Top 5 Books You Leave Casually Scattered Around Yr House To Show Off
 

Or just post a list of yr top 5 books -

1. R.D. Laing - The Divided Self
Radical schizophrenia politics - a compassionate and bleak intellectualisation of some of humanities worst anxieties.

2. Albert Camus - The Fall
A massive blasphemous drunken rant that you actually wanna hear.

3. Baudrilliard - The System of Objects
Will show you the real reason you had yr dog neutered and why yr record collection means so much to you.

4. Phillip K Dick - Martian Time Slip
I prefer this to Flow my tears and Do Androids - I wanna make a film adaption of this with Jack Nicholson as Arnie Knott.

5. James Joyce - Finnegan's Wake
I swear to fuck - this book contains irish slang that's only emerged in the past couple of years. The only book earth ever needs on Ireland and what a bunch of selfish drunken sex maniacs we all are.

Right now there are three books here that are not with the other books. They are Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety (on the top shelf of some shelving), Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records of the Sixties (on bed), and Picasso's Picassos (laid out on a table). Happenings (a brief documentation of Happenings) by Michael Kirby was on the shelf too until the other day, but I loaned it out.

the divided self is great.

i leave james elroy books around but i'm not sure if they're all that impressive. im just untidy

once a girl was impressed that i had dr jeckyl and mr hyde on my bed. i should leave that out more often

Sort of what the thread title says, though they tend to get lost in bookcases, and I do really love them...

1) John Cage - Silence (lectures)

2) Hundertwasser - Harry Rand (biography of the artist with many, many prints)

3) Living in Fear, A History of Horror in the Mass Media - Les Daniels

4) The Scientific American Book of Astronomy (honestly, some day I will write science fiction, and use this book for research ideas, I've been telling myself that for like ten years now!)

5) Negativland - The Letter U and the Numeral 2 (given to me my Mark Hosler for letting him use my school internet account to participate in a Wired forum back when internet was still kind of hard to come by!)

I got a new Issac Bashevis Singer a few weeks ago, The Spinoza of Market Street. That one and In My Father's Court are fairly quick reads. They are a series of short mostly-autobiographical tales (from Singer's early upbringing in turn-of-the-(20th)century Poland), but most rewarding.

1. A Photographer's Life by Annie Leibovitz
The most awesome collection of photographs by my favorite photographer.

2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The classic "I'm a fucked up depressed rich girl" story that every girl ever loves.

3. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The classic "I'm a normal person with really really fucked up friends that I always end up falling in love with" story that I love so so so much.

4. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Filled with musings, raunchy erotic stories, depressingly disturbing philosophy ramblings, and even more raunchy erotic stories

5. I am America and So Can You! by Stephen Colbert
lulzy.

I have pretty much all my Sci-Fi class reading out plus:

Kierkegaard - Fear And Trembling
Sophocles - The Theban Plays
Leo Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Homer - The Odyssey
Voltaire - Candide
Gadamer - Turth and Method
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Bergoffen - The Philosophy of Simon de Beauvoir
William Shakespeare's Complete Works

The rest of my books are in my closet shelf.

Somewhat recently I bought Fear and Trembling that also includes Repetition. I had read it before (most of it) from when I checked it out from a library years ago. He goes off forever on Abraham and Isaac.

The other ones I have (had these for many years) are Either/Or 1 & 2, Philosophical Fragments/Johannes Climacus; all softcover Princeton Press/Hong editions.
Used to have a hardcover Purity of Heart but gave it away.

My copy was given to me by my dad from when he took a Philosophy class while at Georgetown. The copy was printed in '69. I haven't read it considering it would be a nice family heirloom.

He told me he tried to read it again after finding it in the garage and was completely confused inspite of his decades old notes and underlines throughout. Ha ha.

cool thread...i already scooped up a couple titles for my reading list.

