It's actually an interesting question. I looked at my recent reads and a lot of them are tied up with one another. I'm reading a book about Barry Goldwater right now which I found because the author also wrote a book about Nixon. I'm interested in Nixon because I read The Boys on the Bus, about the media in the 1973 election, which I read because it was written basically right alongside Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, which I had read just a little before that one. I've been reading a bunch of books about historical presidential elections, and I knew I liked Thompson from Rum Diary. I chose that one after reading his Hell's Angels, which I chose because of the TV program Sons of Anarchy. So there, the Barry Goldwater book choice traces back to SOA.

I just finished Drown by Junot Diaz because he is coming to Albany in a few weeks and I'd never read anything by him but I wanted to see if I'd be interested in going to see him. I will be.

I read two Saul Bellow novels because my library has a bunch of his books and I'd never read any of him. His is a name that you hear a lot, and more specifically for me, he was a mentor to one of my favorite authors, William Kennedy. I found William Kennedy because he is from and writes about Albany, NY, where I am. Actually, he was a friend of Thompson, too, which was another reason I was interested in Rum Diary. He's supposedly similar to or part of the basis for the editor character or maybe some others. So Kennedy gets partial credit for the Goldwater book, too.

And holy cow I just remembered, William Kennedy founded the group that is hosting Diaz in a couple of weeks with money he got from some genius grant. So Kennedy gets credit for the Diaz book, too.

I guess everything eventually goes back to William Kennedy for me.

i got d glass rookie cards stuck in my bicycle spoke

That's eerily similar to a line in a rap song I wrote.

That one will get inside your head. Enjoy.

Asher, I really enjoy getting updates about your reading diet via the goodreads email address. You and simple torture both.

Telegraph Avenue is getting a lot of good press

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw1 ... abon_teleg

It's not a collection so much as an epic poem, but it's awesome. I hope you like it.

Also, re: reading recommendations, most for me come from authors I already like talking about their friends or influences, though, to be fair, some of this comes in the form of essays on poetics.

How many of you have no problem reading more than one book at a time? I'm not sure that I'm a mindful enough reader to be able to give two or more books equal attention, but it'd be nice to be able to read more of the titles that I'm interested in before it's all said and done.

I almost need to read more than one book at a time, so I can make choices based on my mood. The books are always very different from each other, though.

If I do read more than one, I tend to read books that are similar enough that they weave together throughout the readings. But then I always start feeling like I'm not getting the most out of the books as individual experiences.

the psychopathology of everyday life - freud

hum, not as good as "cases in hysteria"

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

This is my first Murakami book and I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Will check out his other stuff after finishing this.

I can start a couple at one time and wait till something grabs me, but once it does I'm unlikely to switch away from that book until I finish it--then I go back to one of the others after.

I need two at a time, but they gotta be different.

I love being goodreads friends with all you guys.

Cloud Atlas is pretty fantastic.

I am reading "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins. It's so much more spellbinding than I would have originally guessed.

hey guys