READING RAINBOW!

[monkey]

ok, so we all know how to read (almost). and there's been book threads here before. but we let them die. why does the "what are you listening to" thread live but the "what are you reading" thread die? no more! tell me what you're reading. and why. and how you came about with this book discovery. knowing that sometimes makes a book more interesting.

so, here's the story on my latest book:

one of my very close friends's dad was part of the beat generation that grew up in greenwich village and reading and writing and being all cool and artistic. and he has these FANTASTIC stories about allen ginsberg. so i've been meaning to pick up some of his books because i had never read him. so, last sunday, we stopped by a little garage sale where this old lady was selling her books from way back when. and one of them was a hardcover of allen ginsberg journals from the early 50's and early 60's. so i bought it (for a buck!) and now im reading that. and it's so very entertaining!

now you go.and ima bump this all the time until more of you get to reading.

[DeeJayZap]

well it takes longer to read a book than to listen to a song so obviously thered be less frequent posts and when they start a new book the thread will be gone lol.

k well im reading the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series again.

[adam_f]

I bought a book by Nick Adams called Making Friends With Black People.

[zorra_chiflada]

lol reading

[QueenAdrock]

I'm currently a third of the way through Samantha Powers' "America and the Age of Genocide." I was assigned it for my human rights seminar about two years ago, and I never got around to reading it all the way through, just bits and pieces. I'm currently on the Kurds in Iraq, just got done with the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia. I'm reading it because I'm interested in the study of genocide (how they come about, how they could have been prevented, individual first-hand accounts), and even more interested on why America doesn't give a damn about genocide even though we pride ourselves on being free and talk about "sharing that agenda with the rest of the world." Turns out that agenda only applies to countries that benefit our country somehow, be it ideologically or economically. Boo-urns.

[milleson]

Plate Tectonics : How It Works by Allan Cox and Robert Brian Hart because I want to be ultra-prepared on the first day of classes. Thursday! WOO school!

[na§tee]

everyone really must read the his dark materials trilogy by phillip pullman.

one of the best reading experiences of my life.

i was totally gutted when i finished the last one. that, surely, is a good sign.

[jackrock]

I can sing a rainbow, I can sing a rainbow too!

"Infinite love is the only infinite, everything else is an illusion" By David Icke. Haven't gotten very far into it, but when I do I'll drop back here.

[venusvenus123]

i'm reading the book of illusions by paul auster. i've never read one of his books before and a friend of mind recommended him. i'm only a couple of chapters in, but i can see he's a brilliant writer and i'm loving it.

[mickill]

Mojo

[enree erzweglle]

I'm reading the back end of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Volume I). I read it before and am re-reading it mostly for enjoyment and to find a couple of passages that I need for another project that I have.

Next up is The Mind's I, which I decided to read after re-reading GEB last month. That book is amazing.

I was waiting for my hair cut appointment a few weeks ago and the stylist was going on being an hour late and the whole while, this little girl was sitting next to me while I was waiting and she was going to be there for awhile while her grandmother had a bunch of stuff done. Poor thing, the little girl, not the grandmother. Anyway, she was preparing to color with markers and was tearing pages out of a coloring book. One of those pages featured an outline drawing of geese in formation and it reminded me of one of the Escher illustrations (Day & Night (http://www.tessellations.org/galleries-escher/1938-day-night.jpg)) in GEB. So, I had been reading the trailing bits of that book and I opened it to that particular illustration and showed it to her and she got it. She looked at it for a long time and she understood the concept and could see the positive-negative geometric contrasts, the dualities. Which kind of blew me away because she was only 6. So then I turned to another Escher (Drawing Hands (http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/escher/drawing_hands.jpg)) and asked her which hand was drawing which hand. She stared at it for awhile and pointed to one of the hands and said, "This one." and then she looked at it really closely and said, "No, this one. Definitely" And then she said, "I don't know!" Which also kind of blew me away. So then I showed her one more Escher (Reptiles (http://www.tessellations.org/galleries-escher/1943-reptiles.jpg)) and she studied it for about a minute and explained it to me, saying something like, "The newts :) in the book are coming to life and they're crawling out of the book. Then they're circling around and they're going back to being in the book again." Then she watched the illustration a bit more and I could see her thinking and she said something like, "If I were this one [and she pointed to the one just mounting the book], I'd just crawl straight out and not go in circles anymore." I love her. :o

[na§tee]

enree, that is totally adorable!

[monkey]

enree, that is totally adorable!

yep! that's awesome. i love the way children think.

[enree erzweglle]

^^ and ^^^ I know! I loved that exchange. It absolutely took me back to when my kid was that age and I could watch him thinking. Of course, he did a lot of non-thinking too and I could watch that as well but it wasn't as much fun and often tended to involve dirt and mud and stains on the carpet. I loved talking to that little girl and seeing the wheels turning. Kids are so great and I think too often people underestimate their capacity to reason and think.

[Lyman Zerga]

im reading this board all day long
isnt that enough already

[ScarySquirrel]

I'm reading Son of a Witch which is the sequel to Wicked. I think they're written by Gregory McGuire or something like that.

[SobaViolence]

i'm casually reading the Qu'ran and a book called 'will yoga & meditation really change my life?' about different people who have had experiences with yoga and /or buddhism and how it affects their view on life and their everyday practices, like enjoying/being in the present, breathing, etc...

i'm also reading selected passages from my dad's university book 'the age of religious wars, 1559-1689' just for fun. mostly about catholics versus protestants, and also extremely eurocentric, but interesting nevertheless.


knowledge is power!(y)

[trailerprincess]

I'm currently reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's ok, not as good as some of his other ones. I have also just finished Atomised which is my second Michel Houllebecq one and was slightly disappointed by a recurrent theme

[beastiegirrl101]

I miss that show! Jordi LaFordge

[DeeJayZap]

bump!

