bookz

[ben nevile <bbn@xxxxxxxx>]

i just want to add my voice to the support of nicholson baker's 
writing.  "the mezzanine" is fantastic and the other one where he stops 
time and takes off ladies clothing is really well done too.

I am not really a voracious reader.  I always have six or seven books 
active at once and I move through them a few pages at a time when i'm 
sitting on the ferry, bus, toilet, etc.  I am lucky enough to have a 
really twisted fiction author for a good friend (Roger Holden) and we 
do monthly trades where I lend him music and he lends me books.  here's 
what in my pile right now:

Class by Paul Fussell - described by Playboy in 1983 as "A thinking 
man's Official Preppy Handbook," this is a hilarious decomposition of 
what makes "class" in America.  If you are excessively sensitive to 
social inequality you may not enjoy this.

A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram - skimming it again a second 
time, going into the notes in a little more detail.  I really wish he 
had employed an editor.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran - a deep classic from one of the Arabic 
world's greatest.

Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre - I started reading this in 
the original french but got tired of going to the dictionary every 
second sentence.  So I gave in and bought an english translation... but 
something tells me a lot was lost in that transition.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - The devil comes to 
Moscow.

Underworld by Don DeLillo - very good new american fiction.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - first person books creep me out a 
bit, but this one is pretty special I think.

Ben

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