BOOKS THREAD

J.D. Salinger's 'For Esmé, with Love and Squalor'
The greatest short story ever written.

 

I felt the same way about "The Shipping News" but really enjoyed "That Old Ace in the Hole".

 

My girlfriend loved it, and now it's sitting on my coffee table. Haven't opened it yet, though.

 

I read some of Frey when the book first came out (in the bookstore), and while I think he has an interesting story to tell, I don't think he's a very good writer.

YOU can WRITE a bunch OF random SENTENCES and CAPITOLIZE a bunch of RANDOM words, but IT DOESN'T make you a good writer, or DEVELOP a unique style, which is in many respects what Frey did, I think. It's fine if he wants to talk shit about Dave Eggers, but he's not half the writer Eggers is, and so his claim that he was going to write the best book of his generation is bit of a reach.

 

I didn't want to start another thread about this, but what books are you guys giving out for Christmas? I'm looking for gift ideas.

 

This is your one-stop source for American short stories. Included are the Prometheans of the American genre: London, Poe, Twain, Irving, Hawthorne and so on and so forth.

 

Fitzgerald, Lardner (out of style, but undesevedly-so . . . )

 

True crime is my favorite genre, and three of my faves are:

"Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi
"The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson" by Jeffrey Toobin
"Fatal Vision" by Joe McGinniss

All three are excellent and hard to put down. I sped through each in 3-4 days, which for me is saying something.

Helter Skelter tells the grisly story of the Manson murders -- and the ensuing trial -- from the unique perspective of prosecutor Bugliosi and attempts to get inside the head of a madman. The book takes the reader back to the later summer of 1969 when fear gripped Los Angeles. It scared the shit out of me at times.

"The Run of his Life" is the definitive book on the debacle that was the O.J. trial.

"Fatal Vision" tells the story of a doctor and green beret named Jeffrey MacDonald who was accused of murdering his wife and two daughters. Gripping book from a writer who was actually hired by MacDonald to tell his side of the story prior to the trial.

 

Anybody that can read Helter Skelter in 3-4 days is definitely speeding through it.

I haven't read it since I was 18, but that book (like Manson, himself) is crazy.

Now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised Manson doesn't have his own reality show yet. He certainly has his own reality.

 

i also liked helter skelter. if you like that, you'll also like "outrage" -- his book on the oj trial. he writes the closing argument he would have given if he was trying the case.

it's interesting stuff.

 

I'm a big true crime reader as well. I can recommend most of Ann Rule's stuff, especially her first book "The Stranger Beside Me" about Ted Bundy.