• 118 replies
    marye
    Joined:
    And would you recommend it to anyone else? This topic by suggestion...

Comments

sort by
Recent
Reset
  • hnett
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
    I just finished Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress by Steven Pinker Viking Press After so many "eons" of the current embarrassment in Washington DC, I needed to read something containing good news. The anthropologist Steven Pinker, has been researching how humanity is progressing over the years since the Enlightenment (1780's AD) It asked the questions What is going badly? and how can we make changes so the bad thing are lessened? Pinker has some amazing findings. On just about every aspect of life, humans are doing much better than ever before. It may not seem that way living in the current mass media environment, but he will give you the straight history of just what people have been experiencing and doing since the Enlightenment began. And it is a global situation. Mind you, I do not read light-hearted novels. I like hardcore non-fiction, that is not so easy to read and comprehend. I guess Noam Chomsky warped my perception of reading way back in the '80's. He was the first author I read after I finished all the Hobbits and Universal Hitchhiking and etc stories. Fiction is still great, but I mostly read non-fiction now. I find reality to be vastly weirder than anything imagined. This book was a lot of history. It got dry at times. I trudged thru it. Mr Pinker has outlined huge improvements to the human experience, but all that can go away rather quickly. What I got out of this book was a way to be confident humanity is making huge leaps forward. Despite all the groups that want to pull us backwards, the mass of humanity is moving rather quickly towards a situation in which things like war, famine, disease and pestilence will disappear from our lives. It is happening. We can look at history and see how far we have come at ending these things. We have to be steadfast in not letting go of the one idea that has been so effective at helping people to live better lives. The universe will not provide nervana quickly. The Enlightenment has afforded us a means to make progress. Don't let the naysayers sway you away from progress. The finish line won't be achieved in our lifetimes. We can evolve over hundreds of generations. It will be better that way. It was a good book for me to read. It did not give any answers, it only showed how the ideas of the Enlightenment are still alive and solving problems. There is no indication it is not going to lead us astray very far because within rational thought is the constant asking is this the best answer? We make corrections and making these corrections are expected. Hnett
  • marye
    Joined:
    Jorma's book
    Just finished Jorma's "Been So Long." I love it a lot. You might also. What I especially like because it's such a nice change from so many memoir-type things I've read lately that are all about bad-mouthing other people, is that even as he's describing pretty dark stuff, theirs and his, he's quite candid about his own self. Even in the case of people that it's pretty much a cliche to talk bad about, he doesn't do it. There's much heart and sweetness as a result. Also an impressive array of misadventures that make you really happy he's still there to tell the tale. And a nice afterword by Jack. Gearheads, whether guitars, cars, or bikes, will be in heaven, as he's a bit inclined to geek out over that stuff, but I like that too.
  • Sun King
    Joined:
    different seasons
    I've been wanting to read that, especially because The Body and Shawshank. Just been waiting to see it on the cheap at a used bookstore. I went thru a phase where I really wanted to read books of movies I like. The Green Mile for example. Loved the movie. The book, not so much. I, personally, don't think King is that good of a writer, but his stories, they can sometimes really captivate me....
  • marye
    Joined:
    cool, thanks!
    I've got huge respect for the guy, but I just don't like the dark stuff. I'm partial to the Different Seasons collection (three of the four of which became movies), which includes Shawshank and The Body (aka Stand By Me), but even that isn't exactly sunny.
  • Anttheknee
    Joined:
    Stephen King
    marye, If you like King's writing but not his subject matter, you might enjoy "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by King. It's a well written psychological horror novel that isn't as dark or gruesome as many of King's novels. I read it a few years ago and gave it to my daughter to read after I read it.
  • marye
    Joined:
    Stephen King
    Now I really like his writing. He's an incredible craftsman. It's his subject matter I have trouble with. I don't like spending time on the dark side. Shawshank Redemption is one of the most satisfying stories ever, though.
  • Sun King
    Joined:
    Dostoyevsky
    But now I'm onto to The Insulted and the Humiliated. I don't know why I'm into reading their less famous works. It seems to take me a while to get going, then the book flies to the finish. I just love the way they write. I while back I started Thomas Wolfe's O Lost, the complete text of Look Homeward, Angel, and Kerouac's scroll of On The Road. It just something about how all these guys put words together. Like I can't read much Stephen King, for example. I love his mind, but not his writing...
  • Sun King
    Joined:
    Tolstoy
    I recently read Resurrection. It took me a while to get going, but worth it. I love Tolstoy...
  • wilfredtjones
    Joined:
    Jerry on Jerry audiobook
    It's so great to hear Jerry in his own voice. I love the reflections on Cassady. Especially the 'directing' the bus into the pole part in Chapter 5, pt. 2. I laughed out loud! P.S. The item might be in your local library if you are lucky!
  • marye
    Joined:
    yeah
    I need to order that. I went to the booksigning at the Fillmore the other night and bought the book. But there's no substitute for Jerry's own voice.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Forums
And would you recommend it to anyone else? This topic by suggestion...
user picture

