Good point, I should clarify. Let's go with "modern classic." Anything canonized from the 20th century.

Infinite Jest

That's one I was thinking of. I'm a little nervous to dive into it though. I'm about to go on a long car ride so I just snagged "Catch 22" (still haven't read this) and "The Breaks of the Game" at the library. One for the ride down, one for the ride up. Maybe I'll do Infinite Jest when I get home.

sophie's choice by william styron is really good. lonesome dove by larry mcmurtry is also really good. they won't take 2 months to read like infinite jest. i think you'll like catch 22 a lot. i've only read that, but my dad tells me something happened by heller is almost as good as catch 22.

No god But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam, by Reza Aslan
http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-God-But-Orig ... 0099472325

Finished Moby Dick this morning. Absolutely staggering.

The various stuff I'm in the middle of at the moment:

Lenny Moss - What Genes Can't Do
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
James Joyce - Ulysses (plus secondary sources)
A collection of critical essays on Finnegans Wake


Books I plan to start tonight or tomorrow:

Solomon and Higgins (eds.) - Reading Nietzsche
Kelly Dean Jolley - The Concept 'Horse' Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations (written by an alum of my school and supposed to be amazing)


And I'll probably be reading various Emerson essays again soon.

while we're on the subject of rating the last book we read, just finished "Braindead Megaphone" by George Saunders.
The good essays were really good, and the mediocre ones really did not make an impression on me. The trip to Dubai, the Buddha Boy, the United States of Huck, and the titular chapter were all insightful and entertaining. Especially the trip to Dubai, I really loved that chapter. Some essays really fell flat though. His sense of humor doesn't really match up with mine, and as such as I was pretty bored with essays like "Ask an Optimist" and the one where he pretends to be an ignorant American in England. But the good essays outweighed the bad ones, so I can't give it anything lower than a B+.

Fuck, I don't read anymore.

But I did just watch The Rules of the Game again, so I guess I haven't completely neglected Things I Can Talk to Drew About.

Just started Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis. Everyone should read Gaddis.

after finishing dance with dragons i started:

some random edgar allen poe. it's a short compilation with his most famous stories, but i haven't read them in years.

everything and more: a compact history of infinity by david foster wallace. taking a math class for the first time in forever made me want to read it since it's fresh and i understand all of the calculus again. it's really entertaining and written like you'd expect from him, but without compromising the integrity of the technical math bits. it's also full of interesting factoids.

i bought the asiatics by frederick prokosch. i want to start it soon. he isn't very well known, but he was really popular with writers in the 30s and 40s. camus basically said 'he's a boss and people need to start reading him.' and this book sounds really interesting. apparently he's a master at making physical settings come to life and feel like dynamic characters in their own right, as vivid as people.

still reading Catch 22 at night, but during the day I've been reading FreeDarko Presents the Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History. If you're not familiar with the FreeDarko people, you need to be. Their now defunct blog was the best, most entertaining, intellectual combination of sports and art/culture writing. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially the basketball fans, but even the non-basketball fans. This would be the perfect book for someone who is interested in the concept of sports as art, but doesn't really feel the connection like others do. Drew in particular came to mind when I read this passage:

"Cinematically speaking, however, the best comparison [for Celtics coach Red Auerbach] is John Cassavetes. A film like Husbands may feel improvised, but Cassavetes never stopped clutching his script, and worked closely with the actors so they could approximate just the right kind of naturalism. Likewise, Auerbach put his players in chains so that they might really be free, limiting their roles so they might truly flourish."

Started reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Dang, that's actually surprisingly accurate. Most people, even big Cassavetes fans, think his films were actually improvised.

Yeah that's what's great about these guys, is that they're never just clutching for straws. They sincerely have Red Auerbach and John Cassavetes intertwined in their minds, and the make it make sense.