What are you currently reading?

[epilogue]

Quick and dirty, so a few would probably change if I really thought about it. The top five are definite, the bottom five are off-the-cuff:

To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Tortilla Flat John Steinbeck
The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe
Sometimes A Great Notion Ken Kesey
All The Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live James A. Miller and Tom Shales
'Salem's Lot Stephen King
Born Standing Up Steve Martin
Silver Screen Fiend Patton Oswalt

Outstanding. Thank you. I'll add these to the list.

[The Argonaut]

Not in any order

1984 by George Orwell
What It Takes: The Way to the White House by Richard Ben Cramer
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Professional by W.C. Heinz
The Universal Baseball Assocation, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
Billy Phelan's Greatest Game by William Kennedy
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

and I could easily sub out any number of alternate Vonnegut, Kennedy, or Steinbeck titles for the one I actually chose for each of them. Only one non-fiction on the list. And all white male authors, and almost totally American

[Norah]

Currently reading:





and

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

RIP

Hate that I've still never read his work.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[epilogue]

Looks like A Man in Full will be the first one, then. Added to the list.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[run2death]

[BurtReynolds]

I dont think I've read that one. I was thinking about him just the other day.

[Simple Torture]

Do you guys/gals have a top 10 favorite books list?

Making this list gave me anxiety. Only one book from each author to keep things interesting:

Top 10:

Moby-Dick
2666
Infinite Jest
Blood Meridian
Hopscotch
Ulysses
Henry IV, Part I
The Plague
The Tenth of December
Pale Fire

Ten More:

Tropic of Orange
Swamplandia!
Personal Days
Train Dreams
White Noise
The Brothers Karamazov
The Corrections
The Portable Veblen
Middlesex
100 Years of Solitude

[epilogue]

Excellent! There ate far too many on that list that I haven't read.

[washing machine]

Not in any order

1984 by George Orwell
What It Takes: The Way to the White House by Richard Ben Cramer
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Professional by W.C. Heinz
The Universal Baseball Assocation, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
Billy Phelan's Greatest Game by William Kennedy
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

and I could easily sub out any number of alternate Vonnegut, Kennedy, or Steinbeck titles for the one I actually chose for each of them. Only one non-fiction on the list. And all white male authors, and almost totally American

Cannery Row would be on my list.

[guestT]

Was just thinning out the bookshelf last night so this is fresh in my mind:

Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia (Dennis Covington)
Under the Banner of Heaven (John Krakauer)
Population: 485 (Mike Perry)
Blankets (Craig Thompson)
Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
Drop City (TC Boyle)
Plainsong (Kent Haruf)
Driftless (David Rhodes)
Naked (David Sedaris)
Norwegian Wood (Murakami) (sentimental pick...I gave it to my wife when we first met because I thought it would make me look deep and sensitive)

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Simple Torture]

Tortilla Flat > Cannery Row.

You're all overthinking it: it's Of Mice and Men.

This is like when people try to argue about the best Radiohead album and forget OK Computer exists. The answer is right in front of your face!

[Norah]

Tortilla Flat > Cannery Row.

You're all overthinking it: it's Of Mice and Men.

This is like when people try to argue about the best Radiohead album and forget OK Computer exists. The answer is right in front of your face!

You spelled Grapes of Wrath wrong.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[Norah]

I've only read Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.