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The One That Got Away by Simon Wood: A pulpy thriller that follows Zoë Sutton as she adjusts to life one year after having escaped from a serial killer - which involved leaving her friend behind to die. Her life has changed drastically since the escape. She dropped out of grad school, became a mall cop, focused on self-defense classes, and struggles with PTSD. Then, her attempted killer resurfaces, and she tries to help the cops catch him. Overall, a decent read that didn't overstay its welcome or make me suspend my disbelief too much.
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Sep 5, 2023 15:06
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Finished Harrow the Ninth, which I enjoyed significantly more than Gideon the Ninth (a good book in its own right). I'll likely start on the follow-up tonight, although the blurb has me concerned that the mystery will be quite similar. I was under the impression Nona was the last book in the series but it appears at least one more is slated. I am astonished with how well the second person narration worked.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:09
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A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner). If you don't know, the conceit of this book is that it's 13 separate stories, with overlapping characters. The first one is set in the mid 2000s I think? and the rest jump around different decades, including fifteen years in the future (which I guess is actually around now). There's some variation in genre, but the style is so consistent they come off as pretty unified. It felt thin at first, and by halfway I thought I'd never want to re-read it. But the "polyphony" gimmick does actually start kicking in, where seeing the same characters from different angles, with hopes raised, dashed, destroyed, etc, and the way time does a number on them all in the end -- idk, it affected me a lot more than I expected.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:09
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malnourish posted:Finished Harrow the Ninth, which I enjoyed significantly more than Gideon the Ninth (a good book in its own right). I'll likely start on the follow-up tonight, although the blurb has me concerned that the mystery will be quite similar. I was under the impression Nona was the last book in the series but it appears at least one more is slated. In short, Nona was originally just the first act of the intended final book (Alecto the Ninth), but Muir found it kept expanding out in various ways so she sliced it off into its own thing. It suffers in some ways from that and if AtN sticks the landing, then NtN will probably be the weakest book in the series. Weakest in the series is still pretty good.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:31
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Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill with Lisa Pulitzer My first time reading a full book on Scientology, so the look at the inner workings was the interesting part. Less interesting was Jenna's personal story, because she had the famous name she figured out that she could do what she wanted when the time came and certainly didn't have the consequences that a normal person would. Easy to read and equal parts entertaining and horrifying, though.
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Sep 6, 2023 16:35
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rollick posted:A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner). This is one of the few books I have ever read that I can recall nothing of. I just remember trying to enjoy it because it wasn't bad. But, apparently completely forgettable. I read John Green's Paper Towns last week because I needed a palate cleanser quick read and it was $2 at the used book store. It did its job. Rather boring first half. The final act was ... fine? Nonfiction, Handprints on Hubble by space shuttle astronaut Kathy Sullivan. She was on the mission that launched the Hubble telescope and most of the book is her account of what that involved, which was six years of meticulous prep work instead of two because of the Challenger accident. If you like space shuttle bios, it's worth it. I still put Mike Massimino's Spaceman above it, but it's miles and miles better than Scott Parazynski's The Sky Below, which was essentially "Ain't I the most awesomest?" for 300 pages. Erm, yes, you're an astronaut and you climbed Everest, we know. Now tell us the nerdy stuff.
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Sep 7, 2023 04:45
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China: A History by John Keay was perfectly serviceable, pretty much exactly what you'd hope for it to be. Somehow manages not to feel hurried despite the sheer length of time covered. The ending as the narrative reaches 2006 is very abrupt, which I guess is an effective way of expressing that history is never complete.
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Sep 9, 2023 09:51
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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann An excellent summary of the last 60 years of anthropology and archaeology on the western hemisphere and what we’ve learned about Indigenous North and South Americans. I learned a quite a bit about the nations and empires that proliferated throughout South America and Mesoamerica, but much of it was just a well written review of the literature for me. If you’re looking for a dad book that deals with the bootlicking bullshit Pinker, Diamond, Harari, et al, spew, I believe this is the one. The Dawn of Everything overlaps with this a lot, but that’s a book about ideas and this is a book about cultural narratives, historiography, and the author’s journey. If I could do it again I would have read this first, and Dawn of Everything is one of my favourite nonfiction books.
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Sep 9, 2023 12:50
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Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs is an urban fantasy novel of the 'cozy' type, focusing on the dysfunctional relationships of a family with secrets, especially two estranged sisters, with magic as an extra sauce to keep the plot going and add stakes beyond the personal well-being of the protagonists. I found the book predictable and dull, you'd think one of the protagonists being a bisexual woman working in Antarctica as a mechanic would change up the formula, but she turns out to be far and away the least important main character to the plot and is soon shoved into a standard urban fantasy character archetype, her girlfriend forgotten about. Torzs presents a world where magic doesn't seem to have much if any limits, but people use it for the dullest things. It's very clear which characters Torzs actually cared about and which were there just to be there because the plot and conventions of the genre demanded it, and she pulls off the relatively rare trick for me of presenting a half-understood world of magic with secrets and mysteries and I never found myself wanting to know more about how this world worked.
