Book meme

[jack]

Command me!

I will read the first book which is suggested in this post's comments section.

So long as I've not read it already, and I can get hold of a copy. Gakked from lnr. Feel free to suggest more.

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Lover boy (one I got free recently)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

(It's a whodunnit book that I discussed in my journal recently.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Sorted.

(Maybe I should have excluded free books; all I regret about my relationship with Jane is she managed to dump on me what she described as the worst book ever written given away free with a woman's magazine :) )

[mr-ricarno.livejournal.com]

Vicki Fromkin 'Linguistics: an introduction to Linguistic Theory'

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Can you lend it to me, then?

[mr-ricarno.livejournal.com]

Certainly, though it's a bit long! I'll bring it next time I manage to make it to a CTS meeting.

Speaking of which, have tickets for the Annual Dinner gone on sale yet?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

OK. I don't suppose I'd read it *soon*, but you wanted me to try ;)

There should have been an email from naath with a menu asking for choices and cheques.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

The problem with this meme is that I'm too slow to get the first comment.

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Fair point. I could have done something else, though I think it's funnier to have some determinism. Part of the aim is to be rec'd something random.

Why do you not suggest something then? If I wouldn't have hated you for suggesting it first, I'll hopefully want to read it.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

OK, Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller.

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

But since you weren't first, you have to persuade me ;)

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

If On A Winter's Night A Traveller is a book about books: choosing and buying them, reading them, sharing them with others. But it's also a mystery: who actually wrote this book anyway? As the Reader in the book, a little way in you wonder whether it was actually written by Calvino at all or in fact by another author, and as you attempt to find the book you first wanted to read you twist and turn through ten pastiches of different novelistic forms. But since you have a companion on this journey, the Other Reader, the story is also a romance as your detective work brings you together on the textual trail through the book. It's a deeply odd volume, and great fun.

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! I see Liz's review too. I'd like to try at some point.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I recently read If on a winter's night a traveller and I posted my thoughts here.

Even though I am not first, I suggest you read Counting Heads by David Marusek, which is a very good near-future cloning/nanotech/AI story.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! I do remember reading that. I want to, just because there it was between Stephenson and Anansi :)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I've not read that, but I've read other Calvino and enjoyed them.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Squee! I have the original Italian. :-)

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

A Tour of the Calculus by David Berlinski.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I kind of know plenty about calculus already...

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

So do I, but this one is worth reading just for the language. Trust me on this!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. OK, *trusts* *adds to list*

Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The phone book.

Re: Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I can delete comments.

Re: Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you'd still know.

Re: Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That really wouldn't bother me. Would it bother you? You answered the literal question, not the question we all knew we all knew I meant, so I have no problem ignoring it.

If you'd suggested something plausible but horrendous (Something in the original something, something I'm nearly sure I wouldn't like, etc) I might have felt compelled to try.

But I don't have to play silly buggers, unless it's funny or [insert gay sex joke].

Re: Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

It's the attempt to unsay something that would bother me, rather than the ignoring of a bit of mucking about.

Re: Aren't you lucky I didn't get in first?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

True. No, I wouldn't really delete any non-mass-spam comment: as speakers for the dead, I have a pathological belief in knowing more always being better :)

[dragonwoodshed.livejournal.com]

As admittedly posted with LNR, The Time Traveller's Wife is fab... But a long term favourite, (and given that you're relatively geeky you've almost definitely read it already but hey) try The Sparrow (jesuits in spaaaaaaace) by Mary Doria Russell - one of the best novels in the world ever.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

No, I've never heard of it. But ooh! That sounds really cool. It's missed this amazon order, but it's jumped to the top of my next ;)

[dragonwoodshed.livejournal.com]

The Sparrow is terribly wonderful, it's scifi but essentially is about the nature of faith and humanity, I cried A LOT. Do grab it if you get a chance, or you could just borrow it from me, I also have the follow-up Children of God.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

It is really cool; I agree.

[douglas-reay.livejournal.com]

"The Tao Is Silent" by Raymond M. Smullyan.