Another roadside attraction
What if the Second Coming didn't quite come off as advertised? What if "the Corpse" on display in that funky roadside zoo is really who they say it is--what does that portend for the future western civilization? And what if a young clairvoyant named Amanda reestablishes the flea circus as popular entertainment and fertility worship as the principal religious form of our high-tech age? Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more. It tell us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. In the process, this stunningly original seriocomic thriller is fully capable of simultaneously eating a literary hot dog and eroding the borders of the mind.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
5mentions
4people
2010–2024years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig)
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (Hofstadter)
- Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (Penrose)
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Suzuki)
- Demian (Hesse)
- The Stranger (Camus)
- Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
- Another Roadside Attraction (Robbins)
I have read many books that have had an impact on me for a time, but these are the books that have had an enduring impact going on now for decades.
And yes, one of these books, Another Roadside Attraction, is unlike the others. You can substitute any Tom Robbins book, or read them all!, but this is the book that started it all for me. Tom Robbins' books taught me to not take life so seriously.
Demian and The Stranger may be fiction, but let's just say their purpose is to get across a philosophical point.
Finally, with regards to Slaughterhouse-Five, you'll just have to read it.
Enjoy!
- 1984 - George Orwell
Was obsessed with this book while in high school. Don't think I've given it another look for the past 30 years.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Fantastic book on the limits of computation.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
A very reflective autobiography told as part of a hero's journey into their own madness and how they overcame.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki
Love this simple approach to Zen
Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins
Kicked off my love of Tom Robbins' books! I don't read much fiction, but Robbins is sublime and this is the book that started it all. If you're not familiar with Tom Robbins then you need to fix that!
- Some that come to mind:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Loathing-Las-Vegas-American/dp/0...
Under the Volcano https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/05/100-best-novel...
All the kinds horses https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/all-kings-horses
The Sorrows of Young Werther https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther
The Catcher in the Rye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye
The Outsider https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Colin-Wilson/dp/0874772060
Meetings With Remarkable Men https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3064956-meetings-with-re...
On the road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road
Fight Club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club
Naked Lunch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch
Ham on Rye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_on_Rye
Jonathan Livingston Seagull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull
Another Roadside Attraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Roadside_Attraction
- On one of my trips, I bought a number of copies of a few books and left them in random places as I drove, more or less randomly, around the country.
I put an email address in each one, along with a quick note. I got exactly one response.
I left copies of:
Ishmael; Another Roadside Attraction; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence; Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Battle Cry
(the formatting kinda sucks)
A dozen copies of each, except Ishmael which I bought the half dozen I found at a bookstore along the way and added those to my random seeding of books.
I hope they were placed in the right places and at the right times, but I only got one reply so maybe not.
- I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged, which I thought was a fantastic book. I'm reading Another Roadside Attraction now on the recommendation of a friend, but I think I want to read some non-fiction next, or at least eye-opening fiction. I'm thinking about some Bertrand Russel, Richard Feynman, or books on philosophy, human behavior, or economics.
What are some good books that you've read that are ground breaking, thought provoking, or changed the way you think/look at things?
ps: you can check out my shelf at shelfari.com/herms
