How did you like Hit List?

Bonk by Mary Roach

The Curious Coupling
Of Science and Sex

It isn't as good as Stiff.

just finished
galapagos - kurt vonnegut

A Man in Full
 

A Man in Full (1998) by Tom Wolfe

Some interesting characters, thoughts and concepts woven with good writing and a fast-pace story.

I've just finished reading

'The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making' by Catherynne M. Valente

It is YA fiction, it was sweet and quirky and charming; but quite a slow read. Probably best for the 10 and under crowd.

Now I'm thinking perhaps this...

'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' by Philip Pullman
(the author of the His Dark Materials Trilogy including the Golden Compass)

from amazon:
"The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions.

In Pullman’s own words, “The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”

Written with unstinting authority, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, subtle, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved author. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Good Book itself."

Is anyone here a Haruki Murakami fan?

I'm looking for a recommendation.

I enjoyed 'Sputnik Sweetheart' quite a bit -but- couldn't get through the first few chapters of 'Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World' it was incomprehensible to me.

I think I found 'Sputnik Sweetheart' a bit easier because it was more linear with less layers and layers of fantasy and I didn't have to wait so long to "get it".

I love the surrealism & the post-modernism of his writing. I like the themes and his humour. But some of his works feel so barren, so stripped of emotional depth that I just can't get in to them. Or maybe its a cultural thing? Anyone?

Hi Sparkle,

I have read a Wild Sheep Chase by this author. It is a very short read 110 ten pages total. It is very Monty Python-ish. So, if you like that type of humor you will like this book.

It is a mock-detective tale that follows an unnamed Japanese man through Tokyo and Hokkaidō in 1978. The passive, chain-smoking main character gets swept away on an adventure that leads him on a hunt for a sheep that hasn’t been seen for years. The apathetic protagonist meets a woman with magically seductive ears and a strange man who dresses as a sheep and talks in slurs; in this way there are elements of Japanese animism or Shinto.

There is a sequel to it as well entitled Dance, Dance, Dance which follows the adventures of the Sheep Man and the protagonist from the first book.

I have not read the ones you have mentioned. However, you did ask for a recommendation so I would try the short read and see what you think.

Happy Reading !!

Torture at the back forty. The gang rape and slaying of Margaret Anderson. By Mike Dauplaise

I was 11 years old when this all happened within 10 miles of my childhood home. From what I can tell, the book doesn't have the detail of the crime that was reported on the local news at the time. (that's ok. it's just sickening.) I have met relatives of a few involved in this over the years, still not much willingness to talk about it though. I saw the book in the bargain bin at B and N. Thought I would give it a try. I can only read it in little bits but, it is helping me understand somethings I just had no way of understanding when I was 11.

I agree. Well drawn characters and some good political points in an interesting story.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Somehow I've missed it.

Just finished the new Sookie Stackhouse and #9 in the James Patterson Murder Club books.

I really liked "Death Match" by Lincoln Child. It was an interesting look at technology and the uses and abuses of it.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn


I read it when it came out and then picked it up again this weekend. I bet a lot of people here have read it. No use trying to summarize--any blurb I've seen has trouble describing it.

If you've ever read Infinite Jest--and if you have, you're a better man than I--it's something like that. Except, with Infinite Jest, it didn't matter how much I longed to read it. I just... couldn't... do it. Geek Love has the power without requiring that level of commitment.

I just read a great book "Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl" by Stacey Pershall. It's a memoir of a girl who grew up in Arkansas with an eating disorder and was eventually diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. She then came into her own as an alternative type. Her writing is hilarious when it wants to be and very moving. Big thumbs up! I want to be friends with her (always the mark of a great book for me).

I'm also reading Jaycee Duggard's memoir "a stolen life." It's beyond upsetting. I had nightmares about it last night. It's very well-written, also very graphic, and Jaycee is beyond likable. Jaycee has the spirit of a survivor, and that's what gets the reader through the book (at least for me). Some of the proceeds from the book go to her foundation for helping others in traumatic situations. Jaycee was an amazing girl, and now is an amazing woman.