wanted to bump as there are some good selections here...
i've found myself re-reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance lately.
and i just picked up a copy of das foucaltsche pendel (Foucault's Pendulum auf deutsch) and yeah... i might have to get an english translation, my german is starting to get rusty.
since i'm temporarily living in the almost-infinite (12k+sf) house, i got 'house of leaves' to read while i'm here.
have to say that, though the underlying concept of the book is fascinating, dave eggers handles footnotes in fiction better than danielewski. they really get onerous in this book.
My uncle just published an autobiography, which I read front to back over the weekend cause I was feeling under the weather. It was a good read for me but for most people it probably wouldn't be of interest. He is an educated wander, who somehow always manages to land on his feet. He has done just about everything you can dream of and then some other things with his life. He currently resides in Mexico in the winter and Wyoming in the Summer.
I'm also getting through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is good stuff though sometimes I find him a little full of himself =P.
My picks:
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (maybe not necessarily "inspiring," but Murakami is always a favorite)
THEaguino-
i enjoyed blink, though it was a relatively quick read and though related to architecture, i felt it was redundant, that it just verified what i already knew (or thought i knew).
zircon, "Cosmicomics" is a great one...at once playful and deep, like the rest of Calvino that I've read. "Invisible Cities" was a source during first-year studio.
swept off my feet / was jumping in rage after realizing i wasted 4 hours of my life reading that worthless piece of absolute crap. those 4 hours i will never get back.
pencebor-
you can't win the nobel for lit. for a single book. you win it for your body of work. but for the record, i will read and re-read anything by marquez anyday. love in the time of cholera is amazing.
The last really engaging book I read was 'a fine balance'.
I literally did not pick up another book for six weeks after finishing it. Needed time to think...
Noone has mentioned the fuckbooks. Where are the fuckbooks?
Aged 14 I had to scan literally hundreds of books, cover to cover, to find these gems among my parents' collection.
Bukowski
Irving
Roth
(Easton-Ellis)
Rieser & Umamoto's Novel Tectonics. Such a beautiful book, with stuck-in pictures and bound like a large moleskine notebook. To actually read it would be to challenge its unending mystery. I'm saving it for Sundays.
After reading Day of the Jackal I felt I had done justice to the whole genre of thrillers. Never need to read another.
Borges, I like. If only TV could be edited like that. None of the bullshit, rhythmic condensations to the throbbing resonant harmonic, or something like that. Read one (of his tiny stories) in ten minutes and digest it for days. I wish I could read it in his native tongue.
Kundera's first novel that he wrote in a language other than his native Czech: La Lenteur, written in French. Partly I was thrilled to be reading my first novel outside of my native English, partly I was thrilled by my poor comprehension of the French, mostly I was thrilled by my the fuckbits.
Hillaire Belloc's translation of Tristan and Isuelt. If you are pure of heart, and young enough, this should add steel to your burning adolescent belief in the one true love. If you have soiled your heart and aged to maturity, read it and tell me how it feels. I daren't go back to it for fear of tarnishing it's lovely memories.
Nikos Kazantzakis: The Last Temptation (of Christ). It's on my shelf because it looks pretty damn tough. Read it? Un-bloody-likely.
Cecil Balmond, big-up to the Unshaven Asian. Informal is a joy all should behold.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus for many of the same reasons as Borges, and it comes disguised as a standard form of contract with 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 etc. interspersed with incomprehensible paragraphs of double negatives ad infinitum.
David Mitchell's Number9dream for a proper bit of post-modern kamikaze zen whore gangster drug, gun and gardening fest, set in the ever exotic islands of Japan. That reminds me of Neuromancer, which was, is, also brilliant.
Now I am looking forward to Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. I will quote at random:
-
Effects of Gourmandism on Sociability:
Gourmandism is one of the principal bonds of society; for it is gourmandism that gradually draws out that convivial spirit which every day brings all sorts together, moulds them into a single whole, sets them talking, and rounds off the sharp corners of conventional inequality.
-
Those women whose gourmandism consists chiefly of a love of sweet things have finer features, a more delicate air, neater figures, and above all, a very special way with their tongues.
-
For their use and abuse of the Queen's English there is Damon Runyon's stories and Burgess' Clockwork Orange. Both will give you an intrigue for the breaking strain of syntactic structures, the current value of nouns: verbal brutality with efficacy.
An oldie, but imposing in its scope, the arc of the drama and the whole story is so great that forgiving the few imperfections is easy: the Powerbroker. (just finished) I know I'm late.
Inspiring books
I just picked up Maya Lin's Boundaries and haven't been able to put it down. Very inspiring.
wanted to bump as there are some good selections here...
i've found myself re-reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance lately.
and i just picked up a copy of das foucaltsche pendel (Foucault's Pendulum auf deutsch) and yeah... i might have to get an english translation, my german is starting to get rusty.
since i'm temporarily living in the almost-infinite (12k+sf) house, i got 'house of leaves' to read while i'm here.
have to say that, though the underlying concept of the book is fascinating, dave eggers handles footnotes in fiction better than danielewski. they really get onerous in this book.
