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FAT DICK RAY
Aug 21, 2010

So they'd recorded a result from one of the times it worked. It was that recorded result that was displayed at the end of each demo.
I just finished Cat's Eye by Atwood. I really liked it. But I kind of feel like I read it wrong.

So when I started the book I had this idea (no idea where it came from) that it was going to be about some kind of sorceress. Basically every eerie reference to radio waves or time or any type of that I thought to myself, "oh that's foreshadowing, I totally get that." After the slow realization that the book probably won't be about magic (after 250 pages), I figured that it was really good so far so I just finished it.

Now I feel like I definitely read it "wrong", even though I loved it and would probably list it among my favorite books. But I wonder if I would have had the resolve to finish it if I knew from page one that it was a coming-of-age type novel.

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The Machine
Dec 15, 2004
Rage Against / Welcome to
I just finished Frank Portman's King Dork for my young adult lit class. It was amazingly funny and full of witty, interesting observations about high school. The book could've stopped at just being funny, but there's quite a few times where it gets painfully dramatic. Without spoiling it, the ending sort of leaves everything open, which makes it interesting and thoughtful. I was actually quite surprised that it's a young adult novel, but after thinking about it, it's exactly like something I would've read in middle/high school. As a music nerd, I really appreciated all the stuff about band names and references to songs that actually fit in the story. Makes sense though, as Portman is a musician himself (MTX).

Good read, I'd definitely recommend it to someone looking for some YA that is pretty raunchy and "gently caress"-heavy (I know someone is!).

resting bort face
Jun 2, 2000

by Fluffdaddy
Moby Dick, or, the whale.

The most obvious & common knee-jerk reaction to the text is that the laborious descriptions of whaling 'get in the way' of the adventure story. I tried to read those passages differently, which was an effort. I'd just come off reading Into Thin Air for the first time and was hungry for more nitty-gritty details of survival & industry in extreme climates but some of the didactic passages in Moby Dick not only go into detail that's wholly extraneous to the story but actually interrupt climactic sequences. On the whole, though, I found that most of the didactic chapters deepened my appreciation of the action, and altered my perception of contemporary whalers (by design).

I didn't understand why Melville deemphasized Queequeg in the second half of the novel when he had spent so much time familiarizing the reader with him in the first. The relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg takes a back seat to Ahab and Starbuck. Perhaps the two friendships are meant to contrast each other.

A few favorite passages:

quote:

Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude.

quote:

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad.

A little chuckle w/r/t favorite passages: I read this book on my Kindle, which has a neat feature that shows you which passages are most popularly highlighted. There aren't any of these passages past the first 100 pages or so.

bearic
Apr 14, 2004

john brown split this heart
I finished Moby Dick a few weeks ago too. A few of my favorite chapters:
'The Pipe,' 'The Mast-Head,' and 'Ahab and the Carpenter.'

Tactical Grace
May 1, 2008
I just read Stephen Hawking's (and Leonard Mlodinow's) The Grand Design. I've heard that this is lighter than A Brief History of Time and I certainly found it accessible enough despite only having a glancing interest in physics. In its opening chapters the book discusses some of the philosophic aspects of scientific theory which I really enjoyed. I think Mlodinow's presence as co-author really helps to open Hawking to a wider audience as he has a foundation in 'pop science' writing. Looking it up the book seems to be marketed as 'sticking it to God' which I don't think fits the tone of the book.

I actually didn't mind the tangents in Moby Dick. I found it so massively different to anything I had read before that I just accepted it. There's a hilarious passage at the end of a chapter about breasts or something - I'll have to look it up.

Tactical Grace fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Jun 10, 2011

MyChemicalImbalance
Sep 15, 2007

Keep on smilin'



:unsmith:
Got back from holiday recently, brought 3 books away with me and enjoyed all of them.

First thing I read was Toploader by Ed O'Loughlin, I picked it up since it was on buy one get one free with another of the books I wanted, but it was surprisingly entertaining. Not high-art in any way, but a great, easy read. Picking up a book with "military technology" written on the front of it in Arabic while travelling to a Arab speaking nation made me feel a bit awkward at times though.

The second book I bought was Boxer Beetle by Ned Beauman. I really liked the direction the narrative took, jumping from the present day to the 1930s was seamless at times. I liked the concept and there were some really beautifully written sections but it just didn't wow me, I was disappointed with what was done and felt that it could've been alot better than it was. It has the kind of concept that you'll either love or hate- you'll know if you'd enjoy it from reading the blurb alone.