[abcdefz]

I'm almost finished with All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner. Terrific book:

Circa 1963, an older couple who own a huge spread are sort of imposed upon by a hippie who basically asks/takes a small plot of their land so he can meditate, get closer to nature, etc. Wife is amused and tolerant, husband is irritated from the get-go but allows the move. Little by little, the hippie makes improvements without asking -- building a treehouse, tapping the couple's electrical and water lines, and developing a small commune of followers who begin visiting, then also living there.

At the same time, a couple (and their daughter) moves into the nearest house (about half a mile away) and they really enchant the older couple. The woman, particularly, who is a huge naturalist enthusiast and whose eternal optimism is a contrast to the old man's, who has seen most of it all.

Hilarity ensues. Well, not hillarity, but definitely amusing and well-observed human drama.

I'm about 10 pages from the end, and unless something goes seriously awry:

A-. (y)

[cosmo105]

i'm a voracious reader and have been consuming all of palahniuk's works as i can afford them, but i started Survivor a couple of months ago...and just wasn't very enthused with it. and i've loved all his previous work. i should give it another shot. usually it takes me about 3-5 days to finish a book.


but i just got the Stitch'n Bitch guide to knitting, so that'll have to wait.

[QueenAdrock]

I wanted to read Fight Club, but I can't find it in the used bookstore I go to. I'll probably end up getting it from the library.

I tried reading Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" but it was kinda boring. And supposedly it was as good as the Da Vinci Code, so I don't think I'll be looking at that one any time soon either.

[Bob]

did you finish angels and demons? the ending comes out of fucking nowhere, it's good, in an action thriller kind of way. definitely didn't see that one coming.

i'm reading short stories by isaac asimov and harlan ellison. i got them because i wanted to read things by asimov and ellison.

i finished vonnegut's "welcome to the monkey house" not too long ago. i liked it, but not as much as his novels.

[cosmo105]

i love vonnegut. somewhere i have a copy of player piano i never started.

[Bob]

i love vonnegut. somewhere i have a copy of player piano i never started.

i have timequake sitting around somewhere. i have so much reading i want to do, but i never do it. i don't know why. i have so much free time right now but all i do is play video games or watch DVDs. i read in the morning before i go to work, on the rare occasion that i wake up early enough to even eat a muffin before going out the door, and i enjoy it, so i don't know why i don't spend the days reading. old habits i guess.

[QueenAdrock]

did you finish angels and demons? the ending comes out of fucking nowhere, it's good, in an action thriller kind of way. definitely didn't see that one coming.


Really? No, I haven't finished it, I got kinda bored. They're at the place in the book where they're trying to warn the Vatican about the anti-matter and they're able to see it on the stolen camera. I may try to finish it if my ADD doesn't act up more.

[beastiegirrl101]

I have read all of Palahniuk's work Cosmo if you ever want to chat about his stuffs.....also I can send you any of his books if you want, just as long as you promise to send them back. (if money is an issue to buy them)

[Bob]

Really? No, I haven't finished it, I got kinda bored. They're at the place in the book where they're trying to warn the Vatican about the anti-matter and they're able to see it on the stolen camera. I may try to finish it if my ADD doesn't act up more.

oh whoa, you can't stop there. that's where the story really begins. the stuff up to that is just setting up the plot. it gets interesting now. books like that are MADE for people with ADD, it's a pretty fast-paced page-turner of a book. very fun.

[QueenAdrock]

No way, the books made for kids with ADD are the ones that go to video, the ones you purchase after you've seen it. That way you can pay attention half as much and still not miss stuff.

I <3 you, A Time to Kill and The Shining!

[monkey]

but i just got the Stitch'n Bitch guide to knitting, so that'll have to wait.

personal fave. it showed me a bunch of great little designs and whatnot. but the appeal of this book is that it "teaches" knitting in your language, not the archaic knitting lingo of your grandmother. i sound like a reviewer. well, it is what im doing. anyway, great book.

[monkey]

i'm reading short stories by isaac asimov and harlan ellison. i got them because i wanted to read things by asimov and ellison.

i finished vonnegut's "welcome to the monkey house" not too long ago. i liked it, but not as much as his novels.

i <3 asimov but somewhere in the second foundation, i wondered away and i never came back to him.

and i also <3 vonnegut but after a while, all his books read the same to me. cat's cradle is HILARIOUS though.

[Lyman Zerga]

bump!


haha
you so saved this thread

[Documad]

everyone really must read the his dark materials trilogy by phillip pullman.

one of the best reading experiences of my life.

i was totally gutted when i finished the last one. that, surely, is a good sign.
I listened to the books on tape while I was driving for work.

Are you scared about what they'll do with the film?

[Documad]

I've read so many books this summer!

I'm in the middle of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375756787/sr=8-3/qid=1155680616/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-1000943-4374543?ie=UTF8) by Edmund Morris. It's the first of a two-parter. He was quite an interesting child. I've had to skim through some of the bits where he is living in the west because it bores me. I've read many books in the past year or so about American politics between the Civil War and WWI so it's interesting to see him interacting with the other people I read about. I'm at the part where he's about 25 years old and he's a rising star.