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The Idle Book Log: unofficial recommendations for forthcoming Idle Thumbs Book Clubs.

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The Stoner, added to the ever-growing list.

 

Also, wherefore art thou Idle Book Club Podcast? You got me to get off my duff and finally read an Ernest Hemingway novel like I should have already and now I feel tricked. If you're gonna trick me into reading like I'm seven, the least you can do is throw some sweet Pizza Hut coupons my way

 

Also, still throwing hard for the Thumbs to cover Ragtime. Because that book exploded my brain.

 

Also, also, also, also.

 

I'm always so happy when someone else brings up those Pizza Hut rewards. Ah those halcyon days of youth, where mindless capitalism mixed with unhealthy food to immorally and unethically motivate a child to read. Every time I finish a book, a faint aroma of pepperoni and melted cheese on cardboard lingers in the air around me. Like Pavlov's dogs, I salivate for the reward that will never come again. The reward that is denied to me by age and time. As adults, we have been cast out of the child Eden that consisted of The Animorphs and shitty pizza.

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It's been quite some time since I posted here. Not that it matter. I'd like to recommend few of my favorite books for the book club discussion. 

 

First, one of the best book I have read recently, “Dreams of my Russian Summers” by Andrei Makine. The story behind this book is very interesting. Makine is a Russian who emigrated to France in the late 80s and than started to write book in french, although russian is his first language. And what is even more interesting is that his style and wording surpasses most of the french born writers, although I do not know of the quality of the english translation. The story centers on his childhood and the relationship that he had with his grandmother, and then evolves into how he has become what he has become. I would highly recommend this book, it is one of the last great novels of the 20th century, and one of the last great russian novels(even though it was originally written in french).

 

Other ones: 

The Reader by Bernard Schlink

Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

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I love Kundera and would say that The Book of Laughter and Forgetting would also make a really great pick; it's like the Soviet version of Sense of an Ending. Plus Kundera is just a fascinating figure in his own right, outside of his novels.

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Atlas : Archaeology of an imaginary. One of the most interesting and imaginative books I have read. I reminds me of Invisible cities and some of Burgres stuff - like the story about the map of the empire but in this case it is centered on the particular city of  Victoria/Hong Kong.

Here are 2  good reviews of it 

 

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I recommend The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It offers insight into how people work like few other books do and delivers intrigue and wonder in a brilliantly lifelike 19th Century goldrush New Zealand.

It didn't win the 2013 Man Booker prize for nothing!

More compliments to pay! 

Easily the most pleasant prose I've read. Easily (one of) the most insightful book I have experienced.

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Did anyone read Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane?

I have had it on my Kindle since last summer and it just won a book award of some sort, but I have just failed to break away from sci-fi and fantasy junk food reading.

Anyway like I said I haven't read it but his other work was pretty good and accessible so maybe something to consider.

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I don't think it fits the type of books that have been picked so far, but that could be an argument in its favour. I found it to be OK reading but nothing amazing. Gaiman's better at short stories than longer work in my opinion.

Troll Bridge is one of my favourite short stories of all time:

http://www.openculture.com/2011/12/neil_gaimans_free_short_stories.html

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I'd love to hear them discuss English Passengers by Matthew Kneale. I just recently finished it and thought it was a brilliant piece of writing. I think they'd get a kick out of the variety of perspectives the author writes from. 

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I don't know if the Book Club is still ongoing, but it would be really sweet to see you read some poetry. Preferably a smaller sustained narrative work such as Alice Oswald's Dart, or maybe something by Anne Carson. Failing that a more avant-garde (whatever that means now) piece would be interesting, maybe something from the Dalkey Archive or The French List.

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I don't know if the Book Club is still ongoing, but it would be really sweet to see you read some poetry. Preferably a smaller sustained narrative work such as Alice Oswald's Dart, or maybe something by Anne Carson. Failing that a more avant-garde (whatever that means now) piece would be interesting, maybe something from the Dalkey Archive or The French List.

Ooooh that's a neat idea! How about.. James K. Baxter!

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I'd like to recommend Silence by Shūsaku Endō. We just read it in a book club this past month, and then watched the film together. I don't think another story has affected me as deeply as this.

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On 1/20/2017 at 8:31 AM, anderbubble said:

I'd like to recommend Silence by Shūsaku Endō. We just read it in a book club this past month, and then watched the film together. I don't think another story has affected me as deeply as this.

 

Oh hey we did it.

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10 hours ago, Chris said:

 

Oh hey we did it.

 

Oh, wow. Cool. I can't wait to listen to the episode. For once, I will have read the book ahead of time!

 

My devout Christian perspective is bracing a bit at the prospect of being horribly misunderstood, but that's just my irrational fear talking. :)

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Just want to pop in here to recommend the 2005 novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. It's an alternative history novel where Charles Lindbergh (spokesperson of the America First Committee in 1940) defeats Roosevelt from winning his third term as president, and the novel focuses on a Jewish family living in Lindbergh's America. I'm reading it right now because Trumpcast is doing a book club on it, and it's a pretty uncomfortable read for a lot of reasons. What's especially resonated with me about the book so far is how frustratingly well it depicts the subtle changes in the behavior of strangers, and the psychological toll that has on minorities.

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I like the idea of picking two books that are similar in some respects and comparing them in the podcast. A pair you might be interested in would be Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene and The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré. The latter is directly inspired by the former, which is why both have a very similar premise, namely, a westerner living abroad is contacted by an agent with an offer of work but the person eventually starts fabricating intelligence causing all sorts of trouble. On the other hand, the focus and writing style of Greene and le Carré differ in many interesting ways. It is also quite intriguing that both authors worked for MI6 at one point.

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