Finally, it was Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. All I will say is read it as soon as possible. I couldn't put it down, and while it had it's flaws, there are so many gems in the collection of stories it shouldn't be missed.

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man
Against my better judgment I picked up Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by James L Swanson, the companion/followup book to his terrible Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Fortunately, the prose in the newer book was much better -- not great, mind you, but bland enough for me to focus on the story instead of limitless ADJECTIVES. The author still has a terrible habit of foreshadowing which ruins the flow.

who cares
Jul 25, 2006

Doomsday Machine
Last night I finished In The Fall by Jeffrey lent, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's broken into three sections: The first is about a civil war soldier and his escaped-slave wife, the second about their son, and the third about the son's son finally trying to make sense of his origins.

It was well-written and contained some beautiful prose, though sometimes it became a little too obvious who the author's influences were (McCarthy, Faulkner). It wasn't always a bad thing, but just too obvious at times, if that makes any sense.

It's one of those books where the images of the places will stay in my mind for some time, and the emotions of the characters felt real. There were a couple descriptions of profound sadness that caused me to have to put the book down and let it settle for a minute before moving on.

Elias_Maluco
Aug 23, 2007
I need to sleep
Just finished North, by Céline. I liked it quite a lot.

His style is unique (talk-like, short phrases always ending with ..., and lots of !, and lots of curses) and so fast to read.

Its a story (partly-autobiographical) about an aspect of WW2 I had never even considered: Céline was a "collabo", a french who supported the nazi occupation. So had to flee to germany (first Sigmarien with the remains of Vichy government, than germany trying to reach Denmark) to escape being killed by the french resistance by the end of the war.

The book is him, his wife, his friend and his cat fleeing trough Germany (and getting hosed everywhere) while the nazi regimen fall to pieces.

Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jun 11, 2011

rejutka
May 28, 2004

by zen death robot
A Cavern of Black Ice by J. V. Jones. (Powering through the next one as well.)

Kind review: It doesn't suffer from "First book of the epic series"- itis like many but it really would have benefited from losing at least two hundred pages.

Honest review: The hero is a tool, his clan is tool central, I suspect the writer might have a thing for urine and just about every description of what kind of fat/lard/what-have-you characters use to insulate themselves in cold weather is so spergy I'm under the impression you might catch autism just from reading the book.

It has one character - Vaylo Bludd, Dog Lord - who is awesome as gently caress and is single-handedly keeping me reading.

NightConqueror
Oct 5, 2006
im in ur base killin ur mans
Just finished my annual run through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. For all the (understandable) complaints about it being boring, plodding and full of singing elves, the story is really fantastic. I find it such a beautiful and sad story, and it remains one of the only fantasy series I actually enjoy.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. While I really enjoyed the story, setting and where it took me, my god, does Stephenson not know how to end a novel. There's kind of a conclusion to one of the story arcs but everything else just gets cut off. Also didn't help that there were quite a few characters that got quite a significant chunk of the book devoted to them and after a certain time jump you never hear from them again.

Wyatt
Jul 7, 2009

NOOOOOOOOOO.

muscles like this? posted:

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. While I really enjoyed the story, setting and where it took me, my god, does Stephenson not know how to end a novel. There's kind of a conclusion to one of the story arcs but everything else just gets cut off. Also didn't help that there were quite a few characters that got quite a significant chunk of the book devoted to them and after a certain time jump you never hear from them again.

Sadly, I agree.

barkingclam
Jun 20, 2007
Finally finished Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling From this morning. I've been reading a couple of the stories here and there for a while, really trying to stretch this one out, since it's a great collection of stories. What really stands out to me is how Carver had a real knack for turning everything around on the reader, like at the end of A Good Small Thing, and it really packs a punch. If you haven't read anything of his before, this is the place to start.

Friends Are Evil
Oct 25, 2010

cats cats cats



Finished Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions a few days ago. I'm still just trying to familiarize myself a little more with Vonnegut, but I'm enjoying the ways he plays around with time and place. This and Slaughterhouse-Five both seem to play around with time very well.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
Just finished up No Good Deed by M.P. Mcdonald last night.

