Look. I love Chuck, okay? I'm not a member of the Cult or anything, but I have not yet read a book of his I didn't like. Fight Club blew my mind—enough so that I based BookBlog's rules on it, oh, so many years ago—and chose Invisible Monsters as our inaugural book. Also, I keep hoping Hollywood will get it together and finally move on turning Survivor into a movie.

Palahniuk is currently on tour for his new novel, Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey. I've been debating with myself over whether or not to attempt attending his appearance with Irvine Welsh tomorrow night:

7:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Union Square
33 East 17th Street
New York, NY 10003

I have finally decided to stay home because it's likely to be a madhouse. Plus, I hate going into the city. He won't be signing books anyway, and making the super long trip without the reward of a meet & greet isn't inspiring. It's a shame New Jersey got shafted, especially since he'd probably find a lot of material for another book; we do self-loathing yet narcissistic nihilism very well here. If you're interested in finding out if Palahniuk will be near you soon, the dates for the rest of the tour are posted here.

Rather, I have contented myself with listening to a podcast interview from the Agony Column (via Return of the Reluctant). My favorite bit begins at 12:43:

Kleffel: And you also enjoy the mimetic qualities of Twain, too. You employ that. That's the basis of the book.

Palahniuk: I'm not even sure what you said.

Fight Club wasn't my first Palahniuk novel since I had already read Survivor. However, I did read it after having first seen the movie. Although I had an idea of what to expect of his writing style, I was struck by how similar both were since lines from the novel were lifted word for word for the movie. At the same time, I also felt like they both were incredibly different experiences since it was one thing to read Palahniuk but something totally different to watch him.

So my question to get the ball rolling here is: if you've seen the movie and read the novel, were you struck by anything in particular?

Before we get into tomorrow's discussion of Fight Club (which probably won't begin until late in the evening since I have a class after work), I wanted to post about a few things I've been neglecting recently.

Next month's discussion will be on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Maya, a member-in-training, volunteered to host. Since I've been so incommunicado recently, I still haven't set her up with a login. I e-mailed her to make sure she still wants to join and moderate the discussion, but I haven't heard back yet. If she decides not to join, I'll jump in and post the conversation starter.

If you've e-mailed me recently about joining and I haven't responded, please feel free to send another message. I've been purging my inbox like crazy and may have lost some e-mails.

We have moderators set up now for the next several months (Yay!), but no titles. I'm itching for a book shopping trip, so please let me know as soon as decisions are made. I'm curious to find out what's going to be on the list.

A new kind of spam has begun showing up: advertising for other literary sites. I generally delete crap comments as soon as I find them, but book blogs don't bother me as much since I'm interested in what else is out there. However, as soon as the stuff starts to sound spammy, it's gone.