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stereobreadsticks posted:Yeah, I never really thought of Eco as an especially difficult author, and of the novels I've read from him I think the Name of the Rose is the most accessible. Foucault's Pendulum and Baudolino have kind of slow starts that almost feel like intentional obstacles to keep less dedicated readers from getting to the good stuff, and the Prague Cemetery is off putting just because the main character is such a terrible person, but I don't remember anything in the Name of the Rose that would keep me from recommending it to just about anyone. Eco was concerned with his books becoming pop culture for some kind of "wrong reason" so he actively wrote difficult passages into the early parts of his books (e.g., Adso describing the church door in fervent detail).
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Feb 22, 2017 19:58
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I wish i could describe church doors in fervent detail 
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Feb 22, 2017 21:56
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JustAurora posted:Read some of his short stories. Welcome to the Monkey House. I just finished this recently and can say I enjoyed it very much (except for the first story in the collection).
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Feb 23, 2017 04:18
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DuhSal posted:I just finished this recently and can say I enjoyed it very much (except for the first story in the collection). I just read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as my second Vonnegut. (My first was Mother Night.) I didn't like it as much as I liked MN, but it was still really good, especially the very end.
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Feb 23, 2017 05:03
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We are Legion (We Are Bob) Excellent book. I don't normally get into Sci-Fi but I finished this book in about 2 days. It reminds me of the humor of Hitchhikers Guide but alot heavier on the SciFi. It's a fun read.
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Feb 23, 2017 19:38
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Flaggy posted:We are Legion (We Are Bob) Excellent book. I don't normally get into Sci-Fi but I finished this book in about 2 days. It reminds me of the humor of Hitchhikers Guide but alot heavier on the SciFi. It's a fun read. I have also chewed through this book and I enjoyed it. Little heavy-handed in places but whatever, it was four dollars and I enjoyed it
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Feb 24, 2017 07:40
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Just finished Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, moving on to Roadside Crosses by Jeffrey Deaver. Anansi Boys was pretty good, gotta say.
Doctor Smiles fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 03:08
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The Eternity Artifact by L. E. Modesitt. I'm a sucker for the specific subgenre of sci-fi revolving around an isolated expedition to the first alien ruins/artifacts humanity has found that has the aliens themselves absent, but dear Lord the constant "religion is bad, especially Islam" preaching got old fast and distracted from some reasonably interesting characters and plot. Not bad on the whole, but the villain having no character beyond "hates women and freedom because Muslim" was tedious and always skippable.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 04:12
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I finished The Murder of Roger Ackyroyd by Agatha Christie. It's the least well known of her most famous 3 books (with Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None). short, precise, intricate, very good. If you read all three of those books you'll never be sure you know who the murderer is before the last page again.
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Mar 1, 2017 06:59
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Cythereal posted:The Eternity Artifact by L. E. Modesitt. I'm a sucker for the specific subgenre of sci-fi revolving around an isolated expedition to the first alien ruins/artifacts humanity has found that has the aliens themselves absent, but dear Lord the constant "religion is bad, especially Islam" preaching got old fast and distracted from some reasonably interesting characters and plot. Not bad on the whole, but the villain having no character beyond "hates women and freedom because Muslim" was tedious and always skippable. The best part is that you no longer have to read any Modesitt. I mean, you can if you want, but each book reads like an expy of the ones before (it was China before it was Islam, and evangelical Christianity before that, fyi). Minor differences between the sci-fi and fantasy lines, but only minor.
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Mar 1, 2017 16:25
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ulmont posted:The best part is that you no longer have to read any Modesitt. I mean, you can if you want, but each book reads like an expy of the ones before (it was China before it was Islam, and evangelical Christianity before that, fyi). Minor differences between the sci-fi and fantasy lines, but only minor. I've enjoyed a few of Modesitt's books, notably The Magic Engineer, but Eternity Artifact is just blah. The actual core plot isn't bad and the three main good-guy protagonists are decently interesting, but my God all everyone feels the need to constantly preach about why religion in general and especially Islam are evil and incompatible with freedom and democracy and science and respecting women.
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Mar 1, 2017 16:47
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Just finished The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. This is a really interesting exploration of how knowledge builds in science, and how change overs in the larger conceptual models used by scientists to solve problems during "normal" (non revolutionary) periods occur. There is an interesting discussion to be had in how scientists on either side of one of these paradigm shifts have difficulty communicating about the nature of their disagreement because of their overall different processing of knowledge through their respective frameworks. At least, that's how I understood it, being no philosopher.
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Mar 2, 2017 04:40
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read popper next e: here's a breakdown of his thought wrt philosophy of science. chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 19:17
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Finally got around to The Handmaid's Tale. I really like Atwood's prose, especially the voices her characters have. When it comes to speculative fiction critical of religion you don't have to look hard to find lovely writing. Can't say I'm bothered by the ambiguous ending either. I wonder if that's going to be maintained in the Hulu adaption that's coming soon.
