Ah, summer… the perfect time to relax in the shade with a good book. What have you been reading? I recently finished (and loved) The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Marilyn Manson’s autobiography with Neil Strauss. Let’s just say that if you think the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days is a riot, then you’ll find Manson’s book hilarious and compelling.

For kicks, I used a random number generator to come up with three numbers (between 1 and 269). I then flipped to the appropriate page in The Long Hard Road Out of Hell and jotted down the funniest passages.

† PAGE 94: “In an attempt to reiterate the lesson of Willy Wonka in my own style during other shows, I hung a donkey piñata over the crowd and […] would warn, “Please, don’t break this open. I beg you not to.” Human psychology being what it is, kids in the crowd would invariably grab the stick and smash the piñata apart, forcing everyone to suffer the consequence, qhich in this case was a shower of cow brains, chicken livers and pig intestines from a disembowelled donkey.”

† PAGE 193: “As if having eaten the fruit of knowledge, I realized I had to cover my nakedness. So I took the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels and duct-taped it around my dick. In an attempt to turn it into a crude jockstrap, I drunkenly tore the television out of the wall and wrapped the cable around my waist like a belt.”

† PAGE 121: “So we had to content ourselves with side projects like Satan on Fire, a fake Christian death metal act with songs like “Mosh for Jesus.” Our goal was to infiltrate a the Christian community (a fantasy I still harbour) but the local Christian club would never book us.”

I leave you with an inspirational quote from page 154: “What nobody understood then is this: The only way that you achieve what you want and fulfill your dreams and become great is by demanding that sort of attention. You have to make it happen.”

Have you read Manson’s autobiography? Can you recommend any other good reads? (I recently enjoyed Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.)

The Marilyn Manson giveaway contest closes on Tuesday, so get your three-word descriptions in fast… you can comment here or send a Tweet with #mmansonin3words. More details in this post. I’ve been listening to Manson’s new CD The High End Of Low and it’s growing on me. And I absolutely love his remix with Lady Gaga, which is our…