Favorite Books of the Secretly Jerky
Secretly Thinks You’re an Idiot: American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis.
Really, we can lump the whole Ellis oeuvre in here. Less Than Zero. Rules of Attraction. Whatever. Dude has an issue with ladies, ladies with their tiresome “thoughts” and “emotions,” and none of these characters has a single problem that couldn't be cured in two steps: Stop doing coke, stop banging hookers. If his literary hero is one of the Bateman brothers, head for the horizon and don’t look back.
Secretly Loves Drugs More Than He Loves You: Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.
I’m inclined to give the gentleman a pass on this one, because one day, after many years of guys trying to explain Thompson’s appeal, I woke up with a revelation: Hunter S. Thompson is Meg Cabot for dudes. I could never explain to a dude why I like to read Meg Cabot books in the bathtub, and he could never explain to me why he likes to imagine tripping out in Vegas. It's a street that goes both ways. Still, if he quotes it somewhere in his Facebook profile, maybe don’t go through airport security with him. You wanted to fly home for Thanksgiving and suddenly you’re in a TSA holding cell, all because he thought his stash would be lonely without him.
Secretly Loves Himself More Than He Loves [Anything]: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand.
He’s not going to feed your fish when you go out of town, and he’ll be mean to your mom.
Secretly a Blubbering Manchild: Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.
I'm not saying this is a bad book. This is a pretty good book! I'd still like to raise two points. One, when a dude says it's his favorite, I automatically think "So he hasn't read anything since tenth grade English." And two, any time a person over the age of 18 tells you how much they identify with Holden Caulfield, it's a warning sign. Like a warning sign with flashing lights and shrieky sirens and a third alarming thing. I mean, I'm not telling you how to live your life, ladies. I'm just letting you know what you're walking into. Do it with your eyes open.
Secretly Planning to Cheat on You: On the Road, Jack Kerouac.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This book is straight up terrible. It's a bunch of rambling about eating some sandwiches and driving around while eating sandwiches, and driving around, and then making some more sandwiches, which you will then eat while driving around. It is the universal favorite book of commitment-phobes. And please don't quote me that paragraph about how the only people for you are the mad ones who pop like roman candles. You know what’s better than a dude who pops like a roman candle? A dude who can keep it in his pants, rent his own apartment, and cook you something other than a sandwich once in a while.
Molly Shalgos job-hunts and reads in Los Angeles.
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But I love sandwiches.
@theharpoon
She said ryely.
@theharpoon I propose a toast to that most versatile food.
@theharpoon I'm usually too crusty to admit it but I have to say that you're my hero!
@science is sexy@twitter
Somehow you mustard that one up.
@atipofthehat My punning kneads work, it seems.
@science is sexy@twitter
Lettuce not fight.
@science is sexy@twitter Ham it up, why don't you.
Something something grinder! (I hardly know 'er.)
@Lily Rowan If I say you've got nice buns, will you touch my baguette?
I AM EDITING THIS TO SAY HOW SORRY I AM
@Lily Rowan
That was so hoagie!
@theharpoon Well isn't this a pickle!
@atipofthehat I love cheesie puns but I'm too chicken to come up with any.
@atipofthehat If I wasn't such a poor boy I'd go get a sandwich right now.
@science is sexy@twitter Join the club!
@myeviltwin
Not everyone wants to be a hero.
@atipofthehat Any way you slice it, this is a whole muffa-lotta bad puns
@atipofthehat I want to join in but I don't want Edith to ban me.
@myeviltwin
That was a cold cut, but I probably deserved it.
@atipofthehat I'd try to come up with another one butty I think I've run out of ideas
@nonvolleyball it's true, she might grill you if you get too cheesy.
@dr. annabel lies
I could go on, but I'm afraid Edith would Bánh Mì.
@atipofthehat You just take a joke and grinder into the ground, don't you?
@dr. annabel lies
Sub limity.
@atipofthehat
See @nonvolleyball — soooooorrrry!
@atipofthehat jinx! although you went full-on with the accents (which I thought would be too much of a panini ass).
@dr. annabel lies I know, I've been reuben my temples trying to think of one that hasn't been used yet…
@nokittythisismypotpie If I fret any more over these sandwich puns, I'm liable to croque!
@nonvolleyball
It happened so fast, all the replies were sandwiched together.
@theharpoon Oh this is SO unfair, I missed a pun thread, and the genuine reason was cos I was busy making zucchini bread.
@dr. annabel lies
You jam bon!
@atipofthehat It's cristo clear that this thread has to stop
@dr. annabel lies
I don't relish it any more than you do.
@theharpoon Seriously. It is time to admit that the "oh we should stop punning" is just open-faced lies.
@LateyKatie That's a wrap.
You all need a good bap on the head.
@atipofthehat I can't ketchup with all this quick-fire punning
@Butterscotch Stalin
You're right, and I falafel about it. Pita me.
Ugh, nothing worse than being peppered with puns, let's put a steak through the heart of this.
@I'm Not Rufus Oops, I mayo you all an apology for that one.
@I'm Not Rufus Anyone still loafing around here?
@theharpoon Cheesus Crust this got bad
@theharpoon http://breadpeople.tumblr.com/
I agree with all of these in theory, but I have to stand up for sandwiches. Whatever issues On the Road might have, don't let it sully the noble sandwich!
@lil_bobbytables There was the part where the dude had sandwiches, but wouldn't let anyone eat them. That was pretty bad.
This is all true. So very, very, sadly true.
One, when a dude says it's his favorite, I automatically think "So he hasn't read anything since tenth grade English."
This is the most true thing I have read all week. The whole post is true (and wonderful) but this part the most.
I love this post too! Especially "On The Road" for me.
@Vicky Johnson yes! It's like those t-shirts they sell with vintage book cover images on them, the point of which I guess is to make the wearer seem well read, but every book featured was mandatory reading in high school.
@rootmarm Also: Why do these people always pick the crappier end of required reading? Not everything we had to read in school was terrible.
@rootmarm Awwwwwww I like those. I have the Master and Margarita one. But they do cater to a certain demographic, I think.
@Vicky Johnson In college, I didn't-quite-date a guy who used to give the name "Holden Caulfield" at restaurants. I really should've known.
@annepersand I was thinking of buying the master and the margarita but might opt for some bukowski poems instead…would you highly recommend bulgakov's book?
@Vicky Johnson We spent some time last month talking to a young friend whose young husband's favorite book is Catcher in the Rye. We agreed it was good, but explained that it's basically about a teenager realizing that life as a grownup turns you into a sucky person who probably lies a lot, and that he'd rather hang out on the merry-go-round with his kid sister in perpetual childhood. An all-too-knowing expression crossed her face and she changed the subject. Note: they live with his parents. I worry about them.
@burgy Despite my general dislike of Russian literature, I enjoyed The Master and Margarita. Not my all-time favorite, but good and worth reading.
@burgy Yes! Read The Master and Margarita! It's really fun! And clever! It will never show up on one of these lists. Probably.
@burgy Yes! It's fantastic. Get the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation if you can. The translation really makes all the difference and I didn't totally care for the Mirra Ginsberg one.
@Vicky Johnson The one thing I can say for the Catcher in the Rye dude, above all the others, is that I really, really admire Salinger's writing (which I could explain at greater length, but let's not be dorks here). However, I'd make him read Raise High the Roofbeam/Seymour and see if maybe he liked that better? Because he should.
@annepersand M & M is funny and moving and altogether fantastic, but pleeeaaaase don't give Pevear & Volokhonsky any more money. He knows no Russian, her English is not so good, so together they share jut about a whole translating brain. Their stuff is NOT good. I recommend O'Connor & Burgin's translation, also has excellent notes & essay. P & V are NOT good. Their Gogol' is a HORROR. UZHAS.
@rocknrollunicorn Yes! I'm pretty sure I enjoyed Catcher the least of any Salinger. But it's all pretty great.
@bashe: I've got the Michael Glenny translation, which is pretty good stuff. M & M is one of my favorite books ever.
@Ophelia: Why the "general dislike" of Russian lit? There is so much awesomeness there I don't even know where to start. But then again I was a Russian minor in college and am thus programmed…
@bashe I didn't like their Gogol, it's true, but I thought their Anna Karenina was quite good. I don't speak Russian, so. I did like the O'Connor translation.
Wait – there are *sandwiches* in On the Road??? Must read now!
I'm reading Fear & Loathing right now and it's fun yet exhausting, kind of like Vegas itself I guess. Reading a chapter in that book is like going through the fiercest hangover/comedown ever.
And YES to the quoting Kerouac's mad ones, roman candle thing. If I had a dollar for every Facebook friend who put that in their quotes/bio… I didn't realize there were so many crazy, bright, burning stars of uniqueness out there!
and here i thought that all men don't read.
@becky@twitter I found my partner reading the Game of Thrones books which after flipping through I decided are bromance novels. There's stuff about "biting nipples" and "entering her" interspersed with the killing and stuff.
@DrFeelGood Secretly Wishes you were a Direwolf: Game of Thrones
@oxla i wish he was a direwolf, or anything involved in this picture (http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/pets/news/110801/kit-harington-440.jpg)
my comment was made sarcastically. maybe i have my cranky pants on today, but this article is full of generalizations directed at a single gender.
@DrFeelGood there is SO much stuff about nipples in the Game of Thrones books. They're constantly being bitten and sucked on and sliced off and just generally described in detail. GRRM loves nipples!
@becky@twitter I'm uncertain as to why ladies who love these books more than anything aren't also getting the smackdown from this post; they deserve it!
@lesleygee the actor who plays jon snow needs to learn how to close his mouth. the pup is unimpeachable, however.
@becky silly things are silly
@rootmarm INORITE. Khal Drogo basically died of ripped nip!!
@oxla i guess i will have to take that actor under my wing, then. (the puppy comes with.)
@DrFeelGood My boyfriend said there's whole chapters about the sex habits of the dothraki and how they mount their partners like horses. It sounded like Harlequin novels for dudes.
@parallel-lines Niice.
@becky@twitter I guess if we were going to make gross over-generalizations; the lady edition, it should include "Eat, Pray, Love", anything by Jennifer Wiener, "Little Women" etc.
@parallel-lines more like Clan of the Cave Bear (for dudes?). also: "My boyfriend says…" if you know they're called dorthraki, i'm guessing you're more well acquainted than the series than you claim…enough to know it doesn't take a whole chapter to to say "they mount their partners like horses." let alone multiple ones…just sayin'.
@rootmarm, et al. The Dothraki love nipples. It is known.
@rootmarm: GRRM is essentially a boobs guy. It is known.
"This is true," Tyrion uttered saucily, tearing apart a loaf of steaming bread with his teeth and lazily tracing his fingertips along the spine of a nearby and obliging whore. "Also, have I mentioned I am a dwarf today?"
@Emmanuelle Cunt Yeah, I don't see the gender issues here — women who call these books their favorites are also jerks!
@oxla Jon Snow only has one facial expression and it is so sad, because I liked him so much in the books. Poor Jon Snow, what have they done to you?
@thebestjasmine i tend to think anyone who claims to have a favorite book is generally dubious. i mean, really? your BEST friend? okaaay.
@theharpoon he is terribly cast. he 1. doesn't look like jon snow. 2. isn't good looking enough 3. CANNOT CLOSE HIS BLOODY MOUTH (pet peeve i guess!) 4. stupid and ugly and i hate him 5. the end
@oxla Um…no. Just the show on HBO. No intentions on reading the books. They are really, really long and, from what I heard (not from my "boyfriend" so chill), frustrating/aimless.
@oxla I must admit, I loves me some Jon Snow, in the book and the series. However, I think we can all agree that Peter Dinklage is the best casting ever done by anyone ever.
Ah, time for some breakfast!
@thebestjasmine @Emmanuelle Cunt i guess this makes me a jerk then. hate on, haters.
@applestoapples
I'm against nipples.
As often as possible!
@oxla Totally agree! I could not pick one favorite book. I mean, favorite for what time of day? What season? What mood I'm in? Etc.
@Dancersize agreed. all the other casting is great. dinklage as tyrion and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as jaime especially! i read a whole comment thread about how Coster-Waldau's hair was/was not pretty enough to play Jaime that made me proud to be a nerd.
@parallel-lines sorry if i was overly aggressive! i guess i forgot where i was for a minute and thought i was at westros.org. anyhoo: if you put your fingers in your ears and go "lalala" whenever sex comes up in the books, the first 3 are definitely worth a read (if you like fantasy) before you hit the diminishing returns of the books 4 and 5.
@oxla No worries! My friends call the show "Tits and Swords" because of all the sexin', but I'm wary to get too deeply involved in anything I know is going to be disappointing in the end (looking at you, LOST – still mad!)
PS: I just got a tshirt with your usericon on it and everyone freaks out when they see it. Best ever.
@becky@twitter Hell I secretly wish I was a direwolf. Or at least had one.
@oxla: I like your avatar!
@parallel-lines @Art Yucko cat hugs all around
@oxla: aw, thanks!
@becky@twitter yeah, i think on the road is a fantastic book, and jack kerouac was a fantastic writer. i agree that hunter s. thompson fanatics are annoying, but that doesn't diminish his skillz, either. and i love the catcher in the rye. growing up totally DOES blow.
sorry, dudettes.
Oh man. I quote HST on my facebook page, and I haven't smoked anything since, like, March.
@silviesays As your doctor, I advise that you remedy that asap.
@silviesays is it "a word to the wise is infuriating"? i like that one. I haven't smoked anything since 2006.
On the Road: Or as I like to call it "Fuck, they're on the road AGAIN?! I mean I know the title of this book is 'On the Road' but did they have to be so literal?"
A Tom Wolfe fan will fuck you but hate you for it because your willingess to have sex reveals your corrupted husk of a soul.
@DH@twitter I finished Bonfire of the Vanities recently so this makes me giggle.
@DrFeelGood Read "I am Charlotte Simmons" – it's even more true after that. Or, maybe not – that book makes me crazy.
