There Is Actually A Word Document Which Has #1 to #60, I'm Not Choosing At Random
Scenes Without A Home Theatre (#61);
Marty Birenbaum was not a name you'd expect a dragon to have, but there you go.
S.M. Stirling
Island In The Sea Of Time
Against The Tide Of Years
On The Oceans Of Eternity
Hay, look, it's a Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-And-Kick-Ass series! Gosh! These things are like Kryptonite to me. If you find the right one you can make me accept your hynotic commands, with these nigging sexual undertones. What, don't like at me like that, i'm pretty sure there's a Superman story like that. There probably is. Stop looking at me!
On the Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-&-Kick-Ass scale, this series' score is Lesbians.
Dave Eggers
What Is The What
A horrible, beautiful book, of course of course of course. Valentino Achak Deng is a human being who lives in the world and horrible things happen to him and to other people. And yet and yet! What is wrong with me that I was not inordinantly moved? It is surely something wrong with me. The things that are wrong with Valentino Achak Deng, maybe he doesn't like dogs, they are not relevant. SCORE: conflicted
Neil Strauss
The Game
Shit, is this a wonderful book or a really bad one? I mean, philosiphically speaking. It is a book about one dude's transformation into SuperDude, which is kind of neat. But it is also a book about the objectification of women & acceptance of a lot of meaningless shit as the most meaningful thing in life. It is a book about Neil Strauss and how he had sex with a lot of women! Neil Strauss, unlike basically every character in the book, seems like a good dude to have a beer with. In the most memorable part in the book, he interrupts the scene he is writing to inform the reader that he is having sex right as he is writing that. And the reckless energy of Holy shit, I need to tell someone about this, right now of that scene won me over. I would have two beers with Neil Strauss. You can't argue with honesty. You can't argue with a guy who has had sex while writing a novel. You can only mutter insults under your breath.
Vladamir Nabokov
Lolita
One of the most beautiful books i've ever read. The powerful passion inherant, the characters boring holes in soul & placing their ejecta within for further use. I mean, you know what it is about, I hardly need to explain goddamn Lolita. It is so, it is pretty, I think it is a good book. Yes. This is what I think.
Ian McEwan
Atonement
Atonement is a book about a girl, her sister, a dude & the emotional process of writing fiction. It is written well, fabolously, and plotted out almost perfectly, the characters are people who are real people. Almost. And that's just right, too. It is a good book. And it is not about the Holocaust at all, and I was a little worried. I am always worried about books set in the 1930-1940s in case they are about the Holocaust. This is not. It is about love and it is about fiction & also about, well, atonement.
Sigal Geva
Left At The End Of The World (Hebrew)
This is a book by & about one Israeli chick and her decision to ride around all of Australia on a motorcycle, and what happened when she did. It is not a literary masterpiece, of course of course, it is also almost certainly not completely accurate (Oh, of course, everyone in Australia meets random characters who spout narration for twenty pages!) but it is quite lovely, it is a Road Epic. Things happen, souls lift, limbs are broken, you come out a better person for some reason no one understands at all. I quite enjoyed it.
A Lot Of Dudes
Hellblazer
Yes, all of it.
John Constantine is one of the cooler characters in comics. Even if you've never actually seen him, you've seen his progeny, cousins & brothers. The trenchcoated chain smoking consumately pissed off anti/hero. And if he's really fucking British, five points. I mean, it's just a really awesome concept, you can't argue with this at all. Add magic, and that's like, hey, ten points. Fuck. You've won. I'll ilegally download every one of your issues. No need to thank me.
Lao Tze
Taoi Te Ching
About time, right?
This link is not a reccomendation for the translation of that version, of which I have no clue. I have a lovely translation in Hebrew, which I am only willing to loan if you promise to give it back.
Unknown
The Gospel Of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas is one of those texts that were thrown out of the original bible back when, I suppose, they were writing it. It might be a Gnostic text; though no one is really sure. It's certainly a more mystic text than most of the New Testament, consisting of numbered sayings by Jesus, in a tone amusingly similair to a collection of the sayings of any random New Age Guru. It is interesting, it is not enlightening, it is something else. I can't, again, say much for this translation i've linked, as I read it in Hebrew.
Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood is a radio play, or 'a play for voices', without a single action annotated, simply words & dreams. It is pretty goddamn lovely, tranquil, strange & true. The inhabitants of some town somewhere are introduced, exist for a few short sweet moments, and then the play ends. Dylan Thomas knew how to write, that asshole. I gave the book away the moment I finished it, but now i'm upset with that, i'd like to reread it. Take it as a reccomendation!
Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha
Oh my, Siddhartha is pretty good. This is what I had to say the day I read it. Somewhere else, on that day, I wrote (among other things);
The movement of the foot is Buddha-nature.
The stretching of the thigh is an orgasm.
Thus it is with Buddha-nature.
Milan Kundera
The Book Of Laughter & Forgetting
This is a very good book, and it is about laughter, and forgetting, and the mania of book writing, and Bohemia. I think you will like it, you specifically, whoever you are.
Not, you know, you.
You know what I mean.
