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"ITT: MOC Book Club"
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October 30th, 2009 - 11:08 AM
Hey, sorry for the late follow up. A day of relaxing and getting this book club going turned into a road trip to Boise really fast.
So, if you want to participate in the MOC Book Club, right on. This thread is to nominate and vote on what book we'll read first.
To NOMINATE:
Post the picture/description/author of the book (try Amazon? write your own?).
To VOTE:
(After 5 or so nominations we'll start voting)
Post your vote to cast it.
I'll leave the voting open for 24 hours and tally up the votes.
[If at all possible, could a mod sticky this so we don't wind up with a thousand book club threads? If not, it's all good.]
October 30th, 2009 - 11:10 AM
The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony
amazon.com Said:
Starred Review. Anthony's compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar's explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
October 30th, 2009 - 11:14 AM
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
October 30th, 2009 - 11:26 AM
Shelburt, that looks amazing. If it doesn't win, I might just read it anyway.
I'm gonna nominate two, since they're making this one into a Movie, and its always good to read the book first.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
amazon.com Said:
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthys masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they dont know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged foodand each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, each the others world entire, are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
October 30th, 2009 - 12:04 PM
Just trying to help things get going.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
October 30th, 2009 - 12:10 PM
This is the list of members as far as I could tell from the other thread:
holychode
shelburt
facade515
treschic
starpunctures
caranicole
wavesxaway
xkikthegurlx
gnome_again
I_run_the_riot_
indiansummer
dearbelovedfire
outrached
personaljesus
lauraxlaura
likerain
creepycreep
forkimified
morgue
October 30th, 2009 - 2:18 PM
I_run_the_riot_ Said:
Just trying to help things get going.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
Be my friend. I'm voting for this one, even though I've read it already. Wouldn't mind doing it again.
In the interest of diversity though, I will nominate dis:
"A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine."
Haven't read this one yet, would like to.
October 30th, 2009 - 2:58 PM
Twilight
Grade 9 Up–When Bella Swan moves from sunny Phoenix to Forks, Washington, a damp and dreary town known for the most rainfall in the United States, to live with her dad, she isnt expecting to like it. But the level of hostility displayed by her standoffish high school biology lab partner, Edward Cullen, surprises her. After several strange interactions, his preternatural beauty, strength, and speed have her intrigued. Edward is just as fascinated with Bella, and their attraction to one another grows. As Bella discovers more about Edwards nature and his family, she is thrown headlong into a dangerous adventure that has her making a desperate sacrifice to save her one true love. One of the more original vampire constructs around, this recording of Stephenie Meyers debut novel (Megan Tingley Books, 2005) is narrated with great style by Ilyana Kadushin, who makes the infinitely romantic tale of star-crossed lovers resonate with a bittersweet edge. Although Edward and Bellas romance and subsequent danger develops slowly, the pacing is appropriate for teens who want learn all the details in this suspenseful tale. An excellent purchase for both school and public libraries.
LOL. JK.
In this reissue of an Internet phenomenon originally slapped between two covers in 2007 by indie Permutus Press, Wong—Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin's alter ego—adroitly spoofs the horror genre while simultaneously offering up a genuinely horrifying story. The terror is rooted in a substance known as soy sauce, a paranormal psychoactive that opens video store clerk Wong's—and his penis-obsessed friend John's—minds to higher levels of consciousness. Or is it just hell seeping into the unnamed Midwestern town where Wong and the others live? Meat monsters, wig-wearing scorpion aberrations and wingless white flies that burrow into human skin threaten to kill Wong and his crew before infesting the rest of the world. A multidimensional plot unfolds as the unlikely heroes drink lots of beer and battle the paradoxes of time and space, as well as the clichés of first-person-shooter video games and fantasy gore films. Sure to please the Fangoria set while appealing to a wider audience, the book's smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next.
I don't know. I read a lot of crap, and am not cut out for picking books for everyone. But I thought this sounded interesting.
October 30th, 2009 - 3:20 PM
Morgue Said:
I_run_the_riot_ Said:
Just trying to help things get going.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
Be my friend. I'm voting for this one, even though I've read it already. Wouldn't mind doing it again.
In the interest of diversity though, I will nominate dis:
"A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine."
Haven't read this one yet, would like to.
Thank you friend!
October 30th, 2009 - 4:03 PM
None of the online descriptions of this book really do it justice... a realist novel by Philip K Dick, written from a first-person female perspective. She is a third party to the story of Timothy Archer, "an erudite man of the cloth whose faith is shaken by the suicides of his son and mistress, and then transformed by his bizarre quest for the identity of Christ."
