Group Picture--The Shack

Another fun book club meeting!

Meeting Tonight!

We're meeting tonight @ Veronica's house @ 6pm to discuss The Shack. See you there!







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The results are in...the June book choice is A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal.

Saturday Spotlight

Today's author is Jacquelyn Mitchard.

photo from her website
Quick Facts:

1. She was born on December 10, 1957 in a suburb of Chicago.
2. Her first writing job was as a newspaper reporter in 1976.
3. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was named by USA Today as one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years.


4. The Deep End of the Ocean was chosen as the first novel in Oprah's Book Club.
5. The Deep End of the Ocean was also transformed into a feature film produced by and starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
6. Her other works include The Most Wanted, A Theory of Relativity, Twelve Times Blessed, The Breakdown Lane, Cage of Stars and four young adult novels.



7. She wants to play a murder victim on an episode of Law & Order (or one of its spin-offs).
8. She has a blog...



Have you read any of Jacquelyn Mitchard's books? Did you read along with the first Oprah's Book Club selection ever?
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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Feature Fridays

Today's classic is The Canterbury Tales (1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Synopsis:

On a spring day in April--sometime in the waning years of the 14th century--29 travelers set out for Canterbury on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. Among them is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. Travel is arduous and wearing; to maintain their spirits, this band of pilgrims entertains each other with a series of tall tales that span the spectrum of literary genres. Five hundred years later, people are still reading Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. From the heroic romance of "The Knight's Tale" to the low farce embodied in the stories of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Merchant, Chaucer treated such universal subjects as love, sex, and death in poetry that is simultaneously witty, insightful, and poignant. The Canterbury Tales is a grand tour of 14th-century English mores and morals--one that modern-day readers will enjoy.

Do you remember any of it? Here is a Modern English excerpt from "The Physician's Tale."

There was, as we're told by Titus Livius,
A knight once who was called Virginius,
A man of worth and honor through and through,
One strong in friends and with great riches too.
This knight begat a daughter by his wife
And had no other children all his life.
This maiden had such loveliness that she
Was fairer than all creatures men may see;
For Nature in her sovereign diligence
Had molded her with such great excellence
It was as if "Look here!" she would proclaim,
"I, Nature, form and paint just so, the same,
When I may choose. Who with me can compete?
Pygmalion? No, let him forge and beat,
Engrave or paint, for I will dare to say
Both Zeuxis and Apelles work away
In vain to sculpt and paint, to forge, create,
If me they would presume to imitate.
For He who's the Creator principal
Has made of me His vicar general,
To form and paint all creatures everywhere
As I desire, and all are in my care
Beneath the changing moon. And for my task
There's nothing as I work I need to ask,
My Lord and I are fully in accord.
I fashioned her in worship of my Lord,
And so I do with all my other creatures,
Whatever be their hue or other features."
So Nature would have spoken, I would gauge.

You can read the entire text of The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English form online at Read Print. You can also read the Modern English translation here.

If you've read it, take a quiz to test your memory here.

Have you read The Canterbury Tales? Which tale is your favorite? The Knight's, the Cook's, the Wife of Bath's?
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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Thoughts for Thursday

Do you have a favorite reading spot in your house? Do you always read there? Do you ever read at the library, a bookstore or anywhere else?

I have a reading nook upstairs in my house. It has a window, a lamp, a comfortable chair and all my to-read books, but I usually just read in bed or on the living room couch. I guess I should use the nook more since that's what it's for! I sometimes read a little at the bookstore, but I haven't ever read a whole book there. I used to like reading at the library when I was in college, but I haven't since. We called the library "The Big L" (I think Juli started that) or "Pickler" for Pickler Memorial Library.


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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Weekly Word Wednesdays

redamancy
n.
act of loving in return

The cat continued to leave dead rodents on the doormat, never expecting any redamancy from her master.

Adopt this word and others at Save the Words.
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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Challenge Update

I finished reading The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. It won the Man Booker Prize in 1992.

The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book (full-length English novel) of the year.

Synopsis:

Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

I did not like this book. I thought it was very difficult to read; I could not follow what was going on a lot of the time. I wasn't interested enough to read large portions at once, so that may have brought on some of the confusion. I did push through and finish it, so I give The English PatientUp next for me is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays (started on Should Be Reading) asks you to:

Grab your current read (or a book on your shelf that you've read or been wanting to read). Let the book fall open to a random page. Share two teaser sentences from that page. Don't forget to share the title and author of the book in case someone is teased into reading. Please avoid spoilers!

