10 August, 2009

So as usual, I'm finding myself in the middle of reading several books (The Queen's Conjurer, a biography of John Dee; Finding Oz, another bio of L. Frank Baum; The Age of Wonder, about romantic-era science; Gravitation; and several other books which appear to be on hiatus). Anyway, I've nearly (or possibly, entirely) forgotten why I've begun to write this morning. The books are what's on my mind, as I've had a very productive summer (I think I can count ten books read since the end of the school year.

Does anyone have any suggestions? My to-read list has been growing well into the hundreds for nearly ten years now, but I like the progress I'm making.

Speaking of which, I finally got around to reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. That's still one of the best movies from the late 90's. But it's been on my must-read for a while now, which is likely why I devoured it in about a day; it's just as dark as the film (perhaps moreso), but a wonderful exploration of the detached nihilism of consumer culture. Sadly, having seen the movie years and years before reading the book, there's always that nagging feeling that it has skewed my perspective of the novel. I do have a slight feeling that when future readers want to see the 1990s from an historical perspective, they'll be likely to pick up Palahniuk's work. Not to say that the previous decade was quite as dark as the novel shows this (perhaps it's colored by seeing it through my teenage years), but the triumph of the yuppie and a desire to destroy that is vaguely reminiscent of the twenties.

Isn't it crazy that the "twenties" aren't that far away?

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