"Unlike "VALIS" and "The Divine Invasion", this novel dispenses with science fiction apparatus in its examination of religious and philosophical issues. Based on the life of controversial Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who was a close friend of the author's, this is one of Dick's best written novels."
October 30th, 2009 - 4:06 PM
Also, I would like to propose that you can't vote for yr own nomination.
October 30th, 2009 - 6:41 PM
tl;dr
WILL REVISIT
And:
forkimified Said:
Also, I would like to propose that you can't vote for yr own nomination.
Should we cap book offerings/date for providing book option? Also, maybe when we vote, we could read the top 3 or 5 or whatever in the order of most votes...
October 30th, 2009 - 7:54 PM
All for Cormac McCarthy, Philip K. Dick or Haruki Murakami.
Here's my suggestion if it means anything:
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New york expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family--radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmerings--pulsing with life, yet heralding the danger of death.
or
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. An affair with one of his students leaves him jobless, shunned by his friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife. He retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding, where a brief visit becomes an extended stay as he tries to find meaning from this one remaining relationship. David's attempts to relate to Lucy and to a society with new racial complexities are disrupted by an afternoon of violence that shakes all his beliefs and threatens to destroy his daughter.
October 31st, 2009 - 1:57 AM
Shelburt Said:
lol, mine was a joke
It's also a film, and thus very difficult to read :p
October 31st, 2009 - 1:15 PM
holychode Said:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
amazon.com Said:
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthys masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they dont know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged foodand each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, each the others world entire, are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
dw post apocalpytic books with cannibals.
holychode Said:
This is the list of members as far as I could tell from the other thread:
holychode
shelburt
facade515
treschic
starpunctures
caranicole
wavesxaway
xkikthegurlx
gnome_again
I_run_the_riot_
indiansummer
dearbelovedfire
outrached
personaljesus
lauraxlaura
likerain
creepycreep
forkimified
morgue
holychode
shelburt
facade515
treschic
starpunctures
caranicole
wavesxaway
xkikthegurlx
gnome_again
I_run_the_riot_
indiansummer
dearbelovedfire
outrached
personaljesus
lauraxlaura
likerain
creepycreep
forkimified
morgue
October 31st, 2009 - 3:02 PM
amazon.com Said:
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses and even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first meets Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling him to make room for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning, however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. In short order, Sam's talent for pulp plotting meets Joe's faultless, academy-trained line, and a comic-book superhero is born. A sort of lantern-jawed equalizer clad in dark blue long underwear, the Escapist "roams the globe, performing amazing feats and coming to the aid of those who languish in tyranny's chains!" Before they know it, Kavalier and Clay (as Sam Klayman has come to be known) find themselves at the epicenter of comics' golden age.
October 31st, 2009 - 4:00 PM
forkimified Said:
None of the online descriptions of this book really do it justice... a realist novel by Philip K Dick, written from a first-person female perspective. She is a third party to the story of Timothy Archer, "an erudite man of the cloth whose faith is shaken by the suicides of his son and mistress, and then transformed by his bizarre quest for the identity of Christ."
"Unlike "VALIS" and "The Divine Invasion", this novel dispenses with science fiction apparatus in its examination of religious and philosophical issues. Based on the life of controversial Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who was a close friend of the author's, this is one of Dick's best written novels."
Also contains some real talk on the Gospels of Q.
November 1st, 2009 - 3:58 PM
holychode Said:
The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony
amazon.com Said:
Starred Review. Anthony's compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar's explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
X
November 1st, 2009 - 4:11 PM
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
vote +1
November 1st, 2009 - 4:21 PM
Courtesy Amazon.com: Green melds elements from his Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines— the impossibly sophisticated but unattainable girl, and a life-altering road trip—for another teen-pleasing read. Weeks before graduating from their Orlando-area high school, Quentin Jacobsen's childhood best friend, Margo, reappears in his life, specifically at his window, commanding him to take her on an all-night, score-settling spree. Quentin has loved Margo from not so afar (she lives next door), years after she ditched him for a cooler crowd. Just as suddenly, she disappears again, and the plot's considerable tension derives from Quentin's mission to find out if she's run away or committed suicide. Margo's parents, inured to her extreme behavior, wash their hands, but Quentin thinks she's left him a clue in a highlighted volume of Leaves of Grass. Q's sidekick, Radar, editor of a Wikipedia-like Web site, provides the most intelligent thinking and fuels many hilarious exchanges with Q. The title, which refers to unbuilt subdivisions and copyright trap towns that appear on maps but don't exist, unintentionally underscores the novel's weakness: both milquetoast Q and self-absorbed Margo are types, not fully dimensional characters. Readers who can get past that will enjoy the edgy journey and off-road thinking.
