Book of the Month Club

[Coppermine]

I was always a big Stephen King fan in the 80s and 90s, but haven't been too big on much he's written lately. I suspected that the accident he had in the late 90s (was hit by a van while walking on a road) might have taken a few miles off his literary fastball, thought I did like his conclusion to his Dark Tower series.

Anyway, I just finished "The Cell", which is a couple of years old, and I really liked it. It was like King was back in his "The Stand" form.

The concept: Somebody(thing?) hatches a devestating plot in which every cell phone in existance rings simultaneously, and every person who answers the call basically has their brain erased, and is turned into a murderous zombie.

The book follows a handful of folks who were NOT affected, and their attempt to survive, to figure out exactly what happened... and to find their loved ones...



It's pretty terrific.

I agree, and i've always shyied away from king's books cause of the cheese factor but, I was in the airport and needed some flying reading material and i found this book rivoting.

2 books i highly recomend
1. Into the Wild
it's a true story of this dude who graduates college donates his $23,000 to charity and sets off to explore the US his car breaks down in the desert and proceeds to travel by foot, it's a quite a journey, his name is chris mccandless

2. Anthony Bourdains "kitchen confidential"
awesome book about his life and becoming a chef and cheffing etc. it's kind of like the fear and loathing of the cooking world. very cool book and great read good flow.

"The Cell" is about zombies? I'm there!

PS- Also read Bourdain's book; excellent read! Who knew a chef could be so badass (and pissed off).

Ever see his show on the Travel channel? He was also in Lebanon when Israel started bombing there; he wrote an excellent article about it, let me see if I can find it.

yep it's on the travel channel on monday's at 10 pm est.
awesome show. that guy will eat anything, flipping anything.
he was in africa a couple shows back he and the bush men were out hunting bush men got hungry made a fire fried an egg in the fire no pan or anything it was disgusting to say the least.

I remember he went to Japan and ate that poisonous blowfish that supposedly kills you if it's prepared improperly and he was pissed off that he didn't get rushed to the hospital.

[Rkiivs]

Seven Partly Underground Rooms And Buildings For Water, Ice, and Midgets

Number 20 in the Pamphlet Architecture series. This issue (from the recommended Princeton Architectural Press) is from Mary-Ann Ray who examines various strange and unusual ancient sub-urban (or underground) buildings and structures in Italy. If you have a thing for old cisterns, buried spheres for ice storage, stairways & rooms for midgets, or fornacators (means "furnace man", not to be confused with a word of similar spelling), then this is your literature.

The articles are accompanied by equally interesting photos arranged in a collage technique called "composite" or "built frame" photography (many space & moon photographs are assembled with the same technique which results in a single image made of many photographs).


Recommended for engineers, history enthusiasts, and building groupies.

[Coppermine]

Recommended for engineers, history enthusiasts, and building groupies.

Or, more specifically, all three.

[Rkiivs]

Recommended for engineers, history enthusiasts, and building groupies.

Or, more specifically, all three.

...and seconded on The Secret History! I got that as gift several years ago and it's, oh, top twenty of all-time favorites.

[Rkiivs]

The book I would suggest to everyone is:
Shogun
by James Clavell

There's a possibility that this epic tome may interest you.



"I have not told the half of what I saw and did." - Marco Polo on his death bed.

Jennings fills in the half not told. He vividly describes Marco's journey across the Middle East & Asia and back again to Venice, traveling as "merchant, spy, lover, warrior, and journeyer." Jennings writes with luscious detail that makes me feel, smell, hear, and taste every culture Marco encounters.

It's a hefty read at over a thousand pages but there's not a wasted word in it.

[Coppermine]

Recommended for engineers, history enthusiasts, and building groupies.

Or, more specifically, all three.

...and seconded on The Secret History! I got that as gift several years ago and it's, oh, top twenty of all-time favorites.

Nice

[BGbootha]

i have never really been a fiction guy. A couple of really good reads lately....

"Lies My teacher told me" James Loewen -A look at our American History curriculum and some of the issues surrounding how we teach it and how we look at it. Really makes you think about the process we go through with herofication and villianization. (of course I am a history teacher so this one kind of sticks out to me).

"The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins - This one isn't for everyone, and I am not trying to start a philosophical debate here, but if you want to look at religion from a practical scientific point of view I am in the middle of this and can't put it down. Really puts many things into a different thought process.