Secrets of the City

I’m currently reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham. It’s fairly good and I would highly recommend the book even if you have seen the movie. I’m also still soldiering through Gravitys Rainbow.

I’m on a short story kick. I just finished Miranda July’s “No One Belongs Here More Than You”, which was excellent. Now I am reading Kelly Link’s second book, “Magic for Beginners”, which is also great so far. Her first book was wonderful, very unexpected. I’m not usually a huge short story fan, but these girls do it right.

Here’s my reading list. Here’s my NSFW reading list.

I read Dostoevsky’s The Double, a little bit of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (ongoing), reread Call of the Cthulhu; I do most of my reading in the winter months for some reason.

I’m halfway through Sedaris’ new book “When you are engulfed in flames” and it’s OK, though not as funny as his other stuff. Then I’ll be reading Peter Sagal’s book about vice (can’t think of the exact title), and then “Bonk” by Mary Roach.

Here’s my reading list. Here’s my NSFW reading list.

Where’s a good place to get into the Hard Case/pulp/adult-ish category? Maybe more short-story type.

I’m reading “Good Guys and Bad Guys” by some journalist about different people and events in the business world. Some chapters are okay because he has had bts access and interviews that give a pretty unique perspective. Particularly the opening chapter when he spent a month with T. Boone Pickens in New York during one of his corporate takeover attempts in the 1980s. (This particular attempt failed to get the company he was after, but still came home with $12 million in profit!) Other chapters are just his NYT columns that just offer his view of something that happened and are rather boring.

Prior to that I read “Blueprint for Action” by Thomas Barnett. Wasn’t as good as his first book. Next I have a book about how to remake an organization. Tried reading Dickens, but it was awful.

done:
David Carr “Night of the Gun”
Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene”

quit:
James Joyce”Finnegans Wake”

queued:
Christopher Hope “The Black Swan”
DFW “Infinite Jest”

I’m reading literary junkfood right now…a book I got at a Wal Mart in Redwood Falls called the Judas Strain…it’s basically a wannabe Da Vinci Code that also involves terrorists and a killer virus that will turn everyone into deranged psychopathic cannibals. I think the U of I is going to rescind my degree because I like it too much.

Also am re-reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy this year and read Generation Kill a few weeks ago.

I started cataloging all the books I’ve read since I graduated from college using LibraryThing. Yeah, it’s not free once you get over 200 books but I actually like a it a lot more than Goodreads. Plus every month they give a way a huge batch of Early Review books. I’ve received books twice so far.

I’ve read a lot this summer, which is always nice. My favorite book I’ve read this summer is The Nine by Toobin about SCOTUS. I just finished Everything Is Miscellaneous by Weinberger, which is about how information is managed in the digital age and Send by Shipley and some other dude, which is about email.

Currently reading: Dave Eggers, “What Is The What”

Quit: Nabokov, “Pnin”

Started and may continue in the process of oh-crap-I-have-nothing-to-read stage (searching bookshelves): “Tropic of Cancer”, “A Clockwork Orange”

I use goodreads to keep track of my books.

To copy grote:

Done:
The Nine
Superclass
Bonk
The Filthy Rich Handbook
Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good
Everything Is Misc.

Quit:
Nerds

Currently Reading:
Wikinomics
Ahead of the Curve
Boomsday
Poincare’s Prize

I need to be reading several things at once. So ADD.

I use Goodreads. If anyone’s on there, feel free to friend me. From what I gather LibraryThing assumes you own the books your read, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, what have I read this summer? Well, here’s a partial report.

Right now I’m reading The Snake Charmer, which is pretty interesting. I’m also reading a book about a kid who lives in Africa and has a pet mamba. No wait, I’m writing that book. No wonder it’s taking me so long to finish.

Oh, I also started reading “Julie and Julia”, one of those blog-to-book (and apparently, to movie?) books, and quit that one pretty early in the game as well.

