I keep hearing good things about The Marriage Plot.
Recent:
Aftermath by Scott Nadelson
a visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan
Stories an Anthology edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
(I'm going on a book bender at Wordstock this coming weekend, so I will have a good list for you then)
I'm always on the hunt for science books, and I hit upon a huge sale at a Borders that was closing down, so my most recent purchases are a little academic. They are:
The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World - Paul Roberts
The World Without Us - Alan Weisman
Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets - Peter Laufer
Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion - Alan Burdick
Hold Your Water! 68 Things You Need to Know to Keep Our Planet Blue- Steeve Creech
Ever more for my growing collection!
Also just bought The Devil All The Time--really enjoying it so far.
@Jack -- I also bought my copy of the Richard Bachman collection at a Goodwill, so that's odd.
Also got a second-hand copy of Portnoy's Complaint, an audiobook of Christopher Moore's Lamb, an a Gideon Bible I stole from an abandoned battered women's shelter.
@jacks_username: Working on a novel based on this kid I know. He took ayahuasca and a few weeks later he swore he was hearing voices. He's an atheist and in the book the voice is implied to be some sort of God. He struggles with his beliefs, and we're never entirely sure if the voices are real or simple hallucinations.
That being said, it's coming along very slowly. I've started over twice already, but I like where it's going this time. It's just hard to find time to write when I have so much work to do for school.
Recently ordered Beautiful Children - Charles Bock and The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino, can't wait to see if that one lives up to the hype. Also preordered Murakami's 1Q84 (books 1 - 3) and waiting on my signed copy of Damned from St. Helens Bookshop (but surely that goes without saying doesn't it?)
Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-Politcal Change and The Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven Earth and Time in Ancient Societies, both edited by Colin Renfrew, Baron Of Kaimsthorne, Ph.D and all around archaeological bad ass. (Both books are because of my areas of interest and research for a set of short stories.)
Maggie Cassiday was a birthday gift, so that probably does not count, but found a really good copy of The Town and the City by Kerouac at a used book store which is next on my fiction reading list.
@Achillez
Interesting concept for a novel. Psychedelics changed me (in a good way). Poor kid though, sounds like he has schizophrenia from it though. I'm not doctor though. Good luck finishing your novel, I know my own is taking me forever to write.
Stay God. (For my kindle)
The first compendium of The Walking Dead.
Elements of Style.
Shit my wallet at Wordstock:
A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
Everything and More by David Foster Wallace
The Wordstock 10, 2011 Short Fiction Contest Anthology
Tell me what you think of Chronic City when you finish it, Chester. Personally I didn't finish it, and the value of it is such to me that I can't even find a used bookstore that will buy it or give me trade-in value for it. In fact, that book gave kind of a bad first impression for Lethem.
And just to clarify, I LOVE books about NYC, and I also love books about Mary Jane, but the plot just never seemed to be going anywhere.
But, for the record, OMG that book is awesome. I love DFW. In fact, if I may be so bold to offer my advice, get Oblivion or some of his other short story/essay compilations too. Oblivion, in particular, has a short story titled "Another Pioneer" that will blow your fucking mind.
But, you should finish Infinite Jest first, you have to keep at that book or it will make you retreat and then two months since you last touched it you're trying to figure out what page you were on by reversing the endnote references and trying to remember all the crazy story arcs.
