Out With the Old, In With the New...Plus, A Request From the Blogger
So I just finished A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Yes, it's the new Oprah Book Club choice and no, I've never read one of her choices before (at least, not because it was the Oprah Book Club choice). I'll write more on it later, because Mr. Frey has yet to actually appear on the show and I'm waiting until he does before I write about the whole book/TV show/website multi-consumption experience.
In the meantime, I have started Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Read the following plot description and tell me if this doesn't sound like the coolest thing ever:
"Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan - where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller - Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japenese pulp classic, now available for the first time in the English language."
OK, are you putting everything down and running out to buy it yet? Granted, I'm sure this doesn't appeal to everyone, but to me it seems like it could be fascinating and trashy and fun, which I could desperately use after the incredibly disturbing A Million Little Pieces.
And while we're at it, why doesn't everyone out there let me know what they're reading? C'mon! Leave a comment and let me know what else I should be reading.
6 comments:
well, i already said it, but now donny vision can see it:
M.F.K. Fisher's "Art of Eating" is a fabulous voluptuous collection of writings for anyone who loves to eat and/or cook... or just read about it in good company.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" has just been speedily finished and it makes me want to move where the sun sets red every night, the ocean is a sweet azure, and tucans can coo me with the words I teach them.
And now, Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire" is a fabulous, interesting, entertaining read about the desire people have put into 4 plants: 1) apple, sweetness, 2) tulip, beauty, 3) marijuana, drug and 4) Potato, control. delightful stories about johnny appleseed and his true ideals in spreading the beloved apple: hard cider!
Speaking of Oprah book club, did you ever read "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb? That was another really popular book that I read like 5 years after it was popular, but it I really enjoyed it. It's 800 some pages, so it is kind of a bear to take on, but if you can get through the first 50-100 pages (which are kind of depressing/boring), you will be glad you did because it gets really interesting. It is about a guy who has a twin brother, and his twin brother is schizophrenic. It is told in a lot of flashbacks as well in the present (about what is going on with the brothers today). It's just a really good story, very cathartic by the end.
I think I started the Wally Lamb book five times and never finished...
reading D.H Lawrence's The Rainbow.
Just finished Joyce Carol Oates' The Tattooed Girl.
I really enjoyed that one.
I almost picked up The Botany of Desire a few years ago when another author i was reading recommended it on his website. i went with something else, though (Time, Sex, & Power by Leonard Shlain...it's about how gender relationships have evolved since the beginning of time, basically. very interesting. kind of academic-y, but really cool.)
i'll send you my copy of BOTANY when done. (it's a freebie from RH anyway...)
hooray for free books!
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