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this is a long shot, but is anyone aware of a good book (very preferably written within the last few years) that analyzes demographic change in America and generational differences? a couple of examples that I almost bought: Philip Bump - The Aftershock: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America Jean Twenge - Generations those two books almost sound perfect but Bump's book doesn't have stellar reviews and Twenge wrote a book about millennials called 'The Narcissism Epidemic'. I worry about any author that writes so sensationally with an agenda. I prefer something bordering on academic (but not quite). I might buy Bump's book and simply hope a bunch of dummies are mad at it.
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Jul 10, 2023 20:23
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I want to fill in some of my Shakespeare gaps, wondering if there are any good novel adaptations. I don't mind reading them as plays, and it's fine if they're using the original lines and everything, I'd just prefer more of a prose story to a script. Specifically Othello but I'm open to others
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Jul 10, 2023 21:14
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Opopanax posted:I want to fill in some of my Shakespeare gaps, wondering if there are any good novel adaptations. I don't mind reading them as plays, and it's fine if they're using the original lines and everything, I'd just prefer more of a prose story to a script. Specifically Othello but I'm open to others Turgnenev 
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Jul 10, 2023 21:48
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:this is a long shot, but is anyone aware of a good book (very preferably written within the last few years) that analyzes demographic change in America and generational differences? Farther back and more focused on historiography than demographics specifically, but you might like Creating an Old South. It focuses on the changing tensions between racial groups in two Florida counties right after the Louisiana purchase as poor whites started identifying with poor blacks and even slaves!
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Jul 11, 2023 00:39
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:this is a long shot, but is anyone aware of a good book (very preferably written within the last few years) that analyzes demographic change in America and generational differences? I haven't read the book, but Bump is a solid writer on the wash post. He mostly does shorter data driven analysis pieces, so I imagine his book would be informative. He does fall into the large group who is visibly tired of explaining that no, the 2020 election was not stolen, so I'm sure horrible people hate him.
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Jul 11, 2023 12:21
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I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. I'm looking for a bit of something on the side and I'm in the mood for some trashy high octane thriller, but would appreciate it being one where I don't feel (too much) stupider for reading it. What's the thinking person's non-stop action novel?
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Jul 11, 2023 18:01
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MisterBear posted:I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. If genre fiction is ok, this is exactly the state I was in for the Binti, Murderbot, and Bobiverse books. I don’t know if they’re thinking person quality but they’re cute and quick and deal with interesting questions with great joy and playfulness. Kameron Hurley has a good track record for thinky action military Sci Fi imo. More literary: I recently finished The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis and it was a similarly fun, quirky book until like the last two paragraphs where the 19th century really intruded. The Death of Ivan Ilyich was also a real page turner for me. In that vein, I’ve found 19th century novellas in general to be excellent palate cleansers between beefy nonfiction or epic fiction. Check out Frankenstein, Heart of Darkness, anything by HG Wells or Jules Verne. If anime is ok, I like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Yokohama Shopping Trip was nice. If graphic novels are ok, On a Sunbeam is loving great. The blurb is accurate: quote:Throughout the deepest reaches of space, a crew rebuilds beautiful and broken-down structures, painstakingly putting the past together. As new member Mia gets to know her team, the story flashes back to her pivotal year in boarding school, where she fell in love with a mysterious new student. Soon, though, Mia reveals her true purpose for joining their ship-to track down her long-lost love. An inventive world, a breathtaking love story, and stunning art come together in this new work by award-winning artist Tillie Walden.
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Jul 11, 2023 18:19
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Not sure if it was on the recommendation of this thread or the “I just finished” thread but I picked up House of Leaves and am about 100 pages in… and… like… when does it get scary? Am I reading it wrong?