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Sep 9, 2023 21:03
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King, Queen, Knave weaker than Mary Nabokov's preceding novel, the second novel he wrote tears itself away from his preoccupation with the emigres community and instead manages a explicitly humors and implicitly terrifying view of the mindset that would lead to the terrors of the Nazi regime. Granted, he heavily edited the book when he and his son had it translated into English, but seeing as I dont read Russian I cannot divorce his few inserted comments about Franz's future complicity with the previous text that already is explicit in how a weak willed man is seduced into terrible crimes through the total destruction of his higher mental faculties. Although this novel has a much more positive outcome with that same lobotomization being the cause of the lobotomizers death. Much of the references to works outside the text, to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina are funny but not significant and his try at in universe symbology with the King,Queen, Knave play feels amateurish compared to the double and triple entendre references of Nabokov's later works. Surprisingly though I felt very touched with Dreyer, his melancholy at being unable to connect with his wife in matters that aren't purely material, his realization that his wealth is by chance not skill, that he doesn't feel made for business but rather acting but cannot divorce himself of his cash growing operations lest he lose what little of himself his wife loves. In all, it's a good sophomore effort, emphasis sophomore rather than good. The Leopard A heartbreaking account of a man, and a class being left behind in the dustbin of history. Tancredi being the only one to truly miss Fabrizio, when he and his class are the ones who put the final nail in the coffin of the aristocracy. Better to die with at least a sham prestige like The Leopard did rather than trying to cling onto hollow titles and ancient accomplishments. Novel does suffer from not having Alain Delon's beautiful blue eyes to gaze into.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:08
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The Metabarons: Second Cycle by Jerry Frissen; story by Alejandro Jodorowsky; illustrated by Valentin Secher and Niko Henrichon; translated by Quinn Donoghue, Katia Donoghue, and Cristy Stiles. I don't know how much involvement Jodorowsky had in this, but it was off compared to what is retroactively the 'first cycle'. It picks up right where the previous book ends and is about the continuing adventures of the last Metabaron instead of his family's saga, which wasn't as compelling though there were some entertaining parts.
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Sep 11, 2023 03:45
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I just "finished" reading I Only Read Murder by Ian Ferguson & Will Ferguson. "Finished" is in quotation marks because I could only stand to read up to page 52. The protagonist is one of the most thoroughly unlikable characters I've ever seen. She's a walking caricature, it would be a stretch to even call her one-dimensional. She is a stereotypical over-the-hill narcissistic diva who thinks the entire world should revolve around her whims, despite her career trajectory having been in a nose-dive for the last 15 years. She is the kind of character who appears on TV shows and is typically limited to five minutes screentime in a row at most. Following a person around like this constantly is just anger-inducing. I took an instant dislike to her by page 3, when she got confused by a water bottle and needed her assistant to open it. This is supposed to be the detective of the story? The other characters of note are also dumb - there's her pathetically spineless assistant who seems to be completely insane because despite not being paid for months still pays for her expenses out of his own pocket and is excessively nice to her for no reason, because she doesn't deserve it. Then there's her (separated) husband who sent a cryptic postcard saying "it's been 15 years, it's time," as the entire message and is shocked that she shows up again, he expected her to understand that he meant "time for a divorce." He should have asked for that no later than 10 years ago. I didn't get to meet anyone else before quitting. From skimming ahead about a hundred pages or so, up to the actual murder, it seems like this protagonist pissed off someone enough to try and kill her. Too bad they didn't succeed, that would be what you call a "victimless crime." I'm sure the authors thought "what if we make the rear end in a top hat Victim the protagonist" was a neat concept for a murder mystery. They seem to have forgotten that the key word "rear end in a top hat Victim" is rear end in a top hat. People get enough time dealing with assholes in every day life, I don't need to spend my free time with one too.
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Sep 11, 2023 17:50
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A Wizard of Earthsea. Folks, Le Guin was a really good author, did anyone know that?
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Sep 12, 2023 02:59
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silvergoose posted:A Wizard of Earthsea. Folks, Le Guin was a really good author, did anyone know that? I'm currently doing a retreat of the whole cycle. Le Guin shows up most other fantasy and SF authors as the unimaginative, tedious hacks they are.