@DH, @ DrFeelGood, @themegnapkin: Allow me to direct you to the world's most classic Garland Grey post about the genre you're talking about: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/07/01/fond-memories-of-vagina-martin-amis-the-pregnant-widow/
@themegnapkin ugh yes! i read this because every college administrator i work with recommended it. it speaks VOLUMES about the field.
@themegnapkin ugh ugh ugh the scene with that chick who got roofied in the basement almost made me throw up in the middle of the library.
@Emmanuelle Cunt
AAAAH MARTIN AMIS
Ok. Thank you for this. Fury made me so sad. I hate it when an author I like puts out a terrible book. Side note: I wonder if Kingsley was sad he didn't drown Martin at birth.
@themegnapkin I Am Charlotte Simmons is, to put it mildly, not Wolfe's best work. Don't give up– the Bonfire of the Vanities and the Right Stuff are both top-notch.
@DH@twitter or uses the word ziggurat ten times in one hour or finds it necessary to explain the phrase "pushing the envelope" multiple times.
Or maybe that is specific to The Right Stuff.
@MerelyGoodExpectations I liked Bonfire and A Man in Full, but stopped reading him after slogging my way through Charlotte Simmons. Maybe I'll pick up the Right Stuff one of these days.
@MerelyGoodExpectations can someone articulate why I Am Charlotte Simmons was so awful to me? I remember just being so annoyed at Wolfe after it. Was it because I felt like he was an old man that had no idea how an 18 year old girl would act?
@beanie
That. Also for me the sheer gall–who gets to say what constitutes an act of "moral suicide"? Also turgid, redonk writing.
CTRL-F: Ayn Rand
This article meets my approval.
Secretly Doesn't Read Books At All, But Just Picked One at Random to Seem Smart: all of the above
@applestoapples f'real. "Favorite Books of Graduating High School Seniors"
@williamjoel I thought that was To Kill A Mockingbird.
@williamjoel "Books available to buy at music stores"
@rararuby "Books now sold at Urban Outfitters"
I loathe people who tell me 'On The Road' is their favourite book, becaause they never *just* tell you that its their favourite book – its always said with this smug 'I'm of the beat generation and you're squarer than a rubiks cube' attitude which would be topical if this was 1954 or something but just get over yourselves and realize that what you're essentially saying is that you like a book thats been famous for half a century and has been read by EVERYONE!
Or what you said, as it was funnier.
@teaandcakeordeath "get hip, daddy-o!"
@rootmarm
I do have a fondness for 50s slang. Sit on it!
@teaandcakeordeath So's your old man! I guess that is the 50s equivalent of "your mom!"
@DrFeelGood
Your old man's such a slut, you should call him 'daddy-ho'
(best I could come up with)
I love On the Road and am a devourer of Jack Kerouac in general. Then I realized that most people who love On the Road are utterly vapid and self important so I tried in vain to forget about my authorial affections for a while.
Then I said, "screw it" and decided that them having a shitty fan club was no reason not to be honest about loving the writing of one of my favorite authors. I can defend the literary merits, I love the On the Road, the Dharma Bums, the Subterraneans, Mexico City Blues, Satori in Paris, and the Book of Dreams. I have a bunch of recordings of him reading poetry out loud and this one album of Dave Brubeck playing music to Jack Kerouac reading on the Steve Allen Show that's basically My Favorite Thing Ever. (I also have mad love for David Brubeck but everyone should have mad love for Dave Brubeck.)
I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say I have language boners for Jack Kerouac and I'm not a jerk.
Then again, I can probably agree that most people who want to talk about "How Awesome and Meaningful On the Road is" to near strangers is probably a jerk.
@teaandcakeordeath I grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts (Kerouac's birthplace) so by law I have to love him. I even lived down the street from the house he was born in for years, and we'd always get tourists during the summer taking pictures and quoting the "the only people for me are the mad ones" line.
@H.E. Ladypants Don't worry, I'll tell you a little secret. I still love Atlas Shrugged. I discovered about 5 years ago that you are labeled an automatic tool if you love this book. Yes, it was really trashy, yes, there was rape. But I highly enjoyed the philosophy of personal responsibility, and when I read it as a teenager, it almost became a personal zeitgeist for me for a bit of time. Now as a grown up, I'd say that I probably wouldn't talk to anyone about how formative this book was for me, and I agree that Ayn Rand was craaazy. I probably wouldn't go back and re-read, but I still love the book, just like I still love Velveteen Rabbit but it's not on my nightstand or anything.
@H.E. Ladypants
I think this piece refers to people who like OTR because they think the ethos of the book represents them more than their actual liking of the book itself.
Having said that I think that you should love your literary boners, if they gives you the jollies.
@Josh is like Germany Ambitious and Misunderstood
Thats a fancy neighbour you have there. My neighbour would give me beer on Halloween. I still love him for that.
Thinks he's much, much deeper and has more important thoughts than you: The Brothers Karamazov (will also accept Crime and Punishment).
(right? tell me i'm not the only one who has noticed these dudes)
@lesleygee
I've mainly run into Dostoevsky dudes who were heavy into Notes from Underground and thought that made them subversive and stuff.
@lesleygee Complete agreement on the Crime and Punishment front too!
@DH@twitter YES or the Gambler.
@lesleygee Well, you've just about made my goddamn day.
@perfect_cursive
You know in many ways I miss my English undergrad experience, but this thread is making me remember all the sad toolbags in my literary criticism classes. And I def don't miss them.
@DH@twitter
Oh man, I know. If there is Foucault or Zizek on the bookshelves, leave before breakfast.
@lesleygee HA! Yes! My college boyfriend "associated mostly with Raskolnikov, even though Kurt Vonnegut was his favorite author." He was baffled when I got a better grade than him in biology. Now he makes doughnuts.
The moral of the story? He's a jerk, but so am I.
@perfect_cursive Noooooo! I love What is an Author? !! I know lots of stupid pretentious gits like to quote Foucault but some of his stuff is so good!!
@science is sexy@twitter I'm kind of a hypocrite b/c, clearly, the Zizek worked on me. I think it's more the intention than the text. If you can honestly appreciate something without being all self-righteous about it, then carry on. I have totalllllly pretentious tastes, but I don't pat people on the head for "not getting it" when they disagree.
@perfect_cursive Hahaha Zizek is awesome though. I'm legit impressed by anyone with an actual facile understanding of his work.
@Ellie Yes – and if you can talk about Zizek while drunk on cheap Canadian beer, then I will totes make out with you. See above.
@lesleygee Also applies to Infinite Jest.
@science is sexy@twitter
I confess I love the video of Chomsky and Foucault debating.
@Slapfight wow what a warning sign! yikes.
@perfect_cursive ummm…You, me and some Labatt 50? I do really enjoy Zizek, although I think a lot of it is to do with the very attractive Eastern European semiotics prof I had who introduced me to him.
@lesleygee O-M-G-YESSSS! I love the fashions of the grad school denizens of the time. Such thoughtful, wonderful glasses.
@Quinciferous Annnd the above meaningless statement was meant to go along with the appreciation of the Foucault/Chomsky debates. Seriously, watch them — the audience is my favorite part.
@Quinciferous
I think I read somewhere that a young Nicolas Sarkozy was in that audidence.
@lesleygee Seriously. Never again.
@loudmouthedgirl I am surprisingly cheap north of the border. Zizek won me over completely in his movie about Hitchcock – where he's in the boat from The Birds. But I agree with the Eastern European profs. Hot sexy bastards.
@DH@twitter So, so true. I have to teach Dostoevsky and it's always the dudes who love it and think it's philosophy. They also love Nietzsche, the sulky eleventh-grader's thinker of choice.
@bashe haha yeah teaching Dostoevsky was the worst thing that ever happened to me (and my students). They were all like, what does Alyosha REPRESENT, and i was like, i don't know, i hated this book.
@bashe Sorry that you "have" to teach Dostoevsky. What horrible fate befell you to merit such a punishment?
Did you guys know that Zizek's (now ex) wife is a hot young Argentinian model . . . who is also a Lacanian scholar? Pretty funny.
@perfect_cursive Eh c'mon, Foucault > Zizek any day. I agree that Zizek is kinda poseur-warning-sign-y, but I love me some Foucault.
Bonus points: Deleuze, De Certeau, Lacan
@Emmanuelle Cunt Agree but for some reason I find Zizek sexy. It's weird I know. And Lacan > god.
A dude who says his favorite book is Atlas Shrugged is probably not "secretly" jerky. He will let you how jerky he is out loud, all the time. (I may have some seething resentment here from working in a rich neighborhood.)
@MutantEnemy No, no, it's not seething resentment that's driving your comment, it's truth.
@MutantEnemy the thing is, one of my favorite books IS atlas shrugged, and i always get a sideways glance when i announce this. i dont come from money, and i'm not really a "capitalist" in the economic sense. just don't see what's wrong with putting yourself first, yo! and i think atlas shrugged can be taken as a beautiful testament to that.
@LaForce More like "Atlas Sucked"
SORRY!
I mean, I'm just being a turd. Obviously we can all like different shit for different reasons. And that's not even my joke, I stole it
@LaForce Nothing's wrong with putting yourself first, at all! But that's not the part that bothers me. It's Objectivism in general. Rand's philosophy completely ignores privilege. There's often a smugness to it when it's quoted to me, also. The word bootstrap is often involved.
@MutantEnemy yeah, like poor people are just lazy, is basically her entire foundational belief. And if you help them, you are a spineless coward. Also her books are awfully rapey.
"The best man in the world rapes the best woman in the world"–Sady Doyle on Rand's romantic philosophy (I'm paraphrasing, probably not accurate quote)
@MutantEnemy Also, I like my books to have at least a LITTLE subtlety. Reading Ayn Rand is like being repeatedly hit over the head with the brick of her philosophy. I'm much more inclined to swallow a worldview with which I don't agree if it's couched in a better-written novel. And to be fair to old Ayn, her novel Anthem is actually pretty good.
@Ophelia I LOVED ANTHEM in college. Ultimate tear-jerker!! Also when you read Anthem it's possible to be a tiny, tiny bit more sympathetic to her insane capitalistic ranting. Like, oh yeah, this person escaped from Soviet Russia. Her derangement becomes a bit more explicable, if not swallowable.
Here is Sady Doyle on Ayn Rand, this entry kills me
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/06/18/sexist-beatdown-the-artistic-individuality-of-this-recurring-blog-feature-may-be-compromised-by-no-man-edition/
@dracula's ghost You left out "and she thinks that's hot." THAT'S the part of Rand that makes me crazy.
@MutantEnemy smugness in anything is aggravating, i'll agree to that. I guess i read it as a love story though, or at least paid more attention to that storyline. Rand's position on love is a unique one. In loving someone, she believes, you are offering up your own mind, body, and spirit. In effect, your lover acts as a mirror, reflecting what you offer and showing it back to you. In this way she sets forth the idea that love is not necessarily about the worshipping or even the adoration of a partner. Love is not "to choose a person as the constant center of one's concern," but rather "…love is a celebration of one's self and existence."
i liked that idea. wouldn't get smug about it though.
@dracula's ghost thanks – will read!
@LaForce here we go again. Why can't we talk about Vonnegut for once?
@LaForce I think that love philosophy is really beautiful. Doesn't work if your partner turns abusive, etc etc. Again, the privilege seeps in and makes it difficult for me to stomach.
But big ups for explaining your respect for her work, on this site, with people who don't necessarily agree with you.
@Ophelia Anvilicious for sure. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious
What teenie said
@whizzard "When the United States of America, which was meant to be a Utopia for all, was less than a century old, Noah Rosewater and a few men like him demonstrated the folly of the Founding Fathers in one respect: those sadly recent ancestors had not made it the law of the Utopia that the wealth of each citizen should be limited. This oversight was engendered by a weak-kneed sympathy for those who loved expensive things, and by the feeling that the continent was so vast and valuable, and the population so thin and enterprising, that no thief, no matter how fast he stole, could more than mildly inconvenience anyone.
"…Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed."
-Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
@science is sexy@twitter : well played, sir.
@teenie thanks! also: I'm a ma'am ( . ) ( . )
@science is sexy@twitter : ok
i just like saying that, in a non-gender-specific way. but i have noted that you are a lady.
PS: bewb emoticons are the shit.
@teenie best note that shit, or I'll bring out my righteous indignation and totally accuse you of sexism!*
*this is not true, I just like drawing text-tits. ( Y )
@science is sexy@twitter *call me
"So he hasn't read anything since tenth grade English."
Give or take a couple years, this sentiment basically applies to every book/guy on this list. Except for possibly Atlas Shrugged, but I'm not sure "so, since tenth grade English, you haven't read anything but utter bullshit" is much of an improvement.
Secretly Hoping Everyone Dies: Hamlet
@amity …and can never make a decision about ANYTHING.
YES, so glad to meet fellow Kerouac haters! That book is just masturbatory macho rambling. He and Bukowski are the dudes the "alternative" guy in high school tried to get in your pants with, and even then you were like "ick."
I hope everyone has seen this gem:
http://onthebrod.com/
every sentence of On The Road done in "bro-speak."
@dracula's ghost This is AHHHMAZING!!! I die: "We took some shots. On the real, Malibu is for bitches but it felt good as hell to get a little crunk in my veins. I took my shirt off and we made out for a little. I started talking about my posse in the Midwest."
@DrFeelGood I know. It is endlessly hilarious. I love when it gets into the boring poetic descriptions of landscapes
@dracula's ghost This is so so sosososo true, and a source of utter shame for me because when I was 19 and side-eyeing the tortured, self-destructive artist type, I was quoting Kerouac’s roman candle as if I were a lady only interested in lovers holding high the idea of a life of unabashed irreverence and would esteem Bukowski's I Met a Genius as if that isn’t the lamest stuff ever.
My biggest crush then: this guy whose greatest aspiration was to get an old suit and hop trains and hitchhike and do that for a year. He was so unafraid of ignoring society’s rules (like the necessity of sticking to a job to be able to afford being a member of society) and so pretty.
Ugh
@dracula's ghost I read this for the first time recently (public school y'all!) and enjoyed it until I inevitably wanted to bitchslap all the dudes in it. Ditching their babymamas and running around screwing other people. Thanks to Kerouak we now have child support.
