I prefer reading to TV most days. Keeps the vocab locked & loaded. Problem, though...
When I find an author that I like, I read them dry and my favorite genre is horror/suspense/crime. Authors include.... Thomas Harris Stephen King Chuck Pahluhneik All the "Dexter" books.
I have read the first 50 pages of a lot of tinder hoping for a good book, and found out that I had wasted 50 pages of my life.
I'm looking for suggestions. My ALL TIME FAVORITES have been.. King; The Stand, It, Desperation Harris; ALL the Hannibal Lector stuff Pahluhneik; Fight Club, Rant
I want to play with Vonnegut...but I need a "best of" list and I want to read Augusten Burroughs' "Magic-something or another".
Spiritually. I'm good with Tao Teh Ching, AA stuff, and The Art of War.
I need suggestions for books that don't suck. Thanks & Peace, Rob
I'm probably one of the few females I've run across that LOVED "Fight Club". I love all of his books, twisted as they are. Have you read "Choke"?
If you like true stuff, "Helter Skelter" (Vincent Bugliosi), "Echoes in the Darkness" (Joseph Wambaugh), anything by Ann Rule (especially "The Stranger Beside Me" (about Ted Bundy) and "Small Sacrifices"). Joe McGinnis has written some excellent true crime stuff, too--"Fatal Vision," "Blind Faith" and "Cruel Doubt". Truth is a lot stranger than fiction, and the foregoing are all excellently written with scrupulous attention to the truth.
The Burroughs book is "Magical Thinking" and it's about a life in advertising.
And if you're into Stephen King, check out his "On Writing" which includes a lot of stuff about his recovery from alcohol and drugs, as well as his near-fatal car accident. A lot of inspiring stuff for would-be (or already-are) writers.
I seldom turn on the TV, myself. One of the great gifts of sobriety, for me, is that I enjoy reading again--I can follow the story and focus my eyes again.
-- Edited by Lexie on Monday 19th of July 2010 07:44:22 AM
Oh, almost forgot, one of my ALL TIME favorites, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," by John Irving (author of "The World According to Garp," another excellent book). "Owen Meany" pretty much defies description, you just have to kinda dive into it and be a teensy bit patient in the beginning because it takes some very strange twists as the story goes on. It isn't horror or crime, but Irving deals with the dark places in all of us, and in the world, so it might grab you.
Then again, it might not. But it seems we have similar tastes, so it might be worth picking up in paperback.
I've read all of Vonnegut's books. My favorite novels are Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night and Cat's Cradle.
I also liked Sirens of Titans -- it was published in '59 --it was his second novel and before he became popular. He graded his own books in Palm Sunday (he's written several since then). I'm pretty sure these are in chronological order:
* Player Piano: B * The Sirens of Titan: A * Mother Night: A-plus * Cat's Cradle: A-plus * God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A * Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus * Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus * Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D * Breakfast of Champions: C * Slapstick: D * Jailbird: A * Palm Sunday: C
Vonnegut!!! Try Breakfast of Champions first. You would love it. Very short chapters, and there is an underlying story, but paragraphs bounce around with the author's goofy thoughts and ideas, many paragraphs separated by asterisks. It is full of corny illustrations too (by the author, in marker..... ) Very easy to read, and very very humorous, nerdy and creative.
NYT says, about Breakfast of Champions, "It's marvelous... he wheels out all the complaints about America and makes them seem fresh, funny, outrageous, hateful and lovable." (It was written in 1970's, keep in mind...)
Time: "Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer... a zany but moral mad scientist."
Zany is the perfect word.
I got my most recent paperbacks at Amazon for about $6, like new.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Never thought I'd see the day with a post on reading materials(At least non-AA). Why haven't I thought to do it? I like to read just about everything. Most of my keepers are not what you're looking for today so here's some I dug up for fun:
The Fermata, Nicolson Baker: About a man who can stop time. What he chooses to do with this capability...the premise is risky or you might say a bit risque. I found the book unusual and interesting and the writing is good. Picked b/c of the interest in Kurt Vonnegut
Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood: visionary fiction, social commentary, blurbs link the book stylings to Orwell, Burgess, Huxley. The writing a little Vonnegut like? Maybe?-It's been a while since I've read him. These two books follow the same storyline from different perspectives and characters. The first one, Oryx and Crake was hard on me, but with your reading interests, I'm sure you'd handle it fine. Is it literary fiction or is it real?
