We want to thank everyone who came out for our 1st anniversary discussion on Tuesday! Meno’s punk rock novel was well received by practically everyone in the group and I felt so very not punk rock each time I “reigned in” the enthusiastic mini discussions that cropped up all evening to address the entire group with a question.We are always so happy when the group becomes animated for hours over our selection and clearly Meno’s book inspired a lively discussion, making for the perfect end to our Chicago series and a year’s worth of reading and discussing!

We also would like to thank Michelle and Vinnie at Bleeding Heart Bakery for being so overly accomodating in making our delectable chocolate raspberry anniversary cake.It was beautiful and many genre Xer’s took an extra slice for the road - authentic viagra online.Thanks to Miss Jennifer too, for sharing some of her always delicious coconut cupcakes, which disappeared before anyone could go back for seconds! And, as always, thanks to Molly Malone’s for offering us the perfect venue for our discussions; authentic viagra online.

Since our next genre X selection, Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson focuses pretty heavily on the cultural value of video games you can expect a lot of gaming postings from me this month.  I’m an unabashed cheerleader for gaming, and I love my Nintendo Wii and DS. 

A recent study combining stats from the most recent Pew Gaming Study with another study from ComScore relayed some interesting new data on the relationship today’s girls have to gaming.  Among the findings:

43 million girls are gaming as of August 2008

Girls are playing a wide variety of game genres, with racing, puzzle, and rhythm games being among the most popular. 

94% of teen girls play electronic games regularly

40 percent of gamers are women

Here’s more from youth media blog YPulse:

While these studies zero in on computer and online gaming, girls have been embracing game consoles in a big way, too; best online pharmacy cialis.Half of the Nintendo DS users are female best online pharmacy cialis, largely due to the selection of entertainment, pop culture, and fashion-focused games, and it’s becoming more and more acceptable for girls to show interest in games.

Nintendo plans to continue courting women, and their latest partnership with Bags To Riches, a luxury handbag “rental” company is looking to a neglected consumer as far as gaming goes - the middle-class mother.When women log on to the site to select designer purses from names like Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton, to carry for the next month, they can also choose a Nintendo game to try out for the next 30 days.

I love fashion, and while my feelings about video games are rather neutral, that could be because I’ve never received a game console on loan with any online shopping purchase.Who knows - if I received a shiny new Nintendo with my next shoe investment, maybe I would jump on the girl gaming bandwagon; best online pharmacy cialis.Even if that did happen, I’m not quite sure a game console could ever be considered the next “must-have accessory.”

So ladies (and fellers) do you have a favorite game?

We’re taking a break from novels in October to read Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You, a nonfiction selection that aims to prove that we’re all becoming smarter by watching TV and playing video games.

Here’s a review from Amazon:

In his fourth book, Everything Bad Is Good for You, iconoclastic science writer Steven Johnson (who used himself as a test subject for the latest neurological technology in his last book, Mind Wide Open) takes on one of the most widely held preconceptions of the postmodern world–the belief that video games, television shows, and other forms of popular entertainment are detrimental to Americans’ cognitive and moral development; best online viagra scams.Everything Good builds a case to the contrary that is engaging, thorough, and ultimately convincing - best online viagra scams.

The heart of Johnson’s argument is something called the Sleeper Curve–a universe of popular entertainment that trends, intellectually speaking, ever upward, so that today’s pop-culture consumer has to do more “cognitive work”–making snap decisions and coming up with long-term strategies in role-playing video games, for example, or mastering new virtual environments on the Internet– than ever before.Johnson makes a compelling case that even today’s least nutritional TV junk food–the Joe Millionaires and Survivors so commonly derided as evidence of America’s cultural decline–is more complex and stimulating, in terms of plot complexity and the amount of external information viewers need to understand them, than the Love Boats and I Love Lucys that preceded it; best online viagra scams.When it comes to television, even (perhaps especially) crappy television, Johnson argues, “the content is less interesting than the cognitive work the show elicits from your mind.”
Johnson’s work has been controversial, as befits a writer willing to challenge wisdom so conventional it has ossified into accepted truth - best online viagra scams.But even the most skeptical readers should be captivated by the intriguing questions Johnson raises best online viagra scams, whether or not they choose to accept his answers.–Erica C.Barnett

To check out a copy of the book come to the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Fiction and Audiovisual Services Desk with your OPPL library card; best online viagra scams.Whether or not you agree with Johnson’s argument best online viagra scams, we hope to see you at 8 pm on Tuesday, October 28 at Molly Malone’s (The Snug) in Forest Park.I’m sure it will be an interesting discussion!; best online viagra scams

photo via tamelyn

You may know that we are having a discussion of Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno tomorrow at Molly Malone’s in Forest Park at 8:00 pm.  But did you know its our birthday?

One year ago we had our first genre X discussion of Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs at Bar Louie in Oak Park.We had seven 20s and 30s together to discuss the merits of pop culture scholarship and the real significance of Saved By the Bell in popular culture.  Since then our group has grown exponentially, we’ve made new friends, and we’ve found a great new place to hold out discussions in The Snug.  Thanks so much for making this last year such a great one for bibliophiles in OP.

So in honor of of turning one year old, we’re looking forward to a very special discussion this Tuesday, September 23rd at 8pm.  I can’t say a lot, but be aware that there will be very special baked goods if you can make it out.  Trust me, you don’t want to miss this celebration - brand viagra online.

