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Thread: In Need of Book Recommendations

  1. #1

    In Need of Book Recommendations

    I've recently been testing the waters of postmodern fiction--I picked up something of a sample platter from the used bookstores and the library. Included was:

    -Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
    -Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
    -The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
    -Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (though I'm not sure if he qualifies).
    -The Great Shark Hunt, also by Mr. Thompson.

    Anyway, I think I'm ready to read some more, as I've thoroughly enjoyed these books.

    Have any recommendations? Go obscure, go for things that I've missed, go for the essentials.

  2. #2
    Registered User billl's Avatar
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    Thompson's "Hell's Angels" was really enjoyable (I read it a while back...). Not as far out (at all!) as Fear and Loathing, or even Shark Hunt, much closer to "real" reporting, but still really adventurous and shocking.

    Martin Amis's "London Fields" is a bigger post-modern fiction book that has some pretty funny stuff in it, somehow brightening up the gloom and making the cartoonishness work in a serious way, or something like that. I don't wanna hype it too much, but if you read a few pages (and the little opening snippets or whatever), you might be able to tell if you want to read more. I don't want to insist it stands as a masterpiece or anything, but a great, great read for me (years ago, again).

  3. #3
    Registered User sixsmith's Avatar
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    Mao II - Don De Lillo
    White Noise - Don De Lillo
    The Public Burning - Robert Coover
    Letters - John Barth

  4. #4
    Watcher by Night mtpspur's Avatar
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    P. J. O'Rourke might interest you if you survived Thompson.

  5. #5
    O dark dark dark Barbarous's Avatar
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    try to read Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon and The Recognitions by William Gaddis. Two of my favorite novels ever!
    If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
    -W.Blake

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