It's a great book.
November 1st, 2009 - 9:35 PM
auxaux Said:
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
vote +1
+2
November 1st, 2009 - 9:42 PM
auxaux Said:
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
vote +2
November 1st, 2009 - 9:52 PM
holychode Said:
This is the list of members as far as I could tell from the other thread:
holychode
shelburt
facade515
treschic
starpunctures
caranicole
wavesxaway
xkikthegurlx
gnome_again
I_run_the_riot_
indiansummer
dearbelovedfire
outrached
personaljesus
lauraxlaura
likerain
creepycreep
forkimified
morgue
holychode
shelburt
facade515
treschic
starpunctures
caranicole
wavesxaway
xkikthegurlx
gnome_again
I_run_the_riot_
indiansummer
dearbelovedfire
outrached
personaljesus
lauraxlaura
likerain
creepycreep
forkimified
morgue
can you add me aswell?
+haruki murakami
November 2nd, 2009 - 3:45 AM
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
oh shit i have that one. so sick!
+4
November 2nd, 2009 - 4:39 AM
indiansummer Said:
All for Cormac McCarthy, Philip K. Dick or Haruki Murakami.
Here's my suggestion if it means anything:
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New york expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family--radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmerings--pulsing with life, yet heralding the danger of death.
Here's my suggestion if it means anything:
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New york expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family--radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmerings--pulsing with life, yet heralding the danger of death.
This sounds pretty good actually.
November 2nd, 2009 - 7:34 AM
caranicole Said:
auxaux Said:
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
vote +2
At least read the book for book club!
Do I sense that a MOC film club would also be needed?
November 2nd, 2009 - 7:53 AM
its just the wrong description and the wrong picture, at least i knew what she meant
November 2nd, 2009 - 8:12 AM
You can read it online... http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/120Days/00000010.h tm
Perhaps we should start a discussion thread on it as people seem to be interested?
-----
My friend read some to me over the phone once though, and it sounds like some 12-year-old's weird fantasies / fanfic.
November 2nd, 2009 - 8:19 AM
We are voting now?! I vote for
mmmmmmm Pilip K. Dick The transmigration of Timothy Archer.
November 2nd, 2009 - 9:43 AM
forkimified Said:
caranicole Said:
auxaux Said:
Shelburt Said:
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
vote +2
At least read the book for book club!
Do I sense that a MOC film club would also be needed?
i am SO down for a fucking film club!
November 2nd, 2009 - 10:10 AM
forkimified Said:
You can read it online... http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/120Days/00000010.h tm
Perhaps we should start a discussion thread on it as people seem to be interested?
-----
My friend read some to me over the phone once though, and it sounds like some 12-year-old's weird fantasies / fanfic.
Perhaps we should start a discussion thread on it as people seem to be interested?
-----
My friend read some to me over the phone once though, and it sounds like some 12-year-old's weird fantasies / fanfic.
i've read the book and i've seen the movie and i tell you, if 12-year-olds have fantasies like that, I WANT TO LEAVE THIS WORLD!!
November 2nd, 2009 - 10:11 AM
Okay, lets end the nominations and begin voting.
Here are the nominations:
The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony : Starred Review. Anthony's compulsively readable debut novel stars Rovar Pfliegman, who sells meat out of a bus in Virginia. Rovar is a peculiar, troll-like man: he is short and hairy, has not spoken since childhood, keeps a pet beetle and lives in the same broken-down bus that houses his meat business. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rovar is his precarious singularity. He is the last of the Pfliegmans and, by his own account, he is falling apart. Although he halfheartedly seeks treatment for his various ailments, he seems far more bent on fulfilling the destiny of self-destruction all Pfliegmans (according to Rovar) are subject to. Rovar's explanation of his family sprawls deep into the past, probing beyond his chaotic childhood all the way back to the origins of the Pfliegman clan in premedieval Hungary. Along the way, the narrative nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony's style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own.