This may be a duh, old hat, but have you read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? I'd call this a unique styling of a spiritual adventure along the lines of Paul Coleho, who wrote The Alchemist
OK, so I don't read horror, because I used to freak out, I'd get so keyed up. I can't resist sharing on this topic as I am truly a bookworm,
So, for fun only:
The Eight, Katherine Neville: thoughtful Popular Fiction. Combines a modern and medeival history mystery with a unique and fun premise/plot devise. A tiny bit of cheezy romance if you can handle it. If you like chess, this would be good. The backcover copy quote says, "A feminist answer to Raiders of the Lost Ark".
Excavation, Subterranean, and Amazonia, James Rollins: The amazon.com editorial says that Rollins is a fan of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and that magic, meyhem, and monsters are the three "M"s of his writing under this name. This author creates fun and exciting thrillers that are very fast-paced, full of action and suspense. The guns are big, the "monsters" are wild and bizarre. While not really horror, the adventure/thrillers have creepy sci-fi, fantasy, or horror-like twists. Page turner like Dan Brown and Criton?(whom I haven't read). I put this because of the Stephen King. That's hard because people of so many tastes love King. But you also listed suspense.
-- Edited by angelov8 on Monday 19th of July 2010 01:24:58 AM
I'm a fan of AA literature too. Anyone care to comment on/recommend books other than the BB or 12x12 or Living Sober, which hopefully most members pick up at some time?
I just read the Biography of Marty Mann: The First Lady of AA. While I didn't think the writing was the best, the topic was so interesting and my sponsor has talked about this AA history which is being lost that I was excited to read it. The authors were passionate and diligent in cataloguing the history of this gal, whose story is in the first section of stories in the back of the BB. She had an amazing and fascinating life, and worked tirelessly to promote alcoholism as a disease rather than an issue of moral character. Some say she is the third leg in the foundation of AA. It's written more like a typical biography, so that those who find Pass It On and AA Comes of Age a bit dry might find this window into the very early days of AA more fun and enjoyable.
-- Edited by angelov8 on Sunday 18th of July 2010 11:17:23 PM
A lot of people at work younger than I am, talk about reading Fight Club, and recommend it to me based on my interests. I've never picked it up because when I saw the movie years ago, I was upset because I felt self-help groups were mocked. This was waaaay before I arrived at AA, so my take may be a misperception and a failure to find humor in the maudlin. I dunno, this other bartender talked about such (fight) clubs in other places when he showed up new in town and wanted to start one here where I live. I thought, if I remember right, wouldn't that be pretty sick? Maybe that wasn't the author's intent, to glorify fight clubs, like a book about Dahmer isn't to suggest that we go out and become psycho-killers. Any comments?
Palahniuk has said strangers have come up to him and claimed to have started Fight Clubs--he was stunned. It's a STORY. An imaginary story. He got a lot of his details about "guerilla waiters" and such from things people had confessed to him they had done to customers and bosses. But he made up the idea of a fight club for purposes of the book.
The narrator of Fight Club is one screwed-up dude. But he's only a character in a book.
I could drown you with books, but here is a start with some books on my spirituality shelf: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodrin A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield Wherever You Go, There You Are OR Full Catastrophe Living both by Jon Kabat Zinn
A Prayer for Owen Meany is great (Thanks for reminding of that one Lexie... it's been a while since I've read it!)
Right now I'm reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings... Like it a lot.
You'd probably like Deep Survival by Lorenzo Gonzales, too. It's non-fiction about what makes some people live and some people die during crises.
More later. I should sleep. Advil PM not working so I'm on to melatonin now!
Dean, I've seen you mention that author and the title before, maybe it's time to go get em. Thanks.
On AA lit I have to give a shout to Dr. Paul O.'s books, "You Can't Make Me Angry", and "There's More to Quitting Drinking Than Quitting Drinking". Both funny, approachable way of diving into AA principles such as willingness and acceptance. His words on acceptance in his story in the latter part of BB are often quoted.
The section on communicating in a relationship in "You Can't Make Me Angry" is awesome. I love the way he simply lays out typical ways people react ineffectively. Some favorites:
"Yeah-butting." This often precedes Talking Over and is commonly heard at meetings when the newcomer responds to everything said with, "Yeah, but..."
