This sounds cool--I have to read Fante now. Speaking of LA have you read Mike Davis's
stuff Frank?

I'm on a bit of a kick. I just finished Pastoralia, In Persuasion Nation, and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. That would have been cool to hear him speak.

I just finished Brave New World and I'm knocking out Brave New World Revisited both (obviously) by Alduos Huxley. It's a classic, I highly recommend it!

I'll be starting Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein this week.

It's a SciFi month, lol.

Just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz. It's well written and chock full of pop culture references if that's your thing but I didn't like it as much as I had hoped to. I guess I'm a little tired of the follow one character then jump over to their parent/grandparent/ etc that seems to characterize a lot of latin american fiction. Nothing about it really grabbed me but I can't pinpoint why not. It does have a lot of history of the Dominican Republic in it that I was unaware of. Cool thing is that if you are into the history aspect, he tucks a lot of info into the footnotes, but if you just want to read the story, you can skip them. After awhile it's gets tiring hearing what a bad guy Trujillo was.

Reading Breaking the Spell by Daniel Denette now which is really good. Super smart guy dissecting why people are drawn to religion and how religion functions. He's definitely an atheist/scientist/rationalist, so you know how it's going to end, but he takes a real even handed approach to the subject. Whereas when I tried to read Christopher Hitchens anti-God polemic I was quickly bored because he was preaching to the choir, Denette really leads you down the path and brings up tons of science/philosophy/psychology which is interesting in and of itself. Well written and accessible. Most science guys bore the hell out of me inside of 20 pages even if I'm interested in the subject matter.

Also recently read "Sundays With Vlad" which is a funny sort of memoir by this reporter who got fascinated with the Dracula story and the real Vlad the Impaler and just sorta traveled around talking to people related to one or the other and riffing on Dracula and pop culture. Not so well put together but funny enough. I was drawn to it after reading "The Historian" which I highly recommend. Great Dracula story.

i just read Donald Hamilton's Murder Twice Told, which is comprised of two hardboiled noir-esque novellas. Published in 1947. Both stories were pretty solid.

About to start Machiavelli's The Prince for class.

I cut school to sit in borders and read that entire book in a day. I'll definitely check out Fante if you read "Hot Water Music" or "Post Office".

I love 'Hot Water Music', probably one of my favorite of Bukowski's (it's also the first one I ever read of his, so that may have something to do with it). I'll have to check out Fante also.

Satanic Verses- by Salmon Rushdie. One of the best books I've ever read.
Also some sailing instructional books, as I have a sailboat.

The Prince is a great read. Enjoy it.

Living My Life by Emma Goldman...wooow.

ooooh.....emma goldman. **** yes.

Swann's Way
Mercel proust

Fathers and Sons
Ivan Turgenev

funny, i also read ham on rye in a bookstore. such a fast read.

Anything by Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, or Larry Heinemann. Probably the best Vietnam War era novelists. Akthough I also agree with popluhv and love 100 Years of Solitude.

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

the immortal class--travis culley

pretty comical. this review on amazon sums it up nicely.

1.0 out of 5 stars for posers, by a poser, January 22, 2003
By avi neurohr
I spent about about 8 years off and on as a messenger. There's a lot to love: freedom and 6% body fat, but by the end of my run, I looked around and saw people my age buying houses and going on vacations, while I was stuck with $20 grand in back taxes and hospital bills. That said, here's my take on this tome.

Imagine one of those evolutionary lines where you see Neanderthals at one end and **** sapiens at the other. Picture four messengers in that line. We all start at one end, and slowly progress, if we're lucky.

The first messenger has seen Quicksilver one too many times. He/she lasts anywhere from a week to a month, suddenly dresses "messenger cool" 24/7, stands around in the square conspicuously checking their pager, goes to "messenger bars" at happy hour, gets off on themselves and generally poses. They last until one of the following happens: "hit and quit," their bike falls apart, they realize that they are expected to do hard work (as a rookie, low paying grunt work), or the first rain/snowstorm/cold snap hits. If they stick it out, they turn into...

