Registered: Oct 2002
Location: Shimokawa, Hokkaido, Japan
TOTA book Club
I started this thread to list books you have read or are reading and that you reccomend to other people.
My first book is:
Blindness
by José Saramago (Author)
In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.
Jun-28-2003 06:12
Skipper
Supreme tranceaddict
Registered: May 2002
Location:
I just finished reading UNLESS by Carol Shields. The book was a bit too "deep" for me - the underlying themes were the subordination of women throughout their lives and how society differentiates between genders.
Jun-28-2003 15:52
cono_sur
v i n t a g e ' 7 7
Registered: Sep 2001
Location: cellar
I'm reading The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King.
Read the Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers and both were better than movie, IMHO.
Jun-28-2003 16:05
brunette
viaggiatore
Registered: Feb 2002
Location: Europe
I loved Saramago's 'Blindness', it's really great, you can't put it down cause of curiousity of what's gonna happen next. His 'Journey through Portugal' and 'The year of death of Ricardo Reis' are not that great and very easy to read.
I don't have time now, so I'll just recommend a few I read in the past few weeks:
Hermann Hesse 'Siddhartha' *amazing*
Albert Camus 'The Stranger', 'The Fall' *cool* and 'The Plague'
Franz Kafka - 'The Metamorphosis' *creepy*
James Joyce - 'The Dubliners' *funny*
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 'Love in the time of cholera' and of course '100 years of solitude'
Sommerset Maugham - 'Far Eastern Tales' *wicked*
Russian and Yugoslavian next time maybe
___________________
..::Adventure is something that while it is happening you wish it wasn't!::..
<<<I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my travels, I never felt myself away from home.>>>
Jun-28-2003 16:13
torontotrance
I hath returned
Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
john grisham's red house (i think that's the name) was a great book.
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Und ich tanz einfach weiter...
Jun-28-2003 17:10
Cyrus King
Anti NeoCon Addict
Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Toronto
Please read THE ALCHEMIST by Paulo Coelho
Its about a spanish sheperd trying to find his treasure in Egypt after losing all of his sheep to thieves.
Its very simple yet very interesting too.
___________________
"This place isn't big enough for me to blow it up."
-MARCO V
Jun-28-2003 17:52
King_Mack
Professor of Pimpology
Registered: Oct 2002
Location: Toronto, Canada
good thread! ill post mine a bit later on
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Jun-28-2003 17:57
drgoodvibe
skoun'drl
Registered: Mar 2003
Location: In the flash
currently reading Noam Chomsky - Pirates and Emperors, Old and New.. Great book about middle eastern, American, Israeli- politics, media, and terrorism and how its all inter-twined.
Currently looking for a new book to read. It always takes some careful consideration. I like to read books that expand a certain aspect of myself. Not just for entertainment.
Just finshed James Redfield's Celstine Prophecy. Not exactly the most well written book but it definetly opens your mind up to new possibilities and consciousnesses.
Currently looking for another book that deals with "alternative" spirituality. Possibly about Meditation, Eastern Philosophies, Pre-Civilisation Society (ie Atlantian society, Mayan, Egyptian).... etc.
Any suggestions?
Jun-28-2003 22:35
dEsidEL
Fu Man Choonz
Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Below the Belt
quote:
Originally posted by Time2Burn
Currently looking for a new book to read. It always takes some careful consideration. I like to read books that expand a certain aspect of myself. Not just for entertainment.
Just finshed James Redfield's Celstine Prophecy. Not exactly the most well written book but it definetly opens your mind up to new possibilities and consciousnesses.
Currently looking for another book that deals with "alternative" spirituality. Possibly about Meditation, Eastern Philosophies, Pre-Civilisation Society (ie Atlantian society, Mayan, Egyptian).... etc.
oh yeah .. and i heard the Holy Bible is a really good book too ..
(bestseller!)
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Palm Trees > Pine Trees , Sand > Snow
Jun-28-2003 22:37
Time2Burn
TOTA Beacon
Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
quote:
Originally posted by drgoodvibe
currently reading Noam Chomsky - Pirates and Emperors, Old and New.. Great book about middle eastern, American, Israeli- politics, media, and terrorism and how its all inter-twined.
I love Chomsky, He just has the most perfect most well thought out and PROVEN world view. Watch him on any right wing talk show and even though they try and nail him with biased reporting and confrontational questions he always comes up roses.
Haven't read Pirates and Emperors... maybe worth the borrow?
Currently though i'm a bit stand offish on the politics at the moment. Kind of over saturated my self in it a few months ago.