True story: On our first date, many many years ago, when we were freshmen (freshpeople?) in college, my now wife asked me my favorite book, and I answered, and she looked stunned, and after a minute told me that the author of the book was her godfather. Good answer, right?
Which book?? The nosy want to know! Also, that's very sweet.
@Nicole Cliffe The suspense is killing me!
@Nicole Cliffe: I've already said too much! People know this story. Also, if saythatscool figures out who I am . . .
@Kneetoe
Actually, he's on his way.
Stopping for supplies.
Toying with a copy of your key….
@Kneetoe: I took 20th-century Russian Lit. at University of Geneva with a prof. everyone called 'le Dieu' (God) because he was so freaking intimidating. For my exam, I had to present (in French) on 3 novels, including Dr. Zhivago. During my research, I found out this prof. had once been engaged to Pasternak's daughter. Gulp.
(Also, go change your locks before saythatscool gets there.)
@Nicole Cliffe @boyofdestiny: Actually, it was All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.
My abusive, unemployed ex loved all of these books. ALL OF THEM.
I just started Persuasion. Is that safe? I bet it's not safe!
That is almost certainly the safest book to speak positively of in a female crowd ever written. I already feel warm towards you.
@boyofdestiny That is some like tear your clothes off shit right there. You should make a t-shirt that says "I'm reading Persuasion right now".
@boyofdestiny
My favorite Austen! So, uh. I think it's safe.
@DrFeelGood Agreed, times infinity. Persuasion is Austen's Villete.
@DH@twitter: Yes! Persuasion: the best and most underrated of the Austen books.
@RK Fire Well now I feel terrible for not having read it yet.
OH MAN, On the Road. The dudely worship of that book – of it's "authenticity," it's "freedom," it's "truth" – turns me into a screeching English-lit harpy in sixty seconds flat. "What about the various racial/ethnic minorities (who are exoticized and whose "authenticity" Kerouac is appropriating)? What about the women (who are cheated on and left behind to raise the kids)? What about the main character's aunt, WHO FUCKING PAYS FOR THE WHOLE THING? HOW IS ANY OF THIS "FREEDOM, HONESTY AND AUTHENTICITY"? GAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
@NatashaMcG haha. This is why some books are better read as teenagers, and then never revisited. I had never read Wuthering Heights so I read it a few years ago. I found every character to be a selfish asshole and thought that it was a piece of crap!
@NatashaMcG
Too bloody right.
@atipofthehat I posted this up there, but all true Kerouac haters MUST SEE IT so I am posting again in case you missed it!
http://onthebrod.com/
"The crazy dude driving was a Systems Analyst with an IT company and he lived in Fresno; his dad had been a Systems Analyst too. His toe got all fucked in a company softball game, sliding into second, but I didn’t get how. Dude dropped me off in Fresno. I pounded a quick MGD at a sports bar, and in walked this smoking Armenian chick, and like in a fucking dream, “Pour Some Sugar on Me” started playing on the TouchTunes, and I said to myself, Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, this town rules."
@DrFeelGood watch the bbc two part miniseries with tom hardy as heathcliffe. you might still hate them, but TOM HARDY.
@DrFeelGood That's because it IS an asshole-filled piece of crap.
@DrFeelGood I always interpreted Wuthering Heights as more of a psychological examination of terrible, fucked-up people and how they got so fucked up, in the guise of a romance novel (basically the only kind of novel considered appropriate for a lady writer of the period). As a straight romance, yes, it sucks (there is a reason it has had a Twilight-inspired renaissance, right?). But that's a moot point for me anyway, because I am not only an English-lit harpy, but an English-lit slut, so that books gets me all "Ooooh multiple narrators! Ohhhh I must tease those complexities? OH OH WHO IS RELIABLE AND WHO ISN'T?" And then I Sally Albright all over the place. And then people have what I'm having.
@dracula's ghost All these details are so right. So, so right. Down to the Def Leppard.
@Ophelia Many people are calling for a women's version of this list, and maybe WH should be on it? Maybe a little Jane Eyre, too? As a Bronte-lover (except Anne, god, who likes ANNE?), I would be willing to be called out in that manner. I'm sure it Says Something About Me.
@NatashaMcG Yep, am totally with you. I've also got some stuff to say about Gone With the Wind and anything of the My Sister's Keeper or "Growing up as an immigrant/the child of immigrants in America/somewhere else/etc." genres.
@NatashaMcG
I love Wuthering Heights — I think people who get crabby about it are expecting a love story, no doubt thanks to bad book cover art and perhaps exposure to the movie with Merle Oberon.
@Ophelia but anything that made way for Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" can't be all bad, right?
@NatashaMcG From one English Lit slut to another, who actually foams at the mouth talking about that kind of stuff til people back away, may I lend my support of WH. It may also be due to excess Kate Bush though.
IT'S ME IT'S CATHY I'VE COME HOOOOOOME
@Nicole Cliffe: This thread makes me want to start interpretive dancing in a field all of a sudden. Strange.
@Nicole Cliffe Who's wearing the leotard tonight?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w
@Ophelia Growing up as an immigrant/child of immigrants in America books! My mother thinks I love these, but I don't really
At least some of these were listed as Jared Loughner's favorite books on his MySpace page, right? Along with both Mein Kampf AND The Communist Manifesto? Because he's a goddamned idiot?
Ok, I totally agree with this list. However, as someone who does still have a soft spot for Salinger (even though I realize that no-one really reads him past the age of 15), what about Franny and Zooey, or Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters? Do these also make someone a secret blubbering manchild?
@loudmouthedgirl No! I love Franny and Zooey and Raise High… even into my 20s. Also, I think it's not the act of appreciating Salinger that makes one a blubbering man-child so much as the identification with Holden past the age of say, 17. You can like a book without reading yourself into the narrator, obvs.
@loudmouthedgirl Franny and Zooey is great!!
@barbara millicent roberts SALINGER RULES
@annepersand Yep, still love Franny and Zooey. Maybe always will.
@loudmouthedgirl I feel like people who read "The Catcher in the Rye" when they're 15 will always have a soft spot for the book, while people who read it at 18 and older will always think he's a whiny POS.
I read Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters when I was going through my Salinger phase in high school and didn't quite get it. Re-read it in college and appreciated it, but didn't love it. Now that I'm disillusioned in my 20s, I'm starting to really love it.
@loudmouthedgirl It is the people who think that Holden is a character to emulate, as opposed to a heartbreakingly fucked up, mentally ill teenager who hasn't learned how to live in the real world, that is what drives me crazy. My mentally-ill, and now drug addicted, brother, who I love to death, is very much the Holden-type man child, and it isn't romantically angsty past the age of about 20. You just want to scream "grow the fuck up and learn how to cope with the world being a fucked up place!"
@sam.i.am I LOVED Catcher in the Rye as an angsty teenager. I am almost afraid to revisit it as an adult.
@sam.i.am I re-read Catcher earlier this year (I'm 26) and loved it a lot more than when I was a teen. I "got" it whereas I'm not sure I really did when I was younger. So no, not everyone who reads it past the age of 18 finds Holden a whiny POS
I will not date any man who genuinely likes Bukowski.
@parallel-lines STRONGLY STRONGLY AGREE.
@parallel-lines I have got to start asking people their favorite books after we meet because it can save so much time and energy. Bukowski, ugh, never again.
@parallel-lines Oh, man. I went on a date last month with a guy who proclaimed Bukowski as his god. He berated me for "not getting it" and called me shallow. So I went to the bathroom during the movie and never came back.
@applestoapples thumbs up for fleeing from that guy.
@applestoapples you dodged a bullet, the bullet was that guy *channelling sarah haskins*
@parallel-lines Yeah, I was going to ask why Bukowski wasn't on this list, but then I remembered those guys aren't secretly jerky. They're flaming assholes.
This is perfect!!
I hate all the "wandering man books," where the man wanders and searches but none of the women can make him feel whole. Once a boy gave me "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" because it was his favorite. I read the first chapter and then sold it back to the bookstore.
@barbara millicent roberts The only book that falls into this category (maybe?) that I have a fond remembrance for is All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers by Larry McMurtry. But maybe that's because I haven't read it since I was about 24?
@barbara millicent roberts http://betterbooktitles.com/post/4441652626/lightness
@naughtysneaky Aah!!
@barbara millicent roberts "wandering man books"!! My ex gave me 'Unbearable Lightness' and wrote out a whole page on the inside cover about how it was his favorite book of all time and he hoped I could love it as much as him. I haaaated it. He turned out to be a total dickwad and we broke up. Truly, I do not understand lovers of this book.
@barbara millicent roberts Totally. Oh, i don't think i've ever disliked a book as much as this. Given to me by a platonic man-friend whose literary taste I respected, I endured the whole thing. By halfway through I had resorted to reading it aloud to my travelling companion and we would extract some pleasure by fake-vomiting and berating its self-indulgent characters and the thinly masked self-agrandising of its author (what was that line "when I was 4, I realised God does not exist). Fuck you Kundera!
@rararuby http://www.idlewords.com/2005/11/dating_without_kundera.htm
@riotnrrd Thank you! Fantastically put. The lender of this book was never a prospective lover, but had he been my heart/vagina would have clamped shut before the end of chapter one.
Czech yo'self before you wreck yo'self
Ah, but I remember Hunter S. Thompson for his older journalism, including one very clear image that still seems to me an excellent metaphor for how imperialists think (or don't think):
"One of my most vivid memories of South America is that of a man with a golf club – a five-iron, if memory serves – driving golf balls off a penthouse terrace in Cali, Colombia. He was a tall Britisher, and had what the British call a 'stylish pot' instead of a waistline. Beside him on the patio was a long gin-and-tonic, which he had refilled from time-to-time at the nearby bar. He had a good swing, and each of his shots carried low and long out over the city. Where they fell, neither he nor I nor anyone else on the terrace that day had the vaguest idea. The penthouse, however, was in a residential section of the Rio Cali, which runs through the middle of town. Somewhere below us, in the narrow streets that are lined by white adobe blockhouses of urban peasantry, a strange hail was rattling on the roofs – golf balls, 'old practice duds,' so the Britisher told me, that were 'hardly worth driving away.'"
@atipofthehat A think that's the thing that makes me saddest about the ubiquity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson was also a fantastic journalist, writer, and social critic. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and Hells Angels are GREAT works of journalism, but the moment you say HST people are all "OH DRUGS" (for good or ill.)
@H.E. Ladypants thank you. I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and it was one of the most blistering and accurate accounts of the US political system and election seasons. He was right on the nose in predicting the fact that voter turn-out was decrease over time. He totally got it. Yeah a boy I had a crush on when I was a teenager turned me onto HST but it was great to discover what a wonderful journalist Thompson was.
Secretly Planning to Shoot You When You Try to Put Your Messed-up Childhood Behind You and Lead a Normal Life: Lolita
@kefuoe Lolita is such a good book but it's so messed up, reading it makes me want to take a shower.
@DrFeelGood It's so fucking good though! At least it is a beautifully written, complex novel that fucks with the structure of the novel itself, etc. etc., whereas, like, On The Road is just some dude blabbering about sandwiches and truck stops for what feels like 9 million pages. I mean, give me craftsmanship over macho rambling anyday
@kefuoe Gah! This is actually my favorite book. I will admit it is difficult to mention this about myself sometimes. But every word is more or less perfect so I'm just going to go with it.
@kefuoe I love this but I also love Lolita so I don't know, I'm just so confused.
@dracula's ghost: Truman Capote's flip dismissal of Kerouac's work as follows, "That's not writing, that's typing."
Thinks he's really literary but doesn't actually like to read that much: The Great Gatsby
@lesleygee i mean, i like it too, but come on! read something else once in a while.
@lesleygee Yea I mean these are all books that are great classics, classic examples of a literary genre, were at the vanguard of literature in their time, etc etc. But there are other more recent, also ground-breaking books out there too.
@lesleygee Plus, Tender is the Night. If you're going to read Fitzgerald, commit to more than 150 pages or whatever GG is, and READ THAT. Fuck, it's good.
@rocknrollunicorn YES GIRL YES. Tender is the Night is (dare I say?) better than Gatsby. It's just gorgeous and it kills me. It's one of the few books I've read more than twice.
@LadyHazard ME TOO! I rarely re-read, but I've read it twice.
NO NO WHERE IS "ULYSSES"
@doomz No one actually read that, they just said they did.
@doomz Secretly insecure about his intellect in relation to yours and is trying desperately to impress you.
I'm highly skeptical about anyone who says they read that book, let alone that it's their favorite.
@doomz I've read it twice and it's not on this list because it is clearly awesome. That is all.
And, dear God, never date anyone who even so much as references Ayn Rand in a conversation about books, unless they also use the word "sociopath." Then it's maybe safe. Maybe.
@parallel-lines True. Favorite book of the Cliffs Notes fake readers.
@parallel-lines Oh, Christ. My husband loves Ulysses. He actually studied it in grad school. Voluntarily.
At least he's scared of my intellect, I suppose.
@doomz Agree. Dated a guy who was absolutely in love with his own intellect for his ability to finish it that he thought everybody else was morons.
@parallel-lines God, you are SO RIGHT.
@Ophelia I love Ulysses.
However, I'm convinced that those of us who do are probably in a cult. (Whether we know it or not.)
Love this list so much. This is actually kind of the root of all issues in my circle of friends right now – we're a bunch of dudes who all met at 18, and were all "fascinating bohemian art students" who loved the shit out of all of these books (I always hated Rand, but still).
Now, 12 years later…we're slowly splitting into two camps. There is the group of us cherish our memories of these books, but will NEVER try to re-read them – "On The Road" especially, as it was the motivating factor for a wonderful / amazing road trip but now makes me gag. We tend to be less good-looking than we were at 18, but we can now go on vacations without our Aunt's money and know things about how a pinch of baking soda carmelizes onions faster and what an IRA is.
Then there is the group of us who still holds these books as their favorites (although usually Roofbeams or Franny and Zooey, Catcher is 'too cliche'), who rides their fixies, who still have their roguish charm and drinks at 3am on a Tuesday, who wonders why those of us who have to get up at 6am have sold out.
