BOOKS THREAD

NFN, LJB, but that's a great site in your sig.

 

I'm glad you like it. One of the contributors there is a huge fan of yours.

It's sort of a 1369 Coffee House to SJ's Mos Eisley Cantina. But I yubs both.

 

Ciaran Carson has a great new translation of The Tain.
Beowulf. Gilgamesh. The Mabiongion. Fagles's Illiad/Odyssey.Aeneid. I dig on this epic stuff the most.
How can you hate a book with this passage?

"Nad Crantail went to the camp. They all came out to meet him, saying,
" 'Where is the head of the Torqued Man?'"

 

Sirs, Madames,

Reading Paul Shirley's memoir, a story rife with hoops humiliations. I had read his blog a few times and enjoyed it somewhat. Like the tome a little more than that.

YD&OHS, etc

 

Augusten Burroughs has written another mopey memoir.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/books/24burr.html

The gist: My childhood sucked, my father was an asshole, exeunt, followed by bear.

 

I am not reading this book.

 

He is the king of this genre.

At what point do you realize that the market doesn't exist as a salve for your brutally wounded psyche. Or how about we just do away with memoirs altogether. Miley Cyrus just inked a deal to write her "memoirs" for seven figures.

Burroughs has written more self-pitying/self-hating memoirs than the comprehensive output of Karl Marx, Salomon Rushdie and Harper Lee. Now that's tragic.

 

James Frey would have been right up there if he hadn't broken his leg on the backstretch and been destroyed.

 

Never read any of Burrough's memoirs, but "Running With Scissors" was a quintessentially mediocre movie. The only redeeming thing about it was Annette Bening.

 

I read that. It was 'ight. Can't remember what I didn't like about it ... I think his smug attitude, which is of course his trademark, finally wore me down a little.

 

Man of the moment Buzz Bissinger had a great takedown of Burroughs a few years ago in Vanity Fair, where he talked to the family that he lived with during the Running With Scissors time. New York magazine has a piece this week that looks into him as well.

 

I'm currently on the 5th book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Wolves of the Calla. I think i just like it because anytime Roland (the lead character) says anything I am instantly reminded of Clint Eastwood's character in "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" (best movie ever IMO). That and Stephen King is usually pretty awesome lol