Recommendations...

I would have to point out that length is certainly not a recommendation unless there is a point to said length. That being said, I believe I can confidently connect William S. Burroughs' Nova Express and Naked Lunch.

Think about CONTROL!

Thanks for this recommendation. I have thought about E L Doctorow for years but have yet to read any of his work. You are saying I should begin with RAGTIME. Also, in my opinion. anything that derives its title from the Bible is always worth reading. i.e.; The Book of Daniel.

What are your thoughts about The March?

Exuberant vs. Stately. Sounds appropriate to me (given the subject matter).

Thank you much.

I'll check out Ragtime next time I'll go to library.

I did in fact check out Doctorow's Ragtime from the Library today. I will probably begin it this weekend.

Hope all is well in reader land these days.

I have not started it yet, but will this weekend or this week. I am trying to finish up another couple of books and a couple of other articles etc first. Lots of reading.

I have a copy of this book sitting on my shelf and am planning to begin once the new year rolls around. I am quite excited. Thanks for the encouragement.

recommendations OR maybe avoids

This year, apart from Slow Learner, has been a bit slow for me and reading. It started with Stef Penney's 'The Tenderness of Wolves' which won a few awards and is very good indeed. The last few years I got into a habit of reading male authors whining about this and that, how the world is unfair and blah blah blah so it was refreshing to pick up a female writer and a hell of a story. Its a murder set in a very small Canadian community based right on the edge of civilisation, surrounded by corruption and desolation in the 1800's. I read a book set in such utter cold when relaxing in 40+ degrees Perth, Oz. It cooled me down. Good stuff.

Lately read Steve Martin's novel 'The pleasure of my Company' about a mild asperger's guy (although the symptom isn't referred too - possibly to avoid more uncomfortable issues) who lives his life facing a few tasks. Its not a very good book at all, all his characters are wrapped in cotton wool, as is the reader; he keeps explaining everything that will happen in one way or another so that there is no sense of suspense or shock. Not that I cared what happened to any one in the book. This is fodder for the Hallmark channel to turn into a tele-movie. High praise indeed.
Steve Martin has a biography out as well so go read that instead.

Best book I read this year was not a novel but an autopsy over the state of the news media (UK focused but bit of US and others) - 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies is one hell of a read, shocking, numbing and soul destroying - you wont be able to watch or read the news the same after reading this.
And mercifully its not some big ol' conspiracy book saying that "its all the fault of the right wing corporations" - no its maybe more cynical than that. Davies is the inside man - a journalist for the Guardian with contacts working on all other papers.
Buy this book and check out the website - www.flatearthnews.net - which gives a taster...

On a music bent, Bill Drummond's '17' is annoying but provoking in equal measure & on a drugs trip John Higgs 'I have America Surrounded' - the life of Timothy Leary - may well interest Pynchon heads. Weird times.

It's probably missing the point of the book but I don't think I'll be reading the Goldberg one - most likely because I'm probably a woolly lefty liberal.
In UK we see liberals as a middle ground between left and right and therefore the liberal media, as a whole sits between the two main parties.
Watching US news (I don't read the papers except Time and Newsweek) seems very odd to a non USAian because everything sounds so right wing, even the 'liberal' news. (Oh - and I'll ignore Fox news completely!)
So I guess I would agree with Goldberg that the media may not reflect a middle ground between the two parties, sitting to the left of both and therefore viewed as 'liberal elite' - although the word elite is a bit of misdirection any charged with inflammatory meaning.
A media sitting at odds to the political climate is not a bad thing...

Was the book any good then?!

Ted Nace - "The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy"
free download here: http://www.gangsofamerica.com/ but I've read it in polish, and well, the style wasn't superb, but lot of facts surprised me. I was thrilled by it.
Highly recommended lecture.

zorzynek said:
Daniel Kehlmann "Measuring the World"
- all Mason & Dixon enthusiasts should not be disappointed.

I don't know this book.

But I am finally making my way through Doctorow's Ragtime. It is a pleasure but is not turning my mind into too many new places. All good books should hurt my mental-way. Kafka says that great literature should chop away at the ice within us. Otherwise, it has not done its job or we have not read the right works.

What do you think about this idea and how might Pynchon relate?

I certainly like this idea of quitting a seemingly predictable book.

But why would you say that Kafka would prefer Heart is a Lonely Hunter to Gravity's Rainbow?

I am going to start a thread dedicated to this topic. Please reply there. I will call the thread "Ice Breaking Literature."