I'm in the first camp…but I dunno. I wish I could be more like the 2nd camp a lot.
@leon.saintjean Wait, what's that about the baking soda???
@leon.saintjean i remember boys like that in college. i wouldn't date the 2nd camp now. but then, i like rand….and make money…and am super excited about the baking soda tip.
@leon.saintjean As someone who's in the girl version of Camp 2, I have to say, I prefer men in Camp 1. Yes, even in my flighty, "I'm trying to find my authentic self, free of The Man and The Clock," I find Camp 2 men frustratingly unreliable and pretentious.
Also, depending on why you're caramelizing onions, I've found the baking soda can mess with their taste.
@Lily Rowan – a pinch of baking soda changes the acidity level of foods or some science shit and makes things brown faster. I think its actually maillard reactions more than carmelization, but it works. Baking soda is fucking amazing.
@leon.saintjean It's okay. Everyone else hates the 2nd camp.
@leon.saintjean INTERESTING.
And yes, that is my takeaway from this whole discussion because blah blah blah generalizations blah blah blah stated favorite v. liking blah blah blah gender.
@leon.saintjean As a first-camper this just depressed the fuck outta me.
@leon.saintjean are you friends with all my ex-boyfriends??
@VictorVictrola If you are, let me just tell you GROUP 1 with flashing lights. No woman after 23 leans towards being with anyone from the second camp. No one wants to be with Peter Pan.
@leon.saintjean Oh fuck. I am totally the female equivalent of the second camp. So I guess… fix me up with one of those dudes?
@rocknrollunicorn Holy fuck i start doing real work and there's a billion comments.
I think 2nd Camp gets way more ladies (of either) than you're allowing for. Everybody says "WARNING" on Group 2 but…let me tell you, they are far more fun in bars. Out of my mixed crowd, only the Group 1 guys who were always amazing ladies men meet ladies at Bars, but it's the Group 2'ers who just slay, regardless of their effort or not.
Sigh.
The equivalent for ladies' favorite books:
Secretly Planning on Breaking Up With You if You Don't Get That Promotion/Raise Soon: Confessions of a Shopaholic/Bergdorf Blondes/Anything with a High-Heeled She on the Cover
Pitty her. She's clearly having a hard time moving past that whole "Sex and the City" fueled shallow-and-proud cultural moment we had in the early '00s. And she's probably scared that she'll never find a husband now that she wasted her mid-20's engaged to a (now unemployed) finance guy.
Secretly Terrified of her own Shallowness: Eat, Pray, Love
She's basically the same as the previous girl, inside, but at least has the good sense to be too deeply ashamed of this to admit it even to herself. She will blame you for her own emptiness and dissatisfaction and rationalize any way she mistreats you as an essential part of her self discovery. Given the chance, she'd cheat on you with Javier Bardem.
Secretly thinks that depression is a substitute for personality: Franny and Zoe
She's only happy when she's miserable. She probably would have turned out Goth if she didn't look so pretty in pastels. You will waste half your time and energy trying to convince her to get out of bed because she as much as she hates her meaningless job, she can't just stop showing up. She would also cheat on you with Javier Bardem, given the chance.
Secretly needs jokes explained to her: Confederacy of Dunces
She thinks she's got a great sense of humor but to her, if it isn't about as subtle as a clown with a giant erection making a tent in his over-sized pants, than it's just not funny. Probably Cameron Diaz' favorite book. Also, given the chance, she'd probably cheat on you with Javier Bardem.
Secretly in love with her best girl-friend: Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
It's just not working out. It's not you. It's your penis. On the plus side, she probably wouldn't cheat on you with Javier Bardem. Actually, she probably still would.
Secretly wishes she wasn't too embarrassed to be seen reading romance novels on the subway: Pride and Prejudice
Now that she's got a kindle, it's straight up Harlequin bodice-rippers. Given the chance, would cheat on you with Colin Firth.
@El Knid Hilarious! Spot on about Jane Austen.
I love this! I totally judge a guy's jerkiness based on his favorite books.
But I'd like to add The unbearable lightness of being: He Will Secretly Cheat on You and Blame it on his Guy Nature or on The War. I don't remember the book well and didn't hate it, but I notice that many guys gloss over the part about the darkness of war and use it as a literary excuse to cheat or be generally horrible to their girlfriends.
QUIZ
Who said it?
1. "The greatest mind ever to stay in prep school."
2. "That's not writing – that's typing."
About whom?
A. Salinger
B. Mailer
C. Capote
D. Kerouac
@atipofthehat
1. I'm guessing B. on A.
Because I know 2 is C on D.
Truman spoketh the truth.
@atipofthehat
I really hope #1 is Mailer talking about himself.
@DH@twitter Mailer is such an ultimate tool
@atipofthehat 2 is Capote on Kerouac.
My dad's favorite book is On the Road.
In not-entirely-unrelated news, I lived in a VW Bus until I was eight. One year, we drove to Brazil. This was the eighties. On the Road does weird things to people.
Lists "nature" as one of his interests, spends most of his time in outdoor equipment stores looking at gadgets: anything Thoreau-related.
He's a navel-gazing self absorbed whiner: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
He should not be let within a 20 ft radius of your genitals: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
@parallel-lines Ugh the whole time I was reading HWoSG I was like Really, REALLY?! I flat out refused to read "Zeitoun" because of it's author, I don't care if it is like the singular best book of our century.
@parallel-lines i read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius and bonded with it while i was grieving the loss of my mom (ie: eggers losing his parents, raising his little brother, etc). so there's that. maybe that makes me a whiner. i'm okay with it.
i will give you points for "i hope they serve beer in hell." tucker max is a fake frat boy bro-seph who doesn't want to admit that he graduated college already.
@parallel-lines I HATE TUCKER MAX!!!!
I don't understand all the women who say they enjoy his books. He is awful.
@DrFeelGood I read Zeitoun, loved it, tried HWoSG, got 100 pages into it, realized there was no reason to continue giving myself wrinkles with >:( and :-O and ?!?!'s, and left it on a bench. Someone else's problem now.
@DrFeelGood Me too. I slogged through HWoSG waiting for something – anything! – worthwile (let alone relevatory, as I had been led to believe), and while I get it on an intellectual level that Zeitoun is great, I can't bring myself to spend the mental energy to open it.
@DrFeelGood I cannot deal with Dave Eggers. If your book includes a list of tips on how to read the book, you are probably an asshole.
I know you're supposed to feel bad for him because his parents died and he's raising his brother but he really is so insufferable I ended up hating him by the end.
@DrFeelGood Go ahead and read Zeitoun–it's not a memoir like Heartbreaking Work, so Eggers manages to discuss the NOLA couple's story without getting distracted in lots of self-referential overwroughtness.
@science is sexy@twitter UM are we TWINS? I did the saaaame thing.
@Ophelia I wouldn't even say that Zeitoun is "great," as in incredibly written. The story is actually just really, really good. It's a fast read because Eggers is not very… complex. But I would heartily recommend it because of the characters, the plot, setting… you know, true storiness of it.
@science is sexy@twitter You did yourself a favor! One of my greater literary regrets is not listening to the bit in the beginning when Dave tells you to only read the first four chapters.
@kayarr I actually do like his books (I think they're funny) but not necessarily all of his behavior? One night in college I got drunk and sent him a fan email (I didn't get drunk in order to do it, it was a random whim) and he wrote back asking for a picture, which I sent, and then he didn't reply, so I sent him a kind of "fuck you" email (still drunk). So embarrassing but not as embarrassing as the rest of the stuff I did that night.
@parallel-lines I hated on Dave Eggers for years because of AHWoSG *and* You Shall Know Our Velocity! but everything I read of his after that was better. "How We Are Hungry" (short story collection) was much better and gave me the courage to read his non-fiction which is so good! What Is The What and Zeitoun are so good! Dave Eggers can be a good writer but he desperately needs restraint in some form. In HWAH, the short story format is enough to curb his ego, and when he switched to non-fiction he couldn't let his own ideas intrude on somebody else's story. I can't believe anybody whose ego was so rampant as to produce those first two works was able to do such a respectful, faithful telling of What is the What and Zeitoun.
Also, he runs a truly fantastic writing program for children which was founded here in San Francisco and has spread all 'cross the land. It's a tutoring workshop and the front of the building is the world's most spectacular pirate shop. If your hatred of Eggers prevents you from reading Zeitoun, that's a shame, but if your hatred prevents you from going to the pirate store if you visit San Francisco, that's a tragedy!
Um, I'm a lady, and a) I love Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, b) I do quote it on my Facebook profile, c) I have no desire to ever read anything by Meg Cabot, and d) you could totally go to the airport with me, because I haven't smoked in years. Scratch that, months. Definitely months.
So, yaaaaaay, gender essentialism!
@Gnome Vagina OT, but I totally saw your avatar on a bulletin board recently. It totally made my day. …Is it me you're looking for?
@Gnome Vagina Obviously the next post needs to be favorite books and the terrible things they mean about women. Sauce for the goose and all that.
@Ophelia Hahah thanks! However I can't take credit for making the signs, only for using them. And adoring them.
@Gnome Vagina Yes – whoever created them is truly a genius.
@Gnome Vagina I quote Hunter S Thompson in my facebbok: religious views.
I know a guy whose absolute favorite book is American Psycho. It totally made sense when I found out. He's a super-creep and talks down to everyone.
The Little Prince.
@melis He's Buster Bluth?
@melis Bonus points of awful if they refer to it as Le Petit Prince.
@melis Did you really date somebody whose favorite book is The Little Prince?
Oh God, no. But I did have a roommate who was slowly working on a full-back tattoo of the Prince and his environs.
@melis That will look great when she or he's 50!
Said roommate was actually a lady – I don't know if that makes it better or worse.
@melis Where is she now? At the Chuck E. Cheese still?
These now-edited comments are going to be seriously confusing when posterity comes and read this section, but oh well. No, she's gone to where all Petit Prince fans belong – Portland.
@melis But but but when you're a wee Canadian child they make you read it in French!
@melis BRB, going to Portland.
@melis What is it with the Little Prince tattoos??
@perfect_cursive I consider them advance warning. "I am entirely too precious for my own good."
@melis I seriously didn't realize it was a Thing. Sigh.
@perfect_cursive Oh God. I totally have a Little Prince tattoo. But it's just a teeny little one, of a snake eating an elephant, so…? Please don't hate me, folks. I promise I'm awesome.
What about Don Quixote? That's my dude's favorite book, and I've been trying to analyze it. Does it just mean he's a dreamer, but like, recognizes it? I don't know!
@Sarah H. He's really smart, can read long, old books, or he's lying.
@Sarah H.: My husband's favorite books are the Lord of the Rings; he re-reads them every year. I'm trying to figure out what that means. Stuck at 13? Romantic and chivalrous? Secretly wishes he were an elf?
@Bittersweet Secretly wishes he were an elf?….. there's people who don't secretly wish that?
All this is true, and yet Fear & Loathing does contain these words of wise counsel that have been a guiding light for me:
"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -— a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
Which is worse, any of these or an "I don't read"?
@science is sexy@twitter I don't read. Or "I only read non-fiction" At least 90% of non-fiction books are terrible, according to my studies.
@science is sexy@twitter I think "I don't read" is worse, because these books could be temporary indicators of juicebox-ery, whereas someone who refuses to read is (in my mind) a lost cause
@DrFeelGood I fairly recently was broken up with over the phone by a man who only read books about engineering.
¥[*.*]¥
(^^that is a robot emoticon)
@DrFeelGood I read mostly non-fiction. Sure, some non-fiction books aren't great (fiction isn't 100% winners either, I mean, look at the thread we're posting in) but it's unfair to write off a huge section of written works just because they happen to be factual. Creative nonfiction is incredible, e.g. John McPhee and Mary Roach.
@science is sexy@twitter
Books about engineering are great!
Where do you stand on the Collected Papers of Claude Elwood Shannon?
@kayarr & DrFeelGood sigh. this is right. how can anybody not READ?!
I just don't get it.
@science is sexy@twitter "I don't read." Because it is usually said with an air of pride. FUCK THOSE PEOPLE.
@atipofthehat In ignorance, though he sounds fascinating. I can't tell if his wiki is fucked up as a joke, or if it's just an ironic mistake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon
@Vicky Johnson Right there with you. There are SOO many crappy novels, but I can almost always find something fascinating and well-written in the non-fiction section. Sure, I've put down a few clunkers, but on the whole I've found a ton of great books that have earned a place on my bookshelf. And Mary Roach–luv huh!
@Vicky Johnson Mary Roach Mary Roach!! Sometimes I bring up things I learned from Stiff to potential friends, to separate the wheat from chaff.
@science is sexy@twitter
He really did unicycle around Bell Labs.
@DrFeelGood What have you been reading? I feel like we're in an excellent era of excellent writing in non-fiction. Oliver Sacks! Bill Bryson! John Krakauer! Rebekka Skloot! Reza Aslan! Sarah Vowell! All wonderful writers.
@science is sexy@twitter Yes! She deserves a category all her own. Boink is also excellent reading.
I lurved "Packing for Mars."
@Vicky Johnson I was thinking more along the lines of "Freakanomics" and "Are you there Vodka?" which are really long form magazine articles, and can be interesting but aren't really great pieces of writing in their own right. When I talk to people who read "only" non-fiction, they're usually talking about pop-type non-fiction.
@H.E. Ladypants No you're right. I listen to a lot of topical non-fiction when I'm cleaning (books on tape), but save the "reading" for fiction, since between school, magazines and life, it seems I never read anymore. I'm not really inclined to buy a non-fiction and read it, I have a ton sitting around that I've not read yet.
@kayarr My boyfriend is a non-reader, but not because he "refuses" but because he is dyslexic and reading is like indigestion in his eyes or something. But he is very smart, makes beautiful things, watches excellent films, and is generally superior in every way to the [many] heavy readers I've dated.
