spud

+4 on Chuck Palahnuik, glad to see him make so many posts on page1
+1 on Douglas Adams

Sinfield

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter S.
The Rum Diaries- also by the good dr.
The River Why- David James Duncan
Cold Beer and Crocodiles- can't remember the author, but it's about some dudes bike trip around Australia.

mascher

for travelling on two wheels, especially the between here and there is better than here or there: I See By My Outfit by Peter Beagle

For love and all it entails: The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

For bikes, and how to learn how to ride one, and yes, I know you think you know how to ride one: Effective Cycling by John Forster

mascher

Oh, and wild reenthusiasm for whoever suggested Infinite Jest. Underworld too, even if you think Delillo is a ******. Just read the preface then.

joy&revolution

i would recommend anything by either Johnathan safran foer or dave eggers, absolutely amazing writers. Foer's latest extremely loud and incredibly close is hillarious and the saddest thing you'll ever read all at once. Just about anything published by McSweenys press is pretty interesting. I also just finished reading Oh, The Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey that was quite good as well. Cheers.

queerpunk

I just read a book called How Soccer Explains The World, which has a great couple of chapters on soccer hooligans in the former Yugoslavia and how they were organized (via organized crime) and turned into paramilitaries; the whole book in general describes cultural globalizations--casual case studies, if you will--using soccer to explain it in each case. Not the game of soccer, but soccer/football as it's situated in the scenario discussed. Catalan nationalism, Serbian nationalism, American "culture wars," Brazilian capitalism, Islamic misogyny... stuff like that. it's a good read.

Also, if you like epic novels, Susannah Clark's "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" is like Harry Potter for grownups, with a dash of Tolstoy, a dollop of Tolkien, and a pinch of irony (it's set in 19th century London High Society)

Aeroplane

Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox. One of the greatest unheralded athletes of our time.

Also, the Marvel 1602 GN by Neil Gaiman. Fscking stellar.

pitboss

Pyongyang - Delisle's graphic novel on his journeys in North Korea's capital city. Excellent, yet quick, read.
Also - MAUS by Art Spiegleman (another grpahic novel). Mc Sweeney's has a decent compilation graphic novel (McSweeney's Issue 13) too.
Just a few for both the reading and looking...

queerpunk

be still my heart
oranges are not the only fruit was one of my favorite books.

Serendipper 

#1

sbeatonNJ

The Things They Carried was a great book read it for class. On the bicycling side might I reccomend Heft on Wheels by Mike Magnuson. Right now I am reading a book called One Nation Under Therapy, its about the weakening of standards in society and the education system and the negative effects that this will have one day. Pretty interesting book, I still can't believe they don't want teachers to use red pens anymore.

skelly

as for graphic novels, my favorite series is Kabuki. written and drawn by David Mack. The earlier issues are black and white, but the recent volumes are in color with pen, pencil, paint, watercolor, collage, and just about anything else you can think of. You'll stare at each page long after you've finished reading the words on it.

killsurfcity

"subculture" by dick hebdidge. everyone should read this, especially if you are part of the sub/counter-culture (or think you are). you will see the world differently after.

schiavonec

Hunter Thompson - San Juan Diaries (written before the rest but released later and relatively unknown - kind of a precursor of the rest)

P J O'Rourke - A batchelor home companion (just for fun)

Kite Runner - Provokes intersting questions about the current state of the world (good story overall)

If you are a dog person (Bedlam Farm)

Dry by A burroughs(sp?) is supposed to be good and in the same genre as a million little pieces

None of these are bike related, but Immortal Class was a good quick read if you haven't read it yet.

nicomachus

I didn't know what to think of this thread topic at first. But it's brought out the fact that y'all have some really interesting taste in books. And I find see a lot of overlap with my own interests, which makes me think I'll be interested in the recommended books that I've never heard of. Thanks.


