Ah. I'm impressed and I hope that doesn't sound patronizing. Eco is actually my favourite author after I outgrew Ludlum. Being Italian earned him points with me. Queerly, I think he's a poor writer. He has a lotta fascinating esoteric/historical stuff to write but his stories are so convoluted. Damn! But like BTNH songs, it gives me more stuff to unravel.

Foucault's Pendulum was mainly a clever categorising of charlatan, dilettante, adept and master in the esoteric arts and ancient alchemy. The lines between them are often blurry. I think he's a believer in some crazy ish

Ancient Japan is extremely fascinating. The Japan of the last few centuries is frankly deplorable in terms of culture. No scintilla of the code of honor of the samurai as they employ base ninja tactics. Though I hear of stuff that has to do with moral relativity but I'm not sure I wanna be disillusioned jare.

Mad_Max:

Lol. Let me have the Stephen King titles you want. Koontz I have only in hard copy.

- Four Past Midnight
- Needful things
- Salem's Lot
- Lisey's Story
- Black House
- The Dead Zone
- The Dark Half
- Bachman series (Rage, Blaze, etc)

Thanks! <dgentleguy (at) yahoo (dot) com>

vescucci:

Haddon's book was really quite good. I'm a sucker for any book with cute illustrations. Dunno if I coulda finished Stephen King's IT without em. I even read The Da Vinci Code again a mere 2 months later because my brother got me an illustrated edition.

Do you read Umberto Eco MyJoe? Have you read Shogun? There's this Ishiguro fellow I hear about. Anyone know if he's any good? Well, that good?

No. I just did a search on Umberto Eco and it seems I should have been reading him since I learnt how to read! How come nobody ever told me works like that existed? Thanks.

Lol. Thank Serendipity. His two best works are quite old and he writes in Italian. Plus perhaps only Thomas Harris writes as infrequently as he does. All these are probably why he's so obscure. I've not read any of his non-fiction though and I can't lay my hands on them.

I see. I will find these two: Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of The Rose asap. If you do Amazon you will find his non-fics there, as well.

Unfortunately I cannot do amazon or anything of the sort. No sweat, the longer the wait, the sweeter the juice, yes?

Right. I'm familiar with waiting some at this end, too.

Mad_Max:

Thank you. I got them.

Some of King titles you requested weren't available in digital. Here's what's available:
Thinner, Running Man, Cujo, The Long Walk, The Green Mile, Christie, The Dead Zone, The Dark Tower books, Skeleton Crew,Pet Sematary, Night Shift, Misery, Just after Sunset, Gerald's Game, Firestarter, Different Seasons, Salem's Lot, Carrie and The Stand.

Aiight.