Member for

14 years 3 months
Permalink

Clancy's latest about cyber warfare. Scary stuff. Not up to his best, maybe his co-writer was the problem. Although I don't agree with his point of view he could be said to be a realist. I can't believe I've read every single thing by him. I guess I have more time on my hands than I should.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

16 years 7 months
Permalink

So I am thinking of re-reading the dune chronicles for the fourth time. am i crazy does anyone else have a book that won't leave them alone?
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Is also one those for me, Noonie. Good reading!
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

after about the 4th installment, but some of the concepts and images will be with me forever.
user picture

Member for

14 years 3 months
Permalink

By Leo Tolstoy. This is going to be a hard book for me to get into and I'll probably read something alternatively, breaking my long streak of entertainment type fiction.
user picture

Member for

10 years 9 months
Permalink

"A Walk in the Woods" by: Bill Bryson... no real plot but interesting and funny nonetheless.
user picture

Member for

14 years 3 months
Permalink

By renowned historian Howard Zinn. Zinn taught at Spelman College during the tumultuous 60s and was fired for advising activist students. Later, in 2005, he was invited to give the commencement address. He is widely reviled by the Ayn Rand conservative types but does not shy away from his sentiment that he speaks for those whom history, written by the conquerors, rulers and leading elite, have chosen to ignore or gloss over very briefly. I know this book will give me a lot of "energy" (make me mad as hell) but the alternative of ignoring these little known incidents of actual history would be worse. Some examples: Columbus slaughtered the Arawak Indians of the Bahama Islands starting in 1492, but is presented as a wonderful ground-breaking explorer to children in school innocently memorizing nursery rhymes; Cortes' slaughter of the Aztecs who saw him as the returning God Quetzalcoatl; Pisarro's pitiless annihilation of the ancestors of the Inca -- all of these European white men in the pursuit of gold, the acquisition of which would rarely preserve their representative country for more than a generation. Warning, be prepared for the education you probably never got but are now glad you are finally learning. Unless, of course, you are part of the ruling class who need excuses for the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of millions for your own inherited wealth. Eminently worth reading in either case.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

1902 EDITION OFTHE SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO. CATALOGUE NO. 111 Fulton, Desplaines, Jefferson & Wayman Sts CHICAGO, ILL., U.S.A. Bounty Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-99921 Sears, Roebuck and Company One of the Largest Commercial Buildings in the World Covering an entire block in 1902. Over 700 pages of quality items in epic proportions for most every need. Book cover states: We have No Agents or Solicitors---Persons Claiming to be Our Representatives are Swindlers I am basked in a country of yester-year. I can journey through ~history~ and see me there, dressed to the nines with my hat a bounty of flowers for all to see and then I look around and a poem comes to me...ah yes the men dapper and traveled with a sword at there side....hmmmmm long ago, yesterday, some seek a time, a time, a time, a time...ago. Yeah, this book is indescribable to me but every page give you a little paragraph about each item and every item well-made and sure to over perform the investment in the item. Clothes tailored too. Impossible for me to tell it. It is the size of a full size big city phonebook and it cost $0.50 cents! Makes a disgrace of the Sunday Newspaper Ads, for sure. If I could only order from it, ahhh quality surely meant something and pride had not purchased yet, oh the sales, gambles and deals since then many to never be returned as there isn't a customer service desk for such things. Only 111 years ago.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 1 month
Permalink