Sadly, nothing right now. However, I’m inspired by this thread to pick up a book this week. Suggestions?

I just friended Erica even though she quit reading Pnin, which I loved.

Wow, you offended me AND my wife, Erica! She loved Julia and Julia.

@bob

The Nine! The Nine! The Nine! Its by far the best book that I’ve read in a while.

I also liked “Julie and Julia.”

I just read “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” by Sloane Crosley. I thought it was pretty funny and a really fast read.

@Tara

I picked up that Miranda July book at the library the other day. It looks like a quick read. Good to hear that it comes recommended.

Also, if anyone is looking for good suggestions, I highly suggest Hennepin County Library’s Bookspace site. Lots of great recommendations there.

@Ingrid

I read Sloane Crosley’s book and I hated it. I seem to be the only person who did not like her writing. It just wasn’t *that* funny and I didn’t think her writing was all that. I almost quit reading it.

I’m inspired by this thread to pick up a book this week. Suggestions?

How about the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway.

Haha, sorry Kurtis! I wanted to like Pnin, but after a while I realized I didn’t even know what was going on anymore. Also, it was due back at the library and I couldn’t renew it anymore. That’s actually my best push to get any reading done – library due dates.

Where’s a good place to get into the Hard Case/pulp/adult-ish category? Maybe more short-story type.

Uncle Edgar’s paperback shelves. Just north of Lake and Chicago.

Second Max on Uncle’s. It’s a fun store. They have a lot of sci fi (”Uncle Hugo’s”) and mystery (”Uncle Edgar’s”).

Also forgot 2 Jim Harrison books set in the U.P. I read while up there on vacation:
“The Day He Didn’t Die” & ” Returning to Earth”

also, last night, read a great 14 page piece in the New Yorker about the effect of legislation on the California marijuana industry.

How do you get your New Yorker before I do, g rote? I had to wait nearly a week to be offended by the Obama cover.

I just finished Shoeless Joe. It was a good one for August (corn, Minnesota, Iowa, baseball, dreams, hearing voices in my head). Easy, fun read.

does anyone ever go to the Once Upon a Crime Mystery Bookstore? It’s in an apartment walkdown basement on 26th just east of lyndale. I’ve driven by it a million times but have never gone in. Thinking that’s a great place for a pulp shopping trip, and they have a publication party tonight for Bart Schneider’s “The Man in the Blizzard”.

Set just prior to the Republican National convention in the Twin Cities, and impeccably researched, this novel is packed with loads of fascinating information about rare violins, poetry, the Nazi’s looting and cataloging of priceless treasures during WWII., and, of course, pot. Given all this information, and the complexity of the plot and its characters, “The Man in the Blizzard” is a surprisingly slim volume at just a hair over 300 pages. But, of course, being a poetry buff, Mr. Schneider writes with a masterful economy of words. His is a fresh and welcome approach to the genre.

Current: The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting

Next: Night of the Gun

On hold: The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans

Done: Duma Key by Stephen King, and Tommyland by Tommy Lee (what, dude, it was only $2.99, bro)

Grote, plan on spending a good amount of time on Infinite Jest. I spent many a bus ride from the ‘burbs on that book.

Reading Evan Wright’s Generation Kill while watching it on HBO … excellent. Before that, Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl & Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself to Live.

bob…new yorker piece seems to have run on July 28. I only found it because I was in LA during the week of the quake and was stunned by how many Angelenos had prescriptions for their “anxiety”… script pill bottles are the new ziploc bag.

Done:
On the Road (fascinating to re-read now that I’m an adult)
Pope Joan (interesting)
Candy Girl (fun to read about Mpls)
Last Night at the Lobster (just sorta there)

Quit:
Visions of Cody (I lost it on courtesy cab from hotel to airport in Chicago. Hotel said they’d ship it back to me, but that was 2 months ago. It wasn’t so intriguing that I’d buy another copy.)

