Korean Job Discussion Forums

[keithinkorea]

Almost finished 'Fury' by Salman Rushdie and it's very cool, intellectual but a lot easier to read than a lot of his stuff, I think it's my favourite Rushdie book.

Most of Iain and Iain M Banks' books are great stuff, the best is a toss up between "Complicity", "Canal Dreams" or "The Bridge", I can't decide as they're all pretty amazing and it is worth reading all his books. Phillip K Dick is awesome especially "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".

I like books!

[funplanet]

1421 The Year the Chinese Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies

[Eunoia]

Just finished re-reading "Watership Down" - what a great book!

[K-in-C]

[K-in-C]

I reccomend "Green Grass Running Water" by Thomas King.

[guangho]

The Color of Water- James McBride.

[travel zen]

Bumping a good post years later...

Reading Pelham 123 was interesting. Very 1980. Full of archaic hatred of the time.

[Stout]

Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey by the Blair Brothers.

It's also a brilliant video series-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZGCeChkAn8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foW2szib1L4

[ricochet]

NEU SEX by author Sasha Grey

you'll love it...

[alljokingaside]

Infinite Jest can be a grind at times and has sections where you'd swear you'd slap the man if he were in front of you, but is ultimately worth it and rewards those who persevere. It is long and hard, but if you don't mind chompin' on tough nuts, this one here is definitely one to crack. Just make sure that the subjects and style are sufficiently alluring, or you just might pull something.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, one collection of essays, is also a fun read, and a bit more accessible. It's also useful as a primer for many of the topics, as well as some of the stylistic flairs, covered in IJ.

Ditto on the fantasy snark on the Bible; will say, though, it does has some lovely passages.

Kafka's always fun. Morrison's Beloved's a good read too, though can be disturbing. I'm on Gravity's Rainbow and plan on reading Carole Maso's Ava as soon as I get it. I suppose I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to my brain. After all's said and done, I think the next logical step's to take something hard and sharp and insert plug A into Head Hole B.

[The Floating World]

Yukio Mishima

Tim Winters

Kundera

Nikolai Gogol

Ian MacEwan

Plato

[young_clinton]

Charles Dickens Great Expectations------, his masterpiece

Hitler's First War----- this book gives a lot of info about Hitler's personality and dispels beliefs about him being a war hero. very thorough

Richard Dawkins The God Delusion ---------

very provocative and well thought out, although it's pretty one dimensional one sided thinking by an atheist who thinks that science presents the truth and not just facts, hypothesis, and theories arising from observation and the scientific method. He calls christian missionaries "infestations"--somewhat rabid

Thomas Hardy------Tess of the Durbervilles

Check out "The Confederate States of America" on You Tube. I was watching it on You Tube. Pretty good movie.

[alljokingaside]

Actually, if your looking for slightly humorous reads, check out David Foster Wallace's essays (eg A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, a roughly 20(?) pg essay about his experience on a cruise ship), available online

Bukowski also works

[pedrotaves]

peter singer is a great author. challenges every single ethical belief you can imagine, and in a deeply convincing way.

i disagree that the god delusion is "rabid." it's a book that doesn't shy away from shining the light on the ridiculous things about religion. the whole point is: why is believing god with no evidence any more respectable than believing in unicorns?

the tripod series by john christopher is one of my favorites. post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

in the dystopia vein, brave new world is a great book by aldous huxley.

my favorite, favorite, favorite book ever is a surprisingly NOT depressing book by john steinbeck: tortilla flat. hands down the funniest book i've ever read. great stories of friendship and love among drunks.

[duke of new york]

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I only recently discovered him. His writing is extremely witty. He's like the the Douglas Adams of fantasy.

With the fantasy genre in mind, I'd also recommend Lev Grossman's The Magicians and The Magician King. While reading them, I often felt that the literary style was self-indulgent and immature, but the stories really enraptured me, and now I find myself anxiously waiting for the third book in the series.

I don't really like "high fantasy," like Lord of the Rings kind of stuff, but Pratchett and Grossman are both much lighter and very entertaining. They read more like good science fiction, a genre I do enjoy.