What are you reading Thread?

Anything and everything by my idol, John Irving. Definitely one of the most imaginative novelists of the past 100 years.

Even his "less successful" works are utterly amazingly crafted. Published his first novel at the age of twenty-six. He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar. How many "real" writers have such a great body of work and have won an Oscar?

Dan

The World According to Garp is one of my all-time favorites. His books always make me want to move to Vienna.
 
"WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN SCREENWRITING"

Totally eye-opening. Wonder why we know the names of so many directors and so few screenwriters? This book sheds some light. Very extensive film history from the role of writers in silent pictures to the hot new writers of the 2000s; explores the period of blacklisting suspected communist writers in Hollywood, and the rise and fall of the auteur theory. The second half of the book (which deals with more recent screenwriting history) is riveting. The first half is very dense but amazingly informative about where we came from. Biggest conclusion: writing is really hard. Most writer-directors who "make it" ultimately just get hired to direct and don't write anymore.
 
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Read this a month or so ago. If your a fan of the mini series I would highly recommend checking this out. Fantastic read. I picked it up and it was very hard to put down.

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And I just started this last week.

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Really liking it so far.
 
Just finished Snow Crash. Now about to dive into a buddy's novel to give him feedback. Then might come back to Stephenson's Diamond Age.
 
Just finished Snow Crash. Now about to dive into a buddy's novel to give him feedback. Then might come back to Stephenson's Diamond Age.

Snow Crash is awesome, despite the fact that it doesn't really have an ending. I couldn't make it through Cryptonomicon or The Confusion though and stopped reading Stephenson.
 
Has anyone made it through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace? If so, is it worthwhile?

I have a copy of this tome and my mind wanders every time I try to read it.
 
Snow Crash is awesome, despite the fact that it doesn't really have an ending. I couldn't make it through Cryptonomicon or The Confusion though and stopped reading Stephenson.

I was not a fan of Cryptonomicon. Felt it needed a lot of editing.

Now: Cory Doctorow: LITTLE BROTHER, Gibson: SPOOK COUNTRY
 
reading a couple of different things right now on my Nook (which was a good purchase by the way)

The End of Faith, by Sam Harris
and
The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia.... I can't remember offhand the author, and need to charge the nook... It's public domain from like 1907 or something.
 
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