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Jul 11, 2023 20:08
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boquiabierta posted:Not sure if it was on the recommendation of this thread or the “I just finished” thread but I picked up House of Leaves and am about 100 pages in… and… like… when does it get scary? Am I reading it wrong? It becomes scary when you realize how much time you wasted flipping back-and-forth between pages, turning the book around in circles, etc. Edit: non-sarcastic answer. I didn't find the book to be scary, but there were parts that gave me a slight sense of existential dread. Mostly, the book was frustrating to me. Though, I went in with very high expectations because my brother couldn't sing its praises high enough, which didn't help my overall attitude towards it. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 20:35
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MisterBear posted:I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. Jade City, by Fonda Lee. Godfather + Martial Arts + Magic Jade, but done really well and with a surprisingly good eye towards international relations and business
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Jul 11, 2023 21:59
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Are the Godfather novels by Puzo actually good? Never read them or watched the films because they just seem like some poo poo Andrew Tate would like.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:02
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Opopanax posted:I want to fill in some of my Shakespeare gaps, wondering if there are any good novel adaptations. I don't mind reading them as plays, and it's fine if they're using the original lines and everything, I'd just prefer more of a prose story to a script. Specifically Othello but I'm open to others Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but Harold Bloom's book on Falstaff ("Falstaff: Give me Life") is an absolute joy to read and really whetted my appetite for more Shakespeare https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/books/review/falstaff-shakespeare-harold-bloom.html
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Jul 11, 2023 22:10
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tuyop posted:If genre fiction is ok, this is exactly the state I was in for the Binti, Murderbot, and Bobiverse books. I don’t know if they’re thinking person quality but they’re cute and quick and deal with interesting questions with great joy and playfulness. Thank you! Some new to me authors there, will definitely be checking out Hurley (I remember good things being said about The Light Brigade) and Ivan Ilyich.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:35
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StumblyWumbly posted:Jade City, by Fonda Lee. Godfather + Martial Arts + Magic Jade, but done really well and with a surprisingly good eye towards international relations and business I think I have them on my kindle but never read - sounds right up my street though!
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Jul 11, 2023 22:35
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Are the Godfather novels by Puzo actually good? Never read them or watched the films because they just seem like some poo poo Andrew Tate would like. Pulp, but good pulp. Although to my knowledge there's just the one Puzo / Godfather book.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:45
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MisterBear posted:I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. I just read the first Slow Horses book and its pretty good. Definitely airplane spy thriller stuff but a unique take on it
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Jul 11, 2023 22:53
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MisterBear posted:Thank you! Some new to me authors there, will definitely be checking out Hurley (I remember good things being said about The Light Brigade) and Ivan Ilyich. Hurley’s “We have always fought” is a really great glimpse into her style and the objectives of her fiction. With the focus on military, she constantly centers the embodied experience of hate and shame and terror and conflict. One exception is “The Stars are Legion”. That’s like if Tolkien wrote LotR on an armada of failing, stranded generation ships where the population must maintain the systems by literally giving birth to components, which is mythologized and maintains the power structures of society just like our reproduction is now. One of my favourite “weird” novels. In The Light Brigade, the protagonist’s struggles very much mirrored my own experience of disillusionment. If you want big anarcho-communist rants between future cyberpunk hellscape soldiers and officers, amid the extreme solidarity of soldiers, that is directly critical of Heinlein while drawing strength from what was great about Starship Troopers (extreme respect for individuality and the power of each person, among other things), I think you’ll like it! It also has the vanishingly rare distinction of being an authentically feminist work that takes place in a starkly patriarchal society, again in my opinion. Kameron Hurley is one of my favorite authors. Here’s “We Have Always Fought”. And an amazing short story she wrote. A gender-swapped war in Afghanistan, “The Women of Our Occupation”(audio version from Escape Pod) text here.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:55
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MisterBear posted:I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. The Parker books by Richard Stark while not being "non-stop" never insulted my intelligence unlike say Jack Reacher Matthew Riley's book were pretty good when I was a kid, no idea how they hold up now
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Jul 11, 2023 23:27
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MisterBear posted:I'm currently reading Chinaman which is lovely and very enjoyable but a bit slow. Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise books have plenty of action and are good fun.
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Jul 11, 2023 23:51
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Are the Godfather novels by Puzo actually good? Never read them or watched the films because they just seem like some poo poo Andrew Tate would like. The movies are definitely from a different era, there's approximately 1 female character per movie, and absolute everyone is white. But it definitely shows the self destructive side of all this macho bullshit, and doesn't glorify any of the killing. The first two movies are classics for a reason.
