Comments | andthensheflew: Books

andthensheflew

Books

Apr 24, 2008 22:16

As I will have more free time in a couple of weeks, I want recommendations what I should read for the few lazy weeks of summer I'll have. It should be something you've read, obviously. Something that's stuck with you. Tell me why I should read it.

Thanks!

Comments 4

silencegolden April 25 2008, 05:38:11 UTC

I'm going to start with The Count of Monte Cristo. Have you read The God of Small Things? I think you'd enjoy it.

kcofthedesert April 25 2008, 07:59:05 UTC

If you haven't read it already, America: The Book.

premeditation April 26 2008, 19:43:50 UTC

Fiction: "The Yiddish Policemen's Union." Alternate-history noir detective story by a Pulitzer-winning author, in which Israel was destroyed in the '40s, so the Jews were all re-settled in a territory in Alaska among the Indians. 50 years later, when the land is about to revert back to the US, an alcoholic Yiddish policeman finds a dead junkie in a hotel room next to an unfinished game of chess. Oh, and he might have been the Messiah. Best novel I've read in a looong time.

Also, "Dangerous Liaisons." Very very fun epistolary novel about rich people, sex, and manipulation in the 18th century.

Nonfiction: if you haven't read "Guns, Germs & Steel," then you must. I honestly believe that everyone should read it. It's a very broad, amazingly innovative book about why the world is the way it is today. Um. In short.

cornonthecomb April 28 2008, 23:04:59 UTC

The Rum Diary by Hunter S Thompson is a nice, easy read.

Hell's Angels by Hunter S Thompson is an in-depth look at the motorcycle gang of the same name with great side portraits of California in the early to mid sixties. Written pre-Fear and Loathing, so it's actually coherent.

Anything by Nick Hornby. I assume everyone's read High Fidelity, but if you haven't, you really really should. About a Boy is also really good.

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner is a great, relatively unknown Scottish novel. The main character is in some ways a female version of Mersault from Camus' The Stranger, but in modern-day Scotland. It's kind of fucked-up in parts, but I think both the linguist and the raver in you would enjoy reading it.

I freaking love Ray Bradbury's short stories, so I have to recommend them. The Golden Apples of the Sun and other stories is a good collection.

If you don't mind vulgarity (sex, violence, drugs, fucked up people doing fucked up shit), I would recommend Morvern Callar. If not, go with a Nick Hornby novel. And if you ( ... )