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I'm pretty new to the MINI scene and I'm curious as to what types of folks I'm in cahoots with.
So to start off, I'd like to find out what MINI owners favorite authors or books are?
I figure a limit of 5 of either authors or books or both would be good. I'll start....
Clive Barker (Great and Secret Show), Stephen King (The Stand), Henry Miller (anything), Jose Saramago (Baltizar and Blimunda), Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide of course).......
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez is my fave... followed by Isabel Allende, Willa Cather, and the odd but facinating Angela Carter (goth). I also like a good Hemingway story.
Fave genre - fantastic realism (therefore GGM and Isabel Allende, among others).
If you haven't read him check him out. Blindness is a great place to start. Although I started with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. If your a Christian you may be offended but I think it's a great story from the point of view of Jesus Christ. Baltizar and Blimunda is my favorite though.
Yup... I've read all Saramago's work... The Gospel was an obvious statement, which I took with a grain of salt. Actually, some of it was quite amusing in a blasphemous sort of way. hahahaha...
I think I liked Blindness best...
One author I could never get into was Gunter Grass... read a couple stories, tried reading other schtuff several times and just couldn't ever get into it.
I'm a literature junkie, and I guess somewhat of a snob in that regard. So yes, I make fun of my wife for reading Danielle Steele and John Grisham novels. I've read both for fun, and I just don't understand people's fascination with crap writing... hahahaha... scobib *stirs the pot* (of course I'm kidding, different strokes for different folks - we can't all like good lit, can we? I mean really, we'd all be walking around like a bunch of over-educated weenies). Again, scobib *stirs the pot*
Yeah. It's weird. I love Stephen King, but reading Dostoyevski (sp?) makes me feel slightly more human. It's all about the mood I'm in when I start a book. But if I don't finish it, chances are it wasn't that good.....
Patrick O'Brian: all 21 volumes of the Aubrey&Maturin series. He was touted as the greatest living English author until 2000. His productivity has dropped off sharply since then.
Look for the movie adaptation of his first volume, starring Russell Crowe as "Luck Jack Aubrey", in November: The Far Side of the World
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"Fear and Loathing" is great...don't dare bother with the movie. Total crap. For fiction I recommend Richard Russo. He won the Pulitzer for "Empire Falls," but I recommend "Mohawk" and "Nobody's Fool." Wonderfully human novels.
Ray Bradbury - my all-time favorite is "Something Wicked This Way Comes"
Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night, Cat's Cradle
Paul Gallico - Zoo Gang, Matilda
E. L. Doctorow - World's Fair, Billy Bathgate
Edgar Allen Poe - Fall of the House of Usher
oh, and Bill Bryson!
and the Monkey Wrench Gang, too!
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A great tune not enough people have heard. "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" by Moxy Fruvous.
Well you should see my story reading baby, you should hear the things that she says,
She says "Hon, drop dead, I'd rather go to bed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez."
Cuddle up with William S. Burrows, leave on the light for Bell Hooks,
I've been flirtin' with Pierre Burton 'cause he's so smart in his books
I like to go out dancing,
My baby loves a bunch of authors
My heart's so broke and bleedin'
Baby's just sitting there
doing some reading
So I started watching some TV, played my new cd player too,
She said: "Turn it off or I'll call the cops and I'll throw the book at you."
All this arguing made me get dizzy, called my doctor to come have a look
I said: "Doctor hurry!" He said:
"Don't worry, I'll be over when I finish my book"
I like to go out dancing,
My baby loves a bunch of authors
We've been livin in hovels
Spendin' all our money on
brand new novels
So I got myself on a streetcar and it drove right into someone,
You know the driver said:
"I was lookin' straight ahead!"
But he was reading the Toronto Sun
"So?"
So my honey and me go to a counsellor to help figure out what we need
She said: "We'll get your love growing,
but before we get going, here's some books I'd like you to read."
I like to go out dancing,
My baby loves a bunch of authors
Lately we've had some fricton
'Cause my baby's hooked on
short works of fiction
So we split and went to a party, some friends my girl said she knew
But what a sight 'cause it's authors night and the place looks like a who's who
Now I'm pounding the ouzo
with Mario Puzo
Who's a funny fella?
W.P. Kinsella
Who brought the cat?
Would Margeret Atwood?
Who needs a shave?
He's Robertson Davies!
Ondaatje started a food fight, salmon mousse all over the scene
Spilled some dressing on Doris Lessing, these writer types are a scream!
I like to go out dancing,
My baby loves a bunch of authors
We'll be together for ages
Eatin' and Sleepin' and
Eatin' and Sleepin' and
Eating und Sleeping und
Turnin' pages.
Oh, and my favorite author right now is Terry Pratchett. His Discworld novels have done for Fantasy what Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" books did for Sci-Fi.
Yes! I'm working on A Short History of Nearly Everything right now, although I've been diverted by Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven...another great, and sort of timely, book.
Oh, and Stacy, I'm just curious why you have a hard time getting through a Stephen King novel. The man's gotten very, very, rich by creating books that most people can't put down.
>>Steven King (although his older stuff is much more impressive to me....I've read The Shining like ten times) and Dean Koontz are my two faves.
>>
>>My fave book of all time though is The Exorcist....and for some reason I cannot remember who wrote it.
>> I think it was William Peter Blatty