Current:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
The American Church in Crisis

How do you get your New Yorker before I do, g rote? I had to wait nearly a week to be offended by the Obama cover.

For reals. The New Yorker always shows up insanely late. I barely have time to think of a caption for the cartoon contest!

I’m not reading anything right now. I am thinking of starting The Night of the Gun, but $25 for a book? And 65 holds on a single copy at the library? I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon.

Half way through:
The Dark Tower series
Atlas Shrugged
Why People Believe Weird Things

Trying to finish Atlas Shrugged before I read the cult chapter in Why People Believe Weird Things dealing with Objectivists.

Will then finish up the Dark Tower books.

Then on to A Short History of Nearly Everything. Then, Stardust?

I wish I could read faster.

I’m not reading anything right now. I am thinking of starting The Night of the Gun, but $25 for a book? And 65 holds on a single copy at the library? I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon.

It’s selling for $15.60 on Amazon right now for a brand new hardcover.

The Road,
Cormac McCarthy…

Anyone else read it?

I’m willing to loan you my copy of Night of the Gun once my wife is done with it, which will either be tomorrow (if the drugginess turns her off) or Monday (if the drugginess doesn’t bother her). She married me, so I’m guessing it’s the latter.

Uncle Edgar’s paperback shelves. Just north of Lake and Chicago.

A thousand thanks.

I just finished Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles, which I thought was really funny and well-written. I am currently struggling through And Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, the outcome of which is looking bleak. It reads like a creative writing MFA candidate thought “Wouldn’t it be fucking awesome if someone wrote a book about office politics in the corporate ‘we’ plural voice?” and then spent 700 pages doing just that.

I saw the library situation w/ that Carr book…pretty much laughable. Good tip on amazon, abebooks has it used for around that price too.

I’m reading Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, seems timely.

Oh, and since there seems to be some Tom Waits fans in this bunch, couple things:
1) anyone read the new book about him? (The Many Lives of TW)
2) anyone notice that Woyzeck is going to be put on by the U’s theater folks?

Currently reading Blink (awesome so far!) by Malcolm Gladwell, and Candy Girl (to get to sleep).

Also read two books on forgiveness and meditation (don’t ask), and a several long academic articles on PTSD (don’t ask).

Am proud to report I’ve kept up on my New Yorkers. That medical marijuana article was excellent, as was the one a week or so before on brains.

Am slowly picking away at The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowecki (sp?).

Re-read A Mixture of Frailties, by Robertson Davies. I gotta re-read one of his books every few months.

Oh, and I just finished Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut. He’s Kurt Vonnegut’s son, and in the early 70s he went nuts (his term), and this is the story of it. He got way better and wrote a good book about it.

Am slowly picking away at The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowecki (sp?).

I was thinking about reading that, but since buying a $200 textbook on Financial Management, I think I’ll wait for a while. Plus I hear it’s getting mixed reviews on his theory.

I borrowed it from a friend, but I will see if she minds if I loan it to you!

OK, probably very limited interest here, but the last two I read:

Wired for Sound: A Journey Into Hearing. (A Canadian woman’s experience with deafness, and getting a cochlear implant.)

The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa by Josh Swiller. Deaf guy’s experience spending 2 years in the Peace Corps in Zambia.

@ Andyst

I’ve started and stopped Then We Came To The End for at least 8 months now. I’m also planning on getting to the short story collection “Like You’d Understand, Anyway” which is by Jim Shepard. I had him as a creative writing prof. in college. Also, he taught Joshua Ferris and they were both nominated for the National Book Award last year. Random trivia.

I didn’t think the Wisdom of Crowds was all that great. There was some pretty interesting stuff here and there but a lot of it was redundant or just common sense.

Apropos of nothing, I’ve been trying to read “The Corrections” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” for 6 years. Can never get past the 2nd chapter.

I’m broke and need to not buy books, even though it’s one of my favorite splurge-y treats. Who has the better selection & availability for fun books- the downtown library or the U?

