Suggest me something to read...
 

I'm not looking for anything too hard, mostly some good classic stuff to enjoy this summer. I really liked the play, The Crucible and decided to look into Clifford Odets, a playwright whom he admired. So I'm thinking I might go pick up Waiting For Lefty. I've been meaning to get into all the William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac stuff, but I don't know how difficult that will be. I don't know what to get from them, and I don't want them to sit on my shelf like Dostoevsky, waiting to be read.

So, any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Junky by Burroughs
On the Road by Kerouac
The Plague By Albert Camus
The Mysterious Stranger By Mark Twain
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

That is all I can think right now.

Well if you haven't read Dostoevsky, I'd reccomend you do.

I've read the short stories in the book that I have (White Nights, The Dreams of a Ridiculous Man, and The Meek One), but I haven't been able to get through Notes from the Underground simply because I'm too stupid (well, I always have other stuff happening, and never have time to sit down and focus).

Thanks, Synth.

unbearable lightness of being

yes, anything by milan kundera.

kerouac is a moron and burroughs overrated. read this:





pure genius. i mean real genius, the kind that survives 400+ years, not some fashionable drug addict.

oh, you liked that eh? cool!

"dictionary of words misunderstood" is my favorite part(s)

yes! mine too.

alex- also go for candide by voltaire. and it's not a classic, but please get special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl.

OH HELL YESSSSS!!!

"the best of all possible worlds". candide is one of the funniest books ever. but ever ever ever.

Some recent good ones, I've read.

damnit, i can't rep you!

this is also one of my favorite books:



save for eleanor rigby, the parts that i read i didn't care for, any and all coupland is good.

ah, microserfs, i've had it recommended before, and ages ago i loved "generation x" when it came out in the early 90s.

i'm going to put that on my list (again)

A book that is rather "easy" without being cheap, and highly enjoyable: "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" by Eggers. Mainstream, but entertaining.

dedicated to jon boy:
I turned the corner in Soho today and someone
Looked right at me and said: Oh No!
Another Laurie Anderson clone! - Smoke Rings

---
recommendation commentary:
Coupland blows, swear-word nerd can't handle his drugs,
and Candide is a must-read (in due time; no need to rush right out), but don't expect too much. It comes off as the same point (albeit expressed wittlily) relentlessly made over and over again--sort of like if Montaigne the essayist had did a book of mad libs dabbling in a fiction of the fantastical. Still, Voltaire is preferable to Swift.

I was actually thinking about that, but I forgot.

I'll see what I can get my hands on. I should be getting one book later today.

velocity! is so much better than heartbreaking work of staggering genius. what is the what by eggers got good reviews too.

oh!! INFINITE MOTHERFUCKING JEST by david foster wallace. you need a lot of spare time (it's a thousand pages or so) and it's a bit.. loopy.. but it's a good read. brief interviews with hideous men was amazing. and it's being made into a movie by john krasinski from the office (was it you who said you watched that?) so um.. yeah. wallace is fun.

!@#$%!- generation x is my second favorite by him. i didn't get to finish all families are psychotic but that one really struck me.

and speaking of the devil herself-- here's the other person who recommended me that book. that uncanny or what?

I have all families are psychotic but never read it for some reason. I really like generation x when i read it around 2 years ago and shampoo planet wasn't bad either.

its quite good and quite depressing.
for fun, inbetween beatings + rapings, you can underline all the parts that jamie stewart borrowed OH!