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Sep 12, 2023 16:29
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Metamorphoses (by Apuleius, not one of the other people). It was... OK. The ending is absolute dogshit but what can you do, Apuleius was a loving dweeb.
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Sep 12, 2023 18:53
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Marvel Anatomy: A Scientific Study of the Superhuman by Marc Sumerak, Daniel Wallace, Jonah Lobe (illustrator) - A coffee table book that dives into the power sets of various characters in the Marvel universe. It's fine if you're a nerd who likes that sort of thing. I would have liked more thorough anatomical drawings (a la Gray's Anatomy) than what was in the book. The illustrations mostly ended up being characters with some musculature or skeletal structure showing through x-ray zones of their arms.
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Sep 12, 2023 19:26
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Metamorphoses (by Apuleius, not one of the other people). It was... OK. The ending is absolute dogshit but what can you do, Apuleius was a loving dweeb. Is that the one also called "The Golden rear end"? I've been trying to read it, but the 25-page slog of an introduction by some professor destroyed any motivation I had and I have been stuck on page 21 for a few weeks now.
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Sep 13, 2023 07:28
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Nice Tuckpointing! posted:Is that the one also called "The Golden rear end"? I've been trying to read it, but the 25-page slog of an introduction by some professor destroyed any motivation I had and I have been stuck on page 21 for a few weeks now. Yeah. Lmao don't read introductions before you read the work that's like book-reading 101 smhd. e: Unless it's by the actual author.
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Sep 13, 2023 08:14
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Yeah. I know I know. Yet I keep doing it.
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Sep 13, 2023 09:10
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Nice Tuckpointing! posted:I know I know. Yet I keep doing it. (I did it too lol.)
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Sep 13, 2023 09:33
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nonathlon posted:I'm currently doing a retreat of the whole cycle. Le Guin shows up most other fantasy and SF authors as the unimaginative, tedious hacks they are. I started The Word for World is Forest yesterday and just like, couldn’t put it down. It’s like Avatar if James Cameron understood colonialism and made a good movie. Also the weird golden age sci fi mirror image of The Fifth Head of Cerberus.
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Sep 13, 2023 13:48
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Yeah. I recently read Swastika Night, which is a weirdly prescient 30s novel that's recently been rediscovered and republished. The foreword recounts the entire plot. I don't mean that it gives it away, it literally walks through the plot and summarises it 
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Sep 14, 2023 12:01
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Picked up a couple graphic novels a few months ago and hadn't read them yet, so I powered through them this week. Black Paradox by Junji Ito. Interesting, creepy. Built up the suspense well. Could be turned into a bigger series, I think, but that's not really what Ito is into making. I think he recognizes that horror shouldn't overstay it's welcome. I thought it was more coherent and less dreamlike than some of his other stuff, but still felt like reading someone's nightmare. Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki was moody, beautiful and a delight. I couldn't put it down. My translation had some nice background information, too, so I got to learn something. I wish he would make it into a full-length feature.
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Sep 14, 2023 15:56
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nonathlon posted:I recently read Swastika Night, which is a weirdly prescient 30s novel that's recently been rediscovered and republished. You're right, 1985 was like ten years ago, tops  e: Oh it was re-re-printed recently. Sorry. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Sep 15, 2023 |
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Sep 15, 2023 12:12
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The Word for World is Forest by LeGuin Basically Avatar if it was any good at all. A fantastic companion to The Fifth Head of Cerberus as two sci-fi explorations of colonialism. Given the alien similarities, I’m pretty sure Gene Wolfe owes Ursula LeGuin some royalties. But while the LeGuin book is hopeful, sort of, Wolfe is not. Usually I recommend Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed but The Word for World is Forest is better than The Dispossessed and much more relevant imo.
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Sep 15, 2023 13:05
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tuyop posted:The Word for World is Forest by LeGuin I loved that one!!! It was so weird and compelling. I think I read it all on a plane flight and then before bed the same day because I couldn't put it down. And yeah I learned more from and got more out of TWfWIF than from The Dispossessed. I thought The Dispossessed was less subtle, too, and I didn't care much for the protagonist. I would have rather read about another character. I still liked it. Edit: if you liked it check out stuff by James Tiptree Jr., the pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon. She wrote a lot of sci Fi that has a similar vibe to LeGuin. I liked Up the Walls of the World a lot. don longjohns fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Sep 15, 2023 |
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Sep 15, 2023 15:50
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Just finished Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven after pulling it out of a little free library. I had to read it back in high school and my guess is whoever deposited it in the box did the same. Back then I hated short story collections, but now I like them better than novels. I think most authors, even great ones, do not have enough interesting ideas to fill hundreds and hundreds of pages on the same topic. Either way, I remember liking it the first time I read it. It was pretty good the second time around. The fantastical or magical realist elements strongly reminded me of the POV character from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - the way his descriptions of reality are suddenly interrupted by vivid and disturbing visions that swallow everything around him.
