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Just read Junky by William S. Burroughs... It was a good short read that I also found pretty interesting; I mean you don't really see many books about heroin addicts in the 40's. My previous experience with Burroughs was trying to get through Naked Lunch which I found to be not a very leisurely read. I have tried and put that book down twice; I plan on reading the whole thing eventually...
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Jul 20, 2010 06:18
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KevinHeaven posted:Just read Junky by William S. Burroughs... It was a good short read that I also found pretty interesting; I mean you don't really see many books about heroin addicts in the 40's. My previous experience with Burroughs was trying to get through Naked Lunch which I found to be not a very leisurely read. I have tried and put that book down twice; I plan on reading the whole thing eventually... I actually just finished Naked Lunch. The first half was hard to get through (especially the endless descriptions of ejaculations at one point), but the second part was more enjoyable and even made the beginning make more sense. In the end it was worth the read. I also just finished The Body Artist and Point Omega by Don DeLillo. Both short, simple stories with similar themes (mainly humans' perception of time). The former was very interesting, the latter left me feeling like I missed the point.
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Jul 20, 2010 16:52
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Just finished Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I quite enjoyed it but wasn't concentrating most of the time so kept getting confused by how it flits between characters all the time. Going to stick with the series though.
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Jul 20, 2010 18:16
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I just finished Neuromancer. It was loving awesome, but I had some trouble following it. Did this happen to anyone else? I think I'll reread it in a few months to clear it all up, but it was pretty sweet, regardless.
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Jul 20, 2010 21:03
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OregonDonor posted:I just finished Neuromancer. It was loving awesome, but I had some trouble following it. Did this happen to anyone else? Yep. Took me all the way through Mona Lisa Overdrive before I finally "got" it.
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Jul 21, 2010 00:31
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Neuromancer was pretty difficult to follow for me too. I just read The Fortress of Solitude by Mr. Lethem which was pretty good if a bit caffeinated and have already begun The Trial after which is probably Witz or Blindness depending.
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Jul 21, 2010 19:01
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S42 posted:I just read The Fortress of Solitude by Mr. Lethem which was pretty good if a bit caffeinated
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Jul 21, 2010 19:30
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So I checked JPod out from the library based purely on the fact that it had Lego people on its cover and, what the hell? The characters are flat and boring, the plot flails wildly with no clear sense of direction, and then the author writes himself into the book as some bizarre technological deus ex machina. Several of the pages of the novel are filled with the first 100,000 digits of Pi. Now I'm a nerd and I like Pi but this is just a gigantic waste of space. Has anyone else read this? Is there something I'm missing? I think if I met Douglas Copeland on the street I would be sorely tempted to sock him because this book was just awful.
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Jul 21, 2010 20:50
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Sherbet posted:So I checked JPod out from the library based purely on the fact that it had Lego people on its cover and, what the hell? The characters are flat and boring, the plot flails wildly with no clear sense of direction, and then the author writes himself into the book as some bizarre technological deus ex machina. Several of the pages of the novel are filled with the first 100,000 digits of Pi. Now I'm a nerd and I like Pi but this is just a gigantic waste of space. Has anyone else read this? Is there something I'm missing? I think if I met Douglas Copeland on the street I would be sorely tempted to sock him because this book was just awful. Let's review: you checked out a book solely because it had lego people on the cover, and then were surprised that it was both nerdy and bad.
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Jul 21, 2010 20:53
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Wrojin posted:I'm just in the middle of that. The three authors I've been interested in lately are Lethem, Coetzee, and Ryu Murakami. It's a bit of a gear change shifting between them, but I've enjoyed the variety. I'll be honest I'd never even heard of Coetzee or Murakami. They're going on the list. For content I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro the other day (semi-concurrent with The Fortress of Solitude) and that was a pleasant surprise. I never had much faith in dystopian literature but that one is awesome. It's actually a novel, and not just a nasty concept. Looking at you 1984.
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Jul 21, 2010 20:59
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S42 posted:For content I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro the other day (semi-concurrent with The Fortress of Solitude) and that was a pleasant surprise. I never had much faith in dystopian literature but that one is awesome. It's actually a novel, and not just a nasty concept. Looking at you 1984. I keep waffling on whether or not I want to read Never Let Me Go as a review in I think the Guardian seemed to describe it as being void of real meaning in much the way you just pegged 1984, but I guess it's worth giving a shot.  And in the dystopian vein, I just finished The Hunger Games which, holy poo poo, totally blew away my modest expectations.