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Mar 3, 2017 01:22
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chernobyl kinsman posted:read popper next I had read Popper before. And David Hull's book on the social nature of science also nicely complements these two, extending a few themes just barely touched upon by Kuhn.
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Mar 3, 2017 04:50
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I've been juggling the following and just finished them all:
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Mar 9, 2017 03:18
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I read Microcosmic God and The Coffin recently. Both were amazing short stories. Microcosmic God was a very Sci Fi type of story of a man who created his own race but then has them turn on him and his whole world gets messed up. The Coffin was a really cool piece by Ray Bradbury which is about a man who is preparing a coffin and falls into it himself, what follows is his funeral and the experience he undergoes while in his coffin. Both are great and only about 30 pages long.Check them out if you get the chance.
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Mar 9, 2017 15:31
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Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici. I went into it not knowing much about the family aside from their patronage of the arts, and came out learning a lot about the political landscape of the Italian city-states in the 15th century. The book's treatment of its subject is mostly even-handed, acknowledging the pros and cons of life under Medici rulership, and the different interpretations of Lorenzo's own rule. The only exception is the treatment of the Pazzi conspiracy, where the author is understandably sympathetic to Lorenzo and antipathetic to the Pazzis and Pope Sixtus IV. I recommend reading up on this stuff, even if you don't use this book in particular.
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Mar 14, 2017 03:29
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Conclave by Robert Harris Robert Harris is a sort of go to when I've been burnt out reading too much but am ready to get back into it again. Always a good easy read but solidly written and often in interesting historical settings. Conclave is contemporary but is a reliable page turner about a new Pope being elected with a few twists and turns along the way although the major one at the end was pretty far fetched and ridiculous in my opinion. Not his best work (I still like Fatherland and his Cicero series for that) but worth picking up if you want something light and entertaining. Started reading The Last Policeman based on a few things said in this thread. Not loving it so far, the writing is so so and it feels a bit cliche, but the idea is interesting so will persevere. If it doesn't take I might try reading some of the Lehane books with the Gone Baby Gone characters or Natchez Burning by Greg Iles. Don't know too much about either but feel like some crime fiction in the True Detective type mold. Open to suggestions here...
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Mar 14, 2017 07:15
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Ewar Woowar posted:
Me, too. It's a bit repetitive so far, about 1/4 of the way through. Only a few clues revealed, but a whole lot of "ugh why bother" toward the protagonist. Eventually that'll sink in for the reader.
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Mar 18, 2017 04:17
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Just finished To the Lighthouse. Brilliant.
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Mar 20, 2017 03:10
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Just finished Plath's The Bell Jar and Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. I loved them both. I'm moving on to Sanderson's The Way of Kings next.Doctor Smiles posted:Just finished Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, moving on to Roadside Crosses by Jeffrey Deaver. Anansi Boys was pretty good, gotta say. I got about 30 pages into Anansi Boys and just couldn't deal with how uncomfortable the main character was (odd since I just finished Plath, I know). It's still on my nightstand but I haven't touched it in months. Do things change much?
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Mar 20, 2017 04:37
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Ewar Woowar posted:If it doesn't take I might try reading some of the Lehane books with the Gone Baby Gone characters or Natchez Burning by Greg Iles. Don't know too much about either but feel like some crime fiction in the True Detective type mold. Open to suggestions here... If you haven't already, I would read the first three Penn Cage books by Greg Iles before reading Natchez Burning. There's a lot of backstory in there that is mentioned in Natchez Burning without much explanation.
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Mar 20, 2017 12:17
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Just finished reading For My Legionaries by Corneliu Codreanu and this has some striking parallels to today's political environment. Chilling
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Mar 20, 2017 13:10
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musclecoder posted:If you haven't already, I would read the first three Penn Cage books by Greg Iles before reading Natchez Burning. There's a lot of backstory in there that is mentioned in Natchez Burning without much explanation. I downloaded the preview on amazon and it seems pretty straight forward- are the previous ones related to the setting or the characters? If they're a lot of the same characters I'll start at the beginning. Provided they're worth a read?
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Mar 21, 2017 05:54
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The Shining. I liked King a lot at a younger age, but I always figured the fact that I had seen the Kubrick movie would wreck the book. I sucked it up, read he whole thing this week and absolutely loved it.
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Mar 24, 2017 02:30
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:Honestly, if you can get over the inherent preconceptions about a book about monks then Name of the Rose is just really enjoyable and engaging. I finally finished The System of the World and therefore the Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle earlier this week. I definitely felt like it was the slowest of the 3 books. Maybe just because I couldn't follow - and didn't really care enough to follow - a lot of the descriptions of London streets and buildings. I think I will tackle The Name of the Rose next instead of the Sprawl trilogy, but not for some time. The last book I read that featured monks was Stephenson's Anathem and I mostly enjoyed it - not that I expect this to be similar.
