Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

I just want to see what everyone is currently reading/has read...what are some of your favorites? Here is a list of some good reads:

1) Tom Robbins: Jitterbug Perfume/ Skinny Legs and All (My favorite)
2) Kurt Vonnegut (well, anything by him is genius)
3) Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
4) Flannery O'Conner: Wise Blood
5) Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / Somtimes a Great Notion (reading it now)
6) The Harry Pothead books
7) Toni Morrison: Beloved / Song of Solomon
Nick Hornby: High Fidelity (esp recommend it for the men)

Any good titles? Looking to blow a little holiday cash and not waste my brain on Friends and That 70's Show reruns, which I have watched too much of. Also, I live with my Korean boyfriend in a very small apartment and I need an absorbing read to block out his squeaky animation shows and those tirade of terrible Korean comedy shows, featuring dorky guys who throw each other in kiddie swimming pools.

[jajdude]

Anything by Dr. Oliver Sacks (neurologist) makes for interesting reading.
"The man who mistook his wife for a hat" and "Awakenings" and "An Anthropolgist on Mars" and others.

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" (Azar Nafasi) --- very good.

A doctor named Kaplan (forget 1st name) ---- read one book by him called "The Dressing Station"---good one. Saw others by him in that store in Itaewon (What the Book?)

Did you read Frank McCourt ("Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis") ? --- recommended. His brother Malachy wrote a good one too ("A Monk Swimming")

[casey's moon]

Polychronic, that's a great list of books! Hmm... I would recommend anything by John Irving but particularly "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I'm having trouble coming up with others right now (which is ridiculous because I read about 15 books a year.....

[kermo]

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

Sounds like a good selection..thanks everyone. I also read Frank McCourt's Angelas Ashes and loved it!....I didn't know his brother Malachy wrote A Monk Swimming...I'm definitly going to pick that one up! Someone mentioned wanting to read more nonfiction. My old professor gave me Amy Tan's (she wrote The Joy Luck Club..also a very good book) book called The Opposite of Fate---it's basically her biography on being raised as a Chinese-American--gotta read that one!

To Casey's Moon: Yeah, I have to read my John Irving's Cider House Rules...have it on my bookshelf and it's looking neglected. I remember seeing the movie version Hotel New Hamphsire when I was younger and that movie completely shook me up....I'm sure the book is twice that.

I can't believe I didn't mention Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov...everyone should read that book at least once in their life...it's amazing but be forewarned, quite disturbing. Also read The Lovely Bones, which I'm sure many of you have...also disturbing and brought me teary at many parts. I also want to read Reading Lolita in Tehran...I'll just steal my coworker's copy. Also read Phillip Roth's American Pastoral...it's a great read about youth and terrorism in the 1960's. Also Jack Kerouac's On the Road is pretty cool...about the beatnik generation and road-tripping.

Also does anyone know of any good used English book stores? I love Abby's Nook in Itaewon...I will have to sell my books back there when I leave don't want to but can't afford to send too much home.

[katydid]

I loved The Lovely Bones. Very sad, moving book...I love the last line in that book. Stuff like that, about "The Great Beyond" always gets me wondering...

I also like The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. The Poisonwood Bible gets a bit heavy-handed toward the end, but I love that one too. One of these days, I want to read The Life of Pi.

[mindmetoo]

What I've read going back 4 years...

May 4, 2000
One Hunderd Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

May 22, 2000
Illusions
Richard Bach

May 26, 2000
Foucault's Pendulum
Umberto Eco

June 8, 2000
The Deptford Trilogy
Robertson Davies

July 13, 2000
The General in His Labyrinth
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

July 20, 2000
The Lives of the Saints
Nino Ricci

July 25, 2000
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller

August 1, 2000
A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving

August 14, 2000
In the Skin of a Lion
Michael Ondaatje

August 28, 2000
Hemingway's Chair
Michael Palin

September 9, 2000
Siddhartha
Hermann Hesse

September 18, 2000
The Robber Bride
Margaret Atwood

October 11, 2000
Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto

October 16, 2000
Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood

October 31, 2000
NP
Banana Yoshimoto

November 4, 2000
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

November 20, 2000
Banana Boys
Terry Woo

December 15, 2000
The Wars
Timothy Findley

December 30, 2000
Adrian Mole the Cappuccino Years
Sue Townsend

January 12, 2001
Foreign Bodies : A Novel
Hwee Hwee Tan

February 2, 2001
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

February 13, 2001
Uncle Vanya
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