I've posted my teaser below. Post yours in the comment section if you'd like to share as well!

She wears a mask over her nose and mouth, which is surprising, because a severed head is in no danger of infection. I ask whether this is more for her own protection, a sort of psychological barrier.

from p. 25 of Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers (Section 1--A Head is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Practicing Surgery on the Dead) by Mary Roach
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Read about the June Book Choices before voting!

Movie Mondays

Circle of Friends

Book, 1990 by Maeve Binchy

It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny—the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents...Eve—the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny—they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains...except their own.

It widened at Dublin, at the university where Benny and Eve met beautiful Nan Mahlon and Jack Foley, a doctor's handsome son. But heartbreak and betrayal would bring the worlds of Knockglen and Dublin into explosive collision. Long-hidden lies would emerge to test the meaning of love and the strength of ties held within the fragile gold bands of a...Circle of Friends.

Movie, 1995 directed by Pat O'Connor

Features: Chris O'Donnell, Minnie Driver

Tagline: For everyone who ever thought the person they loved was out of their reach.

Did you know? Minnie Driver put on 30 pounds to play the role of Benny.

Have you read the book or seen the movie? Are you a Maeve Binchy fan? Do you like to read books/watch movies that are set in different countries (Ireland in this case)?

I read the book in college (for fun). I had read another Maeve Binchy book, Tara Road, when Oprah named it as a book club selection in 1999. I liked it a lot, so I decided to read Circle of Friends. I had already seen the movie, and I liked being able to picture Minnie Driver as Benny. I liked the book better because of the details, but both were good.

June Book Choices!

Karen is hosting the next (3rd) meeting on June 28th. Read about her picks below. Vote for the one you think sounds the best (poll is in the right sidebar)!


A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

About it:

Thomas Buergenthal, now a Judge in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, tells his astonishing experiences as a young boy in his memoir A Lucky Child. He arrived at Auschwitz at age 10 after surviving two ghettos and a labor camp. Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S.to start a new life.

Now dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship. A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all.


Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

About it:

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban's backyard. Anyone who despairs of the individual's power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan's treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. As it chronicles Mortenson's quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.


Good Grief by Lolly Winston (aka Sophie's Bakery for the Broken Hearted)

About it:

Thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton wants to be a good widow-a graceful, composed, Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Alas, she's been drowning her sorrows in ice cream and showing up to work in her bunny slippers and bathrobe. Determined to start over, she moves to Ashland, Oregon, where she finds herself in the middle of a darkly madcap adventure involving a 13-year-old pyromaniac and an alarmingly handsome actor who inspires a range of feelings she can't cope with - yet.

You have one week to vote...see you next Sunday!

Sunday Survey

One week left to finish The Shack! Are you excited to talk about it? See you all next Sunday, 5/31 @ Veronica's house @ 6pm. Don't forget to bring your book...and remember we're taking a group picture!

Saturday Spotlight

Since I'm graduating today, I figured I would spotlight a medical author. Today's author is Frank Netter, artist, physician, surgeon and medical illustrator.



Quick facts:

1. He was born in Manhattan on April 25, 1906 and died September 17, 1991.
2. He always wanted to be an artist but his family disapproved, so he studied medicine.
3. He gave up the practice of medicine (early on, 1930s) when an advertising manager paid him $1500 a piece for each of 5 of his medical illustrations.
4. His first famous illustrations were fold-up versions of various organs; the first one was of the heart (originally to promote the sale of digitalis by a drug company).
5. In 1989, Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy was published for the first time.

Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy is the most loved and best selling anatomy atlas in the English language. In over 540 beautifully colored and easily understood illustrations, it teaches the complete human body with unsurpassed clarity and accuracy.

6. He produced over 4000 illustrations during his career and medical students continue to learn anatomy and surgery from his atlases.

My favorite Frank Netter illustration:

Feature Fridays

Today's classic is Flowers for Algernon (1966) by Daniel Keyes.

About it:

Daniel Keyes wrote little science fiction but is highly regarded for one classic, Flowers for Algernon. As a 1959 novella it won a Hugo Award; the 1966 novel-length expansion won a Nebula. The Oscar-winning movie adaptation Charly (1968) also spawned a 1980 Broadway musical.

