Ben's Friend Comments

i was going to email you about how excited i was about tales of the marvellous and news of the strange but i see you have already discovered its existence. still, i will probably email you again sometime. :)

Thanks, Ben! Trashy is the new classy ;)

Thanks for accepting my friend request, Ben.

Hurrah! Click the tiny white arrow in the tiny red box to hear Ben reading the duck/rock love story on NPR...

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio...

Ben Loory, I was going to tell you to check out the book I just reviewed (Strange Mysteries of Time and Space), but then I saw a review online that called it "wasteful of words" and "tedious." Now I'm second-guessing myself. If I liked the book, does that mean I'm wasteful of words and tedious, too? PROBABLY. Sigh.

i sent you an invitation to the group "readers advisory for all" -- the group karen runs that i mentioned, only the text was to patty, so it might have been confusing. yet, the recommendation still applies. :)

Letter! I like your retro attitude.

Ah, they didn't show up in my comparison. Your opinion is morally reprehensible, but I will have to accept it. How can you live with yourself?

And who else has read Flann O'Brien and Fernando Pessoa!

My only quibble is that you haven't read At-Swim-Two Birds and The Third Policeman.

Hi Ben! Thanks for adding me to your stable of friends. :)

Hi, thank you for the add ^^ Nice meeting you here!

So curious about your book "Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day". I wonder if I can found it here in Indonesia :(

Many thanks, Ben!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Best,
Fran

That is an excellent quote you added, especially for me as someone who can't seem to remember any more.

here's a link... http://brautigan.cybernetic-meadows.n...

i'm reading Magnetic Field right now. if he doesn't screw things up i'll be highly recommending it to you. i also think his other novel, Where All the Ladders Start A Novel, is a brilliant title.

impulse buying. it is a good thing. it contains the word 'pulse' which is also a good thing... to have.

Brian wrote: "sorry to ruin the letters for you. next time i'll lie."

that's really all i can ask from anyone.

sorry to ruin the letters for you. next time i'll lie.

Brian wrote: "i struggle with it. it's similar to pluto-speak. and i gotsa little blue dictionary! it means something like "My children will grow up in this world. Should I not help prepare the world to grow up with him? "

damn, now it's not one of my favorite quotes anymore! i thought it was a description of some kind of food.

"Anak-anak saya kelak akan tumbuh di lingkungan tertentu. Bukankah seharusnya saya juga ambil bagian dalam mempersiapkan lingkungan yang akan tumbuh bersamanya?" — Helvy Tiana Rosa

i struggle with it. it's similar to pluto-speak. and i gotsa little blue dictionary! it means something like "My children will grow up in this world. Should I not help prepare the world to grow up with him?

Brian wrote: "holy crap ben... you reading indonesian?"

is that what that is? i just thought it looked funny. can you read it?

Adrian wrote: "I hadn't thought of Abner Dean for years, until you listed that volume."

i read an abner dean book one night at a friend's house and then spent ten years trying to remember the name of the cartoonist so i could find my own copy. finally, after ten years of frustration and failure, i asked my friend. sometimes i amaze even myself.

holy crap ben... you reading indonesian?

Adrian wrote: "Using my awesome Librarian powers, I added a cover for the Abner Dean book.

dammit, i wrote this whole reply and then i accidentally deleted it. thank you for the cover, it looks great. i don't know if you've ever seen any abner dean? but if not, i'd be happy to send you one. i'm always looking for a chance to make people read abner dean. he's the best thing in the world. pretty much.

Jcamilo wrote: "ok, i do not mind anyways if anyone read this, but my msn is lgo@brfree.com.br or horseless headman,quite amazing, I do not think I remember this..."

wait, what don't you remember? what's amazing?

i don't have the msn... only aim...

ok, i do not mind anyways if anyone read this, but my msn is lgo@brfree.com.br or horseless headman,quite amazing, I do not think I remember this...

one of my 1-in-every-10 categories is "funny." so i have been doing some research. i never really set out to read funny before. i mean, if it turned up, that was great, but it was always by accident. but now it's personal! i have 4 or 5 sitting here ready to go. but that augustus carp one is out of print and hard to find, except on the internet, where it is available and free. (i forwarded it to you because you're the only person i know who reads electronically. but i might give it a try on this one.)

the twin sisters of ezekiel stool is another great illustration.

great illustrations in that book. i like the 'myself at the age of twenty one' illustration. does this book fit into one of you categories for this year? i may have to copy it into my phone as a meeting-reading-book. thanks for the link.

well, the speaking is still a part of it... it's just that more books have a chance to speak... it's kind of like dividing the school up into different grades... i don't know what i'm talking about...

btw, this is supposed to be one of the funniest books ever written:

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/carp/...

i'm starting to like this system of reading books you've developed. i may have to think about adopting a similar system for next year. it's getting tiresome choosing books by the ouija system... i grab about 4 books i want to read and see which one 'speaks' to me. books sometimes lie... or speak out of turn. and the really good ones keep quiet in the corner.