The most pretentious book on my shelf is probably 'godel, escher, bach' by hofstadter only because i've never made it through more than 100 pages.

viz annual 1999.

Rey, Charles Fernand, 1877-
The romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia; an account of the adventurous journeys of the Portuguese to the empire of Prester John, their assistance to Ethiopia in its struggle against Islam and their subsequent efforts to impose their own influence and religion, 1490-1633, by Charles F. Rey
New York, Negro Universities Press [1969]
Taddesse Tamrat.
Church and state in Ethiopia, 1270-1527 / by Taddesse Tamrat.
Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1972.
Pankhurst, Richard.
History of Ethiopian towns from the Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century / Richard Pankhurst.
Wiesbaden : Steiner, 1982.
Lobo, Jerónimo, 1596?-1678.
Itinerário. English
The Itinerário of Jerónimo Lobo / translated by Donald M. Lockhart ; from the Portuguese text established and edited by M.G. da Costa ; with an introduction and notes by C.F. Beckingham.
London : Hakluyt Society, 1984.


Whiteway, Richard Stephen.
The Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 as narrated by Castanhoso, with some contemporary letters, the short account of Bermudez, and certain extracts from Corrêa. Translated and edited by R. S. Whiteway.
Nendeln, Liechtenstein, Kraus Reprint, 1967.
Beckingham, C. F. (Charles Fraser), 1914-
Some records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646, being extracts from The history of High Ethiopia or Abassia, by Manoel de Almeida, together with Bahrey's History of the Galla, translated and edited by C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford
Nendeln, Liechtenstein, Kraus Reprint, 1967

The Sound and The Fury - Faulkner
The Sons - Kafka
The Odyssey - Homer
Lolita - Nabokov
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche

i... don't.

i have a lot of embarrassing books lying around though, and when people come over i am always saying how my good books are still in boxes.

the old testament (for my old hebrew school friends)
man making words (essentially a text book for an afro hispanic literature class im taing, but in reality the best nicolas guillen collection on earth)
the odyssey/ the iliad (full texts)
for whom the bells toll
lords of chaos (a history of satanic black metal)

Same here. I'm usually not reading anything too deep. Just some popular press mystery novel.

On The Road of course, even though I think it's boring (apart from the first 30-pages which are brilliant).
Proust: In Search Of Lost Time (all of the books). I do flick through them often though...
Amis: London Fields.
Lots of stuff by Capote, Flaubert, Woolf, Zola. Nick Kent's The Dark Stuff, Bob Dylan's autobiography.

Viz annuals in the closet (I do have loads of them) with old copies of The Racing Post.

I generally try to put books away.

But House of the Dead and Paradise Lost seem to be sitting out. Though Paradise Lost is a really big book and one that sort of seems like it is supposed to be displayed.

seriously, do you all leave stuff lying around to impress people?

The books that are permanently lying around my home at the moment are all about interior decoration or cookery. I think people would probably be more impressed if I took some heed of their contents.


Oh, and a tourist guide to Israel, with which I hope to presuade my girlfriend that we should take a trip there next year.

These are the trhree books on the endtable next to me right now:
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonegut
Chronicles Volume 1 - Bob Dylan
What's Your Poo Telling You? - by some doctors.

I swear I'm not making that up. But all of our bookshelves are in this room and I assume that my wife chose these 3 books for decorating aesthetics rather than titles. It's a different kind of pretentious.

sayin. used condoms overloaded with spunk work much better than books. they scream "i'm a winner!" to all visitors.

Hahahaha. Well, I have these five scattered around my dorm right now. Not to impress or anything. I've just been reading them on/off and I'm too lazy to put them back:

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Noise/Music: A History by Paul Hegarty
History of Labor in America textbook by some dead dude

hustler and other "speciality" magazine, the marquis' justine, a couple of peter sotos' tomes and serial killers and mass murderers: profiles of the most barbaric criminals.

and they are not so much to "impress" people as much as it is a heads up for my dates on what a night to expect.


how is this book?