Less than 100 pages to go! I'm already several chapters into "The Hound of the Baskervilles" but have no idea what to start reading once I'm finished. My first inclination is to finish Michael Chabon's 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay', which I put down several years ago, 'The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian', or George R. R. Martin's 'Storm of Swords'. Decisions, decisions!
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

But I cannot find words strong enough to recommend The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and its first (of a planned four) sequels, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, both by Catherynne M. Valente. In one of my occupational threads (reviewing books for Common Sense Media, a media-review-for-parents site), I have had occasion to discover that the theme of kids spirited off to Fairyland is quite common in youth-targeted literature, with variations from the intriguing to the pretty dreadful. So I was not so enthused at the prospect of reading yet another. Well, this pretty much blows the rest of the genre out of the water. The language is unabashedly lush and the story just grabs you and takes off before you know what hit you. The story has to do with a 12-year-old girl in WWII Omaha whose father has gone to war, while her mother's working in an aircraft factory. One day a Green Wind riding on a leopard whisks her off to Fairyland, the first of many things you're well advised to just let unfold without trying to figure it out. Adventures ensue. This is sort of like saying Terrapin Station is about a romantic rivalry. It is, But. Like I say, YA fantasy isn't everyone's dish, let alone YA fantasy that throws unexplained strange beings at you like so many dodgeballs till your brain explodes and you just go with it. I mean, a herd of wild velocipedes? But I've gotta say it's the best thing I've read in recent memory. Cannot wait for the next volume, due in October.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

The Home Page of dead.net HAPPY BIRTHDAY JERRY One of the Best, Ever! Happy Birthday Jerry G. With Love, Sherry B. XO
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 1 month
Permalink

It's interesting you mention the abundant use of Fairyland in young adult fiction, because I'd outlined an idea for a YA novel set in the exact same "location." Life has, of course, not provided ample time to flesh out such an idea, but I know I have those notes lying around somewhere. And speaking of magical creatures getting thrown at you left and right, have you read any of Piers Anthony's Xanth series? If you haven't, I certainly do recommend you give it a try. It was a minor obsession of mine in my teen years, but it became increasingly difficult to find book stores that carried the books. This was all pre-internet, of course, and I fully intend to re-obsess over these books at some point in the near-ish future.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

I'll check it out!
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 1 month
Permalink

marye, think X-Men meets the Chronicles of Narnia. You'll understand what I mean once you start reading the series.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 1 month
Permalink

I FINALLY finished reading "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1" to my daughter at bedtime, so we've moved on to another book that I started but have yet to complete: "The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay." If you're not familiar with the novel, it's the fictionalized biography of Josef Kavalier and Sam Clayman, the creators of the '40s-era comic book superhero, The Escapist. It's actually a really good read, in spite of Chabon's tendency to use unnecessarily big words (this coming from someone with a pretty extensive vocabulary). And I really like how Chabon uses that olde-tyme superhero lingo in his writing; it gives the story an added air of danger and excitement, blending the reality of the story with the fantasy of the comic books.
user picture