Bug viagra online: all of us here at genre X love to pay attention to lists. Bug viagra online: i’m downright obsessed with them at times - especially when it comes to deciding what important works of literature I must cram in time to read before I die. This list of 10 Books Not to Read Before You Die by the TimesOnline is a refreshing change of pace. Take a look at their (potentially controversial) list of classic books not to bother with:

10: Ulysses – James Joyce

9: Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien

8: For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

7: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu – Marcel Proust

6: The Dice Man – Luke Reinhart

5: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson

4: The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolff

3: War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

2: The Iliad — Homer

And ……..

1: Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (those are fighting words…)

What do you think of this? Any that you’re brave enough to add yourself? Mine are in the comments.

Buy levitra viagra cialis cheap: many thanks to everybody who came out to last week’s discussion of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, and especially to author Stephanie Kuehnert for joining us.  We had a fabulous time reading Stephanie’s first novel and loved the chance to meet her and pick her brain.  Stephanie gave us so much insight into her experiences as a newly published author, including some “behind the scenes” tidbits about working with her editor and publisher, shopping the book, agreeing on a title, and seeing the book’s cover for the first time. 

As an avid blogger, Stephanie has also had the opportunity to share intimate details of her writing and publishing experience with her readers on her blog, Life, Words & Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Here you can learn more about her book tour throught the West Coast (she stopped in sunny California, as pictured above) and check out her new weekly feature, Women Who Rock Wednesdays.  You can also skip over to her website which covers all things IWBYJR, including the soundtrack she compiled to accompany the book - yes, we love the media tie-ins.

For anyone who wasn’t able to make it to our discussion, or just can’t get enough, head to the Oak Park Public Library at 7pm on Thursday, September 18 where Stephanie will reading from her book and signing copies, for sale courtesy of Barbara’s Bookstore.

Well Gen X and Gen Y that fateful day is finally upon us. 90210 is back again and the hype machine is in full, delirious swing - buy cialis online with a prescription. I have to admit that I’m caught up in all the trashy/nostalgic buzz and I’ll be DVRing tonight’s premiere on the CW in earnest.

Does it matter that I’m 28 years old buy cialis online with a prescription, a full decade older than the teen cast? Apparently not since modern media declared twentysomethings are the last generation still watching television. I’m also a big fan of the CW’s Gossip Girl buy cialis online with a prescription, which had its premiere last night to respectable ratings - especially in that important 18 to 34 demo. Buy cialis online with a prescription: mix that up with that news with return of the old class Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth, the involvement of Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, and the return of the unsinkable Lucille Bluth, and you’ve got me hunkering down for at least a few episodes.

It seems I’m not the only one desperate to be in on the fun. The New York Times recently did a piece on the importance of 90210 to today’s landscape, interviewing most of the original 90210’s key players - buy cialis online with a prescription. And of course a major appeal of either CW soap is the focus on fashion - buy cialis online with a prescription. I suppose it remains to be seen whether or not we’ll find Serena and Blair’s looks of today as embarrassing as the photo of the original cast in 2026 (Donna’s curtainy minidress! That striped tee and high tops! And poor, poor Andrea Zuckerman).

The CW chose not to screen this for critics, hoping to up the hype to fever pitch - buy cialis online with a prescription. Guess we’ll all find out tonight if its worth another trip to the Peach Pit.

I can hardly believe that genre X is one year old this month! Help us celebrate our anniversary by reading this month’s selection, Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno - buy cialis online without a prescription. Hairstyles is the last book in our Chicago series, and we think you’ll find a lot to recognize in this coming of age tale about growing up punk on Chicago’s south side.

Here’s a review from Publisher’s Weekly:

From Publishers Weekly
Meno (How the Hula Girl Sings) gives his proverbial coming-of-age tale a punk-rock edge, as 17-year-old Chicagoan Brian Oswald tries to land his first girlfriend and make it through high school; buy cialis online without a prescription.Brian loves video games, metal music and his best friend, Gretchen, an overweight, foul-mouthed, pink-haired badass famous for beating up other girls; buy cialis online without a prescription.Gretchen, meanwhile, loves the Ramones and the Clash and 26-year-old “white power thug” Tony Degan.Gretchen keeps Brian at bay even as their friendship starts to bloom into a romance, forcing him to find comfort with the fetching but slatternly Dorie - buy cialis online without a prescription.Typical adolescent drama reigns: Brian’s parents are having marital problems, he needs money to buy wheels (”I needed a van because, like Mike always said, guys with vans always got the most trim, after the guys who could grow mustaches”), he experiments with sex and vandalism; buy cialis online without a prescription.Meno ably explores Brian’s emotional uncertainty and his poignant youthful search for meaning buy cialis online without a prescription, both in music and in his on-again, off-again situation with Gretchen; his gabby, heartfelt and utterly believable take on adolescence strikes a winning chord.Meno also deals honestly with teenage violence—though Gretchen’s fights have a certain slapstick quality, Brian’s occasional bouts of anger and destruction seem very real. Buy cialis online without a prescription: he’s a sympathetic narrator and a prime example of awkward adolescence, even if he doesn’t have much of a plot crafted around him.

To check out a copy of the book come to the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Fiction and Audiovisual Desk with your OPPL library card. Buy cialis online without a prescription: please join us for next discussion (and One Year Anniversary celebration!) on Tuesday, September 23rd at 8 pm at Molly Malone’s (the Snug) in Forest Park.