@Vicky Johnson There's nothing wrong with reading non-fiction, I read lots of nonfiction and think that it's awesome! But people who claim to only ever read non-fiction are like the people who proudly tell the world that they don't own a TV — very very judgey about others' choices. I read lots of fiction because fiction is awesome, and I can promise that there is a hell of a lot of crappy nonfiction out there too. (P.S.: Currently slowly reading The Warmth of Other Suns, and it's so so amazing, you should totally read it if you're into nonfiction. Thank God for the Kindle, though, because it makes it easy to read it in chunks at a time, because it's long and dense and heavy)
@thebestjasmine okay now that someone else has mentioned their e-reader I can pretend it's slightly less tangential to rave about mine and how much I love it and how I feel like I've gone over to the dark side but the dark side is so easy to carry! and convenient! and light! and fits in my smallest bag! and holds so many books! and comes with such a cute little cover that simulates a book cover…
Never again will I have to make do with lugging something like 7 gigantic books on my beach vacation – I'll have so many more than that and they'll take up no room at all!
@thebestjasmine @thebestjasmine I'm not saying all nonfiction is perfect and all fiction is terrible. There are great books and awful books in each, and saying that 90% of one is worthless is an incredibly unfair generalization to the books, their writers, and their readers. That's what I'm trying to defend here.
I am friendly with heaps of nonfiction-only readers, and they are absolutely not judge-y as you claim, not at all. I totally agree that there are assy readers out there, but stigmatizing the whole group does no one favors, you know?
This comment box is showing up significantly upthread from the comments I want to reply to so if this is wildly out of context, I apologize.
@redheadedandcrazy I love my Kindle so much that it is not holy. I mean, it has made packing for vacation 100x easier, and it is so easy to read in bed, and read long books, etc. There are books that I know that I'd love that I never read, simply because they were too heavy for me to carry around, and huge books are just uncomfortable to hold open for long periods of time, and now I have none of those issues and happily buy and read super long books. And I can flip in between the few books that I'm always reading at a time so easily. And no freaking out about losing my page! I could go on and on (and kind of have).
@thebestjasmine I just finished reading The Warmth of Other Suns and god it was so good! You should check out At The Dark End of the Street as well! Oh and definitely The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
@Diana I LOVED Henrietta Lacks! Only nonfiction book I've ever finished in two days and stayed up late to finish.
Can we just talk for a little while about how much Meg Cabot rocks? Because her books are all totally delightful and still super feminist, and her blog is awesome, because she talks about fun stuff and also rants about women who claim not to be feminists and how they're awful, and is just pretty much awesome at just about everything. So yay Meg Cabot.
@thebestjasmine
I got to meet her! On Saturday! With Libba Bray!
It was awesome.
@thebestjasmine YES. Meg Cabot forever and ever.
@thebestjasmine i have never read meg cabot, and am putting her on my "to read" list right now. gracias!
@teenie She's awesome! She has new books out which I don't adore, but The Princess Diaries books are genuinely delightful, and I'm also a big fan of the Size 12 is not Fat etc. series.
@thebestjasmine YES I LOVE HER FOREVER AND EVER.
@thebestjasmine I loooooooove Meg Cabot. I've reread the "Queen of Babble" books so, so many times and so wish she'd write another in the series. They have pride of place next to my Russian novels and Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! etc. on my bookshelf. I've had a hard time finding another series by her that I like as much, though. Any recommendations guys?
@Ellie
Feynman!
@thebestjasmine Yes yes yes. Actually my introduction to the internet as a kid was the forum she co-founded with Tamora Pierce back in the day. Best start ever, y/y?
@Ellie Have you read the Heather Wells series? Size 12 is not Fat, etc? I like those a lot, AND she's coming out with a new book in that series soon. But I agree that the Queen of Babble books are so great.
@phenylalanine Oh, God! Can we have a separate thread devoted to Tamora Pierce and how awesome she is?
@Ophelia
yes yes yes yes yes yes
If I could have a beer with one person in the world it would be her.
@DH@twitter But if you could have it with 2 people, could I come with you and Tamora? Also, due to my recent forays back into YA literature (Hunger Games drew me back), I found a whole new TP series – Beka Cooper (George's fam, a few generations back) – have you read it yet?
@Ophelia Ahhhhh we should. She pretty much changed my life. Sometimes I think "What if I had been reading Twilight as a pre-teen instead of Tamora Pierce?" which AHHHH LET'S NOT THINK ABOUT THAT.
Anyway, SO GREAT.
Have you read any of her newer stuff?
@Ophelia
Yes to all of the above! Beka is aces. I can't wait for the new title this fall. :B
@thebestjasmine Can we talk about the Princess Diaries series? It is the best. So much different than the movie(s, although I refuse to acknowledge the plural. Great soundtrack though.)
@phenylalanine Seriously. I'd probably already have six vampire babies and have been married at 18. I'm loving the Beka Cooper ones, and Trickster's Choice/Trickster's Queen. Liked the Daine ones, but not as much as I will always love, love, love Alanna.
@Ophelia COSIGN THIS
@Ophelia
Kel is my favorite. Mostly because I'm so unlike her. She's so chill and calm and competent. And her parents are awesome.
Hmm, those sound like weak reasons for loving a heroine but that's the magic of Tammy!
@Ophelia I read the first Beka Cooper book and would love to read more! She was pretty damn badass, if I remember. And the police-procedural vibe was really fun!
I also enjoyed her aged-up Circle of Magic sequel when I read it a while ago, if only for the confirmation that Daja is a lesbian. And Lark/Rosethorn is canon!! THANK YOU for queer people in my YA fiction, TP.
@DH@twitter OMG YES. Kel is my favorite too. For all the reasons you mention. I also love that she does the knight thing out in the open, so she has to deal with all the up-front bullshit, and she does so with EPIC CLASS. love her.
@phenylalanine
LARK/ROSETHORN FOREVER. I also liked the confirmation that Rosethorn/Crane was and is occasionally still a thing and that Lark is fine with this. I really love the Emelan books as a sort-of grown-up, much more than I did as a kid.
@phenylalanine Ooh, good point on the up-front-ness of Kel. God, I'm going to be useless for the rest of the afternoon, because I'm just going to be rereading Tamora Pierce books instead of working.
Tamora Pierce! Tamora Pierce! Tamora Pierce! I've been semi-seriously entertaining the idea of writing a book about her work for a while as there are so many interesting issues. Kel is my favorite too and I think it's the strongest series in her oeuvre. So many great values, I would re-read it in college for inspiration to study hard. To me Kel is a genuinely unique female heroine in the literary realm.
@thebestjasmine I'll try and check out the Heather Wells books, thanks for the rec.
@Ophelia I'm one of the few people I know who preferred the Immortals series to Alanna, probably because I was obsessed with animals as a child. Still hold Daine close to my heart. The book club I'm in is actually reading Beka Cooper again in anticipation of the new book coming out. Whee! Love the dead-people-as-pigeons thing.
Funny, I love to read books of all genres and consider myself fairly read, yet I have never read any of the above listed books!
Also, guess this means I dodged a bullet by dating a guy who doesn't really read much at all … right? (right??)
This is such a good article and so right on. how about the dudes that have a lot of books so you think they like to read but it turns out they've never read them?
@hotdog There are guys like that? That is appalling.
@hotdog I had a boyfriend who read the beginnings of lots of books and if I mentioned one, he'd say he read it and loved it. but when I'd try to talk about it with him, he would admit he never finished the whole thing. sigh.
@kayarr Oh God, one of my huge pet peeves is people who say they have read Remembrances of Things Past, but have only read the first 100 pages (of 3000 pages).
@hotdog One of my summer projects was to read all the books that I've been given/picked up over the years that I've never gotten a chance to read. It's only like 5-10% of my bookshelves so not huge, but I lend books to people all the time and it's so embarrassing when they're browsing my collection and (of course) ask, "How's this one?" about one I haven't read yet.
@thenotestaken I'd say a good 40% off my bookshelf (and 90% of my nook library) is stuff I haven't read.I mean, why keep what I've read? The library will store those for me for free. When people borrow stuff, I tell them not to return it if it sucks.
@sam.i.am Yes this is me. Most books I own I haven't read, unless it's like one of my top 10 books, it's getting chucked after I'm done.
@Mila If I say I've just read Swann's Way and leave it at that, am I okay? Sure, I'm a quitter, but at least I'm honest.
(is the rest worth it)
@hotdog I haven't read probably about 50% of my bookshelf. I'm a slow reader, I tend to buy books at a pace faster than I can read them, and sometimes my social life/work/school takes precedence over reading. I'm working on not buying so many books right now, and reading what I have, but I assure you that I really, truly am a reader.
@leon.saintjean: Yes, I would accept saying you just read Swann's Way, with no judgment as long as you didn't site the part about the madeleines. As to whether it is worth reading…it is according to the lit prof hubby (his favorite book). I haven't read it, just had to go through a semester of no dates when he had to read it back in college, and it literally took every free second he had. I just know what a serious commitment of time plus mental energy (it is no easy read) it takes, so it bugs me when people who haven't actually read it claim they have.
Bukowski, anyone? Smart boys trapped in dull lives who are fond of whiskey and prose, in that order.
And you are a distant third.
@perfect_cursive You're so right. I fucked up once and let a couple of my super smart, dreamy headed poetry students choose to read Bukowski as an alternative to something I'd assigned. I'm afraid I/he/the whiskey ruined their lives.
@perfect_cursive I just commented on this upthread but this was my big one (aside from Rand). You just perfectly described my experience with the Bukowski lovers, one of potential that will never be realized and is mostly drunk. Many of my friends, including some lady ones, love his books. I don't get it! I mean I like booze, but also motivation?
@tiny dancer Totally!! Bukowski's fine, just put down the Chivas and go outside once in a while.
Ugh, Rand. A ROTC guy in my (fine and performing arts, mind you) dorm in college used to post relativist theses in the lobby to get out doing mandatory philanthropy. And he used to do shirtless push-ups in the common area, too, so there's that.
@perfect_cursive ***objectivist*** I need a sandwich.
@perfect_cursive the only way that typo would have been funnier (and more a propos) is if you'd typed "subjectivist."
@erikonymous I swear I was just being dumb and not clever.
The first guy I fell for, back in high school, was in "Modern American Lit" with me where we argued about the meaning of EVERYTHING. It was very hot. IE, I hated One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest because I thought it was sort of misogynist and all the female characters were flat and evil and if anything I sort of identified with the Nurse (she got shit done). And this boy and all of the other boys were like YEAH McMurphy!
And the boy I liked especially liked On The Road. When we started dating we would sit up and argue about it forever. I like On the Road too, but I think it's more a warning against the lifestyle included rather than a glorification? Like Neal is the badass, but Sal is actually super conflicted and generally let down by the road thing all. the. time.
To quote this book I love about it (oh yeah, I brought secondary sources to my arguments):
"Between his aunt's home and his future mate's, he eats poorly, urinates injudiciously, bitches about his friends and mopes about his love life…Ann Coulter couldn't give a better rationale for traditional family values. All Sal wants is to give up the road for the life his readers dream of living. He doesn't flout societal inhibitions; he aspires to them."
~Why Kerouac Matters
So I guess, OTR COULD be an okay choice, if the reader in question is capable of distinguising between Neal and Sal. Although I have yet to meet a boy who claims this as his favorite book that doesn't mix the two together in this "whooo adventure!" thang.
@MissMushkila Yeah, that is how I feel about Catcher in the Rye. If someone reads it as a recipe for how to live life, that is troubling ("Holden is my hero!" Seriously? He has a nervous breakdown by the end of it).
Naked Lunch: flee, and flee fast. Getting through that book, let alone 30 pages of it should be a litmus test for being right of mind.
Might I also suggest:
Secretly loves his computer more than you: Neuromancer (or any William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, et al)
Will cry to avoid conflict: Everything is Illuminated
Prone to barfights and/or unexplained absences; unable to otherwise gain escape velocity from his cubicle job: Fight Club
@MerelyGoodExpectations OMG Fight Club – When I was in college, this guy I knew got super drunk, started talking about his dick size and then tried to start a fight club. That book is adored by so many bro-dudes who a) missed the point and b) would die if they knew Palahniuk was gay.
@MerelyGoodExpectations I wondered when someone would get around to mentioning old Chuck P. Ladies, be ESPECIALLY WARY of aspiring writers who like Fight Club, Lullaby, or worse, Choke.
@perfect_cursive I was in college when the movie came out, and there actually was (albeit briefly) a fight club on campus.
On the other hand, I do have a friend for whom Fight Club served as a wake-up call; reading it prompted him to change his career plans and sort of get his life together in a way he was excited about. I don't think he'd cite it as his favorite book, though.
@MerelyGoodExpectations yes, beware of fight club lovers who are convinced that they are trapped in a world of society's making. they are permanently unhappy, and are certain that every element of their life – except themselves – is responsible for it.
@MerelyGoodExpectations Yeah, me too. Maybe it was the movie's fault?
@perfect_cursive I would never call it my favorite, but I do think Fight Club is good, but I do think a lot of people completely missed the point. Fight clubs are bad! They don't fix anything! Just talk to the girl you like like an adult!
It's like how a bunch of guys also idolize Tony Montana in Scarface. Missing the point!
@MerelyGoodExpectations I love some Neuromancer. And talking to me about pretty much any cyberpunk will get you laid. Although, talking to me about Octavia Butler will get you laid better. So, um, heck yeah, science fiction dudes. I don't care if you love your computer more than me.
@MerelyGoodExpectations Anyone who chooses any Palahniuk as their favorite needs to read more/better books. (I should add that this is based on reading 1.5 of his books, so if Haunted and Diary just suck, please let me know. I've stopped trying.)
@rocknrollunicorn NO WORRIES re: stopping. They are all basically the same book.
@ellbeejay So, so true. As a pretentious 15-year-old I was really into Fight Club, but after I read a few more I realized that all the characters in all the books were a) exactly the same and b) unbearable.
@MerelyGoodExpectations I love(d) William Gibson, and this is true.
@bluesuedeshoes And speaking of William Gibson, had you noticed that there's an Antarctica Starts Here commenter?
@bluesuedeshoes Ohhhhh Octavia! Parable of the Sower is one of my all time favorites! I'm quite frankly shocked it hasn't been made into a movie yet.
@bluesuedeshoes Oh man, if I found a cute guy who loved Octavia Butler, I think I would have to leave my current boyfriend
Yeah!
