I've had a busy two weeks.
The Places in Between -- Rory Stewart
Letter to a Christian Nation -- Harris
Absurdistan - Shteyngant
Mayflower -- Philbrick
Joe(actually in the middle of Absurdistan)Nation
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality by Brad Warner
halfway through, it's quite entertaining & informative to boot. any Buddhists here who've read it, i'd be interested in reading your reaction to it.
A biography of Raissa Gorbachova
Against the Day, by Thos. Pynchon
I want to read Absurdistan!
I finished "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai -- wonderful! The ending was a little weak, otherwise a very good book.
Just (as in 10 minutes ago) finished "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Pissed me off. I finished it and literally threw it on the ground. It has a last minute twist that is just plain mean. I cried and everything but I was extremely irritated by the soap opera-ness of it all. UN subtle.
Trying to modulate my response before I go to my book club tomorrow. (New one, first meeting.) I doubt everyone else will have hated it as much as I did and I don't want to be ubersnob right off.
(Manipulative!! Oooh. I mean some skill displayed in all that manipulation of course, but... oooh!!!)
I was reading some biographical stuff, and found this.
Quote:The first book of mine that my kids read was My Sister's Keeper. My oldest decided to read it as an assignment, and he got absorbed in the story and the young narrator very quickly. The day he finished the book, I found him crying on the couch. He shoved me away and went up to his room and told me that he really couldn't speak to me for a while, he was THAT angry at me.
No kidding!
<glower>
yitwail wrote:Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality by Brad Warner
halfway through, it's quite entertaining & informative to boot. any Buddhists here who've read it, i'd be interested in reading your reaction to it.
Not really a buddhist, but I did (partially) read that. Didn't get a chance to finish it as it was reading material in a friend's bathroom.
.........
Currently I'm reading a few books at a go. Having fun with cookbooks right now.
About half way through "when rabbit howls" and don't honestly know if I will finish it anytime soon.
It is all at once enthralling
and extraordinarily boring.
Always like to hear what others have felt and thought about books I am reading...
sozobe -- There is something called The Intergenerational Book Club at the school where I teach and that group read a book by Jodi Picoult last month.
I chose not to read it because I couldn't bring myself to read a book written by someone named, "Jodi."
Sounds like my old book group would not have read it: doesn't sound like 'literature.'
Gee, people have called me that and I liked it. My own name is more elaborate, or very short.
I just finished The Tailor of Panama by le Carre'. It annoyed me in various ways (cut!, cut!), and yet, relieved as I was to end the thing, I gathered more and more appreciation. Shut up! Oh, don't !!!
It is a satiric (but not all so satiric) spoof on government, or counterpart, bodies machinating and of the woof and warp of the people caught up making a web; Campbell's (leCarre's) language engages just as you are about to slam the book down. His characters in this usually speak with different voices.
I should explain, I'm almost anti literature, in that I get it already when a character is on her or his way downhill at the beginning and I weary on the journey to the obvious. Thus, I don't actually like some highly prized tomes - though I remember them.
I might really like this book, give me a week or two, I'm still digesting it.
Several nicely bodied characters, liars, mostly, in one way or another, yet I can imagine being any of the characters - or wing it.
I looked the book up on amazon via a2k, and the reviewers seemed generally to have my take, though the accumulated stars from the many are fairly few, assumed to be people looking for more action.
(not that I think that. Remember, I almost threw the book down.)
Someone even called the book "literature".
On my sig line, that is a character speaking..
The name "Jodi" doesn't turn me off in the least. She seems like a nice woman, very familiar-looking, checked to see if she was from UW-Madison in case I'd gone to school with her or something (don't think so).
She's just written a totally cynical melodramatic formulaic money-grubber of a book that really irritated me, and I didn't strike the right tone at the inaugural book group which also irritated me. (I don't require a bunch of literary high fliers to enjoy talking about books -- I would've spontaneously combusted during one of my old book club's meetings if so -- I was just getting frustrated that I wasn't seeming to get across how sloppy and soap opera-ish it all was. Tried to point out internal inconsistencies and got things like "well but that's her point, there are no easy answers..." Well yes but... <gives up>)
Has anyone else read that book?
After reading "Judge and Jury" by James Patterson recently, I went to Barnes and Noble and bought "4th of July." This will be my bedtime reading before I hit the snooze button.
I'm reading the Kite Runner right now.
I just finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Contrary to how it may sound, this has nothing to do with Physics- it SO GOOD- I highly recommend it-
http://www.amazon.com/Special-Topics-in-Calamity-Physics/dp/067003777X
Has anyone else read this? I want to discuss!
flushd wrote:yitwail wrote:Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality by Brad Warner
halfway through, it's quite entertaining & informative to boot. any Buddhists here who've read it, i'd be interested in reading your reaction to it.
Not really a buddhist, but I did (partially) read that. Didn't get a chance to finish it as it was reading material in a friend's bathroom.
no disrespect, but that's an appropriate place to read it--the book mentions attaining enlightenment in unlikely places, if you catch my drift.
finished the book & i'm now doing a daily 20 minute meditation--but don't know if that makes me a Buddhist. sent email to the author, who know lives in LA, it seems, but he hasn't replied.
i have a couple more questions for Buddhists--i may have to start a thread, if they don't respond in this one: does the precept against killing prohibit eating meat, and does the precept against intoxication prohibit taking antidepressants?
Flushd and Yitwale,
There are a number of threads covering various Buddhist topics on the A2K Spirituality and Religion Forum. I suggest you check those out and post your questions there.
Buddhist monks and priests are almost exclusively vegetarians who neither drink alcohol nor take psychotropic drugs. Among the Buddhist laity the standards are much lower, with meat/fish/eggs being consumed. Laymen/householders do drink, but seldom to excess.
I'm not familiar with the book cited, but its title is somewhat off-putting. If you are really interested in Buddhism, I suggest that you seek out more serious titles. A list of Buddhist books that I recommend will be found in a thread over on the Spirituality and Religion forum.
See you there.
Asherman,
thanks for the reply & i will be looking for info in spirituality & religion. the book's title is autobiographical--the author was originally a punk-rock bassist, then went to Japan to teach English before landing a job with the studio that makes Godzilla movies. he also received "dharma transmission" (or "shiho" in Japanese, whatever that might be) after years of practice, including many retreats at the main Soto zen temple in Fukui, Eiheiji, so its content might be orthodox despite the title. :wink:
Reading Updike's latest, Terrorist, called, "A Novel." Well, it is not a novel but a rumination and expose of the heart of America at this very moment, which is difficult to do. Marred by Updikean sex, which I always found less than convincing.
Strawberry, those are both books I want to read! Haven't read either one yet though.
About to re-read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" -- my suggestion for the book club. Figured it was nice and light and straightforward, but it's one I enjoyed a lot and wanted to discuss when I finished it (~6 months ago).