My uncle just published an autobiography, which I read front to back over the weekend cause I was feeling under the weather. It was a good read for me but for most people it probably wouldn't be of interest. He is an educated wander, who somehow always manages to land on his feet. He has done just about everything you can dream of and then some other things with his life. He currently resides in Mexico in the winter and Wyoming in the Summer.
Is it just assumed we've all read Ishmael, and that's why no one mentioned it?
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
A Discourse on Inequality - Rousseau
Justice as Fairness - John Rawls
American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis
If you read past the violence, it's a very thought provoking book
As far as architecture/design books go:
How buildings learn
The Art of Light and Space
The Other Horizon
One more:
Sun, Wind and Light
I'm also getting through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is good stuff though sometimes I find him a little full of himself =P.
My picks:
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (maybe not necessarily "inspiring," but Murakami is always a favorite)
13 ways by Richard Harbison
THEaguino-
i enjoyed blink, though it was a relatively quick read and though related to architecture, i felt it was redundant, that it just verified what i already knew (or thought i knew).
zircon, "Cosmicomics" is a great one...at once playful and deep, like the rest of Calvino that I've read. "Invisible Cities" was a source during first-year studio.
da vinci code.
swept off my feet / was jumping in rage after realizing i wasted 4 hours of my life reading that worthless piece of absolute crap. those 4 hours i will never get back.
pencebor-
you can't win the nobel for lit. for a single book. you win it for your body of work. but for the record, i will read and re-read anything by marquez anyday. love in the time of cholera is amazing.
Magic and Mystery In Tibet
- - by Alexandra David Neel.
(has some nice insights )
The last really engaging book I read was 'a fine balance'.
I literally did not pick up another book for six weeks after finishing it. Needed time to think...
A while later, I enjoyed 'Life of Pi'.
Noone has mentioned the fuckbooks. Where are the fuckbooks?
Aged 14 I had to scan literally hundreds of books, cover to cover, to find these gems among my parents' collection.
Bukowski
Irving
Roth
(Easton-Ellis)
Rieser & Umamoto's Novel Tectonics. Such a beautiful book, with stuck-in pictures and bound like a large moleskine notebook. To actually read it would be to challenge its unending mystery. I'm saving it for Sundays.
After reading Day of the Jackal I felt I had done justice to the whole genre of thrillers. Never need to read another.
Borges, I like. If only TV could be edited like that. None of the bullshit, rhythmic condensations to the throbbing resonant harmonic, or something like that. Read one (of his tiny stories) in ten minutes and digest it for days. I wish I could read it in his native tongue.
Kundera's first novel that he wrote in a language other than his native Czech: La Lenteur, written in French. Partly I was thrilled to be reading my first novel outside of my native English, partly I was thrilled by my poor comprehension of the French, mostly I was thrilled by my the fuckbits.
Hillaire Belloc's translation of Tristan and Isuelt. If you are pure of heart, and young enough, this should add steel to your burning adolescent belief in the one true love. If you have soiled your heart and aged to maturity, read it and tell me how it feels. I daren't go back to it for fear of tarnishing it's lovely memories.
Nikos Kazantzakis: The Last Temptation (of Christ). It's on my shelf because it looks pretty damn tough. Read it? Un-bloody-likely.
Cecil Balmond, big-up to the Unshaven Asian. Informal is a joy all should behold.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus for many of the same reasons as Borges, and it comes disguised as a standard form of contract with 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 etc. interspersed with incomprehensible paragraphs of double negatives ad infinitum.
David Mitchell's Number9dream for a proper bit of post-modern kamikaze zen whore gangster drug, gun and gardening fest, set in the ever exotic islands of Japan. That reminds me of Neuromancer, which was, is, also brilliant.
Now I am looking forward to Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. I will quote at random:
-
Effects of Gourmandism on Sociability:
Gourmandism is one of the principal bonds of society; for it is gourmandism that gradually draws out that convivial spirit which every day brings all sorts together, moulds them into a single whole, sets them talking, and rounds off the sharp corners of conventional inequality.
-
Those women whose gourmandism consists chiefly of a love of sweet things have finer features, a more delicate air, neater figures, and above all, a very special way with their tongues.
-
For their use and abuse of the Queen's English there is Damon Runyon's stories and Burgess' Clockwork Orange. Both will give you an intrigue for the breaking strain of syntactic structures, the current value of nouns: verbal brutality with efficacy.
Words are for life.
An oldie, but imposing in its scope, the arc of the drama and the whole story is so great that forgiving the few imperfections is easy: the Powerbroker. (just finished) I know I'm late.
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