Books, CAN YOU READ?! Options

[Dr Strum]

This thread is for discussion of books. Books you're reading, books you've read, books you're interested in, etc.
--Tom Clancy is lame--


But anyways. I'm currently reading Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It's interesting, but I'm having difficulty getting into it, partially because of school, and partially because the month before I started it, I had just finished the Dark Tower series.

[Rhiannon]

I actually did read the first two books of the New York Trilogy, and want to reread the series as a whole so I can talk about them in more detail. They're stories that play with the idea of what a story is, and also what a reader is, and also what a plot is, and ask: how do you know any of those things are actually any of those things?

I still remember the whole thing where it was like, "Is a broken umbrella even an umbrella anymore?" I don't know why but that part stuck with me a lot. ALSO I SHOULD REREAD IT BECAUSE I LOVED IT.

Things I've read since last time... The Wonderful World of Wigglers, which is some book meant for elementary school children (except genuinely useful even for adults if you're into worms and nature and junk) and is ancient enough to use the word Xerox as a verb. Very interesting. Don't tell Sturm I read it before I gave it to him for Christmas or I'll make Rai make a dex where every instance of "Sturm" is replaced with "Starm" or "Starmie."

Finished David Duchovny's Holy Cow. Still the most bizarre thing I've ever read. Pig named Jerry decides to become Jewish, changes his name to Shalom, and also gets circumcized in the book. What in the. AND THAT'S ONLY THE HALF OF WHAT'S MESSED UP ABOUT THIS BOOK. I greatly enjoyed some of the animal-based phrase things, like the cow thinking, "all six of my stomachs leapt into my throat" or something like that. Don't remember the exact quote but it definitely had multiple stomachs, like a real cow would. I recommend this book only if you're crazy because I can't decide if it was good or bad. It was just weird, and probably offensive.

David Sedaris things still. Still stuck on him a bit I guess. I read Barrel Fever which was very uh. It seemed a lot more vulgar and sometimes mean-spirited compared to anything else I've read by him. Still loved it though. Also read Holidays on Ice and don't have anything special to say about that one.

Albert Camus' The Outsider which was also a strange book. And made me feel weird and uncomfortable about how the main character handled all the situations. He just seemed to take everything in stride... I don't know, maybe I should read the book again. It was short enough that it wouldn't be a huge time sink to do so anyway.

Never did finish Mein Kampf. Hopefully this year I'll be able to bring myself to. Currently reading some nonfiction mostly. Some crappy cheapo self-help book about anxiety which is definitely already worthless and not worth naming, and as for the exciting nonfiction, I'm reading Maia Szalavitz's Help at Any Cost which is about the crazy abuses of mental health patients, particularly in in-patient and wilderness programs. Putting this under spoiler tag since it's kinda long and is as close to spoilers as you can get in nonfiction:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

In one chapter they were describing the way this one kid died in a wilderness program and it was just like... I almost cried reading it. They were just massive assholes to the kid and wouldn't give him food (they had food but it was inedible unless prepared with a fire, which they had to learn to make without lighters or anything, and he never could figure it out, nor were the other kids allowed to share anything with him). They made fun of him while he started falling constantly from severe lack of energy, even more when he started losing control of his bodily functions... and then they fucking lied to his parents when he died.

They basically said "OH HE JUST SUDDENLY DIED OUT OF NOWHERE" and then they went to see the body and they barely even recognized him. He'd lost like 30 pounds, was full of sores and bruises all over his body, super swollen feet and knees and everything. It's just so scummy and the saddest thing is I'm pretty sure stuff like this is still happening today even though this book is old enough to be out of print. I just remember when I was younger and in mental health programs and nobody ever believed me, either. It's like mental health patients are always just trying to manipulate you. That's really what they believe. And they probably get off on the power trip, too. You know the kid I described who died on that wilderness thing? Apparently one of the people in charge had taken his diary and wrote in it that he was so happy to have finally broken the kid, to have gotten rid of his smile. It's a painful read, but so important. I'm really glad I hunted it down even if it cost more money than I would have liked to pay for a used book.

P.S. THERE'S A BOOK CALLED NARWHAL: UNICORN OF THE SEA AND I HAVE IT AND READ IT AND IT IS A GOOD TITLE