@atipofthehat Words, words, words …to your mother.
@atipofthehat Um, also, like, Shakespeare's work is almost entirely in meter, right? Like, the opposite of prose? Busted Tees indeed.
@erikonymous
Verse?
I'm drawing a blank….
@atipofthehat Just read between the lines.
May or May Not Cry At Least Once During Sex: Jonathan Safran Foer novels
@applestoapples Who are all these men crying during sex? What the hell are you ladies doing to them? Titty twisters? Kinking the garden hose? A dreaded Rear Admiral?
@saythatscool Kinking the garden hose! Never heard that one before, but it sounds like fun. great suggestion!
@saythatscool All of the above. With some light pegging.
@applestoapples You're a naughty one. I like you.
@saythatscool We'll get along better if your favorite book happens to be Everything Is Illuminated.
@applestoapples I've never cried in bed and I've done some pretty strange things there….
@saythatscool
Don't you cry when they stop?
@atipofthehat OFTEN AND HARD
@saythatscool Eh, crying in bed is overrated, anyway, unless you're wearing an oxygen mask and listening to Roy Orbison.
Ah, I love finding kindred spirits who share my dislike of On the Road. To quote Paris Geller "I have one word for the Beats: EDIT"
@curlysue Oh god, and then Jess says something douchey like Jane Austen would have liked Kerouac? SHUT UP, JESS. Paris is amazing, though. "Edit" is also my word for Tolkein.
*ducks as tomatoes fly*
@curlysue Er, not to rain on anyone's parade but On the Road was HELLA edited, as were all the major compositions of the era. Contrary to popular opinion, the Beats largely thought of themselves as serious, literary people. They were just trying to do a very specific thing.
And that thing does not rock some peoples' boats.
For your own sake, I suggest you stay far, far away from Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
@NatashaMcG 'Not another fucking elf'.
@H.E. Ladypants I don't think anyone actually believes the Beats didn't edit at all. I hate to speak for the divine Ms. Gellar, but I think the point is that much of On the Road is pretentious crap that should be edited out (i.e. eliminated).
@discodamage CS Lewis? God bless.
@NatashaMcG I'm not sure I really believe that the man who invented Aslan could ever really have said 'fucking', but it is a fine quote nonetheless.
@NatashaMcG : Yes, that's what I took Paris to mean as well. My experience reading on the road was basically just frustration that they always aspired to be where they weren't (which I suppose was the point). But after they've criss-crossed the country for what seems like the umpteenth time, you just want to shake them and tell them that they can write their poetry and do their benzies anywhere, and for christ sakes, they hated California the last time they were there so they shouldn't go back. Of course, I haven't read the book in a while, so that may be unfair, but that was my reaction after reading it.
@curlysue I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of my affection for On the Road comes from my own love of travel– not traveling TO anything but just the process of being in between places. I feel like that was really the point, was that they kept finding excuses to put themselves back in that state.
I always thought I was a little crazy for how much I love being stuffed into passenger seats and train cars until I read a piece by Tony Judt (rest in peace and bless his soul) about a year ago about how he used to ride trains constantly just because he loved that feeling of traveling and being between places, to the point where he had to invent reasons to go places so that people wouldn't think that he was odd for just riding the train. It was sort of a revelation to me. I was all "Well if grown-up, very respectable Tony Judt can feel this way about travel, I'm totally crazy for feeling the same thing."
I think a lot people don't find this sort of thing very enjoyable, though, and for them it must be a very unpleasant book. It's not just that the characters dash around all the time not going anywhere, it's that the book doesn't really go anywhere, either. They see some things and sometimes they enjoy them and sometimes they don't and sometimes they're looking for something and sometimes they're not. But it's not building to anything. There's never a real destination or climax in the story, never some moment that gives it all meaning.
Sorry for the ramble. That's just a thought you just made me have.
@H.E. Ladypants er "I'm NOT totally crazy for feeling the same thing."
Dunno why the edit button doesn't work for me.
@H.E. Ladypants : Actually, I think that makes brilliant sense.
So…what if you're a lady who does lots of normal fun lady stuff, like reading The Hairpin and drinking wine at barbecues and baking cupcakes and having intelligent sociopolitical discussions and stuff…and you still love On The Road?!? I think it's beautifully written (I couldn't do that on a first draft)and wonderfully expressive of the American landscape (I still get a little misty when I think about the ghost of the Susquehanna part). But now I kind of feel ike a loser because I didn't realize it was a cliche to have that roman candles quotation on your Facebook page. I'll be taking that down now.
Also, I am the only woman I have ever met to love reading Hemingway. I don't want to generalize about men who read Hemingway, because I only knew one (but he was pretty jerky).
@solidgold Come over here and we'll talk about Hemingway. I don't pretend to like all the impotence stuff, but I love his short stories and novellas. And I think he's a master of prose. Have you seen "Midnight in Paris?" The Hemingway character is my favorite.
@solidgold I love reading Hemingway, too. The short stories are wonderful.
@solidgold i love "on the road," and i don't care what people think of me for it. i really liked "dharma bums" too.
i don't sit around re-reading kerouac while wearing a beret and a black turtleneck, but i'll drink wine from a doll head cup and chat about it with you.
@solidgold Ha, I didn't see this and just bitched about Hemingway loving guys. I don't know about ladies who like Hemingway, but the men I know who do have all been total jerks.
@solidgold Ha, I didn't see this and just bitched about Hemingway loving guys. I don't know about ladies who like Hemingway, but the men I know who do have all been total jerks.
@solidgold Man, I didn't see this before I made my post. I think the answer is that we should be friends.
Also the roman-candle line is a good one. Many oft-quoted things are quoted for a reason: People like them.
@solidgold: Perhaps all of your feelings about Hemingway can be resolved by reading that Julian Barnes short story "Homage to Hemingway" from the July 4, 2011 New Yorker. Mine were!
@solidgold I prefer to think of this as an exercise in analyzing the literary taste of sup-par dudes, rather than one in cataloging the failures of particular readerships. Just because, say, a guy who is immature is likely to love Salinger does not mean that, by loving Salinger, one becomes an immature guy.
@sam.i.am You're right, Hemingway in "Midnight in Paris" was so dreamy!
@solidgold I love Hemingway! I am a girl!
@solidgold I like On the Road. And Catcher in the Rye for that matter. I'm an English major but I also read romance novels. I'm doomed, basically.
@Nicole Cliffe YES Hemingway short stories! ALL OF THEM FOR EVER AND EVER.
@josiah i was just going to say this same thing! http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/07/04/110704fi_fiction_barnes
a farewell to arms is sooooo good.
@solidgold: Yeah, I love Hemingway, as in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is my favorite novel of all time. And most of the time I feel like that's automatic grounds for revocation of my feminist card.
But I love Hemingway, and the scene in the village in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the most chilling thing I have ever read.
Hunter S Thompson is the shit though! Also, Atlast Shrugged is one of my favorite books, but I swear it has nothing to do with objectivism. It's, like, a super overwrought, juicy soap opera. So much fun!
@ccard Phew! Can I sit at this table for lunch?
@ccard FINALLY someone else who reads it like I do. The times I've had to explain myself after a guest sees that title on my main bookshelf… #teamFrancisco
@allifer I've learned to just lie about it.
@allifer RIGHT?? And Hank is so fucking noble and tragic! I'd name my firstborn Hank, but, you know…Hank.
how about: "i don't read."
:O?
@jstar I dated a guy who only read snowmobile magazines. Didn't last.
@jstar Yea, I'm less interested in *what* you're reading, just so long as you're reading! Standards, I have them.
My major red flag would be a guy who is really into Hemingway. Blech.
What am I like if my favorite is Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle not Slaughterhouse Five)? I want Hairpin's praise and/or derision.
@whizzard You are a wonderful amazing genius, just like me! (Though I'm torn between Cat's Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
@whizzard
The Hairpin is my karass.
@science is sexy@twitter Player Piano is my close second but I'm a sucker for class issues/hating on big business.
@whizzard Anyone like Deadeye Dick? For some reason, that's my favorite. Maybe b/c it was the first one I read.
@whizzard: You're awesome, obviously. Slaughterhouse 5 Left me cold, but I loved Breakfast of Champions and Mother Night. @perfect_cursive: I'm trying to read Deadeye Dick but am having a hard time getting into it.
@perfect_cursive That's one of the few I haven't read of his, and I always go straight to the V of fiction in used book stores (sorry, no going back now). It probably is because it was your first, you never forget your first (I need to get out of here quick).
but seriously have you read A Man Without A Country? It is so succinctly packed with his understated curve-ball wisdom, I loved it.
@whizzard ::backs away slowly::
@whizzard I really love to read his short stories, too–Welcome to the Monkey House, anyone?
@whizzard Aw, what's wrong with Slaughterhouse 5?
@JessTheMess nothing at all it's very good, but as a favorite…pretty dark. I'd be a dude that cracks dead baby jokes and has H. R. Geiger posters, a black Ibanez guitar, black bed sheets, black candles, army paraphernalia golore, and I'd watch either WWII documentaries or black metal live DVDs nightly. Wait that'd be pretty badass. NEW ME.
@Lola I know it's a million hours later and no one will ever read this, especially not the person it was meant for, but whatever, internet commenting is mostly shouting into the void anyway. Welcome to the Monkey House legitimately changed me as a person. The first time I read it, I was 13, and it absolutely shaped the way I thought about class, war, technology, the future, love, sex, childhood, adulthood…I've read every story a gazillion times since, and every time I feel a deep longing to be the person Kurt wanted us all to be. It's not my favorite, because so many of the stories terrify me. But it's amazing.
@science is sexy@twitter I think you did a perfect job of explaining what that book means to me, too. My dad got it for me at a used book store when I was 14, and it still sits next to my bed. I read it all the time.
@science is sexy@twitter Now it's a billion hours later but I just had to check back in on this. I am going to re-read WTTMH now, "…be the person Kurt wanted us all to be." That's a great way to put it, he did layout some pretty agreeable ethical guidelines while being hilariously cynical and sardonic, with the faintest glimmer of optimism. Don't take yourself so seriously but also, be a decent human because it's not so difficult. At least that's what I took away after finishing one KV book. A few of them blend together in my mind and after many repeat reads I can't keep track.
i think i'm a dude, I love all those books.
@Rubyinthedust Me too. I think everyone needs to get over themselves. I mean, my last long-term boyfriend's fave was Stephen King. So pretty much any of these are better than that, right? Also, what's the hilarious, pithy description of Stephen King lovers?
Here is where I ask the tough question: Where do we stand on Infinite Jest? I am very curious about this.
@VictorVictrola My husband read Infinite Jest a year or so back and he's dead sexy. Does that help?
@VictorVictrola That depends. Did they finish it, or do they just have that brick on their bookshelf to look smart?
@VictorVictrola I stand on Infinite Jest when I can't reach stuff on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinets.
@MmeLibrarian Partly.
@Hooplehead Finished. Whole DFW library finished. There has been one who was in my life who had IJ as his favorite, and I mean, obviously, he is very intelligent, but the identification with Hal was maybe too close? I read IJ after that relationship and saw Hal permeate waywaywaaaay into past moments with him.
Like maybe that's the tortured-but-wonderful-and-compelling guy but also with the cavaet of having some part of him/his being be devestating that he needs to allow himself to be introspective and vulnerable for? And until then, no go?
@VictorVictrola If he read the whole thing and can tell you about it a little, that means he is dedicated and diligent and good at prioritizing. If he read the whole thing and all he can say about it is, "Man that kid who had a fucked-up relationship with his parents and his own talents in life and also with weed is JUST LIKE ME," that…is a bad sign. (I adore DFW, I'm just saying.)
@Pixley huh-so this is what accidentally inhaling coffee feels like. (I think you're right.)
@VictorVictrola: More power to you! I got 45 pages into IJ before filing it under Life Is Too Short. It was well written, but far too ADD for my taste.
Hmmm, IJ dudes-I would definitely say they want everyone to know how smart and tasteful they are for picking such a critic's darling.
@VictorVictrola I put that under boys who think they are brilliant but really aren't. *ducks*
@VictorVictrola Me tooooo! And also depressive and alienated and ugh. Sorry DFW people!
@VictorVictrola It means he has reservations about intimacy and did a poor enough job building a career in his mid-twenties that he had time to read it, and it is so fucking good I read it twice.
@VictorVictrola I'm reading Infinite Jest right now. Time will tell if it's one of my favorites, but I AM loving it. With that said, I think for me a lot of these — Salinger, David Foster Wallace, Bret Easton Ellis — I am a fan of more for their interesting writing/wordplay/AMAZING succinctness (that's Salinger)/narration and experiments therein. Like, I wouldn't choose a character out of any of these books to identify with. I probably wouldn't with any of my favorites. I love a good, compelling story and good/interesting writing.
Also, I'm a lady, so feeling complete identification with Hal, or Holden, or a Bateman would be kind of strange.
@VictorVictrola I love it.
Blergh please tell me the Meg Cabot thing is a joke.
Or maybe I just really like drugs, I don't know.
I have been reading The Hairpin since its inception, have been reading The Awl since the commenter numbers were still in the three digits, and am JUST NOW registering to post a comment because of how much I love this post and want to talk about books.
First of all, one word on HST: say what you will about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is possibly my favorite political book ever. While I (obviously) understand why a Thompson fan might be assumed to love drugs, his fearlessness and barely-veiled contempt for authority is separately appealing. Which, particularly given your other choices for political books (fawning, laudatory profiles or ranty attacks, very little in between), may be separate from your love of drugs. Or lack thereof!
But: what does it say about me that my favorite book is A Confederacy of Dunces?
@nokittythisismypotpie
“I cannot sell you a frank, madam. Is that clear?”
@atipofthehat She's clearly a chubby chaser and probably into feeder porn. It's just a guess but it's an educated guess.
@saythatscool Bless her perverted heart.
@saythatscool
This feature is clearly the new M/F/K!
@saythatscool Very specific foods though: "When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
@saythatscool @atipofthehat
*And the slash actually means "or" here, in case you were planning to M slash F slash K in that order.