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seriously, if you leave them around to make yourself look cool, that is seriously lame.

i thought people weren't allowed into your house unless they arrived in a bodybag.

the only stuff i leave scattered around to impress people is Hannah Montana and Aaron Carter stuff

Everyneurotic - I was actually instant messaging a couple of peoples from here today (1 current, 1 ex-member), and we ended up gassing about "Hustler" - whoulda thunk it?

What's your opinion on Miss Sotos' writing? I personally think that, as powerful as some of his work can be, it all seems to be rather one-dimensional in the end.

I don't leave them out casually scattered around, but they are on a bookshelf, and most people who see a bookshelf tend to see what's on the bookshelf anyways don't they?

American Mischief-This book used to have a jacket cover so people could read the synopsis, but its doesn't anymore, but the title is what grabbed me, the novel itself is just awesome.

Jude The Obscure-Such an awesome book that doesn't get mentioned nearly enough when people namedrop classic novels.

The Possessed-Huge Dostoevsky novel, not sure if its his longest. Also one of the best books I've ever read.

The Purgatorio-Book Two from The Divine Comedy which is great but gets overshadowed by The Inferno

The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories- 30 of the best episodes of the original television series in prose short story form. A must have for TZ lovers such as myself.

it's not important how they get in, as long as they leave in a bodybag.

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so the unofficial theme of the day for boardies old and new is hustler? i'll start the thread in a few.

to tell you the truth, i haven't read any of his books, i've gone through scans of his old pure magazine but even that i haven't really read them thoroughly.

shall investigate properly for a serious discussion in the near future.

now i get what you mean by "dates"

dr kevorkian taught me to be empathic.

leaving anything scattered around the house simply to "show off" is cuntestry at it's finest. anybody that would likely be impressed by such a display is not worth inviting over.

???

random issues of cometbus or maybe the cometbus collection book.

i just bought the snakepit book so maybe i'll leave that around for awhile until i read it.

Glad you're referring to it as The Possessed and not The Demons or The Devils. Shows you probably have the Garnett translation. I have 'em, but the best one is the Garnett. Have a Modern Library hardcover edition. It's blue. Just looked and it only has one copyright date...1936. I'd forgotten. Hmm, might be worth a little. I got it used, but it's in great shape. Someone named Betty Hester used to own it. It's definitely one of his longest, but pretty sure The Brothers Karamazov is the lengthiest.

I think it's great too. The Stavrogin's Confession (At Tihon's) chapter is some messed-up stuff. It was often banned way back when. It's less symbolic and less of an outright undeniable masterpiece than Crime & Punishment, but it is without a doubt a more multi-layered critique of Nihilism.

...

TZ!

we're talking books mate, people who are impressed by books are people you should have around you.

people who leave used condoms around definitely have something wrong with them.

irony: missed.

Well, I agree in effect. That the dude has Finnegan's Wake laying out is especially suspect. Then again, it's not like we all haven't done it before, is it?

Anyway, a lot of the Joycean works (he hee) just scream pretentiousness.

The three I listed (now just two are out) are out for substantive reasons.

The Kierkegaard is on a shelf near the door because I'm still reading it and take it with me sometimes.

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records of the Sixties was on my bed because I was reading it here and there when I posted. It's the kind of book you can dip in and out of because it's a history of the recording sessions of every song; I've been learning a few new ones on guitar lately and thus also reading about the songs.

And Picasso's Picassos is on a coffee table because it's a very nice coffee table sort of book. I bought it used. It's in perfect condition with the original dust cover. The shop had it priced at $70 and I ended up paying $48.50. Uh-Huh.

i disagree i think if you read books yourself then i don't think it's that impressive to see books at other peoples houses, unless they've got an enormous collection or something. i'd be a bit surprised, and disheartened, if i didn't see books in someone's house.

at least twice then