ENOUGH DIGRESSION BECAUSE
THIS
WAS
WHAT I READ
IN APRIL
TIP
YOUR
WAITRESS
Marty Birenbaum was not a name you'd expect a dragon to have, but there you go.
S.M. Stirling
Island In The Sea Of Time
Against The Tide Of Years
On The Oceans Of Eternity
Hay, look, it's a Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-And-Kick-Ass series! Gosh! These things are like Kryptonite to me. If you find the right one you can make me accept your hynotic commands, with these nigging sexual undertones. What, don't like at me like that, i'm pretty sure there's a Superman story like that. There probably is. Stop looking at me!
On the Americans-Go-Back-In-Time-&-Kick-Ass scale, this series' score is Lesbians.
Dave Eggers
What Is The What
A horrible, beautiful book, of course of course of course. Valentino Achak Deng is a human being who lives in the world and horrible things happen to him and to other people. And yet and yet! What is wrong with me that I was not inordinantly moved? It is surely something wrong with me. The things that are wrong with Valentino Achak Deng, maybe he doesn't like dogs, they are not relevant. SCORE: conflicted
Neil Strauss
The Game
Shit, is this a wonderful book or a really bad one? I mean, philosiphically speaking. It is a book about one dude's transformation into SuperDude, which is kind of neat. But it is also a book about the objectification of women & acceptance of a lot of meaningless shit as the most meaningful thing in life. It is a book about Neil Strauss and how he had sex with a lot of women! Neil Strauss, unlike basically every character in the book, seems like a good dude to have a beer with. In the most memorable part in the book, he interrupts the scene he is writing to inform the reader that he is having sex right as he is writing that. And the reckless energy of Holy shit, I need to tell someone about this, right now of that scene won me over. I would have two beers with Neil Strauss. You can't argue with honesty. You can't argue with a guy who has had sex while writing a novel. You can only mutter insults under your breath.
Vladamir Nabokov
Lolita
One of the most beautiful books i've ever read. The powerful passion inherant, the characters boring holes in soul & placing their ejecta within for further use. I mean, you know what it is about, I hardly need to explain goddamn Lolita. It is so, it is pretty, I think it is a good book. Yes. This is what I think.
Ian McEwan
Atonement
Atonement is a book about a girl, her sister, a dude & the emotional process of writing fiction. It is written well, fabolously, and plotted out almost perfectly, the characters are people who are real people. Almost. And that's just right, too. It is a good book. And it is not about the Holocaust at all, and I was a little worried. I am always worried about books set in the 1930-1940s in case they are about the Holocaust. This is not. It is about love and it is about fiction & also about, well, atonement.
Sigal Geva
Left At The End Of The World (Hebrew)
This is a book by & about one Israeli chick and her decision to ride around all of Australia on a motorcycle, and what happened when she did. It is not a literary masterpiece, of course of course, it is also almost certainly not completely accurate (Oh, of course, everyone in Australia meets random characters who spout narration for twenty pages!) but it is quite lovely, it is a Road Epic. Things happen, souls lift, limbs are broken, you come out a better person for some reason no one understands at all. I quite enjoyed it.
A Lot Of Dudes
Hellblazer
Yes, all of it.
John Constantine is one of the cooler characters in comics. Even if you've never actually seen him, you've seen his progeny, cousins & brothers. The trenchcoated chain smoking consumately pissed off anti/hero. And if he's really fucking British, five points. I mean, it's just a really awesome concept, you can't argue with this at all. Add magic, and that's like, hey, ten points. Fuck. You've won. I'll ilegally download every one of your issues. No need to thank me.
Lao Tze
Taoi Te Ching
About time, right?
This link is not a reccomendation for the translation of that version, of which I have no clue. I have a lovely translation in Hebrew, which I am only willing to loan if you promise to give it back.
Unknown
The Gospel Of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas is one of those texts that were thrown out of the original bible back when, I suppose, they were writing it. It might be a Gnostic text; though no one is really sure. It's certainly a more mystic text than most of the New Testament, consisting of numbered sayings by Jesus, in a tone amusingly similair to a collection of the sayings of any random New Age Guru. It is interesting, it is not enlightening, it is something else. I can't, again, say much for this translation i've linked, as I read it in Hebrew.
Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood is a radio play, or 'a play for voices', without a single action annotated, simply words & dreams. It is pretty goddamn lovely, tranquil, strange & true. The inhabitants of some town somewhere are introduced, exist for a few short sweet moments, and then the play ends. Dylan Thomas knew how to write, that asshole. I gave the book away the moment I finished it, but now i'm upset with that, i'd like to reread it. Take it as a reccomendation!
Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha
Oh my, Siddhartha is pretty good. This is what I had to say the day I read it. Somewhere else, on that day, I wrote (among other things);
The movement of the foot is Buddha-nature.
The stretching of the thigh is an orgasm.
Thus it is with Buddha-nature.
Milan Kundera
The Book Of Laughter & Forgetting
This is a very good book, and it is about laughter, and forgetting, and the mania of book writing, and Bohemia. I think you will like it, you specifically, whoever you are.
Not, you know, you.
You know what I mean.
ENOUGH DIGRESSION BECAUSE
THIS
WAS
WHAT I READ
IN APRIL
TIP
YOUR
WAITRESS