Gonna start reading Dune either tonight or tomorrow. Been meaning to do so for like three years.

[quote="Marekenshin"]Gonna start reading Dune either tonight or tomorrow. Been meaning to do so for like three years.[/quote]

I dunno why it reminded me of this, but I'm just gonna say for those of you who haven't read it, go check out Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

Wind-up Bird Chronicle

[quote="Jomei"]Wind-up Bird Chronicle[/quote]



...same actually.

I just finished The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

[quote="Jomei"]Wind-up Bird Chronicle[/quote]

I'd be curious to hear your reaction to that book...

I need something new to read, I just finished [i]The Amber Spyglass[/i] but haven't had a chance to go to the library. >_<

man in black... once that's done, i'll read shakey.

[quote="terra"][quote="Jomei"]Wind-up Bird Chronicle[/quote]

I'd be curious to hear your reaction to that book...

I need something new to read, I just finished [i]The Amber Spyglass[/i] but haven't had a chance to go to the library. >_<[/quote]
What kinda books are you into? I have a rather large book... collection? myself, and I know a bit about books so I could [i]probably[/i] make a recommendation. Though, they're generally mainstream.

If you haven't checked him out, I suggest it strongly. Check out Jack Kerouac. He's a very famous postmodern writer, and known as the king of the Beat Generation, which is where beatniks came from. If you don't know what those are (which most Americans do ;p so I'm sure you do), they were PRETTY much the first American subculture. Well, subculture along the lines of Hippies, Indie kids, emos, blahblah, except the beats and such came from literature instead of music, although jazz is associated with them. Kerouac is brilliant, and his writing style is just VERY enjoyable to read.

The most famous book of his is On the Road. I read [i]most[/i] of it. Unfortunately, I still haven't read the last bit (like 20 or 30 pages.) However, what I did read was awesome. The book's pretty much an autobiography, they just changed the names. All of his books are basically autobiographies but with different character names. You can look up the actual REAL characters on wiki or something, but basically Sal Paradise=Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty=Neal Cassady, Carlo Marx=Allen Ginsberg, Old Bull Lee=William S. Burroughs, etc. Anyway, it's about him and his friends going cross country a few times, and it's just really enjoyable. Although this style of story is a bit... overdone nowadays, this was basically the original one. Young people adrift in America, trying to find themselves, having sex, doing drugs, etc. It's a really enjoyable book.

Another great book (I've read about a quarter of, which I need to fricking read the rest of soon) by Kerouac is called the Dharma Bums. It's about him and a friend of his going into the mountains with another person and... well, it's all about Buddhism, pretty much. What I've read of it is very interesting, but I only got up to the part where they were first in the mountains, so I don't know how the MAIN parts of the book are. ;[ I think I might actually read that tomorrow, because I don't know where my copy of On the Road is right now. It might be in my backpack, but I don't really remember where that is since it's break.

If you're into poetry, here's some authors to check out: Allen Ginsberg ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg ), Billy Collins ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Collins , I've only read the Art of Drowning, but it's very good. ), Ezra Pound ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound ), and William Carlos Williams ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams .)

Unfortunately, I haven't been into literature/poetry enough to get into some really good, but lesser-known stuff. I know most of the mainstream stuff from school and just reading stuff on wiki or on my own from the library, but all the stuff I know from modernism and before I learned in school, and all the postmodern stuff I know is from wiki, basically. Hopefully in college I'll be able to get more into it, and blahblahblah. Anyway, check out the stuff I recommended if you'd like to.

Also, Ezra Pound is a fucking bad ass. The only thing I don't agree with is his antisemitism. However, you have to agree that he's just bad ass. He got sent to the insane asylum (after his friends pleaded insanity on his behalf, and by friends I mean the other members of the Lost Generation, if I recall correctly. He was about to be executed) for treason against the United States, gets released, and in an interview, they asked him "What do you think of the United States, now?" "It's an insane asylum." He said, then shortly afterwards, he went back to Italy and died there. The dude's just awesome, although a bit coo-coo in some of his beliefs.