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Jul 21, 2010 21:52
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Bohemienne posted:I keep waffling on whether or not I want to read Never Let Me Go as a review in I think the Guardian seemed to describe it as being void of real meaning in much the way you just pegged 1984, but I guess it's worth giving a shot. Well, I'd say there's a lot more emotion and like, actual humanity in Ishiguro's writing than there was in Orwell's. I will say that it's not exactly deep, and some of the characters aren't like, the most three dimensional thing ever, but they're definitely more than ideological positions or any of those classic gently caress ups. Ishiguro's greatest strength is the plotting though so don't spoil it for yourself. I'd definitely say it's worth reading.
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Jul 21, 2010 22:04
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Lord Krangdar posted:I actually just finished Naked Lunch. The first half was hard to get through (especially the endless descriptions of ejaculations at one point), but the second part was more enjoyable and even made the beginning make more sense. In the end it was worth the read. I'm reading it now, just started yesterday. While it's really hard to get through at some points, and I have no idea what's going on, I want to finish. It's very bizarre.
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Jul 22, 2010 00:04
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Just finished Endymion by Dan Simmons. It's the 3rd chapter in the Hyperion Cantos. I was literally floored by the ending in all three of these books and have just picked up the final chapter, The Rise of Endymion. The story, character development, dialog, twists, EVERYTHING is awesome about these books in my opinion. Definitely worth checking out! Neuromancer Guys: I found it pretty hard to follow as well, but have Mona Lisa Overdrive waiting to be read. All in all I really like Gibson's prose and the uniqueness of all of his characters.
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Jul 22, 2010 07:12
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Kirkzor posted:Dan Simmons n poo poo Content: I finished the Trial today. Eh. Ehhh. Overrated. The Cathedral part is pretty cool though, I'll admit that.
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Jul 22, 2010 17:18
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Another Naked Lunch reader here. While it's a bit heavy going at times, what's keeping me going is there isn't a single page without at least one completely harrowing, memorable mental image. It may make no sense but it's drat consistent in that, which I admire.
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Jul 22, 2010 18:30
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S42 posted:Have you read his Ilium and Olympos yet? 'Cause if not you should. Crab robots who are literary scholars and make allusions to the entire Western Canon (and discuss Proust at length), Achilles, Prospero, futuristic inter-dimensional fuckups and string theoretical demon monsters. It's basically completely awesome. Yes I've read both Ilium and Olympos. It's hard for me to decide which series I like more, but I'm leaning slightly towards the Hyperion Cantos. Dan Simmons never ceases to amaze me, though.
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Jul 22, 2010 18:42
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Recently finished Kraken by China Mieville and Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. Both were pretty good, though a little disappointing. Kraken seemed like a more "gritty" version of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere", though I've got to give Mieville points for creativity on some of the creatures and ideas he cooks up. Bright Lights, Big City was a shorter novel about a young, disillusioned, coke-snorting yuppie in New York in the 80s, and it was written entirely in the second person. (Still not sure why.) It was a good read, but not quite as good as the other McInerney book I've read, Brightness Falls. (It's about TWO young, disillusioned, coke-snorting yuppies and their marriage.) There are some obvious comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis, but McInerney manages to be a little more sentimental and a little less vicious.
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Jul 22, 2010 22:29
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Finally finished Colleen McCullough's The First Man in Rome. Christ what a tomb of a book. I'm used to reading big books but never has one taken me so long to get through. I really like how accurate she tries to stick to known history but at times I feel she goes into way too much detail about things that don't really pertain to the main story. I also had assumed that this was about the civil war so was a tad disappointed to find out that those events don't happen until the next book. It was good if you are a history nerd but it is going to be a while before I can make an attempt on the second book.
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Jul 23, 2010 03:16
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Chamberk posted:Recently finished Kraken by China Mieville and Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. Both were pretty good, though a little disappointing. I absolutely loved Bright Lights, Big City, but felt he really had a different tone with Brightness Falls. The pace and everything was different, I couldn't get 1/2 way through.
