[shakedown_04092]

On my very first trip to NYC about 7 years ago my (now) fiance was adamant about going to see a show/musical on Broadway, and I was not too impressed with her choices (Les Mis...and a few others I can't remember), and was refusing to go to anything I was potentially going to fall asleep to. That is, until we came across "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" starring Gary Sinise (aka Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump), and I was like "HELLS YEAH, we're goin' to see that!!!".

Fucking awesome. I was blown away at the live acting these guys pulled off; Sinise was brilliant. So glad I went.

[hobbsy]

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brave New World: Huxley
Victory: Conrad
The Alchemist: Paolo Khoelo (Sorry,that author's name is badly misspelled)

[BlobWeird]

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brave New World: Huxley
Victory: Conrad
The Alchemist: Paolo Khoelo (Sorry,that author's name is badly misspelled)

First off you actually liked fahrenheit 451??? I had to read that in school and I hated every minute of it. SOooo bland. And yes The Alchemist is one of the best books ive ever read by the best author ive ever read. btw Paulo Coelho is the correct spelling. Check out The Pilgrimage if you liked that one.

[gratephulphish123]

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brave New World: Huxley
Victory: Conrad
The Alchemist: Paolo Khoelo (Sorry,that author's name is badly misspelled)

First off you actually liked fahrenheit 451??? I had to read that in school and I hated every minute of it. SOooo bland. And yes The Alchemist is one of the best books ive ever read by the best author ive ever read. btw Paulo Coelho is the correct spelling. Check out The Pilgrimage if you liked that one.

it's because you read it in school you hated it, noone likes something they have to do for school. i'm so glad i read slaughterhouse 5 before school told me to

btw any vonnegut fans

[hobbsy]

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brave New World: Huxley
Victory: Conrad
The Alchemist: Paolo Khoelo (Sorry,that author's name is badly misspelled)

First off you actually liked fahrenheit 451??? I had to read that in school and I hated every minute of it. SOooo bland. And yes The Alchemist is one of the best books ive ever read by the best author ive ever read. btw Paulo Coelho is the correct spelling. Check out The Pilgrimage if you liked that one.

Well, I just read it and it was the first thing that came to mind. It was a little difficult to get thru, but the correlation between his idea of the future and the future of now is a little unnerving. And I will read The Pilgrimage, but you gotta read Victory. Dylan wrote a song, Black Diamond Bay, loosely based on it. And I wouldn't consider myself exactly "well read," especially in literary circles, but Victory just blew me away w/ the character development, antagonist/protagonist, etc. Try it.

[pfarrell615]

on the road ,"howl" not ecxactly a book but poetry thats relevant, electric koolaid acid test ? was Kesey a racist or was it just the times? James Mitchner "the source" any Vonnegut

[Django]

Great topic! There have been some great books mentioned. I have a daughter in college who is really starting to become very much a book lover and I am trying to think of stuff I would suggest to her. She has read what I have given her too, I think that is because the first thing I gave her was the 'The World According to Garp' by John Irving. I am trying to think of books I was really sorry were finished when I'd finished. I just gave her 'The Once and Future King' by T.H. White. I love Vonnegut but that doesn't really meet my criteria. I was thinking 'The Source' - by Michener, as someone else mentioned. On the more obscure side "A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter Miller is a good read. And yes, read 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Definitely.

[jck_strw]

On the more obscure side "A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter Miller is a good read.

Very nice recommendation. You don't hear that book recommended very often.

[d-v-s]

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. Not as good or accessable as Kerouac, but trippy as all get out. And find out where Steely Dan got their name!

Anybody else read this book? I got lost in it, somewhere between Burroughs' drugged out delusions, and the sometimes overwhelming homosexual imagery. I'm the kind of person who will finish a book if I start it, so I stuggled through to the very end of it, and when I finished I was still lost. I agreee with jared that it was trippy as hell, visually rich, and utterly confusing.

I even tried watching the movie (yeah, they made a movie of this one...) to see if I could fill in the voids, but the movie was just as bizzare as the book.

[amyjared]

On the more obscure side "A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter Miller is a good read.

I took a seminar class in college at UNC-W called Philosophy of Science Fiction, in 1984, which we read. I thought I knew some sci-fi, but we read Canticle, along with Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub and another one I'd never heard of. Good class, good stuff! As for Naked Lunch, it is not an easy read, but it has some gems in it. I often would pick it up and read it from just about anywhere for a little, until I got bored and put it down then did it all over again. Burroughs used to employ a method of writing and then cutting it up and pasting it back together in different order. Made it tough to read in the conventional way. My advice is pick up a used copy for cheap and read it every now and then.

[Django]

Thanks jackstraw, so now I'm probably going to blow my just earned cachet of cool, but I will mention how much fun 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by J.K.Toole is to read.

[d-v-s]

Django, a friend of mine gave me a copy of "confederacy of dunces" a while back. Definitely a good read.

[xero92]

gotta say i love the illustrated trip. I learned so much in those 600 pages i can't imagine. i would definently recommend that you pick it up and don't put it down.
on another note, i am just diggin into 'on the road' and i do believe that it is genius

[pfarrell615]

has anybody ever heard of a book named "the celstene prophesy" ?

[d-v-s]

pfarrell, I read the Celestine Prophecy a long time ago - 10 years maybe??. At the time I thought it was a fantastic book and passed it onto many of my friends. it was a quick easy read, and it had a good message - kind of like the Tao of Pooh.