What's better than a good book?

[jchrisobrien]

A FREE good book.

On my walk to work this morning, I passed an old Chinese man poking thorugh a pile of books someone left on a street corner.  Among these books were Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, and the Killer Angels by Michael Shara (a civil war novel which heavily influenced Joss Whedon's thoughts for Firefly). 

I now have some new reading material.

Comments

speaking of books...

[lulus-curse.livejournal.com]

I'm out of zombies, vampires and shapeshifters, again.

Re: speaking of books...

[silas7.livejournal.com]

I'll hook you up on Saturday with the next two.

Re: speaking of books...

[lulus-curse.livejournal.com]

Yeah! You make the awesome.

Now if I can just remember to return the two that I have...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_asenath_/]

I've never read Killer Angels but have sentimental memory linked to it. It was one of the books my mom read when she went through a several-year-long nigh obsession with the Civil War. (all family trips we took except our beach vacation were related to the Civil War for those years.)

[silas7.livejournal.com]

I used to live about 40 minutes away from Gettysburg. I hung out with some kids there, it was like living in The River's Edge: very punk, very depressing.

[lindau-nemesis.livejournal.com]

Its hard for me to reconcile gettysburg with punk, because the battlefield itself is, well, a giant field... its making me picture extra-spikey grass, maybe at extreme angles or something, possibly bound into fasces with spike collars.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

It's the whole atmosphere of the kids in the town: hanging out at drug stores, getting stoned in basements listening to Ministry and Dead Kennedys, people with no prospects watching their lives vanish away. It could have been in any town, but having it set in Gettysburg always brings up those memories.

[sinspired.livejournal.com]

I'd heard Joss read it before working on Firefly, so, after a trip to Gettysburg with Mom and my Aunt Marilee last year, I grabbed it and a book explaining it's historical inaccuracies. :)

I enjoyed it. It's a nice fictionalization.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

Historical inaccuracies in a fiction novel? You don't say :)

[lindau-nemesis.livejournal.com]

There is a library at MIT giving way free books. I made off with like 20 books on arcane parts of science history. It was pretty cool.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

Sweet! I'm reading a book now analyzing movies from the 50's and the political statements they were making. It's very interesting, but I could use a nice break inbetween chapters. Civil War fiction and Scottish shenangians should make for a nice break!

[the-storyso-far.livejournal.com]

lucky! i'd love to randomly find books someone just left on the road lol

[silas7.livejournal.com]

It was a nice treat, believe me. I've started Trainspotting already. It's a bit challenging to read, but if you say the words out loud, they make more sense (it's written with a Scottish accent).