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Jul 12, 2023 03:23
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regulargonzalez posted:Pulp, but good pulp. Although to my knowledge there's just the one Puzo / Godfather book. Ah, I guess there are movie adaptations? Or maybe I've just Berensson Beared myself into thinking I've seen more than one. E: oh they literally just had someone else.write some sequels. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jul 12, 2023 |
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Jul 12, 2023 06:33
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Ah, I guess there are movie adaptations? Or maybe I've just Berensson Beared myself into thinking I've seen more than one. I've got the books on my kindle & there are a few in the series, not all by the same author. I've not read them yet so cant comment on how good they are. 1) The Family Corleone by Ed Falco 2) The Godfather by Mario Puzo 3) The Sicilian by Mario Puzo 4) The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner 5) The Godfathers Revenge by Mark Winegardner
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Jul 12, 2023 11:51
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Are the Godfather novels by Puzo actually good? Never read them or watched the films because they just seem like some poo poo Andrew Tate would like. To add to what others have already wrote: The Godfather novel is more of an ensemble project than the film. Several plot lines were cut from the novel in order to focus on the main throughline and Michael Corleone. This means that the novel wanders more than the film, but it also means it gets to wander to a few places the film does not. That is for better and for worse. There is some Weird Sex Stuff with one of the characters, Lucy Mancini (seen in the film in the wedding scenes). It reminds me of some of the awkward sex stuff I've seen in fantasy novels over the years. If that kind of content in SF/F drags you down, it will do the same here. The one thing that has me pick up the book again every few years is this: the book, through its ensemble cast, explores the complicity of mob associates and family in a way that there just isn't time for in either of the films. You spend time with people like Lucy Mancini, Sonny's mistress, the funeral director from the first scene of the movie, a doctor who isn't in the movie at all, and several other people. If that sounds interesting to you, it's probably worth reading. If not, probably not.
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Jul 12, 2023 14:33
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Sarern posted:It reminds me of some of the awkward sex stuff I've seen in fantasy novels over the years. If that kind of content in SF/F drags you down, it will do the same here. Oh, that is something I'd like to avoid.
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Jul 12, 2023 14:39
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Imagine avoiding two great movies and a well-regarded pulpy bestseller because of the off-hand possibility that Andrew Tate might have enjoyed them.
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Jul 12, 2023 15:11
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Are there any good alt history books based around “what is Napoleon won”? I feel like 99% of them are “what if the nazis won” or “what if the confederates won”
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Jul 12, 2023 16:01
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Sarern posted:There is some Weird Sex Stuff with one of the characters, Lucy Mancini (seen in the film in the wedding scenes). I read the book when I was 12, and this whole plot is the only thing I really remember from it. I think I halfway thought it was a novelisation of the film at the time. So when I eventually saw it, I was surprised by her lack of depth.
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Jul 12, 2023 19:10
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Badger of Basra posted:Are there any good alt history books based around “what is Napoleon won”? I feel like 99% of them are “what if the nazis won” or “what if the confederates won” If: or, History Rewritten - a 1931 collection of short stories has one story that deals with his victory at Waterloo and the political fallout thereof. The Napoleon Options: Alternate Decisions of the Napoleonic Wars - was published in 2017 apparently, and is again short stories/essays about different decisions that could have been made and some of their fallout. There are probably others, but I read the first a while back, and a friend was talking about the second earlier this year. I cannot speak to the quality of either.
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Jul 13, 2023 03:00
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Three Body Problem was pretty good but not earth-shattering like reviews made me think. Is the rest of the series worth digging into?
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Jul 13, 2023 05:01
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Tom Tucker posted:Three Body Problem was pretty good but not earth-shattering like reviews made me think. Is the rest of the series worth digging into? I'm about halfway through Death's End right now and if the first one didn't hit you probably won't like the rest. The second one in particular had a different translator and it felt really off.
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Jul 13, 2023 05:07
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Oh man, I felt like The Dark Forest was easily the best story of the lot. Flawless piece of tense science fiction. Death's End was fairly good, he got a little far future in a way that I think got away from him, but The Dark Forest was incredible.
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Jul 13, 2023 07:18
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Tom Tucker posted:Three Body Problem was pretty good but not earth-shattering like reviews made me think. Is the rest of the series worth digging into? I was pretty mid on the first one too, and honestly they all hit the same to me. Some neat ideas, but not as groundbreaking as reviews said. The person above who said the different translator made it feel off is right too. If you have something better to read I'd say read that, but if you don't you won't really regret it. It just won't wow you.