Messenger #2, the worst of the bunch. Stronger, faster, maybe they've modded their bike or gear so they really looks the part. Problem is, they're really just hotdogging most of the time, making us all look bad. Going 25 mph on sidewalks, breaking all traffic laws for kicks, cursing at anyone who dares cross their paths, punching cars, and just being unruly for the fun of it. If you ever see a messenger with a whistle in their mouth, this is messenger #2. Unfortunately, most civilians think this is what being a messenger is. Of course pros break the rules, especially for a bank run, or a court run, or when you're just plain slogged, but most experienced messengers will tell you that riding within the law 85% of the time actually helps keep you alive, out of jail, and sane (blowing red lights doesn't count.

I'm going to skip ahead to the end of the evolutionary line, to the LAST messenger: the "lifer" or "careerier." They are 28-35, with a different bike for every type of weather, they never have their hands stained with grease from roadside repairs, and even their "junker" bike is nicer than anything you have. They are quiet, calm, fast, they ignore you and everyone else, and when they race, they wear baggy shorts just to send a message to the spandex crowd. Aloof and elite. Zen, but with lots of ego and attitude, if that's possible.

Messenger 3 is *everyone* else, and about 60% of them fit this mold. They are somewhere in between, in terms of appearance, skills, and attitude. They have been hit enough times to know when to just get out of the way. When somebody flips them off, they say "havagoodone!" You just can't go through life teaching driving lessons to everyone out there. Some are college dropouts, some have Master's degrees, they are triathletes, potheads, ubercyclists on titanium rigs, or just riding Huffys in their jeans. They have identities beyond the bike. These are the cool messengers, the kind you end up hanging out with, if you're lucky.

Which brings me back to Travis' book. Flatly put, he is a hotdogger near the beginning of the line, but from reading his book, you'd think he invented the job. To say his prose is purple is an understatement. He goes on for a page and a half about his wide-eyed wonder at someone doing a track skid. His response to his first "Critical Mass" ride was ridiculous: "People just like me!"...like he's an eskimo in the desert.

When this book came out, according to a story in the Chicago Reader, he had worked the job for 8 months, dug up everyone's stories under the plan of writing an "anthology," and ended up passing them off as his own. Along the way, he nominated himself the spokesmodel for the angry young proletariat.

I realize this book is in the "fiction" category, and an author should be able to take *some* liberties, but it's really more than that. It's about doing $2 runs when the snow is falling, you're sore from taking a spill in a slush puddle, you're soaked and cold, and you still have to keep it up for another 7 hours. Repeat for months or years, until one sunny day, along comes Johnnyboy Hotdog who goes and writes a book about how fun it is to ride in traffic, and how it makes him the Jesus Christ of 21st century America. I, along with a couple other couriers, could hardly read this book without loud violent outbursts. I suppose your take on it all depends where you stand in the lineup.

Just my two cents. If you want to read the messenger encyclopedia, check out Rebecca 'Lambchop' Reilly's self-published book "Nerves of Steel." I'll be honest, it's not *like* reading a diary, it IS a diary, all 300+ pages of it. Without the benefit of a good editor, it certainly has its problems, but hey, it was a labor of love. She worked in at least ten cities around the world, and scoped out the courier scene in a bunch more. Her coverage of the cities I worked in was spot-on, and I found friends from ten years back mentioned in it. It does a great job of painting the messenger "scene" in a number of cities, without demanding that you sign on for her epiphanic self-realizations. For some reason, it's not always available on Amazon, but you can still dig it up on the web.

Between its transparently staged existence, over-the-top prose, and force-fed values, I'd say skip this one. There are decent photos of some ripped Chicago messengers in there, whose stories were used in some form or another. Too bad they didn't write the book.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold. A great novel about a magician in the 1920s.

I actually just got done reading some Emma Goldman "Living My Life" a couple minutes ago. and for the record, ayn rand is a ****ing tool, she should have been shot in her time.

just picked this up...

I just read Moby Dick for the first time as an adult. I swear this book did not have a *****exual cross cultural love affair in it when I read it in school.

^^Stiff looks interesting, I may have to add that to the list.

just finished Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and am in the middle of Susana Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

who is w thoreau?