Cross-complaining. This is a form of defensiveness. When your partner complains about you, complain about her. Anytime she mentions anything she doesn't like about you, tell her things you don't like about her. This snowballs and results in a non-conversation or worse.
Kitchen Sinking. Cross-complaining at it's best. Throw in every rotten thing you can think of except the kitchen sink.
I Win, You Lose. This is when we make winning more important than being loving; or wanting the other to lose even if we, ourselves can't win. Since our partner is not our enemy and the problem is only a challenge, we should stick to being loving. That way we both win, both grow, and nobody loses.
Continue to punish the other person even when we want to make up. They haven't suffered enough yet. Don't tell them what's wrong, or what what we want, or what we are thinking. If they loved us, they'd know. They'd be able to read our minds, the same way we read theirs.
-I still get angry, but after reading these books, I have been able to step back and be more aware of my thinking and realize I can choose to act in different ways to live a happier life with out numbing with the booze.
I've got the Chodrin and Kornfield books on the shelf but never read them. I usually like fiction better unless it's about history, archeology, animals, or else weird out there stuff like ESP. I just looked and I have "Into the Wild", which Dean suggested. Ruined it and saw the movie first, so never got to the book. The Owen Meaney book, is that really dark? What else did John Irving write?, name sounds familar.
Frank Herbert. Not just the Dune series (although I loved all 6 books) but other stuff like "Whipping Star" and "The Dosadi Experiment".. lots of good stuff by him.
Also if you like Sci-Fi, I liked the "Bio Of A Space Tyrant" series and "But What Of Earth" by Piers Anthony, and the "Gateway" series by Frederick Pohl.
Irving also wrote "The Cider House Rules" and "Widow for One Year" (which I couldn't seem to get into, though it was a best seller--maybe take another crack at it one of these days). Irving has a dark view of the world in general, I guess, but his books also have an uplift to them. *shrug* I don't know that everyone would like them, but I do.
Another one I love to read is Richard Russo ("The Risk Pool," "Nobody's Fool," and "Empire Falls"). Many themes about issues between fathers and sons, but also a very entertaining read with interesting characters.
Elmore Leonard! He's written so many crime novels they could keep you busy a LONG time ("Get Shorty," "Glitz"). Possibly the best writer of dialog on the planet.
Anything by Nelson DeMille ("The Gold Coast" is my favorite and "Cathedral" is execellent).
I have very eclectic tastes in reading--I read a lot of nonfiction and sort of an interesting mix of fiction.
Probably not a great suggestion for you Rob.......
But my favourite fictional book of all time is a childrens' book called Matilda by Roald Dahl.
As an acoa I so wanted to have her powers .....used to get my revenge on my parents in similar ways too!!!!....innocently of course!!!!!!!....oh!........and then to end up being adopted by the wonderful Miss Honey !!!!
I so identified with Matilda!!!!! I love it and read it to this day!!! Infact am off dreaming again already........
Adult non fiction I am currently reading ...again is......"The Art of Happiness" by HH The Dalai Lama and Howard C Cutler........which has been described as "an intriquing encounter between East and West" I continue to find it so. I find it complements the Big Book wonderfully.
Oh, yeah, Kellerman is EXCELLENT. "The Butcher's Theater" was my favorite, but I love all his books. He's a psychologist, and many of his crime novels have a psychologist, Alex Delaware, as the main character.
As an artist, I enjoyed Caldecott books, which had one an award for illustrations. "Where the Wild Things Are" was among them. Also, "Why Mosquitos Buzz in People's Ears" was another favorite with colorful illustrations.
Rob, what have you decided to read?
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
The recent spiritual book I have read is "The 4 Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. I am sure there are those here who are familiar. I got the companion book and will start that shortly (had to take time out for Vonnegut lol).
I have another book that was recommended by many friends in AA, called "The Shack" about one man's experience with God over a weekend in a shack or something? I am intrigued and also look forward to it....
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Yeah...that's why I like Kellerman books...he is really educated on the psychology of things..plus the Alex Deleware character is better developed than the ones in Patterson's books (Alex Cross) and Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta).
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I don't know if you have any leanings towards fantasy, but your son is like 11 or 12 right? you could read that whole Eragon (Christopher Paolini) series together. Those books rule. The movie of it sucked.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
.......
Infact am off dreaming again already........