February 19, 2001
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett

February 23, 2001
The Reader
Bernhard Schlink

March 5, 2001
The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwood

April 1, 2001
The Foreign Student
Susan Choi

April 26, 2001
In Evil Hour
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

May 7, 2001
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

May 28, 2001
Ishmael
Daniel Quinn

June 4, 2001
Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris

June 10, 2001
She's Come Undone
Wally Lamb

June 30, 2001
The Comedy Writer
Peter Farrelly

July 9, 2001
The Santaland Diaries
David Sedaris

July 12, 2001
Polaroids from the Dead
Douglas Coupland

July 16, 2001
Generation X
Douglas Coupland

July 23, 2001
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People : An Autobiography
Lenny Bruce

July 28, 2001
Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth

August 14, 2001
Orlando
Virginia Woolf

August 23, 2001
Skinny Legs and All
Tom Robbins

September 9, 2001
Who has seen the Wind
W.O. Mitchell

September 28, 2001
The Van
Roddy Doyle

October 12, 2001
Son of a Smaller Hero
Mordecai Richler

October 23, 2001
My Discovery of England
Stephen Leacock

October 30, 2001
Another Roadside Attraction
Tom Robbins

November 5, 2001
Adrian Mole The Lost Years
Sue Townsend

December 1, 2001
Fraud
David Rakoff

December 11, 2001
The Water-Method Man
John Irving

January 5, 2002
Kicking Tomorrow
Daniel Richler

February 19, 2002
The Discovery of Heaven
Harry Mulisch

May 7, 2002
Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur S. Golden

June 21, 2002
Runaway : Diary of a Street Kid
Evelyn Lau

July 5, 2002
Buying on Time
Antanas Sileika

July 19, 2002
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood

August 26, 2002
One Hunderd Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

September 24, 2002
No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

October 8, 2002
The Only Woman in the Room
Beate Sirota Gordon

October 14, 2002
Deadeye Dick
Kurt Vonnegut

October 28, 2002
Bluebeard
Kurt Vonnegut

November 23, 2002
Plays Well With Others
Allan Gurganus

January 19, 2003
All Families Are Psychotic
Douglas Coupland

February 14, 2003
The Fencepost Chronicles
W. P. Kinsella

February 22, 2003
The Road to Wellville
T. Coraghessan Boyle

February 27, 2003
Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby

March 3, 2003
Stupid White Men
Michael Moore

March 15, 2003
Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel

April 11, 2003
The Moccasin Telegraph
W.P. Kinsella

April 30, 2003
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

June 30, 2003
Brother Frank's Gospel Hour
W. P. Kinsella

July 8, 2003
How to be Good
Nick Hornby

July 23, 2003
The Commanding Heights
by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw

Sept 11, 2003
Naked
by David Sedaris

Oct. 6, 2003
Happiness : A Novel
by Will Ferguson

Nov. 10, 2003
A Liar's Autobiography
by Graham Chapman

Nov. 21, 2003
Please Don't Kill the Freshman
by Zoe Trope

Nov. 27, 2003
Miss Hobbema Pageant
by W P Kinsella

Dec. 21, 2003
Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories
by Dorothy Parker

Dec. 27, 2003
High Fidelity
by Nick Hornby

Dec. 31, 2003
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
by Sue Townsend

Jan. 3, 2004
Infinity : The Quest to Think the Unthinkable
by Brian Clegg

Jan. 8, 2004
Without a Hero
by T Coraghessan Boyle

Jan. 13, 2004
Baudolino
by Umberto Eco

Jan. 27, 2004
The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Feb 1, 2004
Dance Me Outside
by W. P. Kinsella

Feb 6, 2004
Greasy Lake and Other Stories
by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Feb 12, 2004
Asleep
by Banana Yoshimoto

Feb 15, 2004
My Remarkable Uncle
by Stephen Leacock

Feb 20, 2004
Red wolf, red wolf
by W. P. Kinsella

Mar 1, 2004
Box Socials
by W. P. Kinsella

Mar 8, 2004
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain: A Novel
by Christopher Monger

