Though I guess erotica's primary purpose is to titillate, so the terrible prose quality may be beside the point if it gets the reader's motor running.

Reading Gene Wolfe's 'Peace'. I first heard about it described as a horror story hidden under a Midwestern memoir.

#104 "Angry White Mailmen"

???

Also picked up a few of the old Doc Savage books today. Never read any of them before, so I got no idea what to expect from them.

I just ordered 'John Dies at the End' and 'House of Leaves' since you guys talked about both of them here. Also because Amazon suggested them together. I guess I am a sucker for advertising.

I've been reading Wind in the Willows to my son. For a children's book, it's got a decent bit of depth.

I'm trying to put together a summer reading list. I'm not looking to follow any themes, just books that I've been meaning to read for a while but have never gotten around to. So far my list is as follows

1. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
2. Idylls of the King - Alfred Lord Tennyson
3. Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov (If this book is unnecessary, I could skip to Foundation)
4. Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata
5. The Sea Wolf - Jack London
6. A Burnt Out Case - Graham Greene

I could probably fit another book or two on there. Anything you guys think I should add or subtract.

I would read the Foundation novels in publication order, not chronological order.

p.s. - I should have prefaced that I have never read the Foundation series, but I plan to (in publication order).

I know this is gonna sound weird.

But I have a really vivid memory of some line in Neuromancer where she circles her fingers around the base of his dick while they're both high on drugs.

Uguuuu.

Yeah, thanks Dave, I'd forgotten about that. What is it with SF writers and their insistent need to describe sex in these explicit-yet-clinical terms?

Dave said:

But, per RB, I'm pretty sure he said "penis." Also, "flaccid" was probably involved.

Just got to the first sex scene, it was

Now that I have finished 'Hard Boiled Wonderland', about to start in on Ursula Le Guin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. I've been meaning to read this for years, so let's hope it lives up to the hype.

Finished 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. Of all the science fiction/fantasy books I've read, this is probably my favorite. It is slow and ponderous, yet very satisfying. If you are unfamiliar with the book, It is about a political envoy trying to get a planet, whose entirety of the human population is hermaphroditic, to join what is called the Ekumen (a sort of space UN). It is also far more then that. If you are looking for laser guns and monsters, this may not be a book for you.

I've had this sitting around for a while.Picture is bigger than anticipated

I've been looking forward to it.

Edit: Fixed. Thanks Nick.

Franzen released a collection of essays, Farther Away.

Enjoyable.

kaazuwulf said:

Just got to the part in Good Omens where the kids try to do their own Spanish Inquisition. I gods this book is so many flavors of good.

Yeah, one of my faves. Especially the "Fat Bottomed Girls" phenomenon.

About 70 pages into The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
Liking it so far

I've started getting into the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' is an excellent story. The book I have has all her stories in chronological order, so now that I have read 'A Good Man', I guess I will start at the beginning with 'The Geranium'. Anyone read her before?

She's amazing; I need to pick up that Library of America complete works collection again and finish it at some point.

I will check out The River next. Just finished 'The Geranium', and damn it was good. I read that she rewrote it a few times later in her career. I bought a book of her complete short stories for like, maybe $10. So worth it.

The River made me very angry.

I have no problem with tragic, it is the whole the child is better off dead since he was more or less tricked into become a christian and now he doesn't have to live with those horrible neglectful atheists. Not that the religious people where portrayed that much better (seriously, what type of person tell a child that now that he is baptized he counts, and that before he didn't.) I looked up some stuff on the story cause I was thinking there is no way this could be the point of it and she even says that the that " He comes to a good end. He's saved from those nutty parents, a fate worse than death. He's been baptized and so he goes to his Maker; this is a good end." As an atheist, I find this utterly reprehensible.

http://books.google.com/books?id=M8oj8_UhyT4C&lpg=PA58&ots=jpBWjrCtc1&dq=comes to a good end. He's saved from those nutty parents, a fate worse than death. He's been baptized and so he goes to his Maker; this is a good end."&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false

I found some of these pretty charming http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2012/07/12/judging-a-book-by-its-cover-a-6-year-old-guesses-what-classic-novels-are-all-about/

I didn't realize that, and I would agree that like many good kids' movies, there's a level that works for adults as well in Harry Potter.

I'm trying to keep my expectations low, Rowling isn't that interesting stylistically or thematically, but her storytelling skills make up for it, IMO. And honestly, that's all a good Tom Clancy book has going for it.