Good Books

I didn't know that Ryan Dunn died. I see that Wikipedia says it was alcohol related. Well, I guess he got what was coming to him if he did such a thing. Jackass is a guilty pleasure of mine. I really wanted to see Jackass 3-D, but nobody wanted to see it with me.

Have finished "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe" I really like the simple narrative with which C.S. Lewis writes, it is very much of its time. Would like to read all the other books in the series, there is a hardback version in one volume which I should like to get at some stage

Now I am reading "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman which my niece has given me, it is pretty good so far!

read the whole series by pullman-an excellent introduction to atheism for children,without talking down to them.ironic your reading it after narnia!

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read the whole series by pullman-an excellent introduction to atheism for children,without talking down to them.ironic your reading it after narnia!
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Aye I should like to read the other two by Philip Pullman. It does seem odd that I should chose to read two books from completely different ends of the spectrum However I am a bit illogical in my thought processes its all random

After inheriting a shitload of books from my paternal grandmother, I've started by delving into her collection of James Patterson. Guy writes a good thriller for sure.

"nothing to envy" a non fiction profile of the average North Korean,including how the famine of the 90's killed as much as 10 % of the population.
Pretty brutal stuff,a totalitorian state with complete control of what the populace knows/sees/understands.Silmultaniously sad and weirdly inspiring(at least for me)that these people could weather so much mistreatment and still survive.

[Ärväthyyll]

Silmultaniously sad and weirdly inspiring(at least for me)that these people could weather so much mistreatment and still survive.

If that is the only life you know, you think this is how it's supposed to be?

When portraying fucked up political systems, best book I've ever read was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago - it is about a man sent to the labor camp in Siberia (so Russian communist regime) - at the beginning of the book the narrator gets arrested in the middle of the night although he didn't do anything. He knows others have been arrested before, he didn't know why, but he thought The Party must have known what they're doing - he trusted the oh so sweet political elite. When he gets arrested, he keeps thinking that they have made a mistake and since they are so just, they will figure it out very soon and he'll be free. Well, no :/
This part of the book is really stuck in my head: how he trusted them, although they have done so much wrong already - bastards were good at manipulating.
BTW; I highly recommend this book. Despite it's heavy subject it's written in a witty half-humor style, an awesome read. At least this is how I remember it, I guess the guy needed sarcasm to survive

As for my latest readings - I threw myself into American literature a bit. I realized I don't know much of it (previously I've only read guys like Zane Grey, James Fenimore Cooper, John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac), so I got myself Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (which turned out to be an unconventional but fun read, I love the slaps he throws at modern day society), and now I'm reading David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. A bunch of semi-autobiographic (?) short stories, but again written with so much humor it's really worth the read.

I just finished "The Count of Monte Cristo" after a month of plowing through that gigantic book. I was amazed that for such a long book, there wasn't one dull moment in it. I commend Alexandre Dumas for that rarity. After I read books that have a movie based on it, I always watch the movie. I watched the one from 2002, and wow was that bad with how far they strayed from the book. Then I watched the French tv series from 1998, and that was quite close to the book, but it's easier to do so with a drawn out series.

Now I'm reading M.K. Hume's King Arthur series, but I'm only on the 3rd chapter right now.

so I got myself Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut's books are pretty good. My favourite American writer is Richard Brautigan. I've read two of his novels, Trout Fishing in America and A Confederate General From Big Sur. They are the most absurd stuff I've ever read, his every sentence is ROTFL.
...I must read them again.

vonnegut is really cool-mother night is a fave of mine-they made a really bad film of it in the eighties (i think)but the book is full of great characters behaving in unique ways.

reading-6 armies in normandy by john keegan.not my first time either,it is in no way a complete overview of june 1944 in france but is a pretty well done snapshot of the time and people in it.

[Aldhissla]

I have read the famous "Slaughterhouse Five" at english advanced course in school. Had to hold a presentation about it as well. Strange but great book nevertheless.