Your Top 5
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Great thread!
Books!
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Bible: shapes my life, probably the book I've re-read the most times
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The Stand - Stephen King: such an epic novel!
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Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson: has a whole chapter on how the protagonist eats Capt. Crunch cereal!
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Neuromancer - William Gibson: has one of the best opening lines ever: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
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Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut: I found myself writing down quotes from this book like every 3 pages – just brilliant!
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Books:
Haruki Murakami - Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake
Christopher Priest - The AffirmationHonourable mentions:
Han Kang - The Vegetarian
Iris Murdock - The Sea, The Sea
Richard House - The Kills
Lars Saabye Christensen - The Half Brother
Rupert Thomson - Katherine Carlyle -
@LewisStonehouse TOOL! Right on, should’ve added Lateralus or Aenema to my list - such a great band
For sure man, I could have had 4/5 of my top five be TOOL albums to be fair. Going to see them in May 22
Awesome! I was looking the other day and tickets still available, need to convince the wife either to tag along or give me the night off.
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Can get down with Kurt, Marquez, Stephenson, and especially William Fucking Gibson. I still have a cool Porter bag signed by him courtesy of @Snowy (thank you again my friend) and he is a big fan of Iron Heart and Acronym (just like me–couldn't be much more different brands but somehow we share a love for them)
The Sprawl trilogy is polarizing, as a lot of people struggle to follow it or perhaps just find it uninteresting. I'm not sure why. I love its dark noir style, and indeed that is IMO the best opening live I've read.
I am expecting to hear Cormac McCarthy at some point. Not among my very favorites but he's great and I know there are some fans here.
I really enjoy Terry Pratchett and Carl Hiaasen as well.
Still struggling on the album front, but I know WRONG by NOMEANSNO is on there somewhere.
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@mclaincausey that's pretty wild, man!
I saw Muse play with Cold Wat Kids at the festival pier in Philadelphia when they went on tour to promote Black Holes and Revelations. My wife and i managed to get right up front in a crowd of 6k+, which was awesome for CWK's stripped down opening set. Then Muse hit the stage and I think the electric bill at Penn's Landing doubled…
We didn't make it through their opener (Knights of Cydonia) before bowing out and moving back a bit, it was nuts
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The first gig I ever took @Madame Buttonfly to that was not necessarily on her previous musical experience radar, was Converge. We were up the front of the Mosh-Pit, I did not have a camera on me, but the look of utter amazement and what-the-fuck-am-I-dong-here on her face, will be etched into my consciousness for ever….
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Oh shit, now I need to start reading more too…...
I'm sorry The Bible is out, I read it every night for years hoping it would tell me something or make me a better person it didn't (not a religious rant or stance). But Slaughterhouse-Five is a must....
Ha! I won't go on a Bible rant, but I would say that you should read it to learn more about who God is, not to be a better person. But, in learning who He is and what He likes, you might grow to love Him and desire to become the kind of person that He is. I appreciate that there are people on here of different faiths so I won't go beyond that.
Slaughterhouse-Five is phenomenal! I'm not even sure I fully understood it, but it was so brilliant in the ways that it broke all of the literary rules. The whole first chapter is told in the author's own voice, about how he wrote the very book we're reading, and his memories that came together to make the book. This quote kills me:
I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me. They are wonderful that way. I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.
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Can get down with Kurt, Marquez, Stephenson, and especially William Fucking Gibson. I still have a cool Porter bag signed by him courtesy of @Snowy (thank you again my friend) and he is a big fan of Iron Heart and Acronym (just like me–couldn't be much more different brands but somehow we share a love for them)
The Sprawl trilogy is polarizing, as a lot of people struggle to follow it or perhaps just find it uninteresting. I'm not sure why. I love its dark noir style, and indeed that is IMO the best opening live I've read.
I am expecting to hear Cormac McCarthy at some point. Not among my very favorites but he's great and I know there are some fans here.
I really enjoy Terry Pratchett and Carl Hiaasen as well.
Still struggling on the album front, but I know WRONG by NOMEANSNO is on there somewhere.
Oh man, that bag sounds like an amazing keepsake!
When I first read Neuromancer, I was kinda struck with the depth that Gibson went into on the protagonist's jeans. Only later did I realize he's a huge fan of denim and mechanical watches and all sorts of things that take attention but deliver progress.
Have you read his interview on ebay/mechanical-watch obsession: https://www.wired.com/1999/01/ebay/ ?
I liked the Sprawl trilogy for the characters. Obviously, loved Neuromancer. I remember not caring for Mona Lisa Overdrive too much.
I picked up the William Gibson / Buzz Rickson jacket from Pattern Recognition; a Gibson book that I loved but, honestly, am not sure why
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Converge - Jane Doe
Oh shit. Sorry @riffblaster general , Jane Doe is obvs my #1….
HAAAAA! Don’t lie to me Giles. We all know it’s Taylor Swift.
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@riffblaster general I’m a newbie here, never realised I was rubbing shoulders with a musical hero!
Seriously though. Jane Doe was a formative experience for me, I was about 14 when it released and it blew me away. Seen you guys a few times over the years in London, always a wonderful experience. Anyways, big thanks and love!
And thanks for connecting the dots for me @Giles. I love the image of Paula, unaware of what’s about to happen, in the pit for Converge
