I love a Good "Good Book" thread

Autoprax

Duke status
Jan 24, 2011
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Vagina Point
Dark star safari is the first one i read and i think it is also my favorite so far. The mexico one was great too. I am reading the railway bazaar, train through Asia now and while it is good it hasnt quite sucked me in the way some of the others have.
I though the Mexico one was good too. I like the Train ones too. I listened to the Patagonia Express while I was really sick when I was young. It was great, like I was sick on the train ride ride with Paul.

I recommend the audible versions of his essay collections.

Sunrise with Sea monsters comes to mind.
 
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ringer

Tom Curren status
Aug 2, 2002
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Huntington Beach, California
"Bastard Out of Carolina", by Dorothy Allison in 1992. Not very famous today, but I found my old hard copy to re-read recently and agree with the 30-year old review from the New York Times, which began with: "Simply stunning..."
 

enframed

Tom Curren status
Apr 11, 2006
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Del Boca Vista, Phase III
Currently reading Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band and The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession. About dude called Luca Turin, who apparently revolutionized how we think about the sense of smell.

Trying to get back to fiction but not quite there just yet.
 

slipped_disc

Billy Hamilton status
Jun 27, 2019
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bouncing back-n-forth between two books ATM:

The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

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Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald

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bluengreen

Michael Peterson status
Oct 22, 2018
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SF x Encinitas
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee - Fictionalized account of a magistrate running a small border town on behalf of an empire trying to keep the "barbarians" on its border at bay. The 1st person narrative makes for an intimate account of the philosophical, emotional and psychological conflicts that he grapples with as a late-career colonial functionary disgusted with the state's program of torture and dehumanization. Really good.

The Problem with Work by Kathi Weeks - The jacket blurb: "In The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks boldly challenges the presupposition that work, or waged labor, is inherently a social and political good. While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have “depoliticized” it, or removed it from the realm of political critique. Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation."

Because, to quote Beavis and Butthead, "Work sucks!"

PCRD would love it ^^^
 

Bob Dobbalina

Miki Dora status
Feb 23, 2016
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Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee - Fictionalized account of a magistrate running a small border town on behalf of an empire trying to keep the "barbarians" on its border at bay. The 1st person narrative makes for an intimate account of the philosophical, emotional and psychological conflicts that he grapples with as a late-career colonial functionary disgusted with the state's program of torture and dehumanization. Really good.

I read this in college. well, more accurately, I read a few pages and paid attention during lecture, but mostly skipped this one.

Spoiler alert: I don't think the Barbarians arrived. But they might've already been there...
 
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Subway

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Dec 31, 2008
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LBNY
I’ve spent a few years reading a lot of military historical fiction covering anywhere from Ancient Rome through the biggies of the 20th century.

380 more jack reacher novels have been released in that time, so I’ll be reading one of those a day for the next 54 weeks
 
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Subway

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I’ll take “things subway will likely never learn how to use” for 1000

oh and “Shantaram” has certainly been mentioned in this thread a few times but I’m finally reading it and it’s a good time
 
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Bob Dobbalina

Miki Dora status
Feb 23, 2016
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I finished Dilla Time.
It was alright. I was hoping for more.

I gave up on Leopard/Wolf. I can't do it right now.

I started a bio on Mac Miller. It is also pretty disappointing, as most bios released shortly after an artists early departure are.
 

Kento

Duke status
Jan 11, 2002
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The Bar
After reading Born to Run (can't express how great that book was), I couldn't help but read Dharma Bums for the first time in 20+ years or so. Done a lot more stuff in the mountains since the last time I read that book and it definitely resonated a lot better than the first time around.

Also read Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut over Thanksgiving. Funny as hell. Fucked up but funny.

Picked up Fools Die by Mario Puzo and a couple hundred pages in. Vegas related; spent enough time in casinos to appreciate but never really played baccarat so harder to specifically relate but entertaining book so far.
 

sussle

Rabbitt Bartholomew status
Oct 11, 2009
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The Glory And The Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972 - William Manchester
 
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