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Sep 15, 2023 22:09
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Just finished Book 2 of the Mistborn Trilogy. For some reason, I'm not super psyched to jump into the 3rd despite the cliffhanger. I guess I imagined it ending differently. I'm not sure how though.
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Sep 18, 2023 13:34
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Finished Communion, our BotM. Aliens are inscrutable and decided to abduct the guy who wrote that book The Hunger that was turned into a movie that Bowie appeared in.
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Sep 19, 2023 04:25
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion I decided to read this after Bret Easton Ellis cited this book as having made him want to be a writer. I can see why, Didion writes about mundane things such as a vacation in Mexico or mansions in Newport in a distinctive and engaging style. It's an article collection split into three parts, profiles on personalities, self-help columns and reflections on places. Some of the pieces have too many references to 60s era stars and that makes them kind of dull, but others are captivating. I particulary enjoyed a true crime article on a murderous Californian wife.
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Sep 19, 2023 09:55
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Modiano's Villa Triste. It's a short novel and I enjoyed the fact that I had absolutely no idea what it was about, until I finished it. To me that's a succesful novel. Now I don't want to read any more Modiano because I can guess what it's about  (I didn't read the back-cover-thingie, and saved the foreword for last. Had I read the foreword before the book proper, I would probably not have enjoyed it at all.)
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Sep 21, 2023 11:51
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I finally read The Road. Yeah that book deserves all the praise. It totally broke my heart when the man was mean to that guy Now I’m reading Dubliners. I have read the first five stories. Extremely good at getting you into the mindset of a time and place. I hope one of these characters actually follows through on something one day!
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Sep 25, 2023 01:26
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That damned bunker...
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Sep 25, 2023 01:36
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Escobarbarian posted:I finally read The Road. Yeah that book deserves all the praise. It totally broke my heart when the man was mean to that guy Oh boy, The Dead is in your future. Perhaps the perfect short story? e. also post your thoughts in the Joyce Thread
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Sep 25, 2023 01:41
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McSpankWich posted:Just finished Book 2 of the Mistborn Trilogy. For some reason, I'm not super psyched to jump into the 3rd despite the cliffhanger. I guess I imagined it ending differently. I'm not sure how though. You’re fully justified to feel that way, book 2 is a bit of a slog while book 3 is excellent. Be sure to look at a reading order for other Sanderson books as Arcanum Unbounded expands on the Mistorn universe in some super neat ways but has spoilers for other cosmere books. I’m waiting to finish the Children of Time trilogy before I write a review and am about to start book 3 soon. Fantastic series so far if you’re craving some badass hard scifi.
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Sep 25, 2023 03:13
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I read The Dead and saw it as a dull Christmas Party capped off with a solemn realization of mortality, the knowledge that so many are no longer with us. In theory something that would appeal to me, but the length of time poring through dinner conversation dulled my receptivity to its ending. I am I just totally insensate?
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Sep 25, 2023 03:31
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FPyat posted:I read The Dead and saw it as a dull Christmas Party capped off with a solemn realization of mortality, the knowledge that so many are no longer with us. In theory something that would appeal to me, but the length of time poring through dinner conversation dulled my receptivity to its ending. I am I just totally insensate? No. Dinner party scenes in every novel are boring nightmares. Have not read one I've enjoyed. Probably because they're trying to capture the tenor of multiple bad conversations.
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Sep 25, 2023 08:50
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Finally finished the last ½ of Billy Summers by King. It's was kinda really boring and lame and about 300 pages too long! It's a bad crime story, a bad love story, and an American and thus very very bad war story. Also felt quite repetitive and explainy - did loving Dan Brown ghostwrite this? Or is King's mind just going? There's some promise early on but it all dies by page 400 or so. Thanks for keeping my hopes up, you bastard book! Anyway there's a CAMEO THROWBACK OH MY GOD TEN THINGS YOU DIDN'T NOTICE IN BILLY SUMMERS (LAST ONE WILL AMAGE YOU!!?) to The Shining so that's cool I guess?
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Sep 25, 2023 09:17
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Finished The Call of the Wild by Jack London, as good a book as the Children's Abridged version of White Fang was when I was growing up. Amazing how seemingly cute and heartwarming Hollywood managed to make such a brutal tale in 2020.
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Sep 25, 2023 11:17
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fez_machine posted:No. Dinner party scenes in every novel are boring nightmares. Have not read one I've enjoyed. Have you read Harrow
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Sep 25, 2023 18:11
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