You going to make it through, Bixby? Everyone keeps telling me to wait for the middle when whatshername gets cancer and it gets amazing and then I’ll hate myself for even thinking about not finishing this beautiful piece of contemporary American literature.

As much as I, uh, love third-person accounts of cancer, I’m not feeling very optimistic, myself.

Anyone else here use LibraryThing?

Yeah, the Wisdom of Crowds is a bit boring, but interesting enough to keep me going back for another whack at it while I’m in between books. I guess that’s not much of a compliment for Surowecki.

The Corrections = boring. I did read the whole thing, but don’t know why. Boring.

Has anyone read Michael Chabon’s book The Yiddish Policemen’s Union? I really liked Kavalier & Clay.

Anyone else out there not like short stories? I am bewildered by this, but I generally don’t like short stories. No idea why.

I’m broke and need to not buy books, even though it’s one of my favorite splurge-y treats. Who has the better selection & availability for fun books- the downtown library or the U?

I keep forgetting that I can borrow books from the U, since I haven’t been to the Henn Library for years due to an exhorbitant late fee. I wish they sent out fee amnesty cards like the Sioux Falls Library does.

@yepnope I just paid down my fines at Hennepin County and they’ve been feeding me a steady stream of books. I realized that it was getting to the point that I was buying entirely too many books (damn you, Amazon prime). The Central Library probably has the better selection because they can order anything from Hennepin quite quickly but then again, in college I used to refer to ILL as “Free Amazon”. So, really, take your pick.

As a side note: Amazon Prime is evil. Yet, I love it so much.

@Andyst
I don’t know, it’s seriously in a pile of like 15 other books that I’m stopping and starting. Plus, more books off my library request list come in every day. Maybe one day I’ll finish it. One day…

In Progress:
“Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember, An Oral History,” edited by James Mellon
“A Widow for A Year,” John Irving

Rereading:
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee

Ongoing over the phone to my niece:
“Oh the Places You Will Go,” Dr. Suess
I’ve never lived in the same cities as my sibs — past high school — so when the sibs started having kids, I started reading bedtime stories over the phone. It’s now a tradition. Apparently to a child, I do killer character voices.

@jane

I’m so backlogged on my New Yorkers. I don’t know why I subscribed to The Walrus (the Canadian New Yorker) but fortunately it only comes once a month. I also, wisely, let my Atlantic Monthly subscription lapse. Good grief, I need to stop consuming media.

baker, I read the Road a couple years ago. Thought it was fantastic. I also read No Country for Old Men (the movie as almost identical to the book…Coen’s really captured the feeling of the book) and read the Orchard Keeper earlier this year. I liked the Orchard Keeper a lot but got kind of frustrated at the lack of plot…I just don’t think McCarthy had enough time to go into all of the characters the way he wanted to (the book would have been about 2000 pages if he had told all of their life stories). I think I’m done with my McCarthy kick for a while.

Hopefully that’ll make up for buying a book at Wal Mart.

You can start reading Seuss to me this fall/winter Cat.

At the least, I plant check out all the Seuss and Shel Silverstein on disk that I can, and load them up onto a nano.

CINF, thanks for the insight. I loved The Road too. Viggo Mortensen will star in an upcoming film adaptation. But I am fond of post apocalyptic novels in general…I plan on reading one more mccarthy–have you read Cities of the Plain?
Which one do you recommend–I saw the movie No Country.., so I guess I would prefer reading one of his others instead of that one…

Which others have you read?

Also, I recommend the service BookMooch which allows you to swap books and request books. It’s pretty good and a great way to get rid of books that you’ll probably never read again and to get books free. All you pay is the media mail postage, which is really cheap. And if you want to book that’s got a lot of requests, the request system works like a lottery so just because you are the 500th person to request a book doesn’t mean you have to wait a long time. I’ve used bookmooch off and on for about two years.