Following his doctor's instructions, engaging simpleton Charlie Gordon tells his own story in semi-literate "progris riports." He dimly wants to better himself, but with an IQ of 68 can't even beat the laboratory mouse Algernon at maze-solving:

I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time.
I dint know mice were so smart.

Algernon is extra-clever thanks to an experimental brain operation so far tried only on animals. Charlie eagerly volunteers as the first human subject. After frustrating delays and agonies of concentration, the effects begin to show and the reports steadily improve: "Punctuation, is? fun!" But getting smarter brings cruel shocks, as Charlie realizes that his merry "friends" at the bakery where he sweeps the floor have all along been laughing at him, never with him. The IQ rise continues, taking him steadily past the human average to genius level and beyond, until he's as intellectually alone as the old, foolish Charlie ever was--and now painfully aware of it. Then, ominously, the smart mouse Algernon begins to deteriorate...

Flowers for Algernon is a timeless tear-jerker with a terrific emotional impact.

If you've read it, test your memory here.

Did you read it (novella or novel)? Did you like it? Do you typically like science fiction?

I read Flowers for Algernon at some point in high school. Rosati-Kain/St. Mary's also did it as the spring play one of the years I was there. I remember my friend Patti played one of the characters (maybe Alice, the teacher). I don't really like science fiction much, but for some reason I liked this story. I always like books with animals. It was really sad though.

Thoughts for Thursday

What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of?

My favorite book that (probably) nobody else has heard of is The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker.

Synopsis:

In this classic study, the world's leading expert on language and the mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about languages: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With wit, erudition, and deft use of everyday examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution like web spinning in spiders or sonar bats. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America.

I read this book in a college class called The Psychology of Learning. I was the only non-psychology major in the class, and I loved the book the most. I read a few more of his books for fun after that. See below:



Watch him speak about his newest book, The Stuff of Thought.




So, am I right or wrong about others knowing about this book?

Find other thoughts at BTT.

Weekly Word Wednesday

egrote
v.
to feign an illness

I need to egrote better so that the doctor will believe me.

Adopt this word and others at Save the Words.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays (started on Should Be Reading) asks you to:

Grab your current read (or a book on your shelf that you've read or been wanting to read). Let the book fall open to a random page. Share two teaser sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. Don't forget to share the title and author of the book in case someone is teased into reading. Please avoid spoilers!

I've posted my teaser below. Post yours in the comment section if you'd like to share as well!

The burned pilot was one more enigma, with no identification, unrecognizable. In the criminal compound nearby they kept the American poet Ezra Pound in a cage, where he hid on his body and pockets, moving it daily for his own image of security, the propeller of eucalyptus he had bent down and plucked from his traitor's garden when he was arrested.

from p. 95 of The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Movie Mondays

A Beautiful Mind

Book, 1998 by Sylvia Nasar

From Mary Ellen Curtin, Amazon.com:

Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of John Nash (one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation) that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening."

It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 1998.


Movie, 2001 directed by Ron Howard

Features: Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany

Tagline: The only thing greater than the Power of the Mind is the Courage of the Heart.

Academy Awards: Best Picture (Ron Howard, Brian Grazer); Best Director (Ron Howard); Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Connelly); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published (Akiva Goldsman)

Have you read or seen A Beautiful Mind? What did you think? Did you know that the book is an unauthorized biography?

Sunday Survey

Only two weeks left to finish The Shack! I still haven't started it...I'm waiting until right before the meeting. Everyone I know that's read it has loved it, so it should be a good discussion!
5= I love it.
4= I really like it.
3= I like it.
2= It's just okay.
1= I don't like it.

Challenge Update

I finished reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

About:

The Hours is both an homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contemporary women. One gray suburban London morning in 1923, Woolf awakens from a dream that will soon lead to Mrs. Dalloway. In the present, on a beautiful June day in Greenwich Village, 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her oldest love, a poet dying of AIDS. And in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura Brown, pregnant and unsettled, does her best to prepare for her husband's birthday, but can't seem to stop reading Woolf. These women's lives are linked both by the 1925 novel and by the few precious moments of possibility each keeps returning to.