Didn't read all of that, but I have been meaning to check out some Kerouac. Every keystroke Murakami has ever made, some Oe, some Vonnegut, and Faulkner may have to come first, though.

[quote="Jomei"]Didn't read all of that, but I have been meaning to check out some Kerouac. Every keystroke Murakami has ever made, some Oe, some Vonnegut, and Faulkner may have to come first, though.[/quote]
Who's this Murakami ? XD Each time I read a post of yours in this thread I keep getting more and more curious.


And DEFINITELY check out Kerouac. He's one of my favorites definitely. However, only read him if you're in a mellow or good mood. I read it once when I was in a shitty, horrible, WOE-IS-ME mood, and it just annoyed me. He's got this very... I don't know. It's like a really upbeat style of writing, even for sad things. I don't think upbeat is the word I'm looking for, but I couldn't think of anything else to fit it. Not like he's constantly happy or particularly optimistic, but his writing sent chills down my spine when I was in a good mood, and when I was in my FRIEDRICHNIETZSCHEISTHEMAN mood, it was like D: WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS CAT THINK HE IS. Also, Nietzsche isn't as bleary as most people think he is. He's actually pretty optimistic, and not really a nihilist, however... he makes you so pissed off at humanity that you get all down and blue.

Here's some awesome Kerouac quotes so you can get a clue as to what his writing style is like:
"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" " (On the Road)

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future." (On the Road)

"Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child, believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome, grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life." (On the Road)

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." (On the Road)
^my personal favorite.

"I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstacy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass." (The Dharma Bums)

"Sociability is just a big smile, and a big smile is nothing but teeth." (The Dharma Bums)

"I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted." (The Dharma Bums)

Then some random quotes of him:

"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down."

"All of life is a foreign country."

"We should be wondering tonight, "Is there a world?" But I could go and talk on 5, 10, 20 minutes about is there a world, because there is really no world, cause sometimes I'm walkin' on the ground and I see right through the ground. And there is no world. And you'll find out."

kerouac and murakami are hacks for depressed teens. EOF

How the fuck is Kerouac a hack? What the hell do YOU read, huh? OH DUDE I READ ROMEO AND JULIET IN MY 9TH GRADE ENGLISH CLASS, SHAQUILESPEAR IS COOL. Gtfo my internets.

[quote="h2orowe"]How the fuck is Kerouac a hack? What the hell do YOU read, huh? OH DUDE I READ ROMEO AND JULIET IN MY 9TH GRADE ENGLISH CLASS, SHAQUILESPEAR IS COOL. Gtfo my internets.[/quote]

that was a ridiculous retort. i lol'd anyway

comics can be considered reading materials. im reading Fables. fucking awesome. anyone keep up with it?

[quote="h2orowe"]How the fuck is Kerouac a hack? What the hell do YOU read, huh? OH DUDE I READ ROMEO AND JULIET IN MY 9TH GRADE ENGLISH CLASS, SHAQUILESPEAR IS COOL. Gtfo my internets.[/quote]

lol

upon further thought, it should read "pretentious depressed teens"

Sorry h2orowe, but I totally skipped your monster of a post up there and just lol'd at Zenkalia baiting you. I finally started Dune, it seems good so far, but my enjoying it is interrupted by the fact that I have two ten-page essays looming ahead and two oral presentations (one for Chinese and one for Japanese).

I was half joking. I could completely understand why someone wouldn't like Kerouac, it's just saying it's for depressed teens is dishonoring him. It's for wanna-be "zen" teens. Y'know, those kids who think they've got life figured out and shit, and they try to sound deep with everything they say, but in reality they have no clue what they're talking about?

"The cup's not half empty, the cup's not half full. The cup just is."

:3 Also, wanted an excuse for Shaquille O'Speare. But, yeah, I'm actually honestly curious, Zenkalia. What do you even read?