books

[rainwaterbay]

I went to the library and got a handful of books about twenty-somethings at loose ends, searching for purpose and harboring morbid thoughts about death and civilization. I'm a little in love with Douglas Coupland's storytelling, so I checked out two more of his novels for good measure: Hey Nostradamus and Eleanor Rigby. I also came home with a worn

Comments

[frabjously]

I keep getting recced Douglas Coupland! Yay, more books to add to the ever expanding list.

[rainwaterbay]

consider this another recommendation :)

for now I'm gonna recommend Girlfriend in a Coma, but I could end up with another favorite.

[rageandgrace]

Have you read "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin? It's an oldie but a goodie. :)

[rainwaterbay]

yes it is! :)

[le_bombe]

I'm rereading "The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read it in a modern lit class a year ago, but I really dig it. It's a really bizarre, mildly unsettling book about artistry (the main character is a composer) and urban life / metropolitan community. Everything is really vague and unclear, but it resonates super hard with me. It's got all sorts of stuff about memory and obligation and purpose. Definitely one of my favorite things I've read lately.

I also read Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook" for the same class, and although the style didn't connect with me as much as Ishiguro's, her female voice is really interesting and full of complexities and contradictions.

Also, "The Turn of the Screw," but I'm only about 20 pages in, so I don't have a whole lot to say yet.

[rainwaterbay]

I was totally hoping you would respond, just so you know.

that Ishiguro book sounds intriguing! and I read one of Doris Lessing's short stories back in high school, but can't remember a dang thing so I should give that one a try, too.

[fureux]

yes yes yes yes YESYESYES oh chino fucking moreno i cant tell you how much you're like, living in my head right right now now. god, i've been getting the sads on a daily basis, trapped trapped and need a genius author with an o illuminate the way with an instruction manual subliminaly hidden in the depths explaining how exactly to proceed from trappedinsurburbia!helpwherearetheexits?! to awesomeness, mental clarity and dare i say it, peace and happiness. i've just bought couldntgiveafuck.com.

reading: the power of now by eckhart tolle and the yellow house by martin gayford.

[rainwaterbay]

lady, I think that comment illuminated a lot more than any of the books I own. you're living in my head too!

my counselor totally recommended The Power of Now. she read me a passage about how thoughts of the future create anxiety and thoughts of the past lead to despair, which was something I'd tried to work out through paintings a year prior but couldn't manage to spell out so clearly. niiiiice.

[punkrawkpyro]

Well, I just re-read World War Z. Maybe not so deep, but it does have it's moments. And zombies. Lots, and lots, of zombies.