Mar 16, 2004
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami

Mar 25, 2004
The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown

Mar 29, 2004
Jennifer Government
by Max Barry

Apr 3, 2004
Making History
by Stephen Fry

Apr 10, 2004
The Chocolate War
by Robert Cormier

Apr 12, 2004
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett

Apr 18, 2004
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco

Apr 28, 2004
White Noise
by Don DeLillo

May 2, 2004
Life Before Man
by Margaret Atwood

May 9, 2004
Friend of the Earth
by T. Coraghessan Boyle

May 13, 2004
Survivor
by Chuck Palahniuk

May 22, 2004
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon

June 2, 2004
For Kings and Planets : A Novel
by Ethan Canin

June 9, 2004
Swimming Lessons: And Other Stories from Firozsha Baag
by Rohinton Mistry

June 15, 2004
Something Happened
by Joseph Heller

June 26, 2004
The Everlasting Story of Nory
by Nicholson Baker

July 3, 2004
A Map of the World
by Jane Hamilton

July 10, 2004
House of Sand and Fog
by Andre Dubus III

July 17, 2004
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
by Raymond Carver

July 24, 2004
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo

August 14, 2004
The Life of Pi
by Yann Martel

August 21, 2004
A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing
by I don't care

August 25, 2004
Please Don't Kill the Freshman
by Zoe Trope

September 2, 2004
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon

September 6, 2004
Catch-22
by Joseph Heller

September 19, 2004
My Year of Meats
by Ruth L. Ozeki

September 28, 2004
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggaers

October 2, 2004
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4
by Sue Townsend

October 6, 2004
Adrian Mole the Wilderness Years
by Sue Townsend

October 10, 2004
The Visitation
by Sue Reidy

October 23, 2004
Audrey Hepburns Neck
by Alan Brown

[waterbaby]

The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
Ragtime - EL Doctorow (how about that cupboard scene?)
The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes

These were my three favourite books (out of about 40) from my final year of literature. Great reads, all of them. "The Day of the Locust" was my absolute favourite. It's quite short - a novella.

I'll also second Casey's Moon on John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" - Owen is one of those unforgettable characters that will stay with you forever.

[ThePoet]

Anything by Robert A. Heinlein (RIP)

Anything by Dave Berry

Anything in the "Inspector Morse" series

Why Shoot the Teacher -- Max Braithwaite (RIP)


Poet

[peppermint]

I read a lot, so I'll just list the ones that keep me going back.

Roberston Davies- the Deptford Chronicles ( they're what I brought over with me) Something along the lines of A Prayer for Owen Meany but a little darker and with more depth.

Yan Martel- The life of Pi, can't say enough about how good this book is.

Non fiction that I liked:

Jan Wong- Red China Blues. And you thought expats here whined! ( then again, this isn't the cultural revolution)

Steven Pinker- The Blank Slate.- the whole nature vs nurture debate, which got me thinking about a lot of heavy stuff.

[Cheyne]

"Green eggs and ham" by Dr. Seuss.

[casey's moon]

[Tiger Beer]

Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums, On the Road, Big Sur
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn
Louis Ferdinand Celine - Death on the Installment Plan, Into the Journey of Night (or something like that?)
John Cheever - The Falconer
Nick Hornsby - High Fidelity, (and some other one I really liked)
Oliver Sacks - Anthropologist on Mars
Peter ? - A Walk Across America
Carlos Castaneda - read all 12-13 or however many there are.
Philip Roth - Portneys Complaint (one of my favorite books of all time)
J.D. Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Russel Banks - (? similar to catcher)


Tons of others.. few of which are coming to my mind right now..

[rapier]

"Ivanhoe" Sir Walter Scott
"War and peace" Leo Tolstoy
"Papillion" Henri Charriere
"Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov
"A handful of dust" Evelyn Waugh
" Richard III" Shakespeare
"Goodbye to Berlin" Christopher Isherwood
"The diceman" Luke Rhinehart
"The Count of Monte Christo" Alexandre Dumas
"A passage to India" E.M Forster
"The Bible" God
"The wind eye" Roger Westall
"The Great Betrayal" Ian Smith
"The quiet American" Graham Greene
"To the Lighthouse" Virginia Woolf

However I need some new material..Mindmetoo seems to have a good list. A rapid reading rate as well I see...

[AdamH]