I saw the movie The Hours in 2002 when it came out. I loved the movie, but hadn't read the book until now. The book was even better. I had forgotten the ending, and it still surprised me the second time, even though I had already seen the movie. It was so good. I give The Hours
Up next for me is The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

Saturday Spotlight

Today's author is Elizabeth Gilbert.

Quick Facts:

1. She was born in Connecticut in 1969 and was raised on a small family Christmas tree farm.
2. She went to college in New York City and spent the years after college traveling around the world, working odd jobs and writing short stories.
3. She broke out in 1993 when one of her short stories was published by Esquire: The Debut of an American Writer.
4. She has been a journalist for SPIN, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and O Magazine.
5. Her GQ memoir about her bartending years became the Disney movie Coyote Ugly.
6. She has published a book of short stories called Pilgrims, a novel called Stern Men, a biography called The Last American Man, and a memoir called Eat, Pray, Love.















7. In 2008, she was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine.



Have you read Eat, Pray, Love? I know someone that had an affair and said it was all because of this book.

P.S. Variety says "Recently, Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir Eat, Pray, Love and will develop it as a star vehicle for Julia Roberts".

Feature Fridays

Today's featured classic is The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by JD Salinger.

Synopsis:

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

Excerpt:

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like-"
"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."
"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."
She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.
"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

If you've read it, take a quiz on The Catcher in the Rye here.

Have you read The Catcher in the Rye? Do you agree with the Modern Library that it is one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century?

Thoughts for Thursday

Who's your favorite literary couple or duo?

If I have to pick one favorite, I guess I would choose Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder from The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Did you know they started courting in 1882 when he was 25 and she was only 15? My favorite parts of the book and television series were about their relationship (the book featuring the courtship and marriage is called These Happy Golden Years and the main episodes on the show were called He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not Parts I & II and Laura Ingalls Wilder Parts I & II). Read an excerpt of my favorite part of the story here.

Here's the evidence of how much I liked it!





Find other thoughts at BTT.

Weekly Word Wednesdays

pregnatress
n.
female power that generates or gives birth to something

As pregnatress of our group, Veronica's opinion was highly regarded but only if didn't involve people actually doing work.

Adopt this word and others at Save the Words.

Challenge Update

I finished reading Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 and also the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best Fiction Debut of the Year.

Each calendar year, PEN New England presents awards to writers whose work has made an outstanding contribution to fiction, non-fiction or poetry in the previous year. The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, established in 1976 by the late Mary Hemingway in honor of her husband Ernest Hemingway, includes an $8,000 cash prize for a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction.

About Interpreter of Maladies:

Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection...Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage...Interpreter of Maladies unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. In sotries that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.

I really liked this collection of stories. I loved her style of writing...it was so easy to read. I especially liked the first and last stories called "A Temporary Matter" and "The Third and Final Continent" (which is based on her father). All of the stories are brief (~20-30 pages), but by the end of each, I always wanted it to continue on to a whole novel. The characters were all so interesting. I will definitely read her other collection of stories called Unaccustomed Earth and her novel The Namesake (also a 2007 movie featuring Kal Penn).













I give Interpreter of Maladies
Up next for me is The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays (started on Should Be Reading) asks you to:

Grab your current read (or a book on your shelf that you've read or been wanting to read). Let the book fall open to a random page. Share two teaser sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. Don't forget to share the title and author of the book in case someone is teased into reading. Please avoid spoilers!

I've posted my teaser below. Post yours in the comment section if you'd like to share as well!



We undress each other with brutality, ripping fabric and popping buttons that roll under the couch like secrets. This is the anger overflowing: anger that this has happened to our son, that we cannot turn back time.

p.95 of Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult

Movie Mondays

Running with Scissors

Book, 2002 by Augusten Burroughs

Review & Synopsis from Goodreads/John Moe:

There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours." There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all.


Movie, 2006 directed by Ryan Murphy

Features: Joseph Cross, Annette Bening (nominated for Golden Globe), Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin

Tagline: Ever had one of those lives?

From Trailer:

Hope: What are you guys doing?
[Augusten is wired with electrodes to his face]

Natalie: Electro-shock therapy.

Hope: Awesome!

Have you read or seen Running with Scissors? If you did (and liked either or both), you might like the continuation of his memoir: Dry.



I thought it was very weird, but interesting...I haven't read Dry.