Winter break reading
Please recommend some good fiction books for winter break reading. I am getting ready for a semester of Graph Theory, and would really appreciate a Douglas Adams type of diversion. In fact, I read "The Long Dark Team Time of the Soul" yesterday. It's one of those books that you should read once every few years, just to keep happy and sane, or insane, whatever the case may be. I would also really like to re-read the other Dirk Gently book, but I can't find it. Does anyone have it?
Also on my list:
- Absurdistan (although the NYPL waiting list is quite long, so I may not get it until Spring Break)
- American Prometheus (granted, not fiction, but it's been on my list for a while)
- Frank Miller's Batman: Year One
- Disgrace, by Coetzee
- Everyman, by Philip Roth
- Kurt Busiek's Marvels
- Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut
Of course, I'll probably make my way, somehow, to Dune sequels. You know, the ones that should've never been written, or published, but that are still much better than the crappy prequels.
3 Comments:
If you missed the whisky robber book, it is worth it in the almost too ludicrous to be non-fiction department:
http://tsaleh.blogspot.com/2006/02/book-review-ballad-of-whisky-robber.html
If you follow along carefully the book might allow you to gain wealth through theft and still convince yourself that you are on the moral high ground, or at least that you are a professional hockey player.
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. The mindgames of Douglas Adams woven into Calvino structural mutations. (Not as funny as DA, but no one is. : ( http://tinyurl.com/yn5vv9
Someone comes to town, someone leaves town, Cory Doctorow. Though I've never read a comment of yours on him, you have to know of Cory (boingboing, eff, etc.) Wonderful SF with a postmodern cyberpunkish edge. Free text download at craphound.com
Moral Disorder, by Margaret Atwood. I'm Canadian, I worship Atwood, whom I'd argue is our greatest writer, and most of whose works I've read. This is her most recent, a collection of short stories chronicling 60 years in a single family, and it might be as close to biography as she'll get. The heartbreaking power of truth told slant. http://tinyurl.com/v2j6a
Let us know what you do read... and have a good time doing so.
Absurdistan is a good book. I've read it during the summer.. Have you read the russian debutnte handbook? Absurdistan is a bit similar and somewhat repetitive. In any case, I could lent you the book if you'd like. :)
Alex
aa2345 around columbia dot edu
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