Member for

14 years 3 months
Permalink

By Howard Zinn. Boy! How the history we learned in school differs from the actual history of our country. A ruling elite in this country took over from a ruling elite in England. Those pictures of Andrew Jackson and Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln and US Grant on our money should be considered mug shots, not pictures of honor. When I think of the whitewash of Lincoln in the latest movie it makes me wonder about how much else we have been misled by. It is estimated that there were 30,000 political prisoners in this country during the administration of Lincoln. Yes, many of them were those who opposed his freeing of the slaves but many of them were also opposed to fighting in the civil war for the North and were taken in during the draft riots of that era. If you were rich enough you could buy your way out of military service for $300. Previous to the civil war the incessant assault on the native Americans is just heartbreaking. Time after time treaties were broken and Indians were driven ever further West, always being promised that they would have their land that no white man would be able to take from them. Time after time this proved to be just one pack of lies after another. The Trail Of Tears trod from Tennessee to Oaklahoma with many Cherokees dying along the way is described with the vultures circling and the wolf packs prowling to pick off the weak and the dead. It is a horribly grizzly description. The insatiable appetite of the Anglos (White people)to connect this country from East to West was just one atrocity followed by another. The war against Mexico for Texas and New Mexico was just one horrific description of modernized conflict after another. Though many of the soldiers in that war were induced to fight with offers of money and land many of it was taken from them upon their return to their homes by profiteers offering pennies on the dollar. I'm only up to Teddy Roosevelt and the Spanish-American War at the turn of that century and finishing up the labor unrest that ran through the 1800s at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Time after time labor unrest ran amok and was not able to be brought under control by the local militias who often sided with their own people. Time after time Federal troops were brought in to crush local labor unrest. Countless times. How is it we were never told that the sweat of the worker's brow in this country was often enough not a brute strength, but one that time and again wanted and agitated for decent wages and working conditions while the owners of the mills remained carelessly insulated in their rich splendor, comfortably separated from the suffering they had their management and foremen inflict mercilessly, even upon children? As Zinn says in his foreword: (paraphrased) Those who won the battles wrote the history that you and I have come to accept as the truth.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM by SEYMOUR SIMON MORROW JUNIOR BOOKS New York ISBN 0-688-09992-0 ISBN 0-688-09993-9 (Library) William Morrow and Co., Inc. 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10019 All Rights Reserved This book is great for all ages. It's filled with facts and awesome pictures, including NASA pictures too. The 64 pages in this hard cover book bring a great deal of info to those still in school but for anyone who loves to fathom the Universe.
user picture

Member for

14 years 3 months
Permalink

Famous author of fiction of the American hawk-like military machine perpetually engaged in wiping out the bad guys (Islamic terrorists, these days), is dead at 66. No word yet on the cause of death. He would refer to the Muslim Brotherhood as the Mo-Bros. His sense of patriotic morality was that life's a bitch and the bitches have to die that oppose America. He is probably most famous for coming up with the idea for a 9/11 style of attack in around 1996 and writing part of one of his books about it. Six years or so later somebody brought the plan to fruition... I just finished reading everything he wrote this year and felt, while a good read at times, my time would have been more productively spent reading other things. He was a good writer though and could pull you in.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

as with Stephen King, I don't love the genre and its trappings, but one has to give props to a master of the craft.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

of Jerry Pournelle, an irascible right-wing writer of what might be considered irascible right-wing science fiction, who I like a lot. Back in the day, Pournelle being rather big in the computer world as well as the science fiction world, we scored a cover-story interview with him, which was pretty nice of him. And then, in one of those moments that give every editor screaming nightmares, it came out. With his name misspelled on the cover. He was pretty nice about it, considering. The next time I saw him, I think it was at Worldcon in SF, he was signing copies of his latest book. When I got to the head of the line, he duly inscribed a book and handed it over. Every word of the inscription was misspelled. I cherish that book.
user picture

Member for

15 years 5 months
Permalink

reading this right now, very hard read, lots of words, but basically it says "bend over", the only ones to get anything out of this is the insurance companies and the irs, oh yeah, and all the employers that will drop all of their full time workers and hire part time so they won't have to pay for their insurance. This is way scarier than any Stephen King novel I've ever read. One option is to pay a fine if you don't have insurance, but if you don't make enough annually you won't have to pay a fine if you don't have insurance, the gov will pay it for you and supply you with health care. Am I reading this right? So, you will get rewarded if you stop being a productive member of society. Doesn't look too good for the average Joe who is healthy, looks like you will be paying for everybody else who is sick, or about to die, or who just figured out that if they don't work, make little to no income, none of this will pertain to them. This can't be right, better reread those last 100 or so pages.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Puzzle Island Devised, written and illustrated by~ Paul Adshead This book is a Parent's Choice approved children's book. Looking for a gift that will bring hours of enjoyment while providing a mental work out; this book is a gem! Adshead's art work is awesome and the journey you'll take through his book is excellent. Had to sher this one, it's a good one. ISBN 0-85953-402-2 (hard cover, I recommend it) ISBN 0-85953-403-0 (soft cover) Library of Congress Number 91-33416 Published by Child's Play (International) Limited
user picture

