Reader's Corner

I just snagged over 300 books for my kindle from a torrent site and I'm trying to feel bad about it, but 300 NEW BOOKS!!!

ellen0095 wrote: Another book I would like to recommend on the Israeli/Palestine conflict is "Fast Times in Palestine" by Pamela J. Olson ^_^

I noticed that she also wrote articles for CounterPunch and Electric Intifada? Those are good, impressive and credible resumes.

I wish I could read a really good Horror by now

H.P. LOVECRAFT

I am currently reading this wonderful book, and it has opened my eyes in so many ways. It is from Zan Perrion, a self proclaimed romance artist, a modern day casanova. A scoundrel, sure. But always honest, always respecting. If you have seen the movie "Don Juan de Marco", this is the real life version of him. It brilliantly describes his mindset and his love and passion toward women. It is not a dating guidebook, but it takes you on an inner journey to see the beauty that is the female. And isn't this the thing that really matters? It lets you ascend your thoughts about the destination and start enjoying the process.

Perhaps beauty is not inherent in the object, nor in the eye of the beholder, but in the dance of the two?

He talks about always letting your sexual energy be the first thing to enter a room. Because you are a man, and she is a woman. The secret in a man's power over a woman lies in the power the woman has over him. Yes, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But beauty also needs a beholder. He talks about being honest, being authentic and to openly show your curiosity, your attraction to women. To let yourself shine. In that regard, this book and its unique, poetic choice of words has a way to ignite a spark in your heart, a passion that has the power to catapult the reader into the wonderful land of women.

Thoreau wrote, "the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." This is as true today as it was back then. How many men stand on a balcony and wonder what happened?... He wanted adventure and he got two weeks' vacation. He wanted a mission and he got a lawn that needs mowing. He wanted purpose and he got a cubicle. He wanted a mighty steed and he got a minivan. He wanted a castle and he got a mortgage. He wanted a battle to fight and he got televised sports. He wanted wisdom and he got talking heads on TV. He wanted treasure and he got endless debt. He wanted every part of his life to be wonderful, and here he is... standing on a balcony, in bleak, ruminating hesitation.

The book is not just guns and roses. It also contemplates about the hardships of men in our society today. It makes you commiserate, a thing which men rarely do, and it makes you start asking questions about yourself, your life, and your passions. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask. The book encourages the reader to start asking big questions, and it inspires you to find your own purpose in life.

All in all, this is a great book which I recommend to everyone, but especially to men. It gives you a new perspective, a wonderful perspective to the modern role of man. It inspires the reader to be authentic, to be curious again, to become your attractive self, and to find your way in life. This book is best enjoyed in small daily doses to transfuse the passion and sense of wonder back into your soul.

At last but not least, I would like to end my review with one of my favorite paragraphs of the book.

Our problems are entirely self-contained. Our problems are with the stories we tell ourselves. We think we are not good enough. A lie! For we are more than good enough.

Embrace it all. Every part of a man should be fully presented to the world. No part of him should ever be hidden. This is his authenticity. Even his faults are authentic. The good and the bad together—this is him being fully him. To hide nothing, to be various, surprising, extreme! There is glory in this. Even his moments of anger should be fully expressed, fully explored. Anger is a wonderful tool, a great tool, if not abused. I am not talking about rage, a senseless loss of control, indiscriminate hacking and slashing. I am talking about measured, composed anger. Honest anger has beauty, restraint, poise, elegance, and is the opposite of hostility.

We are all broken in some way. We all have faults and insecurities. We think we have to be cool. But we do not have to be cool. We have to be authentic. Authenticity means to embrace equally all of our strength, power, courage, passion, mistakes, failures, and insecurities. To present that whole self to the world instead of our practiced varnish of cool. Nobody connects because they are cool. They connect because they are real. Real is rare.

Our authenticity is the part of us that is led by our heart, our intuition, the part of us that aspires to excellence and to making this world better. We already have everything we need. We are whole, entire, complete. We just need the courage to believe it.

