the Delillo mention reminded me of "Underworld" which I just read a couple of weeks ago on vacation. Really an entertaining book w/ [OT WARNING!!! ] a well done baseball angle to boot!!
I liked Brave New World a lot. I still think that it's sort of inevitable once we get through the late stages of capitalism.
"Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell is a good read, lots of funny stuff, waiters farting and that sort of hijinks.
AcidRock23 wrote:the Delillo mention reminded me of "Underworld" which I just read a couple of weeks ago on vacation. Really an entertaining book w/ [OT WARNING!!! ] a well done baseball angle to boot!!
I liked Brave New World a lot. I still think that it's sort of inevitable once we get through the late stages of capitalism.
"Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell is a good read, lots of funny stuff, waiters farting and that sort of hijinks.
Underworld was good, but I always have trouble telling Delillo's characters apart. In Libra and White Noise the adults and children all sound exactly alike - they're all pointy-headed intellectuals.
Have you read anything by David Foster Wallace? Ethan Canin?
If you like John Irving (most well known for The World According to Garp) check out The Water Method Man.
It's my favorite book by him.
I read it when I was about 19 and thought it was hilarious and read it again when I was 38 and thought it was sad. But I loved it both times.
Absolutely Adequate wrote:And add another vote for Ayn Rand not being a good writer. It combines the character differentiation of a Delillo novel with the literary value of Stephen King.
yeah, her prose is not the best, but i also can't say i read her for that either....
(read these 3 in order) Anthem The Fountainhead Atlas Shrugged
Crime & Punishment A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Elmer Gantry (best book i had never heard of. HIGHLY recommended) 1984 Dune The Time Machine
I despised Crime and Punishment. I thought the storyline itself ha a lot of potential, and Dostoevsky certainly presents some really provocative questions, but I disagreed with a lot of what the book tried to say. Also, I couldn't take the mindless ramblings of Raskolnikov after 400 pages.
Orwell was a little too far out there, even for entertainment purposes, for me. Normally, I'm amused by people I disagree with, but I think the guy was actually a bit delusional.
Jared Diamond always has something fascinating to say. His most recent book, Collapse, is full of interesting stories about how past socieites have emerged and then disappeared, e.g. Easter Island, the Maya, the Greenland Norse, etc. His previous book, Guns, Germs, and Steel is equally fascinating. It received a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a PBS documentary. It answers interesting questions like why devastating infectious diseases were not passed from native Americans to Europeans in the same way Europeans passed diseases like smallpox to native Americans, and why Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro and his small group of 168 soldiers were able to defeat an army of nearly 80,000 Incas at Cajamarca in 1532.
Shake Hands With The Devil was a huge best seller here in Canada. It is the eyewitness account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide by Canadian general Romeo Dallaire who led the U.N. peacekeeping mission in that country.
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Absolutely Adequate wrote: Have you read anything by David Foster Wallace? Ethan Canin?
I got through maybe 3 or 400 pages of Infinite Jest and really would like to find some people interested in playing Eschaton (sp?), the nuclear tennis ball game!
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by AcidRock23 » Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:38 pm 
] a well done baseball angle to boot!! 