It had an interesting premise. The idea is that he has a magic camera, and it takes pictures of what's going to happen. He interferes with fate/destiny/whatever and changes the bad thing, and then the picture changes to a good picture.

If he takes a picture and it's a dead baby, he saves the baby and the picture becomes a happy baby. (he takes normal pictures, just random ones pop up with the bad things, he doesn't just wander around taking pictures of dead babies)

The only real irritation/annoyance was the WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY hamhanded style in which the author lets his feelings on "enhanced interrogation techniques" is.

Spoilers ahoy for the book!

Basically for some reason 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, he gets arrested for being a "person of interest" because he called in to everyone trying to warn them about the attacks. Just seems a little odd that it takes the government 10 years to track down a guy who says his name in the phone call and screams about the planes smacking the towers before it actually happens :crossarms:

So, basically he gets tortured a lot, for what is basically about 70-80% of the book, and then gets out and realizes HOLY poo poo LIFE IS HORRIBLE I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS TORTURED THIS SUCKS HOW WILL I LIVE :emo: for about 10% more of the book, and then magically he helps stop a terrorist attack and now the government is sorry they tortured him. I swear to god if there would have been a scene where he holds up a pack of mentos and give a thumbs up to the government guy who tortured him at the end of the novel, it wouldn't have been out of place.


The book was just... preachy I guess is the best word for it. It took a neat premise sorta like Quantum Leap or any other show where the protagonist has a macguffin that they use to alter the future, and somehow made it boring and preachy.

It was .99 on the kindle store, so I thought "Eh, if it sucks I am out less than a buck". Well, it kinda did and I am out less than a buck.

Nifty idea, but the hamhanded GOVERNMENT BAD tone and speeches just irritate me. I guess this is how the Sword of Truth series makes people feel about capitalism.

Also re-read Monster Hunter International, and about to start in on Monster Hunter Agena, cause I have an ARC of Monster Hunter Alpha and I wanna make sure I don't miss out on anything. Larry Correia rocks, and go read his books if you want to read about gun porn and monsters getting blowed up real good.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire
Just finished Karen Russell's Swamplandia!, a book which came out in February. It follows the members of a once-great family of alligator wrestlers: the Chief, Kiwi, Ossie, and Ava Bigtree. They own and run the gator theme park "Swamplandia!" on an island off the Florida coast, but after the famed alligator wrestler Hilola Bigtree died of cancer, their tourism has died and the park is going belly-up. The story is told mostly by Ava, the youngest Bigtree daughter, as she tries to figure out how to keep the park running while keeping her older sister from falling in love with ghosts.

Whew. It's a really quick read - I breezed through it this weekend - and I really enjoyed it. It's fairly dark at times, and thankfully never gets too precious (which many books with outlandish settings can sometimes do).

PokeJoe
Aug 24, 2004

hail cgatan


Blindness by Jose Saramago. I bought it a long time ago after seeing it mentioned here and I just finally got around to reading it. Didn't take me too long to finish it, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. I liked it as a whole but I felt the ending was rather lackluster. How are his other books?

TheAwesome
Mar 30, 2004

I want your soul I will eat your soul
Just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. It was recommended to me by a lot of people, so when I found it for ten cents at a book sale, I figured it was at least worth a shot. Without going so far as to ruin any plot points, it basically follows a father and son on a cross-country motorcycle trip, told from the father's point of view and punctuated by philosophical discussions, especially concerning the concept of Quality.

The beginning and the end were really well-written, engaging, and easy to get through. There are some plot points that made the book a lot weirder than I was expecting, but I think that made it more interesting in the end. I went in expecting a dry philosophical lecture, when in fact there is an interesting plot with twists that gets revealed along the way.

There is a slog about three-quarters of the way through where the book gets very into heavy philosophical theory and the mechanics of motorcycles. This is the point where most people I talked to said they stopped reading. If you can push through it, though, it's really worth the ending.

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender

PokeJoe posted:

Blindness by Jose Saramago. I bought it a long time ago after seeing it mentioned here and I just finally got around to reading it. Didn't take me too long to finish it, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. I liked it as a whole but I felt the ending was rather lackluster. How are his other books?

Personally I felt incredibly relieved when they started seeing again

Florida Betty
Sep 24, 2004

PokeJoe posted:

Blindness by Jose Saramago. I bought it a long time ago after seeing it mentioned here and I just finally got around to reading it. Didn't take me too long to finish it, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. I liked it as a whole but I felt the ending was rather lackluster. How are his other books?

