No, I’d not been tyhere. I’ll check it out tonight. Thanks for the tip.
I’m alternating between James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain and Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (just started both yesterday).
Of course, the Harry Potter series again. I’m currently on the fifth one. After that I’m reading/have read/will read:
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
On Writing - Stephen King
1984 - George Orwell
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Center of Everything - Lauira Moriarty
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
and finally
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury. Has anyone else suffered through this stinker? Yuck. I’m nearly done and I can hardly bear even looking at it without yawning. I would have put it down ages ago but it’s required for school.
I think at one point I’ll reread It by Stephen King, I feel like reading that again…
Excellent! I checked out his site but didn’t see any news of a sequel–it’s too bad because I think the character of Roy could spawn at least 2 or 3 more great books. I’m glad to hear he’s working on another novel though, even if it isn’t a sequel.
A couple of things that are on my reading list (i.e., I carry them around and/or have them sitting somewhere near my bed):
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne. A sort of “oh well” experience. Recommended to me by a professor (saying, mark you, “the best book ever written in any language”), but I suppose it’s an acquired taste. Sure was rather cheap, though. And I may yet get into it.
Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess. Another recommendation from the same professor. Certainly easier to get into than Sterne, and with a wry sort of irony…at least so far.
The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce, by, well, Ambrose Bierce. Sheer brillance. Actually some reading I’m doing for a paper, but a true delight.
and finally, *Middlesex *, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Again, it’s a marvellous piece of writing. I was told to get this by a customer, and when she comes back, she’s gonna get a free ride whatever the boss says, for she’s certainly earned it with that recommendation.
I absolutely loved reading Dandelion Wine, and didn’t want it to end. That and The Great Gatsby are my two favorite novels. I even made a pilgrimage to Waukegan, Illinois, the model for Green Town (Green Town is better). In those pages are the thrill, the wonder, and the mystery of being alive, and the preciousness of passing time.
Then there is Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a sort of autumn sequel to Dandelion’s summer.
!? What am I missing!?
The SparkNotes to Dandelion Wine, with its discussion of themes, motifs, and symbols.
Something Wicked… is such a good read.
As for my list, I’m rereading Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers at the moment. Lined up are Calpernia Sarah Addams’ Mark 947: A Life Shaped by God, Gender and Force of Will, Jamison Green’s Becoming a Visible Man, Getrude Stein’s Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Alice B. Toklas’ Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, and Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Well I got the themes and symbols; I thought there was more to it! I’m still standing by my claim of it being boring.