Amen. (pun intended... you have to read to understand)

my own contributions
James Dickey -- Deliverance
Barbara Kingsolver -- Bean Trees, then Pigs in Heaven
Ron Rash -- One Foot in Eden
James Baldwin -- The Fire Next Time
John Stilgoe -- Outside Lies Magic
William S. Burroughs -- Queer
Piotr Sommer -- Continued (poetry)
William Faulkner -- Sanctuary
Ellison -- Invisible Man
Richard Wright -- Native Son (couldn't put it down for 2 days)
and my all time favorite... Albert Camus -- The Stranger

I'll second Kerouac, On the Road; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Angela Davis, Women, Race, Class (but habitus... can you really understand Judith Butler? I didn't think anyone could)


-- Nico

isotopesope

those books are stellar.

totally unrelated, another great book i re-read this summer is erland loe's "naïve, super".

habitus

second baldwin and camus (although i'm partial to the plague)


well, after reading gender trouble 3 times i better! seriously, she writes with a deliberate difficulty, pushing the limits of the normative language. best to read her with others who are willing to admit their confusion.

queerpunk

nicomachus-- you could put kingsolver down w/o putting Prodigal Summer? interesting! if you haven't read it, you should.

i think the deal with Judith Butler is that it's part of postmodern resistance to metanarratives, making text difficult, forcing engagement, making text more like a painting than like a mathematical equation.

I saw her speak last winter and she blew my mind. it was kind of like watching somebody juggle, or freestyle or beatbox, or dance, except she was doing it with ideas...

s_9

rereading Chronicles of Narnia right now....it's going much quicker this time, 20 years later.

Amazing Adventures of Cavalier in Clay is also awesome


and I echo Slopvehicle's sentiments on Dave Egger's stuff being snarkily uninteresting. And personally for me, I can't stand Chuck Pahluniak. I might be the only one. Sorry!

The ****-Up
by Arthur Nersesian is also pretty fun.

habitus

yeah. have you ever read lacan? although he deals with grand narratives (the law of the father), his texts are similar. elizabeth grosz wrote that to even comprehend his work in its depth is to already be committed to supporting it. there's no going in and coming back unchanged.

i don't really understand him much.

nicomachus

only because, like you said, i haven't read it yet. sounds like i should move it up in the queue.

Really, there is too much to choose from with Camus. I see all of his works as an ongoing dialogue. The Plague refutes the ideas developed in The Stranger. The Fall shows what's incomplete about the community developed in the The Plague. And The First Man, had he finished it, would have refuted The Fall. His death was our loss.

I see what you guys are saying on Butler. Sometimes I think post-modern theorists are just engaged in mental-************, but Butler has been able to reach and speak to so many otherwise alienated communities that I think she's done more good than most academics. She's really challenged academia to take gender seriously as a constructed social dynamic (i.e. a concept that is not synonymous with biological concepts like "sex").

Yeah, read with others who can admit their own confusion. That's good advice for reading anything difficult. That's how I ploughed through Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Heidegger's Being and Time. i wouldn't have stuck with them if it had not been for the support of friends who could admit being as confused as I was.

Kerplunk

Check out some David Sedaris...I finished "Me Talk Pretty Someday" a while back and have reread it several times. His books are typically collections of short story...many times focusing on his quirky/humorous homelife growing up. It's a fun read around the holidays.

queerpunk

yeah, i found Prodigal Summer to be one of those books that is just sort of perfectly constructed.

i think you're right about pomo theorists engaged in mental-************, but it's important mental ************. like jackson pollock. i'm all for disrupting the order and logic of academia and throwing it open to the neurotic madness of frenzied postmodern theory. it keeps me on my toes and keeps me from being too sure about anything, and that's a good thing.

HelluvaStella

Well, material galore. Thanks all for your continuing suggestions. Anything HST I've read, reread and loved. All the folks recommending Douglas Adams: All Right! Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was outstanding. I recently read some great nonfic-scifi (I know, contradiction) called Strange Angel. I forget the author, but it was the bio of some nut named Parsons who kinda-sorta started NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, took over an occult order formed by Alister Crowley (sp?) and got rooked by L Ron Hubbard. Wow.

I am lukewarm to Delillo, ditto to Eggers. They got a fair shake, a read a couple of things from each, but I came away with... meh. No offense to anyone intented. Pynchon, though, was intense. Once you can unmoor your mind from expecting a story per se you can be greatly rewarded.

I've got a list as long as my arm, and I see that there was the added benefit of bringing a fuller understanding of all of us. I've particularly enjoyed the recent threads like "Work..." and the music related threads that give everyone the depth that may not come from a pic of your IRO. I hope to someday have the chance to meet just a handfull of you fools over a beer and on the streets.

Thanks

brunop

you're kidding, right?