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Jul 23, 2010 05:31
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Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie - I liked the First Law trilogy well enough so I figured I'd grab this when I saw it at the library. All in all, I enjoyed it. Abercrombie's writing has gotten better and the revenge story is entertaining, with plenty of gore and black humor. Even if Scott Lynch drops the ball with the Gentlemen Bastards series, at least Abercrombie's pretty good so far.
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Jul 23, 2010 05:33
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The Dead Janitors Club - Jeff Klima I thought this would be a humorous book about the various facts about cleaning up dead people at crime scenes. Instead, this is the story of one man, and his need for a job, his whining about not getting to clean up dead people often, and both he and his boss's various felonies he committed while working for him. It was an interesting premise, but ultimately not a good book. I can't really recommend it to anyone, it's just.... imagine Bigpeeler's stories, but meaner and lamer, and you have most of the book there. Throw in a few chapters about how your coworker is a racist, or you thought about cheating on your girlfriend with... well, everyone, and you have the book.
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Jul 23, 2010 20:14
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I finished 2666 by Roberto Bolaņo about a week ago and it still hasn't fully sunk in yet. I loved pretty much all of it with the definite standout being The Part about Archimboldi. The whole thing is so incredibly fascinating and rich, and the storytelling is masterful. I'm sorry I don't really have any deep criticism or analysis, like I said I'm still digesting most of it.
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Jul 24, 2010 22:03
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I have 2666 sitting around here and I reeeeeaaaaaally want to read it. Unfortunately, I'm one of those kindle snobs who gets annoyed when they have to carry around real books now. Trying to break myself of the laziness but goddamn it's so convenient to just carry my kindle around. Anyway, CONTENT, in order from oldest read to newest: The Devil's Alphabet: Having really liked Pandemonium I thought this might be good even though a plot summary didn't immediately grab me, but I wasn't really impressed by this one. It just didn't keep me interested really at all. And the descriptions of drinking hallucinogenic fluid ('the vintage') harvested from blisters from your super fat deformed father who is going crazy actually made me want to vomit through most of the book. I thought the premise was interesting but not much else was. The Monstrumologist: I still don't know whether or not I liked this, so I should end on a note of no. I thought it could've been the first part of a larger and more complicated book, but instead it just sort of ended and left me going "oh... that was.. it?". I thought the author had the potential to come up with a really interesting facet of society and to come up with some pretty awesome creatures but no, it just sorta.. was done. The Dead-Tossed Waves: A follow-up to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, which I thought was really fantastic. Forest had kind of a zombies-meets-The Village kind of feel to it and while I thought it played a little bit too much to "but oh I have a crush on THIS boy and we are going to be together forever and ever", I still thought it was a good, fun read. This one was a great sequel which provided a lot of background to the world and the characters, which I really liked. It also branched the world out a little bit and had some really great crazy zombie cults. I would have been disappointed if it had only been Forest, but the pair of them make me really happy. Perdido Street Station: I had trouble wrapping my brain around this one at first since it was my first foray into Mieville's writing. I felt like I was stepping into an already-established world (I actually had to look around to see if this was a sequel to something) and I found it just a little overwhelming at first, but once I got used to the characters and a plot started to emerge I got used to it really quickly. Once the plot started going I was really hooked. You get a really great place feeling from Mieville's writing and you can tell he's very much in love with cities in general. Kraken: I think this would have probably been a better intro to Mieville, it was a little more on my side of the world. I usually like to err more on the side of fantasy rather than sci-fi and Perdido was more sci-fi that I usually choose. I've heard Kraken described as a gritty version of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and I think that is a pretty accurate description of the feel of the book. I also love squids (who doesn't?). Once again you get the feeling that Mieville just loving loves London and I think it makes you care about the world a lot more. Boneshaker: Steampunk and zombie-infested Seattle, what's not to love? The plot wasn't especially gripping or intricate, but I got the feeling this would make a really great movie and I sorta read it like I was watching one. I really liked the fact that the gas causes the zombies (not spoilering because you know this from the very beginning) instead of a more commonly-used convention like a virus or government testing or something like that. City of Saints and Madmen: This would have been a more fitting follow to Kraken or Perdido, but whatever. This whole book felt like it was like one giant acid trip (which is pretty intentional), and I really loved that the author essentially gets lost in his own world. The Grey Caps, the Silence, the King Squid.. all of it was pretty fascinating. I would've liked if it'd had more of an overarching plot but I wasn't upset that it didn't, if that makes any sense. I would really recommend this if you like richly imagined worlds with a lot of weird detail. Very similar in feel to Mieville's work, but a lot more hallucinogenic. Naamah's Kiss and Naamah's Curse - not a fitting follow to anything but goddamn do I love me some trashy romance stories. I think Jacqueline Carey is a good writer and she spends a lot of time and effort developing her plots (somewhat at the cost of having an original fantasy world, but I don't mind). Shut up, don't judge me. Also anything even vaguely based in Ancient China makes me wet, sooo yeah. I just imagined Bao was a younger Donnie Yen and it pretty much fulfilled every one of my fantasies. Can anyone recommend me other fiction set in Ancient China or other facsimile?
