Pulitzer price for nothing. I like his other books,"The Mind's Eye", co-written with Daniel C. Dennett, and "Metamagical Themas", too. The latter is an anagram of "Mathematical Games".

If you think "Gödel, Escher, Bach" is too easy for you ("Man, I got a brain!"), how about a real mind-boggler then? Roger Penrose: "The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics". A "little" more complicated than Hofstadter, but dealing with the same themes as he.

Phish .............

Just read "Oh hippie days/ Carnets américains 1966-1969" by Alain dister, famous rock reporter.

This rock reporter been to USA from 1966 for his reporter job to take pics of rock "stars". (h ewas 25).
Sex, drug and rock'n'roll are the main themes.
He met Zappa and the mothers and became friend of them before they became famous. He tells the PF concerts, been friend with Hendrix, been kissed by Joplin.
He was a friend of The Dead and many others...Jazz musicians too.

He soon forget his work to become a real hippie and take part of communes. A moving and amazing lively testimony of Hippie life and America from NY to Frisco.
He also tells the fall of the hippie myth from the carefree paradisiac days of California in 66' to the end in 69'.

It also let me quite melancholic about the gloomy time we live, compared to the late 60's.






Edited by oliverstoned

I just read Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven. I'm a big SF fan. (Moorcorck, Zelazny, Saberhagen) Anyone else?

Jim Garten wrote: Just finished "Cell" by Stephen King (whom I thought was intending to retire after the completion of the "Dark Tower" series). Not his greatest book, by any means, and I do think he's possibly seen the film "28 days later", "Cell" is pretty much SK writing on autopilot. That said, however, SK on autopilot is still considerably better than most authors of the genre and "Cell" is a very enjoyable read; recommended.

I got that when it first came out and loved it.

Not a literary work of art but a return to his early days,imo.

A pretty gory book,when I saw it was dedicated to Harlan Ellison and George Romero I figured it was going to be bloody.