Cat, the first third of Widow was made into the movie A Door in the Floor, a surprisingly good adaptation.

baker, the only other one I’ve read is The Orchard Keeper. Really, really well written but dragged on quite a bit (and he could never really seem to find what story he wanted to tell). The characters are amazing, though.

I just joined goodreads, so anyone feel free to add me. rfordice@gmail

mnblrmkr: I would like nothing more!
It would be a celebration of sorts. We’ll need cake.

A Short History of Nearly Everything
A masterpiece.

If you want to have a bad day, read And the Band Played On.

Jane: A friend gave me the book shortly after seeing the film. That’s how long it’s been sitting on a shelf.

It’s ridiculous the number of books I have yet to read. I can’t sit still long enough to read in the summer.

And I can’t yet bring myself to say the “w” word out loud. Although I was giddy when the Discovery Channel recently had an evening of ski porn.

Oh, yeah, I loved A Short History of Nearly Everything. Highly recommend it!

Short History of Nearly Everything’s amazing. Read it in a book club a few years ago at work and wanted to kill the born again women who spent the whole discussion bitching that the author didn’t believe in God.

It would be a celebration of sorts. We’ll need cake.

You may eat cake.

I love these threads…

As is the case with most summers, I had big plans for my reading list. I haven’t made much of a dent, which isn’t a surprise.

Currently:
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty-Buster Olney
The Ten Cent Plague
Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a time of National Emergency

Finished:
Lush Life-Richard Price
A bio on Mencken
Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA
A few Wodehouse novels

On Deck:
The Age of American Unreason-Jacoby
Underworld
Generation Kill

I read a book once…

I actually am reading nerd lit. Dune Messiah to be precise. I have much to do to catch up with my nerdling friends. I am also working on a compilation of 50’s era Sci-Fi short stories. I told you it was nerd lit!

I liked Then We Came To The End. I also liked his short story that was in the latest New Yorker. And what a perfect segue..sometimes I get annoyed that I can’t chart my New Yorker readings on good reads because keeping up with the New Yorker is no small accomplishment and often comes at the expense of reading actual books.

tinker, have you read Great ‘08? Fantastic book about the 1908 season.

I haven’t read it, CIN. I have thumbed through it at the store a few times. I’ll add it to the list.

keeping up with the New Yorker is no small accomplishment and often comes at the expense of reading actual books

Totally. Please note upthread my note about not liking short stories very much. That’s how I manage (barely) to stay on top of my New Yorker reading! I will read Murakami stories, but that’s about it.

Re: the New Yorker. I usually read at least part of Talk of the Town, then start search for something else that catches my eye.

Confession: I read the cartoons first.

Same here Bob. I go to the caption contest, check to see if Hertzberg has something, then see if there are features that catch my eye. I always have every intent to read more, but seldom get to it with the exception of the reviews.

Almost forgot about this one. Quite a thriller.

@ Jane: Has anyone read Michael Chabon’s book The Yiddish Policemen’s Union? I really liked Kavalier & Clay.

I read Yiddish Policeman’s Union. It was okay. I was really excited about it because I loved Kavalier and Clay. It’s a slow starter; I almost gave up after 25 pages. But I stuck it out (since I bought a hardcover I felt like I had to read t). It got better, and by the end I decided I actually really liked it. Not a ringing endorsement, but it’s still worth a read. Try to get past the first 25-40 pages before making a judgement.

I had a similar experience with YPU. It is worth plowing through the first few chapters. Once you figure out who the people are and whats going on it gets much better. I did really like Summerland even if it was written for a younger audience.

I really liked Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Had some great conspiracy theory stuff in it. Also excellent is Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Another slow starter but really fun.

Really interesting and riveting reading is in The Orientalist a non-fiction bio of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew born in Caucasus who revamped himself as the arab prince Kurban Said who is still one of the most popular writers in the east. His life is like a history of the 20th century. Stalin lived in his house with his radical mother, he had to escape the war in Russia only to land in Paris right before WWII. Married a rich New York socialite etc etc. Really incredible.

