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in loose order of preference:
1) Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars
2) Young Adult Novel
3) The Snarkout Boys & The Avocado of Death
4) The Snarkout Boys & The Baconburg Horror
5) The Magic Moscow
6) Fat Men From Space
7) Slaves of Spiegel
8) Lizard Music
9) Wingman
10) The Afterlife Diet
1) Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars
2) Young Adult Novel
3) The Snarkout Boys & The Avocado of Death
4) The Snarkout Boys & The Baconburg Horror
5) The Magic Moscow
6) Fat Men From Space
7) Slaves of Spiegel
8) Lizard Music
9) Wingman
10) The Afterlife Diet
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SF Bay Area
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Tue, January 27, 2004 - 9:44 AMI'd put it at:
1)Alan Mendelsohn, TBFM
2) The Snarkout Boys 1
3) Snarkout Boys 2
4) Lizard Music
5) Last Guru
6) Education of Robert Nifkin
7) Fish Whistle? I don't know...they're all pretty good...maybe one of the Werewolf Club books? I loved the first one. -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Tue, January 27, 2004 - 3:29 PMooh, never seen 'Robert Nifkin' or 'Last Guru'... have to find those... -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Thu, January 29, 2004 - 6:35 AMThe last guru is excellent -- and set in Rochester, NY, where I was trapped for a couple of years, so I've got a particular fondness for the book.
Nifkin is good, but if you've read Snarkout Boys and Fish Whistle a lot of it will seem a bit familiar. Definitely good to read, but has alwasy struck me as more like an alternate implementation of the elements that he's worked with in other books than a completely new book...whatever that means... :) -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Thu, January 29, 2004 - 9:06 AMoh, this is great!
google ads is trying to sell us "Avocado Oil" !!!!!!
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I first read "Last Guru" in its entierity standing in a Waterloo, IA bookstore (would have been in the Crossroads Mall; B. Dalton, maybe? I also bought my first book bought with my money [follow that] there; Heinlein's "The Past Through Tomorrow").
Anyway, I was never able to secure a copy of said DMP book after that; I'd ordered from antiquarians, etc, but it never seemed to appear. I did find a copy in the Northboro, MA public library and read it while visiting my Aunt. On another trip up to Massachusetts, my parents & I stopped at "Travellers Books & Food"--a restaurant, with a used bookstore in the basement, that gives a free book to each customer (3 on wednesdays!). And lo! That time they had another library's WITHDRAWN copy of Last Guru. Yes!
I particularly enjoy the (gentle?) mockery of Alan Ginsberg (aka poet "Harlan Flensburg"). -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Thu, January 29, 2004 - 9:40 AMoh good... looks like it's *another* pinkwater quest for me.... ;)
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Fri, February 6, 2004 - 9:48 AMYes, Last Guru is classic...I agree that there is definite crossover in Robert Nifkin, too. A few of his young adult books have overlap in it which I seem to recall reading is sort of based on Pinkwater's real life. -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Sat, February 7, 2004 - 4:38 PMoh, and-- how could I have forgotten?!-- add 'The Worms of Kukumlima' to my original list-- tied for somewhere in the top 5.
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Sat, February 14, 2004 - 11:12 PMThe last guru is at the top of my list. I learned a lot of moral and life lessons from that book. The last guru was, to me, about a zen acceptance and love of others. The other characters frquently seemed driven to do, well, very weird and inexplicable things having to do with money and advertising and producing goods for constant frenzied consumption. I got a message from it that its useful to step outside that world ( of capitalism, of organised religion ) and look at it objectively, notice that its kind of a madness, and still love the people involved...you aren't better than those people, so you give them hats, perhaps...try to wake them up by just being awake yourself?
I dont think I've read Robert Nifkin! Now I must hunt it down. -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Wed, March 17, 2004 - 10:41 PM1) Young Adult Novel and its longer version Young Adults
2) The Worms of Kukumlima
3) Java Jack
4) Uncle Boris in the Yukon and other Shaggy Dog Stories
5) Alan Mendelson
6) Fish Whistle/Chicago Days
7) The Education of Robert Nifkin
8) Uncle Melvin
9) Author's Day
10) the part in Borgel about the pet rocks.
...something like that. Although I agree there is a lot of crossover in Robert Nikfin from Fishwhistle and some other stories, I am again and again excited by the gothy-euro smoking girl who french kisses Nifkin as well as the Nordic (or was it Icelandic?) epic poetry and the alternative school. And it has the bestest opening line of any kids book ever: "My father was a son of a bitch from eastern europe..."
I don't have the book in front of me, so that might not be exactly right, but it's close.
Jackie Jack, I tried to lend you Nifkin. I left it for you at your house for days and days, probably two years ago. So I heartily agree that you must hunt it down and read it.
Some of my favorite Pinkwater reading are the archives of his email replies on pinkwater.com--not to be missed! -
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Re: favorite pinkwater
Thu, March 18, 2004 - 9:45 AM>> [...] the Nordic (or was it Icelandic?)
>> epic poetry[...]
Icelandic, all the way -- Njal's Saga is a good place to start. (One translation at sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Njal/)
I particularly love it because we're talking about a 13th century epic poem that's largely concerned with lawyers and business transactions... :)
From the translation linked above:
"There was a man whose name was Njal. He was the son of Thorgeir Gelling, the son of Thorolf. Njal's mother's name was Asgerda. Njal dwelt at Bergthorsknoll in the land-isles; he had another homestead on Thorolfsfell. Njal was wealthy in goods, and handsome of face; no beard grew on his chin. He was so great a lawyer, that his match was not to be found."
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