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No Spoilers For Me! I haven't read the thread, really, because I'm on page 24 and I'm pissed that I read the back cover blurb about what exactly Kevin did. A very generous and thoughtful friend sent me the UK trade because the American cover didn't suit him. The main thing I noticed about...

The 'Illuminatus! Trilogy' is definitely not light fare. The first hundred pages were hard for me to stick with, and nowadays I won't stick it out that long for a payback. I don't care if a book won a Pulitzer or National Book Award, if I'm not enchanted, intrigued, or at least entertained by...

Maybe not worst, but certainly over-rated... I already weighed in with some of the genuine duds I read, mostly when my diet was 99% pulp. But there's some books I've read that get lots of critical acclaim, get on English Dept. lists, etc., that I just hated. 'Catcher in the Rye,' I'm...

The list tends to be long, but one that I think gets neglected is 'The Magic Christian' by Terry Southern. There's a couple of his I haven't gotten to, but he's always good in my experience and in the case of 'Magic Christian' both excellent and groundbreaking. The movie adaptation, FYI...

Okay, right now he's a one-book author (of course, so his Harper Lee), but has anyone else here found 'Contortionist's Handbook' to be a really great debut? I'm put in mind of him as an author, more than just of the one book, because I just got an advance/street team copy of the first ten...

'Underworld' isn't a baseball lover's book. I have just about zero tolerance for baseball, something that springs from my single season of playing the game. I had a zero batting average (I hit a couple, but fouls apparently don't count). The coach said the ball couldn't hurt me, but being...

I must not have been paying attention, because Amy Hempel mentions him in her Paris Review interview from back in 2003, which is where I first encountered her. Then he got interviewed in #172, and I got curious. Still waiting on 'Geronimo Rex' to come in, started with 'Ray,' because I found...

I think the thing that makes 'In Dubious Battle' a cut above for Steinbeck is instead of it being the "People" versus the "Great Men," he shows land owners, workers, and agitators alike as all being manipulated by larger forces, machines that are indifferent to the individual. An individual...

Never thought to look it up, I assumed it was a contraction of 'chapter' and 'book.'

I heard Hitch interviewed on NPR on this book, and aside from the fact that he sounded like he'd just come from the bar, I got the sense that he only finished the book because he'd talked a publisher into an advance. It also sounded like he didn't introduce any material I didn't encounter in...

I try to get by my local library because they carry the New Yorker, I didn't know they had free online content. I had to scale back my subscription list for budgetary reasons, so it's basically 'Paris Review' these days. I was going to keep 'Grand Street' coming, but they folded. Where I...

I agree with Jay that reading an author consecutively is risky. I burned out on Will Christopher Baer’s ‘Phineas Poe’ books by reading them back to back; though I read the ‘Snopes’ trilogy with awe and admiration. Which I guess means WCB is no Faulkner (Chixulub blows soda out his nose). I...

'Catcher' didn't irritate me because I couldn't hear the voice. It was the whining voice that put me off. I was trapped on a bus from KC to Dallas with Holden Caufield for company and I wanted to smack him, the privileged turd. Easily the worst traveling companion I've ever endured.

That's true of SO MANY books. I hated 'Catcher in the Rye,' but I was in my early 30s when I read it. Maybe when I was 16 it would have knocked me out. And then there was more tortured journey through 'Moby Dick' when I was 14, which was seriously a scarring experience. I still haven't...

Alas, I've known more than one creative type to end as a bitter old man. Personally, knew one who was truly a genius. Not sure if there's a way to avoid it. Also, I don't think Kerouac was particularly ideological, but a lot of his 'disciples' were definitely, and it's natural that he'd feel...

I'll have to look for that, I keep meaning to follow up and read more of both Shea and Wilson's output. 'Illuminatus!,' to me is the ultimate book of the 1960s (I know, it was published in the 1970s). It's turgid and convoluted, and maybe the time of life when I read it colors my judgment...

I think by the time there were 'hippies' to contend with, Kerouac wasn't too keen on a lot of people who would probably have described themselves as 'beat.' Kerouac has his weak moments, but like Orwell, he's distinguished by a capacity for critical thinking you won't find in huge pockets of...

That's fair. I hadn't heard that about Kerouac but I can see where a guy like Abbie Hoffman would irritate him. Just as Kerouac irritated people a few years older than himself. I sometimes like linking what seem unlikely pairs. 'On the Road' with 'Travels with Charley' in part because...

Okay, yeah, that's a prime example. It's a great example, in fact. It's one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century, and I think it would be a bit much to expect Chuck Palahniuk or John Irving or most other writers who are alive right now to match it. Someone will, but for all the good...

Funny, 'Survivor' is my favorite of his books. And 'Invisible Monsters' was a struggle to finish for me. I'd rank 'Invisible Monsters,' 'Diary' and 'Haunted' as his weakest books. 'Fight Club' is a strong debut, but 'Survivor' is where he really hit his rhythm. And 'Choke' and Lullaby.'...