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Jul 25, 2010 06:54
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Lord Krangdar posted:I actually just finished Naked Lunch. The first half was hard to get through (especially the endless descriptions of ejaculations at one point), but the second part was more enjoyable and even made the beginning make more sense. In the end it was worth the read. That was my experience with Naked Lunch as well. I put the book down a few times in the first ~50 pages, but everything from Hassan onwards was a crazy gravy train. My version also has a couple of really neat addendums at the end about drugs and Burroughs.
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Jul 25, 2010 10:36
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Finished Altered Carbon yesterday. Very much enjoyed how real it felt, yeah fine society has come on and on and we've got lots of new tech, but most of it is still about drugs and sex and how to sell these things to the masses for the benefit of the hyper-rich and long-lived few. Didn't really see the accusations of wish-fulfillment myself, and I like how very noir the whole thing felt, I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for a bit of grimy sci-fi fun.
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Jul 25, 2010 14:10
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Richard Stark's Plunder Squad. I've been looking for a copy of this book for many years without luck. Now University of Chicago press is re-issuing the entire series, and I couldn't be happier. Plunder was written in the middle of Stark's glorious hardboiled golden age, and ranks among his best.
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Jul 25, 2010 17:20
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Finished up a copy of Akhet (Sekhmet's Light) by H.L. Reasby based on a friends recommendation. It was pretty good. He apparently knows the writer (the same way we know Payndz), and she let everyone know the book was out. It's sort of... well, Wonder Woman by Egyptian mythology. It's a little jarring sometimes, but I forgive that as it's the first book ever written by her. There aren't a ton of sex scenes, it's not a WOMYN IS POWER LETS ALL HAVE SEX kind of book (thank god), and it has a pretty decent plotline to it. Eh, it's 6 bucks on the kindle. I can't bitch a lot about something that cost me less than a wal mart paperback, and the only real complaint isn't a complaint at all. It's more than likely written FOR girls/women moreso than men, and the main protagonist is a woman, so it's a little more girly than I am used to reading. If you think Wonder Woman meets Egyptian mythology sounds cool, give it a shot!
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Jul 25, 2010 19:27
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'Hardcore Zen' by Brad Warner. To all the free-thinkers, a good read.
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Jul 25, 2010 19:53
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Just finished reading Starship Troopers. I liked it a lot, although it was a pretty simple read, I regret not reading it sooner.
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Jul 26, 2010 03:35
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hello clarice posted:I have 2666 sitting around here and I reeeeeaaaaaally want to read it. Unfortunately, I'm one of those kindle snobs who gets annoyed when they have to carry around real books now. Trying to break myself of the laziness but goddamn it's so convenient to just carry my kindle around. I just wanted to point out that Jeff Vandemeer also has a semi-sequel to City of Saints and Madmen called Shriek: An Afterword, which does have an overall plot but continues the meta-fictional nature of the first book (it's written from two POVs, one being the historical writer from City of Saints and Madmen who wrote the history of the city, and the other being his sister.) There's also a third one called Finch that I haven't read yet that's set in the same world--I don't know if he continues to elaborate on the themes and backstory of the original work, but it'd be cool if he did because that was one of the most interesting things about Shriek. Also, China Mieville has two other books set in the same world of Perdido Street Station, the second of which is called The Scar and is probably his best book so far, though I haven't read Kraken or The City & The City. His book of short stories, Looking for Jake, is also very good--it has everything from horror to satiric dystopia to urban fantasy. If you're still looking for more recent fantasy/sci-fi that's different than the rest, you might check out (if you haven't) Dan Simmon's Hyperion, M. John Harrison (Light for sci-fi, Viriconium for steampunk fantasy--he's Mieville's "author crush," as he himself describes it), perhaps Clive Barker (he invented "dark fantasy," which is fantasy with a horror bend to it; his notable books in that are Imajica, The Great and Secret Show which is book 1 of a trilogy that hasn't been finished, Weaveworld, and for young adult The Thief of Always and Arabat), Guy Gavriel Kay (semi-historical fantasy, Tigana would be a good place to start), and Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy (sort of a "take" on Lord of the Rings and that sort of fantasy, reversing tropes in a response to it, but written in a very fun way that makes them quick reads). Myself now, I'm reading Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy. Trying to work my way through his library slowly, and this was an interesting choice: it's a bit rougher than his other work, which is still on the whole better than most authors on their best days, but he magnificently captures the feel of a state of limbo and torture in the backwoods of the Midwest. All of the people I've met so far grotesque or barely there, fading out, in some way and they're what makes it so interesting. Not to mention his description of a birth, where he compares the newly born baby to a skinned squirrel.
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Jul 26, 2010 06:10
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I finished Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I found immensely enjoyable. There's a unique feeling I get when reading a Murakami book; he portrays his characters in ways I have not seen another author capable of doing. That said, I think I enjoyed Norwegian Wood more than Wind-Up Bird. While I strongly recommend both, Norwegian Wood felt more personal to me, and the shorter length helped the pace.
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Jul 26, 2010 06:27
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timeandtide posted:I just wanted to point out that Jeff Vandemeer also has a semi-sequel to City of Saints and Madmen called Shriek: An Afterword, which does have an overall plot but continues the meta-fictional nature of the first book (it's written from two POVs, one being the historical writer from City of Saints and Madmen who wrote the history of the city, and the other being his sister.) There's also a third one called Finch that I haven't read yet that's set in the same world--I don't know if he continues to elaborate on the themes and backstory of the original work, but it'd be cool if he did because that was one of the most interesting things about Shriek. Thanks for the recs, I've downloaded the rest of the New Crobuzon books by China and I am really disappointed that they have the third Ambergris book but not the second (? wtf?) on the kindle. I really like Clive Barker (only read Abarat so thanks for reccing other stuff) and I've been looking to get into Guy Gavriel Kay (I hear he wrote something sortof set in Ancient China, so I'm thinking about downloading that). I'm usually not into too-heavy sci-fi and not very much at all into funny fantasy. I'm sorry and I know I'm a bad person for saying this but I just could not get into Discword.
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Jul 26, 2010 06:46
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Just finished Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. It doesn't end well.
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Jul 26, 2010 19:49
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Spoiler alert jesus christ
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Jul 26, 2010 23:47
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The Child Thief by Brom. Good start, horrible pacing in the middle, and a ragtag end that left me disappointed. Overall, I liked it, but jesus christ man.
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Jul 27, 2010 00:36
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I made the mistake of finishing House of Leaves this morning while listening to William Basinki's Disintegration Loops. Then I went to bed (I work nights). Big mistake. I couldn't get my brain to settle down, got a whopping 2 1/2 hours sleep, and now I'm grinding out 12 hours at work. But my god, was it ever worth it. What a book.
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Jul 27, 2010 03:21
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BoredSith posted:Just finished Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
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Jul 27, 2010 03:54
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BoredSith posted:Just finished Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Does Peter ditch her at Prom?
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Jul 27, 2010 20:42
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Just finished The Brothers Karamazov. Admittedly, this was my first reading of anything by Dostoyevsky and my first reading of Russian literature in general. All that aside, I was suprised at how well I picked up on the philosopical issues in the book although I'm sure there were some I missed. Just one question, by having Smerdyakov kill himself, was Dostoyevsky trying to say that moral liberation through atheism is actually unsustainable? If everything's permitted then there is no reason for guilt yet that is exactly what both Smerdyakov and Ivan experience. Anyways, the MacAndrew translation I had was great as all of the action and dialogue flowed smoothly. The characters were interesting if a bit dramatic, and of course their conversations were almost always thought-provoking. All in all an amazing piece of literature.
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Jul 28, 2010 00:11
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