Authenticity is the essence of attractiveness. To find his authentic self is the only real task of a man, a never-ending journey and the only one that matters. It is all about searching for his truth and learning to express it to the world. It is all about not being afraid to want what he wants and to ask for what he wants. It is all about searching for what has heart and meaning to him, for what he wants his life to look like, and for ways to project himself forever onto the world’s stage.

To find our true identity, our authenticity, we have to push the envelope, to step out of our comfort zones. It isn’t always comfortable to speak our truth. But it is right. As Hemingway put it, “When you start to live outside yourself, it’s all dangerous.

I'm currently reading:

Collin Cotteril - The coroners lunch

First of a series of crime stories set in communist Laos in the 70s.

It's good, I'm going to read more of them.

What are you reading right now and what do you think about it?

Right now, I'm reading The Perpetual Orgy by Mario Vargas Llosa. It's a book length essay on Madame Bovary and I'm using it as a model to improve my literary analysis and essay writing. I think it's a useful resource for honing my skills, but I'm more familiar with his fiction.

What are your all time favorite books?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Paula by Isabel Allende
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe

I’ll include favorite short stories in addition to favorite books.

Short stories:
Child’s Play by Alice Munro
Dimensions by Alice Munro (You can find both Munro stories in her book Too Much Happiness.)
A Real Doll by A.M. Homes
The Whiz Kids by A.M. Homes
Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot by Robert Olen Butler
The Second Bakery Attack by Haruki Murakami
The Silence by Haruki Murakami


What books would you recommend for others to read (please answer this because I'm running out of good books to read lol)?

If you can, I recommend finding The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. Strange recommendation, I know, but this collection amuses me constantly. These are a few of my favorite poems from the collection.
notellmotel.org/poem...php?id=78_0_1_0
www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177701

I also recommend any of the above short stories. Child's Play is my absolute favorite short story, and A Real Doll is my second favorite.

As for full length books, anything on my favorites list is recommended. If you're looking for a few books to start with, May We Be Forgiven and The White Boy Shuffle come to mind.


Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?

I read mostly fiction, but I don't mind nonfiction either. I do search for essay collections in addition to fiction. To answer your question, I prefer fiction but I won't complain about literary nonfiction.

Do you read anything other than books, like journals, news, blogs, the backs of cereal boxes, whatever…?

Sometimes I read news articles. Sometimes I read stuff on Vice.com. I check out NBA articles a lot. That's pretty much it.

I'm going to reopen this thread because I'm rereading this book that i want to share with those who may be interested. For ladies here who may be interested in Korea beyond K-pop and K-drama, I definitely would recommend this book - Bruce Cumings' Korea's Place in the Sun.




It's rich and informative, yet easy to read.(As I am reading him for the second time, I found myself truly appreciating his very enjoyable writing that I didn't noticed from my first reading) It starts with nearly 90 pages of classical history, and goes on with rest of around 400 pages on Korea's modern history - both North and South Korea but mostly South Korea. The book goes through very detailed and informative(yet still very enjoyable as I noted) studies on history of political events, economic situations and Korea's internal dynamics.

Bruce Cumings is most well-known American scholar when it comes to Korean Studies, who is married to Korean woman. Readers can feel the author's deep appreciation and warm sympathy for Korea and Korean people. He is also very vicious in unveiling the ugly position that U.S. has hold during the Korean War as well as overall post-war history of South Korea which have been often brushed under the rug with more rosier and heroic portrait of U.S. in relation to South Korea.

I'm currently reading Dan Brown's Inferno. I'm enjoying a lot!

"I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzei

Excellent, brilliant book! I love it so much. It is about the young activist and her life.

"Mary Shelley" by Miranda Seymour

I loved "Frankenstein" so much that I decided to read about Mary Shelley. Good stuff! ^_^

"The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho

Inspiring and just overall wonderful.

The most recent books that I have read or am reading now.