Words for Turds

[suenoverde]

I need some recommendations for reading.  I want a book I can immerse myself in while I am riding the train.  I wouldn't mind some classics or childrens or young adult fiction like Dahl or Phillip Pullman.

I am currently reading a book about Carl Jung's ideas "Man and His Symbols", "My First Summer in the Sierras" by John Muir and "The Kite Runner"

Comments

[ganatronic]

I'm borrowing his dark materials from my sister, but I haven't started them yet. I should, though, because I think I'd really like them. Right now I'm reading Atomik Aztex, by Sesshu Foster, and I was hoping I'd finish it before you visited, so that I could lend it out, but I don't think I'll have it done by them. The style is sort of a blend of Ishmael Reed and Pynchon -- streamy, wacky, inventive, and the story is crazy (it involves an alternate world, where aztec is the dominant culture, souls survive after death through some sort of blood ritual, and the souls then move into other alternate universes, bouncing back and forth between them and through time, fighting nazis and stuff. It's odd).

And you can read the george saunders books that I have. I think you'll like them.

[suenoverde]

I read the review of Atomik Aztex in the Believer and really want to read it.

[boyedible]

Fiction:

The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt (not the movie)
Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Non Fiction:

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

From what I know of your tastes I think you would like these, but be sure to read the first page before you make a decision.

[ganatronic]

Both those nonfiction books have the fucking stupidest names.

[greenjesus]

This coming from somebody who just recommended a book about "an alternate world, where aztec is the dominant culture, souls survive after death through some sort of blood ritual, and the souls then move into other alternate universes, bouncing back and forth between them and through time, fighting nazis and stuff".

I would recommend Murakami, as well. I read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle.

[boyedible]

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is about a Hmong immigrant family whose daughter had an extreme case of epilepsy. The title refers to what the Hmong call the disease. The book outlines the complications that cross cultural communication cause, and what it cost the family and the child.

And I seem to remember convincing you to buy The Field Guide to Getting Lost for your sister...

[earthshinesheep]

elsewhere by gabriel(?) zevin

[quick_impulses]

So this is what I'm reading right now: