it's too dark and I can't read

[sab]

musesfool, gamesiplay, dampha, thanks for the book recs. To update:

Today I bought In the Time of the Butterflies thanks to Victoria P (and because G was clever enough to remember what the LJ post said), and am looking forward to it. I also bought Philip Caputo's Exiles on its own recognizance, because I love Philip Caputo and because A Rumor of War is just so excellent.

I have read (and enjoyed!) I Capture The Castle, Homicide: AYOTKS, And the Band Played On, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (one of my all-time favorite books, ain't it great, Dampha?).

I can't deal with Saramago because he doesn't use quotation marks -- how gauche of me, I know, but still. The rest of your recs I'm looking forward to exploring -- which Rushdie should I start with?

Also, more books please, folks? Five books, five bucks, no whammies, big money? Help!

*

In other news, I saw the Band of Brothers extras DVD, which included "We Stand Alone Together," a documentary about Easy Company with interviews from the surviving E-company men and photos and newsreel clips from their actions in WWII. Good stuff. Though the best part of the DVD was Ron Livingston's video diary, which chronicled their Actor's Boot Camp under the iron boot of Captain Dale Dye, Drill Instructor to the Stars! He's the same guy who ran boot camp for my Starship Troopers and I've already had a behind-the-scenes drill with him on the ST DVD; so interesting to see him doing combat training here too, for such a different kind of ground war.

Spoiled ourselves on oysters and steaks. Now I'm drinking a lot of water. Years ago I met a girl who told me she was "really into water" and I laughed at her. Hippie freak. Reluctantly, I withdraw my mockery, because it turns out there's nothing better than a whole lot of water, all the time.

Which reminds me -- how excited am I about Finding Nemo?

Comments

books!

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Five books (http://www.livejournal.com/users/graygirl/122983.html) per your request. :)

[cazling.livejournal.com]

Water rules.

Start with Midnight`s Children or The Moor`s Last Sigh if you`re gonna read Rushdie. I`d go for TMLS myself; I adore that book and I think it`s the most readable and the most luscious and sparkling of the two.

Books books books...

South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami. I think you`d just adore this. infinitemonkeys sent it to me before I went to Japan. It`s not a big book but it`s absorbing and slightly creepy and sad and very beautiful. The last few pages make me ache.

Hmmm. It`s hard for me to think, this far away from all my books. I tell you what, I`ll throw some titles at you and if you haven`t read them, tell me and I`ll tell you more.

Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels.

The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.

White Teeth, Zadie Smith.

The Glass Palace, Amitav Ghosh.

[quasiradiant.livejournal.com]

am enjoying The Satanic Verses, although i must say i loved rushdie's children's (sort of) novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

[herself_nyc]

Thanks for reminding me, I wanted to pimp some books to you but I was working before when I read your post.

Here are five of my favorites (out of a possible 30 million and ten):

1. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. A late-Victorian family in London, in which everyone is extraordinary. A first-person narrative that catches the essence of what it's like to be a very intelligent child.

2. The Brothers K by David James Duncan. Another extraordinary family, this time in the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s. The father could've been a great baseball player if he didn't lose his thumb; the mother is enthralled by her fundamentalist church, and the various children all lead lives of noisy and complex desperation. A book that is large and contains multitudes.

3. Her First American by Lore Segal. A young Jewish woman comes to New York as a refugee after WWII, to live with a cousin. The cousin sends her on a brief train journey west so she can see something of the country; in a Nevada bar Ilka meets Carter, the first black man she's ever seen. He turns out to be an influential NY intellectual, when he's not on the hooch. Their love affair back in Manhattan will break your heart, and this book will show you a great deal about what New York City was like in the late 40s and early 50s.

4. Goodbye without Leaving by Laurie Colwin. A young Jewish woman drops out of graduate school at the University of Chicago in the late '60s to become the token white back-up dancer with Ike & Ruby Shakeley and The Shakettes. Nothing means quite as much to her as soul music and doing the shimmy in front of a cheering throng in a lime-green tasseled dress. But this isn't a lifestyle she can cling to indefinitely . . . .

5. Dancer From the Dance by Andrew Holleran. Brilliantly evocative and atmospheric portrait of gay life in the fast lane in New York City in the '70s.

[cofax7]

Five books for Sab, before I do the boring thing and pay my bills. Bills! Dammit.

I'll give you nonfiction, I think.

OK, John McPhee's Coming Into the Country. Because everyone needs to learn about Alaska, and if it's a little dated it was still the bible for "Northern Exposure" and thus we have a little media-relatedness for Sab to hang a hook on.

Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. He's better known for Into Thin Air, the book about the 1996 Everest deaths, but ITW is better. It's an examination of the life and death of Chris McCandless, who got lost while he was finding himself, and died alone in a broken down schoolbus five miles from civilization. Heartbreaking.

Joe Simpson's Touching the Void. It's an adventure story, about two guys who climbed a 22,000 foot peak in the Andes and then one of them broke his leg on the way down. Gripping, compelling, all those -ing words, and it won the Boardman-Tasker Prize for excellence in mountaineering literature.

Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge. The heartbreaking examination of life and death on a wildlife refuge and in the author's family.

Madeline L'Engle, Summer of the Great-Grandmother. The last year with four generations in the house. Full of faith and family, and grief. A lovely book.

So what IS this book-marketing thing, Sab?

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I can't deal with Saramago because he doesn't use quotation marks -- how gauche of me, I know, but still.

No -- I know exactly what you mean. It's the one thing about him that drives me up the wall (well, that and the comma splices, but I've found a lot of that in Spanish-to-English and Portuguese-to-English books).

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Today I bought In the Time of the Butterflies thanks to Victoria P (and because G was clever enough to remember what the LJ post said), and am looking forward to it.

I actually brought that to a barbecue and didn't socialize and got yelled at for having my nose in a book at a party. But I loved it. *g*

I can't deal with Saramago because he doesn't use quotation marks -- how gauche of me, I know, but still.

Sounds like me not liking Cormac McCarthy for aping Faulkner's style without half the skill.

which Rushdie should I start with?

I'd start with The Moor's Last Sigh, but both are really good.

books

[anyquestions.livejournal.com]

There are books up in my journal, if you're still looking.

If you like In the Time of the Butterflies, you might want to try In the Name of Salome, once you finish.