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  • Hugh Freaking Dillon
    Hugh Freaking Dillon Posts: 14,010
    The Tao of Wu.
    Gimli 1993
    Fargo 2003
    Winnipeg 2005
    Winnipeg 2011
    St. Paul 2014
  • AELARA
    AELARA Posts: 803
    Jose Saramago - Memorial do Convento
    I am mine!
  • Byrnzie
    Byrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Ma Jian - 'Red Dust - A Path Through China'

    51KdWlMtGoL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

    In 1983, squirming under constant government scrutiny and mourning a failed marriage, writer and photographer Jian abandons his home in Beijing to journey to China's western border with little more than a change of clothes, two bars of soap, a notebook, a camera and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. It is the beginning of an arduous three-year voyage that takes him not only through little-traveled regions of China, Myanmar and Tibet, but through a careful examination of what it means to be a Buddhist, to live in post-Mao China and to exist in his own skin. A skilled storyteller, Jian narrates in prose that is spare and often beautiful his encounters with people who live in a region that "even today... is a place of banishment, populated by political prisoners, descendents of Turkic migrants, and the ghosts of buried cities." From the night he spends crammed under a bus seat next to a pile of dirty socks and clucking hens to his escape from Chinese militiamen who mistake him for a Burmese spy, Jian tells a powerful story that is no mere travelogue. Indeed, his journey exposes him to so many risks getting bitten by sheepdogs in the grasslands along the Yellow River, drinking foul lake water that knocks him unconscious that the sheer number of life-threatening incidents begins to dull their impact. Still, Jian offers a revealing, riveting portrait of a Chinese citizen who seeks truth and honesty in a society in which such a quest can be grounds for punishment.
  • stargirl69
    stargirl69 Posts: 6,387
    Just started Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”
  • Digital Twilight
    Digital Twilight Posts: 5,642
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
  • stargirl69
    stargirl69 Posts: 6,387
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski


    :clap: Nice choice
    “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”
  • he still stands
    he still stands Posts: 2,835
    stargirl69 wrote:
    Just started Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

    one of my all time favorites! that and East of Eden cemented Steinbeck as one of my top 5 authors.
    Everything not forbidden is compulsory and eveything not compulsory is forbidden. You are free... free to do what the government says you can do.
  • Newch91
    Newch91 Posts: 17,560
    he still stands wrote:
    stargirl69 wrote:
    Just started Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

    one of my all time favorites! that and East of Eden cemented Steinbeck as one of my top 5 authors.
    I've only read two Steinbeck books and those were in high school: Of Mice and Men and The Pearl. I have East of Eden on my shelf, waiting to be read.
    Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
    "Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
  • Newch91
    Newch91 Posts: 17,560
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
    He's an author I want to read.
    Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
    "Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
  • Newch91
    Newch91 Posts: 17,560
    Reading HST's "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72".
    Shows: 6.27.08 Hartford, CT/5.15.10 Hartford, CT/6.18.2011 Hartford, CT (EV Solo)/10.19.13 Brooklyn/10.25.13 Hartford
    "Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
  • nuffingman
    nuffingman Posts: 3,014
    he.who.forgets wrote:
    Just finished Bill Bryson's "Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe". I also just received his "A Short History of Nearly Eveything" which I'm about to tackle, but it's a monster. I love anything Bill Bryson and recommend his books to anyone who's not familiar.
    I just love the guy's books. I wish he'd put another travel book together.

    I'm reading Michael Connelly's - The Last Coyote. His books are great if you don't want to think too much. I'm tempted to read The Millenium trilogy again afterwards.
  • stargirl69
    stargirl69 Posts: 6,387
    he still stands wrote:
    stargirl69 wrote:
    Just started Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

    one of my all time favorites! that and East of Eden cemented Steinbeck as one of my top 5 authors.


    Me too,reading this for the multiple time,I am into re-reading the classic authors at the moment

    Newch91 wrote:
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
    He's an author I want to read.

    Oh you definitely should,uncomfortable to read at times but incredible,the guy was a master at writing and living in the darkness of the human disposition
    “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”
  • AELARA
    AELARA Posts: 803
    stargirl69 wrote:
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski


    :clap: Nice choice

    :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
    I am mine!
  • frazba
    frazba Posts: 601
    +1, love Bukowski

    Trying to get through Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy for about the 5th time, very hard going
  • frazba
    frazba Posts: 601
    Newch91 wrote:
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
    He's an author I want to read.


    Wonderful author, start with Post Office, Women, Factotum or Ham on Rye. Hollywood's just OK (IMO), before attempting his poetry. Actually, I've a book of short stories of his that's a great place to start, it's called 'The Most Beautiful Woman in Town'
  • frazba
    frazba Posts: 601
    I've just finished Lean on Pete, by Willy Vlautin, a great read from a very underrated author and songwriter
  • Indifference71
    Indifference71 Chicago Posts: 14,907
    Shaq.jpg
  • stargirl69
    stargirl69 Posts: 6,387
    frazba wrote:
    Newch91 wrote:
    Digital Twilight wrote:
    Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
    He's an author I want to read.


    Wonderful author, start with Post Office, Women, Factotum or Ham on Rye. Hollywood's just OK (IMO), before attempting his poetry. Actually, I've a book of short stories of his that's a great place to start, it's called 'The Most Beautiful Woman in Town'

    I had an extensive collection of Bukowki's book that had been built up over the years.I gave quite a few of them to a friend of mine,something I rarely do with books or music as they are way to important to me to risk them going AWOL but as he couldn't afford to buy them himself I gave him them to borrow.

    He commited suicide and I never got them back :? Don't think it was anything to do with Bukowski's writing's that caused him to do what he did :cry:

    I began to build the collection up again,but not to the extent that it once was

    I would highly recommend the film Barfly,Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway,Mickey plays Henry Chinaski (Bukowski) and Faye plays Wanda his on/off girlfriend.
    Bukowski wrote the screenplay based on his barfly days in L.A ... fantastic film with a great soundtrack of lounge jazz and hammond organs ... Check it out Hank fans :D
    “There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”
  • frazba
    frazba Posts: 601
    +1
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    stargirl69 wrote:
    ...
    I would highly recommend the film Barfly,Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway,Mickey plays Henry Chinaski (Bukowski) and Faye plays Wanda his on/off girlfriend.
    Bukowski wrote the screenplay based on his barfly days in L.A ... fantastic film with a great soundtrack of lounge jazz and hammond organs ... Check it out Hank fans :D

    have you seen born into this?
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say

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