Otherwise, I just sat down to finally read the Shock Doctrine.

And a thread over on Metafilter about the worlds most expensive house selling reminded me that I just finished up King Leopold’s Ghost. I’ve been reading several books on the Congo (this and this for example) and this history of the Belgian Congo is fascinating and disturbing. The house, which fetched $750 million dollar’s was one of many owned by King Leopold and built with profits from the Belgian rubber and mineral trade. King Leopold owned Congo, not Belgium, King Leopold personally. A great read that has ramifications today.

According to LibraryThing, Common Good Books has a great line up of people coming in to read. David Carr is going to be there next Monday. Anyone interested in going?

Done:
Heyday by Kurt Andersen
Imbibe! by David Wondrich
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Quit:
Strategy by B.H. Liddell Hart

In the middle of:
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Joy of Mixology by Gary Regan

On deck:
I don’t know yet. Maybe Land of Amber Waters by Doug Hoverson or The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting… by Jim Walsh. Or maybe Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Or maybe all of those.

Halfway through “The Boat” by Nam Le, a collection of short stories. The writing is superb and when I finish a story, I find I want to just put the book down and think about what happened and what the author is saying. Best book I’ve read in a long time.

cjc, I read Devil in the White City last year and I really enjoyed it. A bit heavy on the architecture nerdism though…

I read Devil in the White City, too. Like the architectural nerdism. But it was really more about the stresses that the architects were under. Whatta deadline. Liked the discussion of the historical significance of the World Exposition in Chicago.

Very similar to what is going to be in Shanghai in two years.

Books I re-read every couple years:

The first of Louis de Berniere’s trilogy: The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts (1990). I loved the other two, but they have a few seriously gruesome bits: Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (1991) and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (1992).

Also love Alexander McCall Smith’s Professor Dr. von Igelfeld Entertainments series. Laughed out loud, truly out loud, many times.

* 2003 Portuguese Irregular Verbs
* 2003 The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
* 2003 At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

Three cheers for bixby for posting a terrific thread on books.

Hip, hip…

So, I’m 4 or 5 hours late but…

I read Lin Enger’s Undiscovered Country, which had its own thread on MNSpeak. I loved it. Great writing and a wonderful story. I’m hoping it becomes famous because I have a signed first edition from Magers and Quinn.

Also read Atwood’s Alias Grace this summer. Pretty dang good, but not my favorite of all her works.

Wow, this is the longest thread I’ve ever seen stay completely on topic. Kudos.

I went to the library tonight to pick up some holds and, well, I started yet another book – Do Travel Writers Go To Hell.

I’ve come to the realization that I’m a huge non-fiction junkie. I honestly think I’ve read 4 fiction books since June ‘07 and that’s excluding the Gossip Girl book I read. Don’t judge me, people.

How’s Heyday, cjc? I like Kurt Anderson’s radio show, and I like velveteen pantaloons, so it seems like a good bet.

I’d be remiss in not recommending my pal-and-Powderhorn-neighbor Geoff Herbach’s excellent novel, The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg.

Bixby, what’s really impressive is a thread this long and bob hasn’t mentioned ethanol even once!

What’s more impressive is that it didn’t get political. And speaking of political, I just found out that the book “Blackwater” has arrived at the library for me. Unfortunately, it’s really, really biased and basically a political rant by the author. That’s disappointing even though I’m on Team Liberal, I wanted a pretty even handed look at it. I think I might not even check it out, I’m probably going cancel the hold…

andy- answering for cjc because he won’t be at a computer all day.

He loved Heyday. He flew through it and kept reading me parts of it. What I heard of it was pretty good.

addendum: While kc! certainly did not lie or exaggerate, Heyday had kind of a mediocre ending. It’s a good read.

Oh, and picked up Candy Girl and Oryx and Crake at the book store this evening.