So ... what have you been reading?

I thought that this was a neat thread that was on the old board, started by Mel, if my addled memory serves me well. So I thought that I would take the liberty of starting it again here, as I have just finished reading an interesting book.

I just finished reading a book called The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight. It is fiction and is about a bunch of Islamic punk rawkers living in a house in Buffalo NY. It is quite interesting because it deals with the characters coming to terms individually and collectively with what both Islam and punk means to them. Two concepts that at a casual glance seem to have nothing in common. What is Islam, specifically ... religion in general to those that believe? What is punk?
Knight plays with ideas that both, as ideal concepts, seek to unify people by way of cultural ways and means that both fail in that no one can really agree with what each really means. But there in does lie a brotherhood. Fundamentalism and fundamentalists exist in each. And the struggle to define and redefine also exists within each.
A very interesting book with a very funny climax ... and I won't give the ending away. But I will say that Michael Muhammad Knight might well take the heat off of Salmund Rushdie. Anyone that takes the time to find this book will not be disappointed, it is a fun read. Also it delivers much food for thought.
What is punk and what is punk rock? Knight sums it up quite simply in a conversation between two of his characters ... maybe it's as simple as this: punk is ugly.
Therein lies the beauty.

I've been reading a variety of stuff as usual: I'm now in the last book (so far, fingers crossed) of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, great character-driven SF that I've really enjoyed these past few months since I first discovered it. I've also been reading everything of Whitley Strieber's that relates to the Gray aliens: Majestic and The Grays in particular recently, plus books by mediums George Anderson and Robert Brown, among others...

So I guess I now qualify as a nut.

I haven't found anything lately to keep my interest past the first chapter. So any suggestions would be good.

Latest Dan Brown. "The Lost Symbol"
Freemasonry, mysticism conspiracy thing.
I dig mysticism, spirituality, is there a god or not stuff.
He writes well. It's an easy read.
Isn't gripping me like Angels and Demons, but I'll finish it by night's end.

Angels And Demons is one of 'em that I couldn't get past the first chapter. Didn't catch my attention and keep it like Davinci Code did.

I just finished reading a novella by Henry Miller, A Devil In Paradise. Practically nothing happens but a bunch of griping and moaning between the two central characters. But kind of fascinating at the same time. And the Swiss feller kind of almost reminded me of someone I once knew ...

I just finished reading A Brave New World Revisited. In one way you could say that this is an outdated book in that A. Huxley wrote it in the '50's more than twenty years after he wrote A Brave New World. It's not a sequel to his original book ... it's a critique of where the world has gone since he wrote the original book and how society was beginning to reorganize itself and implement technology. Of course reading it from the standpoint of today you can clearly see how right on the money he was back in nineteen fifty-whatever, especially with the implementation of the propaganda industries and the over organization of industries into larger cartels. Another thing he wrote about was the homogenization of the the two parties along with selling candidates to voters like toothpaste or deodorant, using the techniques developed by advertising agencies to run political campaigns. End result is the usurpation of freedom from a public that still believes itself to be free along with the deconstruction of democracy while still allowing the public to think they live within a democratic society.

As Johnny Carson used to say, "... that's wild, wacky stuff."

I have that book, but haven't read it yet.

Having finished the SF series I'd been reading, I've just picked up some Dragonlance fantasy stuff I had lying around--I read the first trilogy of those like 20 years ago and have been collecting other books in the "series" but had never read the rest of them. I figured it was about time.

I just finished reading Go-Go Girls Of The Apocalypse by Victor Gischler. Pretty damn cool look at how different people try to return society back to "normal" and what all can go wrong after an apocalypse. Miss Connie seems to have my reading habits down, because she's been the only one so far that has gotten me books I can actually make it from page one to the last.

I read Too Fat To Fish recently.. Life keeps slapping Artie in the face yet he continues to wanna flush it down the toilet. What a life..

I just finished I Slept With Joey Ramone by Mickey Leigh (nee Mitch Hyman) with Legs McNeil. My lovely wife got this for me for Christmas. Good book that pretty much covers Joey's entire life from the perspective of his younger brother. Very interesting, and, at the end, quite touching as well.

The last book I read was Design for Dying by Timothy Leary. I thought it might contain some useful information since I keep getting fucked up and doing fucked up shit ... like setting myself on fire.

I've been reading The Universe In An Atom by the Dalai Lama. Good stuff...

East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

"All women are bad".

I'm most of the way through "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene which is basically a nice rundown of superstring theory for non-physicists. Plus it gives a bit of background on special/general relativity and quantum theory by way of introducing the string theory stuff.

Matt Benson wrote:I'm most of the way through "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene which is basically a nice rundown of superstring theory for non-physicists. Plus it gives a bit of background on special/general relativity and quantum theory by way of introducing the string theory stuff.

Mike_Sims wrote:

Matt Benson wrote:I'm most of the way through "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene which is basically a nice rundown of superstring theory for non-physicists. Plus it gives a bit of background on special/general relativity and quantum theory by way of introducing the string theory stuff.

You mean that's not punk rock?

It could be. If I knew what you were talking about I'd tell ya if it is.

Mike_Sims wrote:It could be. If I knew what you were talking about I'd tell ya if it is.

Matt still uses his brain unlike a lot of us on here

I've decided to use only the parts I really like. Those usually involve sex and drinkin.

Mike_Sims wrote:I've decided to use only the parts I really like. Those usually involve sex and drinkin.

sex and ........I'm FUCKING DYING HERE!!!!! Drinking.........
I am right there with you dude...

I just passed the entry on India in the encyclopedia.

What year encyclopedia set? Could be interesting to go through some of the older ones and compare them to stuff today.

Mike_Sims wrote:What year encyclopedia set? Could be interesting to go through some of the older ones and compare them to stuff today.

Comptons 1951 pictured version first pressed in 1922. It really is more like finding a time capsule than reading a reference book.

I read the Gingerbread Man the other day....Man, that sly fox always catches that little guy.... someday... I say..someday, we WILL see the Gingerbread Man out think that tricky old fox !