Member for

11 years 8 months
Permalink

by Brian Doyle. This is a beautifully written short essay in The Sun magazine about the two, true "first responders" at Sandy Hook Elementary almost one year ago to the day. Before the first call to the police had even happened and with all of the fear and adrenaline that one could imagine, these two incredibly brave women tried to stop Adam Lanza as he entered the school and they paid with their lives. It only takes a few minutes to read and I hope that you do. http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/452/dawn_and_mary
user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

by Jeremy Scahill. "The World is a Battlefield" This is the true story of drone warfare around the world. It is a big heavy book. Depressing to those who did not know the United States has been carrying out war crimes for years. Now a movie at the Sundance Film Festival. I found out about this book on FSTV, free speech TV. It is on satellite but not cable, because it is not corporate. It is on the net. freespeechtv.org. Check out "Democracy Now". It is non-corporate, non-profit TV.
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

9 years 11 months
Permalink

Just started "News" by Alain de Botton. The sensationalization of news, the media, biased networks and newspapers left and right, it's hard to even subject my nervous system to it. Botton looks at the news from the perspective of history as well as relating current events and individual foibles to plots and characters from literature. I like that it's illustrated with photos related to the subject without the feeling of a boring textbook. Botton's books always push a regular guy like me to think outside my box. On the lighter side I'm alternating with the latest in the series of coffee house mysteries, "Billionaire Blend" by Cleo Coyle. Love the series.... and each book includes great coffee and dessert recipes.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

(I review books for Common Sense Media, among other things), I had occasion to read the recently published "The Last Wild" by Piers Torday. Kids, animals, post-apocalyptic world, etc. I.e. all the basic elements you've seen a zillion times already, but not like this. In this it has a certain family resemblance to the book the author's dad wrote as a first novel at age 60, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen." (Haven't read the book yet, think the movie is on the short list of Best Things Ever.) Anyway, it's the beginning of what looks like a very promising series. Ostensibly for 8-year-olds but maybe a little intense for a lot of them; adults will not be bored...
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Love reading a good Lee Child book, Jack Reacher is always getting into something. Also reading the bio on Gaston Glock, the Austrian who designed the world famous Glock pistols. I'm always into something, and do some writing as well.
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Galadrielle Allman's well-researched and touching look into her dad's life. I really liked it and recommend it highly to all fans of the ABB and especially Duane. The peach don't fall far from the tree.
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

...A book written by the former road manager for the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead, Sam Cutler. It was briefly mentioned by David Lemieux in the Seaside Chat announcement for DaP 10. As is my wont with this particular book, I'm finding myself skipping around and reading a chapter or a group of chapters here and there. The chapters are short, the typeface and spacing rather large, making it an easy and quick read. I would recommend this book as a companion to DaP 6 and DaP 10. It provides clues as to the mental space which the band and crew may have been in subsequent to the Altamont debacle. The first hand accounts of the exploits on the road are quite interesting as well. The right wingers would be very confused by the picture on the back cover...
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

and was lucky enough to catch Sam on his booksigning tour a while back. I agree, it's a very interesting read. The Lenny Hart story alone...
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 9 months
Permalink

Nift. I'm glad you mentioned it. I've known about this for awhile but like many things on the to-do list back-burnerd' it out of site. Great Book Cover (Hardcover)
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

12 years 9 months
Permalink

Hi. a long time coming & I'm sure obsolete reply, but a book I would recommend is James A. Mitcheners' The Drifters. It's release date is 1971..and it's subject matter is, in a nut-shell young American Beatniks traveling around Spain & Northern Africa. In my opinion I think it's safe to say it's Beat-inspired. And a reflection of the times: U.S. Civil unrest, Politics, drug use. A departure somewhat for Mitchener, but enjoyable. Or perhaps the better expression is relatable? I'm a very big fan of his prose.
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

I have the softcover...the cover on that is 'nift' as well...:-) Glad you got to it...
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

Probably the one book I never read about JG. Sitting in the sunshine tunes drifting out from the stereo, reading Dark Star an oral biography of Jerry Garcia. A beautiful way to spend a Saturday morning!
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

