This is not good advice! Many people are lame, and they should try to be someone else.

Um, Foghat's pretty cool.

Well? And why won't they? I've been wondering.

Especially because I've somehow managed to commit to reading Savage Detectives and 2666 in the rest of 2013. It's gonna be a bleak winter!

No, this was my first Stephenson. I'm aware of what the Baroque Cycle is, and I'm not ruling out reading it eventually; I like historical fiction pretty well (better, often, than science fiction), and Stephenson's a good writer. But I didn't love Cryptonomicon; while the plot was killer, the characters were just okay…

Nope! It was a revisit of a book I remembered liking a great deal when I was the proper age for it. Sometimes those don't hold up; this one totally does.

I finished Cryptonomicon! Smashing success, plotwise; slightly less effective in terms of character, particularly where the ladies are concerned. Not that it was misogynist, just sortof clueless.

Sorry homeboy! But if it makes you feel any better, I'm super happy!

SOX

Haaaa…I feel you, man. or woman. I like Fuck Buttons though!

Yeah, I had the same reaction. Dude's in his 40s and a nubile young woman with tattoos, a healthy sex drive, a great sense of humor and a cute smile just fell into his lap! In what world is this not going to happen?

Ah, word. And ha! Nice work, dad.

Did you forget to paste the email?

Sweet, I loved Oscar Wao.

He used the term "credit card," but it's not actually what we think of as a credit card at all. It's a debit card. He has no concept of credit as we know it.

& @avclub-00989c20ff1386dc386d8124ebcba1a5:disqus I re-read Rohmer's Insidious Dr Fu Manchu last year and had fun with it. It's not really good - Manchu is not as clever as Rohmer wishes he was, nor is whats-his-name the Holmes ripoff lead guy - and oh, yes, it is super fuckin' racist, but it's good pulpy fun as long…

Yeah, I thought Lolita was just a fun road trip story!

This is one of those situations where I'm failing to be convinced that it wouldn't be a better idea to just read more Wilkie Collins.

Also a good one.

I was super interested in that book, but friends who've read it were not crazy at all about it, so I'm not sure I'll get to it. Appreciate the rec though!