@nokittythisismypotpie
“I would like to buy one of your hot dogs. They smell rather tasty. I was wondering if I could buy just one.”
“Sure.”
“May I select my own?” Ignatius asked, peering down over the top of the pot. In the boiling water the frankfurters swished and lashed like artificially colored and magnified paramecia. Ignatius filled his lungs with the pungent, sour aroma. “I shall pretend that I am in a smart restaurant and that this is the lobster pond.”
“Here, take this fork,” the man said, handing Ignatius a bent and corroded semblance of a spear. “Try to keep your hands out of the water. It’s like acid. Look what it’s done to the fork.”
“My,” Ignatius said to the old man after having taken his first bite. “These are rather strong. What are the ingredients in these?”
“Rubber, cereal, tripe. Who knows? I wouldn’t touch one of them myself.”
“They’re curiously appealing,” Ignatius said, clearing his throat. “I thought that the vibrissae about my nostrils detected something unique while I was outside.”
Ignatius chewed with a blissful savagery, studying the scar on the man’s nose and listening to his whistling.
“Do I hear a strain from Scarlatti?” Ignatius asked finally.
“I thought I was whistling ‘Turkey in the Straw.’”
“I had hoped that you might be familiar with Scarlatti’s work. He was the last of the musicians,” Ignatius observed and resumed his furious attack upon the long hot dog. “With your apparent musical bent, you might apply yourself to something worthwhile.”
Ignatius chewed while the man began his tuneless whistling again. Then he said, “I suspect that you imagine ‘Turkey in the Straw’ to be a valuable bit of Americana. Well, it is not. It is a discordant abomination.”
“I can’t see that it matters much.”
“It matters a great deal, sir!” Ignatius screamed. “Veneration of such things as ‘Turkey in the Straw’ is at the very root of our current dilemma.”
@atipofthehat
The old man looked at Ignatius and then at the massive pot, the gas range, and the crumpled cars. He said, "I can hire you right here."
"Thank you ver much," Ignatius said condescendingly. "However, I could not work here. This garage is particularly dank, and I'm susceptible to respiratory ailments among a variety of others."
"You wouldn't be working in here, son. I mean as a vendor."
"What?" Ignatius bellowed. "Out in the rain and snow all day long?"
"It don't snow here."
"It has on rare occasions. It probably would again as soon as I trudged out with one of these wagons. I would probably be found in some gutter, icicles dangling from all of my orifices, alley cats pawing over me to draw the warmth from my last breath. No than you, sir. I must go. I suspect that I have an appointment of some sort."
@nokittythisismypotpie I just read Campaign Trail last summer, after having read Las Vegas in high school, and HOLY COW how frigging awesome is it. SO AWESOME. I am getting around to HST a little late, but man can the dude write about politics.
@Pixley It is, in fact, SO AWESOME. I have no idea how he did it either, during an election that was basically a foregone conclusion, and with Nixon not even really campaigning. I wonder sometimes, though, whether the blowout was a necessary part of his work being what it was–would an editor have ever let him range all over the place if there was a close race needing to be covered more directly? And then I wonder whether it would have happened even in a close race, because he was working for a magazine and not a daily, AND because he didn't have to deal with continuous news cycles and the travesty of modern political media/non-stop horse-race journalism.
His sports stuff is great too, btw.
@nokittythisismypotpie Also no one seems to be mentioning that Fear and Loathing (at least the first half) is FUNNY. It's a great comedic novel and i think we can count the number of those on two hands. But of course according to someone upthread my liking for Confederacy of Dunces means my sense of humor is completely undeveloped – so… YMMV!
…LEVY PANTS!!
Anyone who equates HST with Fear and Loathing…should maybe read more HST. Start with his letters, then try Kingdom of Fear or The Great Shark Hunt. (That said, yeah, if a guy told me Fear and Loathing was his favorite book, I would start looking for an exit.)
Guy is a New-Age weenie, and probably too old for you, and lousy in bed: Illusions by Richard Bach. Also, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Will always leave you home alone while he goes off to martial-arts events: Dune and its thousand and one sequels.
Also watch out for rabid fans of Ender's Game.
I always want to meet a guy who lists Gravity's Rainbow on his favorites list, but whenever I find someone who says they love it they turn out to have actually never read it, they just like the idea of it. Probably similar to Infinite Jest. Sadness.
@ru_ri There is no way to say this without sounding like a juicebox, but I have cover-to-covered Gravity's Rainbow – back in my days of construction work!
I was young and dumb, and my theory was that being a roadworker, and spending my breaks chugging gatorade and reading Pynchon made me some kind of noble glorious something or other. But Pynchon guys…
…I'd say, avoid us at all costs, unless you find us irresistible. In that case, have at it.
@ru_ri I've been Hairpin-lurking for a while, and registered just now because my brother is a genuine Gravity's Rainbow lover and he talks about it ALL THE TIME. Pynchon is his god, and he keeps bothering me about how I still haven't read the copy of Vineland he lent me. Other favorites: Ulysses, The Tin Drum. My brother is a fellow of naturally-occurring pretentious tastes. You might like him, though! He's very charming, just…odd.
@leon.saintjean There are way way worse types of juiceboxes than the ones who read Pynchon. Similar confession: I can admit to reading shit in Greek and Latin while working as an auto mechanic (mostly Latin, and mostly Virgil, UGH the pretension), for precisely the same sort of misplaced romantic…whatever it was…but it never got me anywhere, much less laid, mostly because I am mostly straight.
ANYWAY. I would say, you seem to have turned out OK despite the fondness for Pynchon, so there is that?
Also, Pynchon is, for me, very hit-or-miss. Yes to V and GR and (kind of) Lot 49. I can't stand the rest. In fact I would like to punch him after I slogged all the way through Against the Day only to have him botch the ending. Then I gave up on him.
@figwiggin He sounds a little intimidating! I am always afraid people with giant brains like that will think I am a boring philistine. But it would be lovely to meet someone who really genuinely liked Gravity's Rainbow. We could compare our favorite parts of the book, and stuff. Does he drink whisky?
@ru_ri – I cannot for the life of me comprehend how a straight lady mechanic who rads pynchon and classics in the original isn't the best dating resume ever. Who doesn't want to talk about small block chevys and the oresteia?
@leon.saintjean The Oresteia! Oh my god, so good. When Clytemnestra is going on about how Agamemnon's blood is a "gory dew"…oof. And Cassandra's best quote:
"Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate,
one may liken them to a shadow; and if they are unfortunate,
a wet sponge with one dash blots out the picture.
And I pity this far more than that."
And then she goes to her own foreseen death! Aeschylus is the best.
@ru_ri Hahaha, I'm pretty sure he drinks a lot of things, actually. But you should be warned that he's a prog rock devotee as well, which isn't something a lot of people are able to put up with.
@ru_ri Hahaha, I'm pretty sure he drinks a lot of things, actually. But you should be warned that he's a prog rock devotee as well, which isn't something a lot of people are able to put up with.
What, no Hemingway?
@Hooplehead I WAS ABOUT TO POST THIS. But I love Hemingway so what does that Say About Me? Apparently I am a jerk too.
@rayray Uhoh….what is the hemmingway answer? Cuz, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is one of my favorites….
@leon.saintjean As has been discussed upthread (somehow I am commenting backwards) it seems many of us enjoy Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls is indeed great and his short stories are nothing short of awesome. He is touted as a macho, mysogynistic, egotistical bastard who went round playing war and shooting animals to compensate for his impotence but I still think he's pretty great, so bring it on, haters.
@rayray See, my concern over the awfulness-as-dudes of the dudes (and yes, they are all dudes) who are my literary faves-4-eva is (as I one time drunkenly tried to explain to an editor of a popular blog that I may or may not be commenting on right now) a big part of why I read The Hairpin! I know my favorite books are by old timey mysogynistic jerks, but my favorite new-timey current words are by witty women — basically, I figure it makes it okay for me to love Hitchens if I also love to read women who are funny and prove Hitch wrong.
@leon.saintjean It is problematic, but I don't think anyone would judge you as being an awful dude, LSJ, and if they do so based solely on your choice of books, well, that's just silly. A lot of my fave writers are dudes too (Dickens for the win!) and I'm a lady.
@rayray i was about to defend myself with "but a lot of my fave poets are women!" But I feel like that somehow makes it worse.
Sure I'd love a wild life/But every wild man needs a mother or a wife – "Me and Bobby D", Everything but the Girl
Okay, fess up (non-gay) ladies: how many of us recognize our boyfriends/husbands in other commenters' deal-breaker books? Proves that there is a shoe for every foot, no?
@NatashaMcG : I just recognize my exes. Well, except for HST, but my current beau just likes to read HST's gonzo letters. Over and over. on the toilet. So a little different.
@teenie Well that just sounds excellent. Some people here are using Dune and Ulysses as deal breakers, and those books are among my bf's faves. He's a peach. On the actual list I only recognize men I never bothered to date, thank god.
Dune is the greatest and best book ever written.
@Nicole Cliffe I've never read Dune, but I'm a total sci-fi geek, and think i would love it.
Side note: I've decided that I will finally get myself a kindle with the money that my boyfriend's mother just gave me as a belated b'day prezzie, and all of everyone's book suggestions are my inspiration. yay!
@Nicole Cliffe
It's certainly the spiciest!
@Nicole Cliffe
I love Dune. I reread it expecting it to have been visited by the Suck Fairy and IT STAYS AWESOME. Amazing.
@teenie I haven't read it either but I'm very tempted to. It was my nerdy ex's favourite book, too.
@Lady Gagarin Great username!
@teenie Do it! I already went on and on about my love for my Kindle upthread, I seriously adore mine so much.
I totally disagree about On the Road – I'm a woman and that's one of my favorite books of all time.
What, you want bros wearing teeshirts that say The Portrait of a Lady? Are you sure about that?
@Tulletilsynet Yes and yes.
@annepersand
Suum cuique. Enjoy your Gilbert Osmond, then.
You know, the other day my dad actually gave me both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Secretly Loves Drugs More Than He Loves You) and Neuromancer (Secretly loves his computer more than you) to read. Y'all are scarily accurate! Except I think he did all his drugs in the 70s.
This post made me sad… I like those books. (But not Atlas Shrugged, because Rand is a VERY BAD LADY)
@makeshift Hmm your pickings are slim if you won't read an author who was a complete tool in real life.
@DrFeelGood True facts, doc. Even the extremely saintly holy ones were kind of tools.
@DrFeelGood I know, I know, its a liddle bit hypocritical, but I just read such horrible things about her and I actually can't bring myself to go do it.
"And two, any time a person over the age of 18 tells you how much they identify with Holden Caulfield, it's a warning sign. Like a warning sign with flashing lights and shrieky sirens and a third alarming thing"
YOU ARE DEAD ON!!
I would agree with your appraisal of Easton Ellis with one small reservation. His stuff makes me feel misanthropy in general, not misogyny alone.
'On the Road' is a terrible, terrible book though IMO.
If his favorite book is Kosmos by Witold Gombrowicz, don't let him near your kitty.
Oooh ooh I have another one to run away from – if The Stranger, Albert Camus
@VictorVictrola ESPECIALLY if they say L'étranger, because they read it in french.
I feel like it is okay for a dude to LIKE these books, but it is not okay for them to be his FAVORITE book. You know? Like it is okay to appreciate Catcher in the Rye for what it is, but to call something your FAVORITE is to say, "I identify with these more than I identify with anything ever," and when that is Atlas Shrugged, that is spooky.
Also, my dude's favorite book is Ulysses, for real. He is the best.
@Pixley Ulysses is the shit. It might not be my favorite, but it is way up there.
Wait…Hairpin Ladies, I love your opinions, and I share mine a lot…my faves are "For Whom The Bell Tolls", "The Great Gatsby", "Pedro Paramo" (Juan Rulfo, the most amazing book not enough people have read), Cortazar's "Hopscotch" and Salter's "A Sport and A Pastime".
So, other than the fact that all of my favorite books are about tragic men who over-romanticize women and kind of flame out in blazes of glory, am I okay or jerky?
(if it's jerky, at least it's not secret)
@leon.saintjean – Also, if you see my list and say "oh, he would probably love x book written by a woman", please tell me. I read almost exclusively male novelists because the people I know who read novels also read mostly men. Help me be the one who changes that in my circle.
@leon.saintjean I don't know if you would love it based on that list, but I always tell men wanting to read a book by a woman to go read Zadie Smith's White Teeth.
@leon.saintjean So the only book on that last that I've read is Gatsby (which I loathe, but I'm in the minority in that one) but given your description, here are some books written by women that I think that you might like (I took your description broadly, mind you): "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender, "Room" by Emma Donoghue, "The Last Chinese Chef" by Nicole Mones. The last book might be the first one to start with (and is probably my favorite of the three, though I recommend all three books without reservation). Oooooh wait, you should totally also read "The Post Birthday World" by Lionel Shriver (a woman). Read that one first.
@leon.saintjean So, like thebestjasmine, the only book on your list I've read is Gatsby, but I tend to recommend "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin to everybody, because it is a fantastic sci-fi read by a fantastic sci-fi author. Also, In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker. Unless you hate sci-fi, then ignore all my recommendations, but it's great. Time-traveling cyborgs that protect history!
'The Left Hand of Darkness' forever. Also, the 'Women of Wonder' sci-fi anthologies.
@leon.saintjean I am going to say anything by Willa Cather, but that's because Willa Cather is a goddamn genius and nobody else reads her so nobody can talk with me about how much she is a goddamn genius.
@leon.saintjean Try Lorrie Moore or Mary Gaitskill. Plenty of tragedy, blazes of glory, and romanticization of women in their bodies of work, and also, both really terrific writers. Also Francois Sagan (I had a long-running softspot for Those Without Shadows, although it might have been during a lengthy period of depression also known as my twenties?) , Angela Carter, Muriel Spark, Kathy Acker, and also fuck yeah to Willa Cather.
Who can choose ONE favourite book anyway? Not me for one.
@ru_ri There is no way to say this without sounding like a juicebox, but I have cover-to-covered Gravity's Rainbow – back in my days of construction work!