If you have not yet read it I think that you should. I wanted to hug the man who has given me countless hours of comfort and joy through his music. After reading this I was left almost without words but not without tears. The book the man and the music did and does indeed move me brightly
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

The history of the Grateful Dead/20th anniversary edition by Scott W. Allen
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Currently reading "Living With The Dead" by Rock Skully. About 3/4 through it. Mostly random antidotes arranges more or less chronologically. Funny stories. Don't know if they are all together true or not, but they make for good reading. -Dave
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

I had a good time reading that Living With the Dead...makes me wish I were there!
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

Just finished Aces Back to Back the history of the Grateful Dead. It was disappointing. Seems like it was slapped together quickly. Glossed over... well, just about everything. I think anyone with a Google search could do what the author did. I do like the illustrations very groovy. But as far as an interesting read it was just a let down. I don't shoot down much that has to do with the Dead, but I was really looking forward to delving into another book about the GD and this was a bummer. But that is just one hippies opinion. Eagerly waiting for the next book to arrive
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

The inside history of the Grateful Dead/ Dennis McNally. I have just started it and am really digging it! Hard to put down!! It's a rainy Sunday and I am happy to have the whole day to read!!! :)
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Home Before Daylight by Steve Parish, my second go round on that. I would recommend it for Deadheads wishing to learn more about the day to day goings on within the band. If you can handle reading about drugs and debauchery, it helps the reader pin down just where the band's space was in any given year. There are also some anecdotes in there only an inside member of the family would know. Still waiting for Weir's book... I usually read one book at a time (I'm not a great reader, but I'm trying). I'm thinking of moving on to one of several books, including but not limited to a second go round of Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh, Signposts by Jann Wenner, something on the life and works of J.S. Bach or The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno by Dante Alighieri
user picture

Member for

16 years 4 months
Permalink

An American Life, Blair Jackson I just got it today!!
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Just finished reading, "More Than Human" by Theodore Sturgeon. A very good read. Excerpt from the book, "Searching For The Sound" by Phil Lesh: "The unique organicity of our music reflects the fact that each of us consciously personalized his playing: to fit with what others were playing and to fit with who each man was as an individual, allowing us to meld our consciousnesses together in the unity of a group mind. For us, the philosophical basis of this concept was articulated by the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon in his novel More Than Human, wherein the protagonists each have a single paranormal talent – telepathy, psychokinesis, teleportation – and are joined by a quadruple paraplegic who acts as a central processing unit. The process by which they become one is called bleshing, from a combination of mesh and blend."
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

I read it back in the '80s when Phil mentioned it in an interview with David Gans. Great book. In a similar vein, Odd John, by Olaf Stapledon, somewhat earlier. Haven't read either one for years, but they had a huge influence on me too.
user picture

Member for

16 years 10 months
Permalink

HIGHLY recommended. Great storytelling. Dennis had a booksigning at the local bookstore last night, and it was fun to see him. He may be coming to a bookstore near you...
user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

9 years 4 months
Permalink

The Maze Runner, The Goldfinch, and I'm currently reading The Mountain Echoes...in the bathroom, something by Bill Bryson is read while poopin'...what are you reading? Love live the Div!
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music by Glenn Kurtz. It was a fun, interesting, dare I say inspiring read. A memoir of sorts. I should have read it long before now as I was gifted it by a student some 4 years ago. Kind of puts me in my place, a place I am most comfortable existing as a practicing musician. It proved to be page turner nonetheless and I'd most vociferously recommend it to all folks interested in the art of practice. Thanks, Tom (and Mr. Kurtz). I'm kind of embarrassed to say what I'm reading now (no it's not the Joy of Sex or the Kama Sutra) but it's certainly not Dante's Inferno...
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead by David Browne. It's a nice follow-up to Billy K.'s book, which I finished reading last week. I'm halfway through Browne's book already after picking it up only late last week. I'm generally a slow reader, so it's notable the rate at which I'm devouring these tomes. David's book follows a chronological path similar to Billy's book, and it dips into some of the same events his does as well. Perhaps not so curiously it often departs in ways, some minor and some no-so-minor from other retellings of the same stories. This is a well sourced and interesting read although there are some obvious editing errors which always makes me scratch my head. Cannot someone proofread these things?