I haven't read Blindness, but I've read The Stone Raft and Death With Interruptions, and I really liked them both. I love his writing style, though I know some people have the complete opposite reaction to the really long sentences.

robotsinmyhead
Nov 29, 2005

Dude, they oughta call you Piledriver!

Clever Betty
Just finished Embassytown by China Mieville. I've read his Bas Lag books, and read a few of others, but like those others, I feel like his work pales against the Bas Lag landscape. Embassytown was good, but not great. Proper sci-fan with confusing hyper-technology that is never fully explained and an overall plot that is tricky to get ahold of.

Also finished This is a Book by Demetri Martin. I really like his nerdy underplayed standup and this book was written in the same manner with silly drawings and graphs here and there, but the short stories that are laid into it are overall pretty average. There were some honestly funny moments in the book, but not nearly as many as I was expecting.

Roydrowsy
May 6, 2007

just finished "The End of Mr. Y" by Scarlett Thomas.

That book is quite the trip. On the most basic level this is an adventure story with some tips towards fantasy and sci-fi.

At the same time, it is really a complex examination of the nature of thought, discussions of the "collective conscious" (this is not an error) and so much more. It really wasn't what I was expecting this book to be, but in many ways it is so much better.

Perhaps the best thing is that while it tackles so many really complex ideas, theorhetical physics, quantum mechanics, all sorts of philosophical perspectives, it does so in a way that remains completely accessible to the average reader.

I've looked at reviews that compare this book to what Neil Stephenson has been doing, (I have no idea thought I do have a copy of Snow Crash on my pile to read), but I think there are a lot of literary goons who would get a huge kick out of this book.


As far as plot goes, a PhD student stumbles across an extremely rare book, "The End of Mr. Y" which carries with it a curse. Anybody who has read the book has been known to show up dead, or dissapear completely.

Without giving too much away, the main character uses this book to find a way to tap into and explore consciousness, and she has to fight back against and struggle against the consequenses.

Roydrowsy fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jun 13, 2011

reflir
Oct 29, 2004

So don't. Stay here with me.
That book sounds awesome (I'm a PhD student! I could stumble over a rare book in the stacks and have :allears: adventures! :allears: ) but the terrible pun and the consciousness stuff really don't bode well for it at all. On a scale of 1 to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfic, how cringe-inducing is it?

Ataru13
Jul 28, 2005

...Packing Space-Age Shit!
I recently finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and I absolutely loved it. It's a bit difficult to explain, but it's essentially six short stories set over several centuries that are all at least tangentially related. The book has a pretty unique structure, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Roydrowsy
May 6, 2007

reflir posted:

That book sounds awesome (I'm a PhD student! I could stumble over a rare book in the stacks and have :allears: adventures! :allears: ) but the terrible pun and the consciousness stuff really don't bode well for it at all. On a scale of 1 to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfic, how cringe-inducing is it?

terrible pun?

Honestly I thought the book was great. It's a fun and challenging read. To be honest talking about "the curse" is really the best way to describe the story, even though it takes a back seat to so many bigger and better things. It's extremely well crafted.

As far as the consciousness stuff, think about "Being John Malkovich", taken to the next level.

Ataru13
Jul 28, 2005

...Packing Space-Age Shit!

Roydrowsy posted:

terrible pun?

Honestly I thought the book was great. It's a fun and challenging read. To be honest talking about "the curse" is really the best way to describe the story, even though it takes a back seat to so many bigger and better things. It's extremely well crafted.

As far as the consciousness stuff, think about "Being John Malkovich", taken to the next level.

I think reflir is reading Mr. Y as being pronounced like mystery; which, yeah, would be a pretty bad pun.

reflir
Oct 29, 2004

So don't. Stay here with me.

Roydrowsy posted:

terrible pun?

Honestly I thought the book was great. It's a fun and challenging read. To be honest talking about "the curse" is really the best way to describe the story, even though it takes a back seat to so many bigger and better things. It's extremely well crafted.

As far as the consciousness stuff, think about "Being John Malkovich", taken to the next level.

Yeah, I meant the Mystery thing. I'll probably go get it though!

rejutka
May 28, 2004

by zen death robot
A Fortress of Grey Ice by J. V. Jones.

