I've gotten into the habit of reading 2 or three books at once, which is great because I get bored pretty easily but bad because sometimes I stop caring about some of the books I started. I had a little time on my hands the last few weeks, though, to get caught up on some reading, so, aside from "Post Office" these are the other books I recently finished (I never liked to read until well into my 20s, by the way).
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
I watched a free preview of this Showtime series a couple of weeks before it came out and was anxious to read the book. The series follows the book pretty faithfully (as long as the series is dealing with the "cold killer") but be warned, the book solves the case which the series is dragging out.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
This took me a while to get into because of the "trippy" way it was written and because I wasn't born during this time, I didn't have a good frame of reference (not to mention that I've never done acid), but it was still a good book. It also took me a while to get through the last quarter of it, but all around a good read if you're into those counter-culture shenanigans.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translated by David McDuff)
What a great classic novel. If I knew it was so good, I would have actually read it in High School instead of just BSing a book report on it. This novel reads as though it was written today.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Another one of those books that I always heard about but was afraid to read. I read this a couple of months ago, but just wanted to mention how great it was and it only took a few days to read.
Okay... so now the guilty pleasure. At the beginning of the year, I read all of the Harry Potter books. There's a reason why they're so popular. If you shun them because you want to be "cool" and don't like things that are popular, you're doing yourself a disservice because this is a very well thought-out brilliant series of books that are for kids the same way The Simpsons is for kids. Read them. Now.
By the way, if you have any suggested reading based on the above, let me know. I might read Factotum by Charles Bukowski because Post Office was so great, but short. I left wanting more.
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3 comments:
On my GOD ... you read Crime and Punishment and the Fountainhead??? Warn me next time, I almost choked on my lunch while reading this, as I cried tears of joy. I actually have two copies Crime and Punishment in the original Russian (one softcover, one hardcover that was purchased for me in Moscow by a Russian friend). Next you have to read Brothers Karamazov and Atlas Shrugged.
I'm not sure if this is a sarcastic comment as I realize I'm about 20 years behind Dave's reading list, but I'll definitely take your suggestions.
Nice reading list, Mike. [not sarcastic, though it's hard to tell with me sometimes]
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