Pier Paolo Pasolini (120 Days of Sodom): Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy: A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthys masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they dont know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged foodand each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, each the others world entire, are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
Hard Boiled Wonderland At The End of the World by Haruki Marukami: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World follows two distinct and parallel storylines, both with unnamed narrators who might or might not be the same person. In the first storyline, the narrator is a "Calcutec", a computer specialist working for "The System" to protect data against the "Semiotecs", an organization of powerful black market information pirates. Called down into the sewers below Tokyo against regulations and against the law, the main character agrees to "shuffle", or encode the work of a nutty professor who says he has discovered a way to make bones talk! His life might be in danger though because all the major powers want a piece of this new technology. This plotline alternates chapters with a more fantasy type idyll about a town surrounded by an impenetrable and unscalable wall, in which the narrator tries to figure out who he is and how he came there. There are other inhabitants but all their comments are pretty cryptic. But there's some bizarre stuff going on. For example, there are unicorns grazing around the town, you lose your shadow, and the narrator is given the job of "reading dreams" from the skulls of strange beasts! He must set about figuring out how to escape unless he wants to be trapped there forever.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera: "A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine."
White Noise by Don DeLillo: Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New york expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family--radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmerings--pulsing with life, yet heralding the danger of death.
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee: At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. An affair with one of his students leaves him jobless, shunned by his friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife. He retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding, where a brief visit becomes an extended stay as he tries to find meaning from this one remaining relationship. David's attempts to relate to Lucy and to a society with new racial complexities are disrupted by an afternoon of violence that shakes all his beliefs and threatens to destroy his daughter.
The Amazing Adventures of Kabalon and Clay by Michael Chabon: Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses and even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first meets Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling him to make room for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning, however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. In short order, Sam's talent for pulp plotting meets Joe's faultless, academy-trained line, and a comic-book superhero is born. A sort of lantern-jawed equalizer clad in dark blue long underwear, the Escapist "roams the globe, performing amazing feats and coming to the aid of those who languish in tyranny's chains!" Before they know it, Kavalier and Clay (as Sam Klayman has come to be known) find themselves at the epicenter of comics' golden age.
Paper Towns by John Green: Green melds elements from his Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines— the impossibly sophisticated but unattainable girl, and a life-altering road trip—for another teen-pleasing read. Weeks before graduating from their Orlando-area high school, Quentin Jacobsen's childhood best friend, Margo, reappears in his life, specifically at his window, commanding him to take her on an all-night, score-settling spree. Quentin has loved Margo from not so afar (she lives next door), years after she ditched him for a cooler crowd. Just as suddenly, she disappears again, and the plot's considerable tension derives from Quentin's mission to find out if she's run away or committed suicide. Margo's parents, inured to her extreme behavior, wash their hands, but Quentin thinks she's left him a clue in a highlighted volume of Leaves of Grass. Q's sidekick, Radar, editor of a Wikipedia-like Web site, provides the most intelligent thinking and fuels many hilarious exchanges with Q. The title, which refers to unbuilt subdivisions and copyright trap towns that appear on maps but don't exist, unintentionally underscores the novel's weakness: both milquetoast Q and self-absorbed Margo are types, not fully dimensional characters. Readers who can get past that will enjoy the edgy journey and off-road thinking.
Go ahead and vote now, don't vote for your own nomination. Voting will end 11/3/09 at 12 noon Mountain Time.
Note: added two new members, auxaux and Kadens_Marie glad to have you!
See you guys tomorrow.
November 2nd, 2009 - 10:13 AM
Really, it reminds me of kids just trying to gross each other out with weird perverted violent shit that makes no sense.
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:09 PM
my vote is still for Pier Paolo Pasolini (120 Days of Sodom)
because im a sick pervert.
lol
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:26 PM
at the moment im gonna start reading The Spirit of 1787, which will be a bore but hey, it'll help with my poli sci courses
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:38 PM
LauraxLaura Said:
my vote is still for Pier Paolo Pasolini (120 Days of Sodom)
because im a sick pervert.
lol
because im a sick pervert.
lol
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:40 PM
girls, that book is from Marquis de Sade, as forkimified stated before ;)
forkimified Said:
Really, it reminds me of kids just trying to gross each other out with weird perverted violent shit that makes no sense.
you know some straaaange kids
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:41 PM
If I get some conformation that this will actually happen, I'll be more than happy to take part. But until that time, I will be sitting the fence.
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:51 PM
I_run_the_riot_ Said:
Pilip K. Dick ,The transmigration of Timothy Archer.
November 2nd, 2009 - 12:53 PM
I_run_the_riot_ Said:
I_run_the_riot_ Said:
Philip K. Dick ,The transmigration of Timothy Archer.
my bad
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"ITT: MOC Book Club"
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