We shall fight the tyrannical opression by the book nerds with pure unadultered mathematical power!

the best of dave eggers is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius (he also edits mcsweeny's). you may remember lethem as the man who declined his book the corrections being part of oprah's book club. i don't blame him, it is a truly great piece of writing (as anyone from the dysfunctional suburbs can understand).

Read all the Potters, they are much better than the books, rich in detailed imagery to get a child's imagination running, and yes I'm looking forward to the final one. I was a DND geek in the early 80's too Kafka.... The Metamorphosis...is amazing. Vonnegut, Hesse, so many books, so many writers. The Corrections, an amazing read as well, is by Jonathan Franzen.

Oh oh, Bike Forums book club .....here we go.

I think reading Les miserables in grade 11 was the highlight of my literary experiences.

i think dave eggers is completely unreadable. the half of heartbreaking that i read felt overly pedantic/pretentious.

i work for a small publisher, and my boss (who's from san francisco) hates all the mcsweeney dudes because they act like the rockstars of the literary world.

The story is about him and his struggles with his brother and such? Takes some stones to put genius in the title then....

What is this? A book club meeting?

I've been working my way through all of Haruki Murakami's books. I just can't get enough of him, I consider him a kindred spirit, and every book he writes he gets that much better.

PS. bikes.

I read a book called 'the race' which is about an american guy in the tour de france written by a first time author. Its not very refined, but it was a fun read. If anyone wants to borrow it let me know.

Damn right. It makes me sick just owning it. It's 16 lb right now. My summer project is to bring it down to 15.

That's a really nice door. Too bad there is a bike blocking it.

You mean the space ship!

Does it say Burns Mansion on the door?

Purty! I think you brought that to CM once?

I think those are the doors to the ROM... Based on the ROM on it

yes, franzen. in knew it was one of the johnathans. lethem is also a good read (and published by eggers' company).

You are correct Sir!

i wouldn't call him unreadable, challenging maybe. in fact i liked that book because of the boundary breaking style of it. i actually enjoy the mild pretention of it. have you read his friend neil pollack? the pretention takes on a life of it's own and i guess that's the point.

what publisher do you work for? my wife and i are former publishing world / book people.

here's one mcsweeney's title everyone here could enjoy.

I live with a Pole, he can be annoying at times, and he likes to wear a wife beater and short shorts around the house.

as long as you throw on a new chain while you're at it! and i could use my bar tape redone too...

Eggers managed to have 70 brilliant, breathtaking pages in heartbreaking work out of what 300? I like some of his short fiction but Delillo owns him (Pafko at the Wall anyone? You may also know it as the opening chapter of Underworld) Delillo takes Franzen too. Cory Doctorow's "Someone come to town Someone leaves town" is brilliant too. I agree that the McSweeney's guys have grown a bit big in the britches and Eggers is way too easy to dislike for me to want to defend.

Oh and for my two cents the best Hemingway is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" everyone should be forced to read Capote's "In Cold Blood" "Kafka On the Shore" Murakami is awesome too.

Yes. That was the day after my Fixie tire exploded in the night, nearly giving me a heart attack. My MTB was also in the shop for some reason so I was forced to ride the road bike. Of course, taking every precaution and mothering it like nothing else. I like how careless I can be on my Surly.

FTW~! *Looks outside* Will we ever be able to do the snow ride?

I take my road bike to CM all the time in the summer. No need to baby it, but it is kinda annoying riding the brakes for an hour!

Snow ride- Just start riding north. You'll find snow eventually

Road trip to Ungava Bay, Quebec anyone?

"challenging" isn't the word i would use... maybe i just couldn't understand why a novel should take form over function with little diagrams and bizarro designs.

i work for green candy press. it's an interesting experience, to say the least.