Alkaline Earth | Link from luloutoo

I'll come up with my own suggestions when I get home to look at my shelf, but in the meantime: here's someone else's list

Did you already get through Vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle?

No, I haven't gotten that book yet.

why is 101 dalmatians by carter the unstoppable sex machine, whoever is owner of the posted list?
You are welcome to come over and browse what's on my shelves if you want to borrow something, although alot of it is pretty heavy (both in weight and content).

I only keep repeating myself because NOONE EVER LISTENS! NEXT TIME I"LL TRY ALL CAPS! or something..

Let's read carefully. Q) Who is the owner of the posted list? A) The URL is http://mrflip.com/resources/Ratings.html and the title of the page is "Ratings of Books and Stuff by Flip." Q) Why is 101 dalmatians by carter the unstoppable sex machine? A) 101 Dalmations is by Dodie Smith and was originally published in 1912, then adapted into a classic animated film by Disney. 101 Damnations is by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, a dance-pop band with speed-metal chops from Britain and one of my favorite groups from the early nineties. Their name was taken from a tabloid article about an old man who was told to stop having sex or he'd die but kept doing it anyway.

Three great books I've read in the past year:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
About a Boy by Nick Hornby

Let the cruelty wash over you like a wave, young Jedi. Feel the power of the snide insult as it takes hold...
Recommendations for:

(Relatively) brainless page-burner: Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain in which the author accompanies the doctor who did the autopsy on Einstein (and stole the brain) as he takes a cross-country road trip to return it (the brain) to the descendents. No, this is not made up.
Crypto-religious can-you-remember-the-threads-of-all-four-simultaneously-evolving-stories: The Satanic Verses will always be high on my recommendations list. It's a truly incredible book which dragged me in unlike almost anything else I've ever read (especially non-science). Studying the controversy surrounding it is also an interesting intellectual diversion as it speaks to the fundamental difference between the Christian and Islamic views of religion's role in government.
A book I've promised myself that I'll read again this summer is Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith, a book I was made to read in high school but which I recently have rediscovered as probably being better than I seem to remember (it did win the Pulitzer in 1926, after all). You can see the plot summary, but I believe it centers around a medical student/doctor/researcher as he struggles to find his place in the scientific establishment. Not altogether uplifting, either, if memory serves.
I haven't read any Hornsby, but I hear High Fidelity (besides About a Boy) is pretty good too.

Finally, lu, you don't happen to still have lying around those books by Alan Lightman that I lent you last time you went on vacation? I have a vague notion that you returned them but I can't find them anywhere (which is too bad because that means I don't remember to whom I lent them).

Hey, thanks for pointing that out Nate! I am terrible at these
little boy games (being a woman) and never would have realised that comment was meant as an insult. I guess I'll have to get better at this being in the manly man world of physics now.

Collected Fictions - Borges, Jorge Luis
Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck, John
A Confederacy of Dunces - Toole, John Kennedy
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut, Kurt

"...Tannen shows why women and men can walk away from the same conversation with completely different impressions of what was said."
Yeah, apparently I am taking Salsa Dancing lessons tonight. I didn't know that. Where was I for that conversation?

You were there with those identical sextuplets. You remember, I think their names were "Dark", "Bubbly", "Frothy", "Pints", "Of", and "Guinness" if I'm not mistaken.

Nathan, I do have those books you mention. I'm going to return them real soon, I promise. I also have the Army of Darkness DVD.
Thanks for all the input everyone, I think I'm definitely going to pick up some Hornsby, as he was on my list of authors to read that I began like 2 years ago, and can no longer find. Ziggy mentions Catch-22 which I've never read.... Is that a depressing book? I can't have depressing things to read while lying on the beach. I'm currently reading Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut, whom I've never read anything from before. He's good, but the story has the ability to give me nightmares. It is about a war, after all. Also bad for vacation.

I may also have to pick up the book from Jenn's link.... ahhh, it would explain so much....

Google search for catch-22 uplifting finds 1,950 hits
Google search for catch-22 depressing finds 5,370 hits
You decide. I have a copy if you want to borrow it. I read it in middle school and remember nothing, but that's another one I want to read again. The phrase the probably describes it best is "darkly humorous" but maybe others have a different opinion?

[catch-22 humorous gets 50,400 hits]

Catch-22 is the funniest book I have ever read. I still cannot fathom who Heller managed to write a funny book about World War II.

~~the~~

http://jenn.kreft.youaremyfriend.com/

Flip, that link didn't have Jenn's name on the screen. It just left blank space!

how about, if you want mindless, robert jordan's wheel of time series. good, easy, sucks you in, much like the real dolls of yore. OR necromicon (sp?) by neal stephenson.
if not mindless...guns germs and steel or world on fire by amy chua. both are rad nonfiction reads that explain the world in a rational, appealing to physicists, kind of way.

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May 31, 2004