I was young and dumb, and my theory was that being a roadworker, and spending my breaks chugging gatorade and reading Pynchon made me some kind of noble glorious something or other. But Pynchon guys…
…I'd say, avoid us at all costs, unless you find us irresistible. In that case, have at it.
@leon.saintjean You were correct the first time about the avoiding.
@Pixley huh-so this is what accidentally inhaling coffee feels like. (I think you're right.)
@Butterscotch Stalin
You're right, and I falafel about it. Pita me.
I think we need to have a forum where people can tell their favorite book/author, then everyone can tell them what kind of bad person they are. I'll start:
My favorite book is Light in August, William Faulkner.
@bluesuedeshoes No! No it's not! It's really The Blind Assasin by Margaret Atwood. Favorite books are hard!
@bluesuedeshoes kh$%%goi^&*siot?!HG@@~>JHA!!! THE BLIND ASSASSIN
@bluesuedeshoes: Cat's Eye is up there for me. 2006 was the summer of Margaret Atwood!
@bluesuedeshoes Really? I think that might be my least favorite Atwood that I've read. I think Handmaid's Tale will always be my favorite though.
@theharpoon et al: Argh, so hard! The Master & Margarita during the week, Till We Have Faces for Sundays and anything by Margery Allingham when I'm sick. That's the best I can do.
@Bittersweet Til We Have Faces is a seriously underrated book. Or maybe it's not underrated, but I never hear anyone mention it. Love it so much though. And Master and Margarita. So…I think you're my new bff.
@heyits: Definitely underrated…almost no one else I know has read it. That alone would qualify you for bff status – the M&M love is just gravy.
@bluesuedeshoes Type Of Bad Person You Are: indecisive.
@Bittersweet I've read Till We Have Faces! Give me book points now.
@theharpoon I'll start weaving our friendship bracelets.
@ru_ri I loved HST's political commentary. Underneath the rants and hyperbole he was sharp as a tack. I missed his reporting sorely during the '08 election.
On the Road's characters are like today's crustpunks. I get what they're about, but I kind of hate it.
@Pound of Salt I do love stalking the train hopping flickrs though.
The commentary about Atlas Shrugged is alarmingly accurate. I had a friend in high school who was a big juicebox, incredibly self-absorbed, and irritatingly intelligent, and Ayn Rand was his lady. Last I heard, he's also big in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (or whatever the hell that's called) fanfiction community.
My dad is a HST guy, to the point that he named our female golden retriever Raoul. He only does pot now, at least.
@figwiggin
Randian/brony overlap. It makes so much sense.
@figwiggin That's because the central message of all Ayn Rand's books is that it's alright to be a selfish assholes, which selfish assholes identify with.
@whizzard ::backs away slowly::
I am generally wary of people who have one and only one "favorite book," period. How can you choose?!
@martinipie There's favorite drinking shoes.
I have one for ladies (I'm a little scared to post this because of how close to home I suspect it will be). It's a film though. But if you are a straight man and you meet an adorable woman, perhaps with unusual, bright clothing, and she tells you her favorite movie is Amelie, just run screaming. First of all Amelie is MENTALLY ILL, and slightly criminal. Secondly people who want to be her, are basically dying to be thought of as interesting, so instead of just living life and doing interesting things, they tend to pick up strange habits to make themselves seem full of whimsicality. Expect to be woken up in the middle of the night by Amelie fans, coming over to have a picnic in your living room made entirely of green foods, and only speaking to you in riddles. If you can take that, more power to you.
@E I love Amelie! But I get the "contrived quirkiness" thing. Some people are so desperate to appear unique they'll do whatever ~random~ thing they can think of just to be remembered. I love Amelie a lot and I don't think she's mentally ill, but I don't exactly want to be her (except for the looking like Audrey Tautou part) because her life is really not that great!
For me Amelie is just a fun film to follow and look at than something to live by. I think that's the main thing with any book or film mentioned here – as long as you can separate your life and the character's life, you're good.
@E The whole "someday someone will come along and everything will be just perfect and we'll know it without even having a conversation with each other" should lead you to be very careful. I do really like that movie and it does tweak the hell out of my Paris fetish though.
@E wathc his other films. Delicatessen : HOLY FUCK!!
But i agree about the fans, i went into shakespear and company while i was in Paris shortly after the movie came out and there were people in thier totally geeking out way to hard about how much they were like Amelie
My favourite (or at least one of my very favourites) fiction books is Catch-22… typical right? What does it say about me? I'm so paranoid now!!
Besides some "classics" or books people explicitly recommend to me I tend to read non-fiction more than fiction nowadays. I don't know why since I like fiction just fine, but I'm not really down with the whole fantasy/dark romance/vampires etc stuff that seems to be huge right now (at least, it's what all my friends read even though many of us will soon no longer qualify as "young adults") and it just doesn't interest me in the least. Maybe I need friends that or more widely read, or I just need to take a few stabs in the dark myself…
I always want to read new books but finding a good one is daunting… I don't know whose opinion to trust anymore!
Basically, when I want to relax I crack open a Carl Sagan book at a random chapter because I find him so comforting. An entire library of him is enough to keep me happy…
My new-ish roommate had BOTH AYN RAND books on his not-particularly-extensive bookshelf.
I was all, Shiiiiiiiit. He is one of those people. I mean, one could be a garage sale or a gift from a friend, or something, that you never got around to reading but still have. But both? Come on.
BUT THEN! THERE IS A TWIST.
It turns out, he has those books, but has never read them, BECAUSE, his brother works for a nonprofit. That's nice, right? No. It is a nonprofit PROMOTING AYN RAND. And even my roommate admits that his brother is a big tool who was pretty much completely insufferable for a while.
So that was a big relief for me.
@Marzipan A nonprofit promoting Ayn Rand? What an amazing sentence.
@Lady Gagarin I KNOOOOW! It was a huge twist!! It's California, it makes no sense! (I'm in PA.)
aynrand.org
Dead on, needs more Bukowski and Palahniuk or whatever his name is, though.
Watch out for people whose favorite Harry Potter book is the fifth one. Or maybe just if they identify too much with Harry? That's the one where Harry is openly bitter about his friends' success, right? I get that one confused with Harry Potter and the Wizard Olympics.
@Probs Third book is the best.
If someone's favorite book is a Harry Potter book, don't date them because they are only 14 years old.
Run away from Watership Down fans, but only if they really, REALLY identify with General Woundwort. Or maybe also fans who can spell Thethuthinnang correctly off the top of their head and know that it means "movement of leaves?"
I'm gonna die alone.
That is beyond awesome. Obsessive Watership Down fandom ftw!
@figwiggin Who would identify with General Woundwort!!!
@Nicole Cliffe Thank you! I was hoping someone would validate me and make up for all the weird nose-wrinkling looks I get when I list it in my top 5. "Rabbits?" GUYS. It's not just about rabbits! And even if it were, it's a crazy-amazing book about rabbits.
@theharpoon Anyone who dreams of ruthlessly taking over a small country?
@figwiggin GASP! I read Watership Down every summer because I heart rabbits and socialism. Such a great message. "Help everyone you can, becase someday they may help you when some crazy right wing rabbits come to kill you." Also, come on. Dandelion and Blackberry rule. Shocker: I like my rabbits smart and funny.
@Slapfight Also, most people run from me anyway, so we're safe.
@Slapfight Hooray! Then we'll be left alone to discuss what exactly Kehaar's accent is supposed to be. When I first read the book when I was 10, I thought German? But now I have no idea.
@figwiggin I vote Russian. Or Norwegian? I don't know! Richard Adams, help us!
@Slapfight We should write him a letter.
I like cats.
My favorite Steely Dan album is "Out of the Blue".
You guys are just jealous.
@Ophelia Growing up as an immigrant/child of immigrants in America books! My mother thinks I love these, but I don't really
@bluesuedeshoes Oh man, if I found a cute guy who loved Octavia Butler, I think I would have to leave my current boyfriend
What about a guy who's favorite book is "anything by Tom Robbins"? Asking for a friend.
@Brunhilde I would say slightly immature, but fun. Definitely fun. I feel like Robbins randomly heavily influenced my life, but I haven't read him since high school, so I should probably go back before making these generalizations.
@Brunhilde He likes a girl with big thumbs?
@figwiggin Likewise, he might like me because my name is Amanda and I have red hair and used to smoke Camels? (This is a mishmash of two books, but whatever. And I totally chose Camels because of Robbins, but I was 15.)
@Brunhilde: Has an affinity for beautifully crafted run-on sentences that last for 3 pages. Intelligent and wants you to know it. Very randy. Loves the sound of his own voice.
Are Nadja or Ask the Dust in this genre? I loved those in my twenties and feel as if they might hover on the edges of it.
You guys know dudes who read? Lucky!
Well, it's finally the end of the day and no one has gone after Freedom, which is good because my feelings about that book mean that criticism of it always leads to tears on my part!
@josiah You know it's the end of the day when the spammers show up.
@theharpoon
–Something unexpected surprise–
trust me!
Opportunity knocks but once
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╱◥██◣”o’,”’,,’,.”.”,,’,.
｜田｜田田│ ”,,’,.’,”’,,’,.”
╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬╬
@Butterscotch Stalin YOU MADE THE HOUSE AGAIN! YAY!
@Butterscotch Stalin I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS YESTERDAY THANK YOU!!
@theharpoon
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@Something unexpected surprise I didn't see this one! a) I am not offended and b) I've found you out.
@theharpoon Well I certainly didn't see this coming! What a su…
this is the most true thing I've read ever. ever! thank you.
What about A Handful of Dust?
@theharpoon ahhh I just want this to go on forever. If I sit here in the corner and just whisper book title after book title, do you think that would be ok? Because I have Feelings about guys listing the following as favorites: Mann's Death in Venice, The Picture of Dorian Gray, anything by Nietzsche.
I think books by Graham Greene are good picks for favorites. Maybe?
@VictorVictrola I LOVE Graham Greene but what about W Somerset Maugham? Those two get cheesy but com'n. Liking something is better than posing behind something.
@zidaane Yeah, the guys I know who like Graham Greene a lot are pretty stable. And I think Maugham is good too! E.g. I would much rather a guy tell me he loves The Razor's Edge as a novel about a life/introspective journey+ soul search than other commonly cited novels (cough On The Road is not about inner growth cough).
@VictorVictrola Strongly agree!
@VictorVictrola
Are you kidding me? Your Graham Greene bro is going to bring you home a bad case of something and I don't mean Châteauneuf-du-Pape. What he gets on the side, he pays for. And he does not pay much.
Excuse me hello! Why is no one talking about Evelyn Waugh. I did not start this thread for y'all to talk about Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham. Seriously.
@Tulletilsynet ooooh no he is totally basing his life decisions on The Heart of The Matter, isn't he?
@theharpoon I am so sorry. I don't know about A Handful of Dust, but anyone who strongly appreciates Decline and Fall ought to come to you with pithy commentary on everything, making life more amusing, and would love people-watching. They may have too many opinions on everything but it should be worth your while.
@theharpoon
Sorry, hon. Maybe what got us distracted is that A Handful of Dust is a perfect book. A bro who reads just possibly might not necessarily harbor paranoid delusions about the woman he loves. Okay, yeah, he probably does.
@Tulletilsynet I guess that's ok. It really is a perfect book though!
ps This was actually about me liking that book a lot because I wanted to see what you guys think about meeeeeee
@theharpoon "pithy commentary on everything, making life more amusing, and would love people-watchin. They may have too many opinions on everything but it should be worth your while": hairpin commenter
when I'm good, I'm good.
I know this list is all about novels, but what if a guy told you Philip Larkin was his favorite poet?
…
… Um, and then quickly added that Elizabeth Bishop is a close second?
@Mr. B
Get stewed. Books are a load of crap.
@atipothehat: That poem is a dramatic monologue, for heaven's sake.
@Mr. B
Don't make me open the drawer of knives!
(I love Larkin)
Larkin and Ted Hughes: bad boyfriends, freaking glorious poets and I don't care.
@Nicole Cliffe: Just what I wanted to hear! (In defense of T.H., he was by all accounts a loving and devoted father to Frieda and Nicholas.)
@Mr. B I would tell him to look further around the poetry shelves. At least his favorite isn't, like, Billy Collins, though.
@martinipie: Well yeah, anyone who actually reads poetry knows Billy Collins is terrible but WHAT? Step back. The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
I've dated the Atlas Shrugged guy- spot on.
PS If I wag around a different well-thumbed title by Ivy Compton-Burnett or Muriel Spark every few days, will that maybe cancel out the occasional Hunter S Thompson sighting?
Since we're making sweeping generalizations about literature let me summarize every jane austen novel ever written.
Woman : i love him but he must never know
Man : i love her but she must never know
They get married, the end.
and do you know why they're required reading a lot of the time? it's because they're good books, imbecile. Climb out of your own arse and get back to "the time travellers wife".
Why do women feel like in order to connect to other women they have to reenforce sexist gender stereotypes and talk about why men can be jerks and how to spot them to feel like they are voicing their "feminist" opinions? I think it's cute when "feminists" put down established works of American literature because a guy broke up with them. Grow up.
@frozenpuddy It's called a JOKE. Get over yourself.
@frozenpuddy Looks like we've got an Ayn Rand apologist among us..
I was once interrogated by the UK border authorities as to why I needed a 6 month tourist visa to their country and spent the entire hours-long interrogation quoting Kerouak at them. I've never even read his work, I just picked up a bunch of quotes off the web at some point, but it was hilarious to watch them try and figure out why it all seemed so familiar. I could tell they *really* wanted to find a reason to ship my ass back across the sea, but they eventually let me in.
Agree with everything on this list except for Fear and Loathing. I personally know a goodly group of gentlemen who consider it (and HST's larger body of work)to be the shit and they are wonderful, wonderful guys.
It's no wonder the author is job hunting if she's seeking a job as a writer. Yawn.
ok but you did miss the guy who's favorite book is "The Alchemist" who will dump you for his vision quest- energy healing in thailand with flakey girls who don't wear bras and smell like patchouli
So much accuracy – especially American Psycho + Fear and Loathing!