as often as i complain, my life is pretty damn good...

[autumnsshadow]

i started this days ago...we'll see what's still relevant...

[from last week]
lessee, i've got a list of topics and Strawberry Fields stuck in my head. work is sucking hard today, so i may not cover much, but did prove that my desk mouse and keyboard can remain functional after a mild beating...which reminded me of this post from sarahluna yesterday.

Comments

[catalyticdragon]

Does historical, exhaustively-researched "fiction" count? I would recommend Legacy, by Susan Kay. She spent 13 years researching it, and it's a beautiful, in-depth, and thoughtful read.

[autumnsshadow]

that counts =) thanks!

[_sister_madly_]

For literature, try The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. It's well written, with beautiful imagery and a unique plot.

[autumnsshadow]

sounds interesting. i'll have to check it out.

[sinrose]

books: a walk in the woods by bill bryson; eats, shoots and leaves by lynne truss

documentary: scratch

[autumnsshadow]

never heard of the second book...i'll have to look for it.

what's Scratch about?

[sinrose]

eats, shoots and leaves is really such a fucking dorky book, but i love it. it's about punctuation and grammar and how the state of which is quickly going to hell in modern day society. it's not nearly as dry and uninteresting as it sounds. it's actually rather entertaining, especially if you're kind of a grammar nazi, as i am.

scratch is a great documentary i recently saw about the rise of dj's, the culture, how it's really a style of music, etc. it's really pretty great.

[autumnsshadow]

cool. i'll check them out.

[autumnsshadow]

thanks =)

i don't read enough historical stuff...too dry for me, but now that i've taken to reading five or six books at a time, it's not so arduous.

[thesnark]

Nonfiction: Salt by Greg (I think it's Greg) Kurlansky (I'm fairly certain about the last name). It's a pretty exhaustively researched and seriously entertaining look at how salt (i.e., the mining/procuring/use of it, as well as the conflicts it has caused through the ages until it was discovered we can actually make the stuff chemically and that it's not so precious after all) has shaped history. It's a good read.

Fiction: The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster. I really can't recommend that book enough.

Also, On Love or Kiss & Tell by Alain de Botton. I haven't yet read his more reknowned book, How Proust Can Change Your Life I think it's called, but those other two are great. They're erudite, clever approaches to the otherwise mundane subject of romance, in that they find new, clever ways to explore the life cycle of a relationship from birth to death, either in the form of a thesis/treatise (on love) or as written from the perspective of a man who entered into a relationship with a woman as her biographer (although unbeknownst to

[autumnsshadow]

excellent =) thanks!