The dread stuff known as filler stalks this book. There's many a chapter filled with many un-needed words and then the informational content is right at the end. Except for the eponymous fortress right at the end. I can't help but suspect an editor finally put their foot down and insisted the last eleventy billion pages get rewritten down to about forty or so. The ending is, therefore, abrupt and, frankly, disjointed as gently caress.

On the plus side, the writer tones down the urine references a bit and keeps the greasy stuff to a thankful minimum. Nevertheless, the main male character sort of stumbles around like the tool retard he is, doing silly crap and going pointless places, hemmed in on all sides by crappy tropes and hero's journey crap. The main female character spends a lot of time with two dudes who think exposition is the place they were previously. Many, many, many times does our heroine think to herself that these two dudes are not talkers and don't want to be asked questions.

On the plus side, an interesting character turned up (That makes like two of them so far) and Vaylo Bludd status - still :black101: as gently caress.

As an addendum, the clan stuff is still tripe and our hero's original clan is comprised of so many colossally stupid people I'm vaguely rooting for their nemesis evil guy to win, purely because it serves them loving right.

Reflective edit - I think reading these books is making my brain turn to mush. How many words and phrases did I repeat there, oh god. :downsduck:

rejutka fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jun 14, 2011

madlilnerd
Jan 4, 2009

a bush with baggage
I actually finished Pregnesia by Carla Cassidy, the awful hilarious romance book that was mentioned in the "Romance Novels that make you go WTF" thread.
It was the least erotic thing I've ever read, I think you'd get more romance out of an IKEA catalogue. But it was good for a laugh, and only took me about an hour and a half to read.

For those uninitiated, Pregnesia is the story of a pregnant woman with amnesia who gets found in the back of a car being repossessed by an ex-Navy Seal who was beat up as a kid.

Ataru13
Jul 28, 2005

...Packing Space-Age Shit!

madlilnerd posted:

I actually finished Pregnesia by Carla Cassidy, the awful hilarious romance book that was mentioned in the "Romance Novels that make you go WTF" thread.
It was the least erotic thing I've ever read, I think you'd get more romance out of an IKEA catalogue. But it was good for a laugh, and only took me about an hour and a half to read.

For those uninitiated, Pregnesia is the story of a pregnant woman with amnesia who gets found in the back of a car being repossessed by an ex-Navy Seal who was beat up as a kid.

:psyboom: Please tell me it's some sort of vanity press release.

SgtSanity
Apr 25, 2005
Excuse me
I just finished A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which has received widespread praise as well as the most recent Pulitzer for fiction. It was a huge disappointment.

The first strike against me liking it is that it's not really a novel but a series of connected short-stories. Outside of an bad experiment or two (which I'll get to later), she essentially stays in the generic MFA-mold with arcs where the characters discover things about themselves. That sounds too demeaning and oversimplifying as I type it, but I found it to be totally true. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, this is not.

The second strike is the subject matter: that people grow up and change, both in authorial interludes and in glimpsing their presence in other stories. It feels bad to throw Egan in comparison with The Known World by Edward P. Jones & Stoner by John Williams, but that's the playing field and she suffers considerably by comparison.

The third strike is a strange lurch towards futurism at the end. I'm perfectly fine with futurism if it either seems accurate or illustrates some human impulse that technology's inevitably going to run into. Think DFW's Infinite Jest interlude about masks for video-calling: it won't ever happen, but the underlying point about how people fake giving you their full attention on the phone was true. Egan's powerpoint journaling and txt-speak extrapolation, on the other hand, feel less like a coherent version of the future and more like a weird, exaggerated strawman of today.

It's incredibly readable, and I blew through it in probably less than four hours total, but it's just not that great of a book. I can understand why some people liked it, but not why most people liked it and some enough to give it the Pulitzer.

inktvis
Dec 11, 2005

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor, is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous.
Read Turgenev's On the Eve on the back of an exhaustingly dull Scandanavian psychological novel which will remain nameless. Not sure what it is about Turgenev, but he's strangely therapeutic - might have something to do with the fact that he seems to have a habit of reverting back to familiar archetypes. The character traits of On the Eve's Shubin, Berseyenv and Insarov only need to be shaken and shuffled around a bit to become Fathers & Sons' Bazarov and Kirsanov, but it's so well written you don't really mind.