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Jul 13, 2023 07:50
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Opopanax posted:I just read the first Slow Horses book and its pretty good. Definitely airplane spy thriller stuff but a unique take on it Big fan of the Slow Horses/Slough House series, as well as the Apple TV+ adaptation - Gary Oldman is exactly how I would have pictured Lamb and Lowden plays a good Cartwright with the keenness and the chomping at the bit to be back with the grown-ups. tuyop posted:With the focus on military, she constantly centers the embodied experience of hate and shame and terror and conflict. One exception is “The Stars are Legion”. That’s like if Tolkien wrote LotR on an armada of failing, stranded generation ships where the population must maintain the systems by literally giving birth to components, which is mythologized and maintains the power structures of society just like our reproduction is now. One of my favourite “weird” novels. Annoyingly there's no kindle version of The Stars are Legion in the UK store and I keep getting in trouble with my wife if I buy too many 'real' books... I am, I admit, something of a collector as well as a reader! I'm going to try The Worldbreaker Saga though, there's a kindle omnibus edition and it sounds like intriguing fantasy! fez_machine posted:The Parker books by Richard Stark while not being "non-stop" never insulted my intelligence unlike say Jack Reacher Added the Parker books to my list. Matthew Riley's books are... not great? They're still fun though, call it a guilty pleasure of mine! Selachian posted:Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise books have plenty of action and are good fun. Sadly no kindle versions. Which is a shame since they look good fun! tuyop posted:If genre fiction is ok, this is exactly the state I was in for the Binti, Murderbot, and Bobiverse books. I don’t know if they’re thinking person quality but they’re cute and quick and deal with interesting questions with great joy and playfulness. I've enjoyed Murderbot in the past, should catch up on the newer books! Bobiverse I'm not much of a fan of, something about them grates at me which is a shame since they're, on the surface, the sort of geeky competence porn I should enjoy. Just picked up the Binti series and looking forward to getting stuck in! I've seen some good reviews of Okorafor's other books and I've not read much in the way of African authors which feels like a blindspot of mine.
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Jul 13, 2023 08:30
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StumblyWumbly posted:I've heard the movies are better than the book, but the movies are great so the book may still be worth reading. actually, they're italian
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Jul 13, 2023 12:00
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100 pages into House of Leaves and I think I'm throwing in the towel. I'm not into it at all and not finding it at all scary. Kinda disappointed I didn't even make it as far as any of the weird formatting stuff (unless you count the constant footnotes/endnotes and font changes). Does anyone want to advocate for me trying a little bit more
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Jul 13, 2023 16:26
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Kenning posted:Oh man, I felt like The Dark Forest was easily the best story of the lot. Flawless piece of tense science fiction. Death's End was fairly good, he got a little far future in a way that I think got away from him, but The Dark Forest was incredible. Don't get me wrong, I liked them, but if you aren't hooked by the end of the first book I don't know that the rest will grab you
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Jul 13, 2023 16:42
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boquiabierta posted:100 pages into House of Leaves and I think I'm throwing in the towel. I'm not into it at all and not finding it at all scary. Kinda disappointed I didn't even make it as far as any of the weird formatting stuff (unless you count the constant footnotes/endnotes and font changes). Not every book is for every person, if you're not digging it by now I wouldn't stress it. One thing that may or may not influence your decision: there's kind of a hidden narrative tucked away in the footnotes as well, or at least more than what's on the surface. But that alone isn't enough to keep reading if the rest of the book is a miss. And I never found it scary, more creepy. The last book I remember actually scaring me to some degree (more existential terror) is Revival by Stephen King. Usually I find his books fun and maybe creepy but that one got me, especially the audio version.
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Jul 13, 2023 16:55
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You know how some people seemingly get stuck reading just the one author? The Aged Parent (87) reads nothing but books by some woman named Danielle Steel. She has every single one and I suspect they're all the same book with the names changed. Everything else I've bought her, like Patrick White and Peter Carey she don't like, and other books I bought 2nd hand for her look just like those Steel books to me, but are too saucy or something. Who else is there that writes similar drivel without excessive boot knocking?
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Jul 14, 2023 02:35
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Fat Jesus posted:You know how some people seemingly get stuck reading just the one author? The Aged Parent (87) reads nothing but books by some woman named Danielle Steel. She has every single one and I suspect they're all the same book with the names changed. Everything else I've bought her, like Patrick White and Peter Carey she don't like, and other books I bought 2nd hand for her look just like those Steel books to me, but are too saucy or something. Who else is there that writes similar drivel without excessive boot knocking? Maybe Jackie Collins or Janet Dailey? My own AP had a few books by all three so I would assume they are similar. Nora Roberts is similarly prolific (in fact, now that I think on it, Janet Dailey may have plagiarized her?) but does tend to have frequent sex scenes.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:01
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what's up with this novel Tampa by Alissa Nutting? can somebody give me some trigger warnings on that? I am curious but a little hesitant after reading the synopsis. Is it horror?
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Jul 14, 2023 04:19
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