That’s right, I’m back at the gym. It was rough, and by rough I mean, I am a weak little bitch who needs to get his flabby, muffin top ass moving. Today I started with guns, ultimately because it keeps me motivated, but in reality I simply feel I’m getting weak. I was very tired this morning at 5 AM, but I did what I had to do. These past few weeks have been really rough, work and school have been kicking my ass, and with that I’ve had real difficulty getting up in the mornings. Anyway, I’m back and that’s all you need to know. For the next 2-3 months I’m going to lift hard, really push myself and see how far I can take it. I just need to do it.
Below is a compiled list of recommended reading from friends and people I respect …
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle.
All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Animal Farm by George Orwell *
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson
Black and White on Wall Street by Joseph Jett
Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Bunnicula by James Howe
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl *
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury *
Dangerous Angels by Francesca lia Block
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Dune by Frank Herbert
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Evil (“Ondskan”) by Jan Guillou
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Female of the Species by Lionel Shriver
Fool by Christopher Moore
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley *
Franny and Zooey by Salinger
Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens by Neil Gaman
Growth Of The Soil by Knut Hamsun
Harp Song by Rilla Askew
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson
How I Became Stupid by Martin Page
Howard’s End by E. M. Forster
Hunger by Knut Hamsun *
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan *
In The Country of Lost Things by Paul Auster
Independant People by Halldór Laxness
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jazz by Toni Morrison
Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings by Jean Baudrillard
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke
Junglee Girl by Ginu Kamani
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Lamb: The Gospel According to Bif, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore *
Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle
Le ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter
Life After God by Douglas Coupland *
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Light in August by William Faulkner
Lord of the Barnyard by Tristan Egolf
Lord of the Flies by William Golding *
Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl *
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell *
Not Her Real Name by Emily Perkins
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck *
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie *
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Resurrection by Tolstoy
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Shibumi by Trevanian
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Summerland by Michael Chabon
Team of Rivals: The Political Genious of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman
The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
The Bible *
The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Celery Stalks at Midnight by James Howe
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas *
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Beauby
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The End of Alice by AM Homes
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri Teppler
The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson Mccullers
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams *
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Lazarus Effect by Frank Herbert
The Lie by Chad Kultgen
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry *
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams *
The Long Walk by Stephen King
The Man and The Happiness Machine by Ray Bradbury
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip
The Satanic verses by Salman Rushdie
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Sharing Knife Vol 1- Beguilement by Lois McmAster Bujold
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel
The Stand by Stephen King
The Story of O by Pauline Reage
The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion *
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett
Watership Down by Richard Adams
We the Living by Ayn Rand
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut *
What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein *
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
Women by Charles Bukowski *
World War Z by Max Brooks
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
My intention is to read them all. (* I have already read.)
Can you fucking believe that 5 months of 2010 have come and gone? I am serious, this has been one of the fastest years to fly by. Working out has definitely taken a back seat to life this year, but all in all it’s been quite a ride.
If only life was this simple
This beard is beastly.
Lately I’ve been on a soccer kick, not sure what it’s all about, but I’ve been jonzing for some golaso, and nothing is feeding my hunger. I’ve watched everything I can on youtube or the interweb, I’ve found new soccer websites, and renewed my interests in old ones. I just cannot get enough, I really wish I’d pursued it more in my youth. Though I did play for 8 years, I think not playing in my high school years may have been a mistake. I just wish my footwork was better, I watch in awe and really admire those who dedicate their lives to this sport, it’s a beautiful thing.