Also Nahman of Bratslav's Tales, the work of a Hasidic rabbi living in the Ukraine around the era of the French Revolution. They're occassionally a bit obscure and abbreviated, but fortunately enough come complete with commentaries and essays which give some fairly helpful cultural context. Think sort of a digest version of tales from the 1001 Nights, heavily influenced by Jewish cosmology and you won't be too far off. Interesting to see folktales roped into the service of explaining some fairly arcane theology, but if you're after just the tales you're better off with someone like Nikolai Leskov.

funkybottoms
Oct 28, 2010

Funky Bottoms is a land man
Just finished up an ARC of Max Barry's Machine Man, a revised and expanded version of a story he published page-by-page on his website. The story- Charlie Neumann, a brilliant engineer, becomes obsessed with making better parts for himself after losing a leg in an accident- isn't entirely original, but telling it from the engineer's near-autistic/logical-to-a-fault perspective makes all the difference (kind of like that Pinky and the Brain episode that's from Pinky's point of view). Interestingly, as Charlie becomes more machine, he gains greater insight into his humanity, but we all know that once you develop technology for an unethical corporation like Better Future.... well, you're not in the driver's legs seat anymore. A quick, fun, and surprisingly funny read that can be appreciated on a number of levels. Comes out in August.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire
Just finished Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago. I was expecting a big epic set during the Russian revolution - a War and Peace of the 20th century. Cast of thousands, big exciting clashes between Red Russians and White Russians. Instead, the story mostly followed the titular doctor as he went from Moscow to the Urals, making poetry and falling in love with Lara, a girl he's known since childhood. While it wasn't quite as grand as I'd hoped, it was a drat good read about a man caught up in circumstances out of his control, wondering whether these changes that came to his country would raise it up or destroy it.

madlilnerd
Jan 4, 2009

a bush with baggage

Ataru13 posted:

:psyboom: Please tell me it's some sort of vanity press release.

No, it's from a publishing company called Harlequin Romance who seem to focus their "novels" around incredibly financially secure men who secretly want babies and abused virgins. It was all in the Romance Novels that make you go WTF thread, but that's probably archived by now :(

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Ataru13 posted:

:psyboom: Please tell me it's some sort of vanity press release.

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/pregnesia-by-carla-cassidy-guest-review/

Ataru13
Jul 28, 2005

...Packing Space-Age Shit!

Couldn't you have lied to me? :smith: To keep from getting off topic, I also just finished reading No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. It was a pretty great book, and felt rather timeless for something written in the early 1900s; it's fairly depressing though. I recommend that anyone who enjoys Camus' Stranger to check it out.

VVVV It's not THAT bad. Great movie though, especially since the first 30 minutes or so can really dupe an unsuspecting person into thinking it's a romance film.

Ataru13 fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jun 17, 2011

z0331
Oct 2, 2003

Holtby thy name

z0331 posted:

Finished Audition by Ryu Murakami and was rather underwhelmed.

Coin-Locker Babies is one of my favorite novels, and I'm reading through Piercing right now in the original Japanese and enjoying it but Audition just didn't really hit me right.

Just put down Piercing. It's only the 3rd Japanese book I've ever been able to finish in the original (which is kind of sad considering how long it took me when the language wasn't even that hard).

My first reaction is that I think this is the book Audition maybe wanted to be. That's probably not entirely fair, though (and not accurate anyway since I thinki Piercing came first).

Again here you can see Murakami exploring the idea of just how messed up people can be when they're not loved. That sounds simple and trite, but in the book it's actually quite moving when we see two very broken people come together and the clusterfuck that comes from it.

Suffice it to say, I enjoyed it and was pretty emotionally trained by the end (along with being mentally drained from the effort of reading the Japanese).

Also, after reading around about Murakami, I've discovered that Audition was made into a movie that contains one of the most gruesome torture scenes every devised. So much so that other horror directors had trouble watching it and viewers actually had physical reactions including fainting.

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barkingclam
Jun 20, 2007
Finished Buster Olney's The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty the other day. It's a fun read: an in-depth look at the New York Yankees of the late 1990s, where he cuts between profiles on each player with game seven of the 2001 series, where he argues their dynasty ended. I'm not a Yankees fan (I remember having fun rooting against those teams, actually), but I got a lot of enjoyment out of this book, especially on the players I don't remember as well: Paul O'Neill, Mike Stanton or Tino Martinez. Recommended for baseball fans.

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