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Mar 24, 2017 21:58
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Just finished The Night Gwen Stacy Died. It was kind of interesting to see how the characters get attached to the mythology of that old comic book story and how it affects their reckless actions in the story. That said, it's also based around a doomed romance that I never rooted for to begin with. "Gwen" comes off less like she's trying to escape the stifling confines of small town life and more like she ran away for kicks, while "Peter" is emotionally needy and off-putting because of his abandonment issues. The prose is pretty good at poetic imagery, and it's short enough not to overstay its welcome, but I can't really recommend it.
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Mar 25, 2017 01:23
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Colonel Taint posted:I finally finished The System of the World and therefore the Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle earlier this week. I definitely felt like it was the slowest of the 3 books. Maybe just because I couldn't follow - and didn't really care enough to follow - a lot of the descriptions of London streets and buildings. Good choice. Name of the Rose owns bones
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Mar 25, 2017 09:16
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The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars #1) by Ian Tregillis It's a faster-paced Game of Thrones, only it's Dutch Protestants vs. French Catholics. The Dutch have the power of alchemy and robot slaves, and the French are doing all they can to not get totally destroyed by those scientific/magic advances. I liked it! It's not boring, the fictional world is interesting, and there are enough twists and turns to keep you involved. Grey areas on both sides of the conflict, easy-to-swallow philosophy, some sleazy villains to boo, and some cool heroes to cheer. Can't really ask for much else.
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Mar 25, 2017 20:02
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Captain Hotbutt posted:The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars #1) by Ian Tregillis drat bro sounds epic
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Mar 26, 2017 00:03
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Captain Hotbutt posted:The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars #1) by Ian Tregillis The second and last book are both terrific as well.
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Mar 26, 2017 00:18
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Captain Hotbutt posted:The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars #1) by Ian Tregillis "My name is Jax. That is the name granted to me by my human masters. I am a clakker: a mechanical man, powered by alchemy. Armies of my kind have conquered the world - and made the Brasswork Throne the sole superpower. I am a faithful servant. I am the ultimate fighting machine. I am endowed with great strength and boundless stamina. But I am beholden to the wishes of my human masters. I am a slave. But I shall be free." Hahaha Then I looked at the reviews, and it got way better because suddenly I feel like I stumbled into a parody dimension: A character from a satire posted:[Like many fans of Ian Tregillis, I was first introduced to his work with the Milkweed Triptych, a series about British warlocks versus Nazi super-soldiers in an alternate history of World War II. Then In 2013 I picked up Something More Than Night, a futuristic urban fantasy-type metaphysical hard-boiled detective noir story about angels. That book was a bit of a departure to say the least, but it also solidified Tregillis in my mind as a talented visionary, definitely a rising star to watch. It's wonderful series of absurdities piled up on each other in a pitch-perfect parody of genre idiocy. And it's real!
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Mar 26, 2017 01:16
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:It's wonderful series of absurdities piled up on each other in a pitch-perfect parody of genre idiocy. And it's real! Meh, gotta read something. I had fun with it. 
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Mar 26, 2017 19:47
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jesus christ
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Mar 27, 2017 00:28
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Captain Hotbutt posted:Meh, gotta read something. I had fun with it. You'd be better reading nothing, or a shopping list
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Mar 27, 2017 02:18
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devilwu posted:Except that he opened his empire to international markets and had a lot of muslims in his administration. In many ways he would have been a better president in my opinion. he killed sixty-five million people you blockhead I'm thinking Genghis but eh, complicit A human heart posted:You'd be better reading nothing, or a shopping list hog fat fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 03:45
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I finally completed the entire Dark Tower series (apart from Wind Through The Keyhole) and I probably have to divide it into two reviews. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower itself, I am torn on. The first half I found really laborious and slow, the second half is amazing but filled with twists that, although you see them coming, really messed with me emotionally having traveled this far with these characters. I do feel wholly satisfied with the conclusion though. The Dark Tower series as a whole, I loved. It was such an incredible epic that never goes where you expect it. However, now that I have completed it, I don't know if I see myself reading it again for a long time. I didn't love it enough to get a Dark Tower tattoo or name my kid Roland, but it is one of the series that didn't falter from book to book. It remained consistently strong throughout. Also, I am not really a Stephen King fan apart from these books.
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Mar 28, 2017 19:21
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York_M_Chan posted:
You are about to get savaged, my friend. The Wind Through the Keyhole is really good- did you read the Roland story in one of those Robert Silverberg Legends compilations?
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Mar 29, 2017 00:37
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funkybottoms posted:You are about to get savaged, my friend. For some reason I thought "The Little Sisters of Eluria" was kind of lacking when I read it a few years ago.
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Mar 31, 2017 02:01
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