|
I Could Tell You But You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me by Trevor Paglen. It's a book about patches of secret "black world" military units. The information is spotty and he repeats himself over and over. We get it, 5 stars plus 1 star represent a 51. Overall, interesting, but not enough information. I kept getting interested in different units but would only get a paragraph of info on them. I'm looking forward to his other books which I also bought. The next one is about secret government bases.
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2009 20:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
Just finished Nine Stories by Salinger, it was amazing. I guess there's one or two stories that aren't as good as the rest but it was much better than I expected. Before that I read Silk by Alessandro Baricco which I also enjoyed, has anyone read any of his other novels? I'd really like to read something else by him. Mata posted:Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz, a semi-autobiographical book about a young boy in a concentration camp. I gotta say I didn't like the style at all. The author's run-on sentences are so ridiculous that on average there'll be maybe 4 or 5 periods per page, but that's my biggest complaint. Once you get used to that it's a decent read, but I can't help but think it received the nobel prize because of the subject matter rather than the prose. For me, quality of the writing is the most important part of a book. It picks up after maybe a hundred pages and then there's a special moment near the very end that ties the story together and hits you over the head with the message, and for a few pages it feels like a completely different (and much better) book. That's my favorite book. I love the style, for some reason it seems to fit the circumstances more than the usual more sentimental tone used by other authors writing about the Holocaust. It's not full of torture scenes or gas chambers but to me it felt that much more horrible. Fodder Cannon fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jun 3, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2009 21:21
|
|
|
I recently finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. I had purchased it earlier in the year in a used bookstore and thoroughly enjoyed it. Enough so that I went out and purchased Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and his pseudo biography Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century. I'm probably going to read one of those two texts next, since I've now started on a Thompson binge.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2009 21:40
|
|
|
Storm Front: Book 1 of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I got this based on other people mentioning it in this thread. The main idea, of a wizard/P.I. in these modern times is pretty cool. I did enjoy this book a bit, but I don't know if I liked it enough to read the rest of the books in the series. It was just a little short, and the plot felt really predictable.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2009 15:44
|
|
|
Finally completed Harry Potter & Half Blood Prince
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2009 17:22
|
|
|
Read Jim Rossignol's This Gaming Life. It was a pretty good semi-autobiographical account of his involvement in online game culture (he's a journalist who writes for PC Gamer UK, among others). The non-autobiographical parts were a good overview of the under-reported and generally beneficial effect games are having on individuals and culture, but nothing that was really new to me. Highly recommended read for parents or people who don't "get" games.
Snowmanatee fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jun 4, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2009 19:29
|
|
|
Solaris by Stanislav Lem. Thought I might give sci-fi a try again but went into it with very low expectations. Turns out it's a really good book on its own and not just as sci-fi. Story: scientists trying to investigate an alien living ocean are confronted with strange phantoms of their past. It's part science fiction, part ghost story and part romance. The alien lifeform in the book is actually alien in any way and form, a far cry from the usual oddly colored humanoids everywhere else. Big parts of the book are dedicated to the history of its research and describing the ocean in all its oddness. The actual story is eerie and sad with a great sense of loneliness and loss. Gonna read more by Lem. Reread Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut on a whim. My God. I already liked it when I was a teenager but didn't expect to be so impressed by it now. I fear I'll have to reread all the books from my youth in case I missed another such gem. I wish I'd wasted more time with Star Wars novelisations instead of reading books I couldn't even properly appreciate yet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2009 21:23
|
|
|
I just finished Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. I enjoyed it despite the many times I was lost in the Britishness, but the ending really confused me. I tried looking around some Douglas Adams fan sites and forums for others' perspectives, but everyone's to busy discussing Dr. Who and other random crap. I just don't see how messing with Coleridge stopped the ghost/alien from preventing life on Earth. Anyway, some day I'll pick up Tea Time... because I do enjoy silly British humor.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2009 05:23
|
|
|
Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond by Paul Shirley. Wow, I hated this book. Paul Shirley is a basketball player who writes a diary complaining about how much his life sucks playing basketball. I've never really read a book that reminded me of goons before, but goddamn this was the book. From bemoaning "the downfall of society!" which he blames on religion, tattoos, jewelry, and black people, to saying things like "[the music was so bad it] made me want to stick a knife in my ears!" he writes exactly like the most stereotypical member of this forum. Seriously, the guy played for the Suns while they were an incredible team and made a ton of money and bitched and moaned about every little thing. He's played all around the world and gotten paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for minimal work, but his life is horrible. At one point he complains about the $200,000 deal he got for one month of play. gently caress him. Another thing really bugged me about this book: he CONSTANTLY uses parentheses. In drat near every paragraph was something along the lines of "And then there were the amazing fans in the arena (and by amazing I mean horrible)." He then goes on to explain what the fans did that was stupid. We obviously would not get the joke if he just said they were amazing and then showed us that they were actually the exact opposite. His little asides are all too common and rarely funny. The one funny part of the book was when he described how terrible the streetlights and traffic in Russia is. Of course, that had little to do with his ability as a writer and more to do with how truly idiotic the set up was. Paul Shirley sucks. Gay4BluRayz fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jun 5, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2009 09:46
|
|
|
jidohanbaiki posted:I just finished Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. I enjoyed it despite the many times I was lost in the Britishness, but the ending really confused me. I tried looking around some Douglas Adams fan sites and forums for others' perspectives, but everyone's to busy discussing Dr. Who and other random crap. I just don't see how messing with Coleridge stopped the ghost/alien from preventing life on Earth. From what I just read in the Wikipedia article for it, apparently his writings had instructions to repair the time machine in them. So by distracting him, he doesn't write the document that would allow for the time machine to be fixed, and locking the past away from everyone. Without the time machine, the monk wouldn't be able to go back in time to stop the ship from exploding in orbit, which therefore started life on earth. Now I'm going to have to re-read these books again.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2009 12:51
|
|
|
The Empty Space by Peter Brook. I've yet to read Brecht or Jerzy Grotowski, but my god, this guy can write. I had a feeling that any book that has Tyrone Guthrie as one of the back cover reviews couldn't be all that bad, and it far surpassed any expectation I had. Easily one of the greatest written works on theatre.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 00:27
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:The Empty Space by Peter Brook. I've yet to read Brecht or Jerzy Grotowski, but my god, this guy can write. I had a feeling that any book that has Tyrone Guthrie as one of the back cover reviews couldn't be all that bad, and it far surpassed any expectation I had. Easily one of the greatest written works on theatre. Your post piqued my interest, the full title (The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate) made me add it to my wishlist, the Amazon review blurb sold me on it. Thanks for reminding me why I check this thread even when there's only one new post 
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 02:36
|
|
|
IUG posted:From what I just read in the Wikipedia article for it, apparently his writings had instructions to repair the time machine in them. So by distracting him, he doesn't write the document that would allow for the time machine to be fixed, and locking the past away from everyone. Without the time machine, the monk wouldn't be able to go back in time to stop the ship from exploding in orbit, which therefore started life on earth. OOOOOh! That makes much more sense. I guess that means the couch is still stuck then. Thanks, I don't know why I didn't think to check wikipedia.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 07:49
|
|
|
meche posted:All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Really enjoyed it - partly because with this one you're able to enjoy his amazing prose without being terminally bummed out (thankyou, The Road) or distracted by the violence (Blood Meridian, which I must re-read one day). I absolutely loved All The Pretty Horses when I read it last year. I'm a quarter of the way through The Crossing right now and I honestly think it's a better book.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 10:06
|
|
|
-
SuperBot fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Feb 12, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 16:08
|
|
|
I just finished Starship Troopers. It was... it was something. It wasn't bad... but it wasn't that great either.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2009 23:45
|
|
|
Some poetry: The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolano. If you enjoy his prose you'll probably enjoy his poetry, and it illuminates several of the themes that he likes to revisit. In terms of more explicit intertextually I think I spotted some selvage with The Savage Detectives and maybe (maybe) some early toying with the motifs of 2666. ommatium with Doxology by A.R. Ammon. This is A.R. Ammon's first book, which was out of print between 1955 and I guess three or four years ago-- not as deft as his later stuff but still, the "ommatium" section in particular holds up well. I loved the economy of his lines and the baldness of emotion, but the total lack of punctuation was a little too precocious for me. Typographical and syntactical play has its place, but there's a difference between a master of form seeing what they can lose and what they can bend, and a relative amateur just dicking around, which it comes off as at points in this book. Still, he wears the influence of Whitman on his sleeve and wears it uncommonly well-- well worth reading if you like Ammons, but definitely not a good place to start.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2009 00:08
|
|
|
Just finished A Game of Thrones, after being instructed by numerous different parties to start reading ASoIaF. I read it in about a week, and drat. Just...drat. It was definitely the best fantasy book from the last few decades that I've read; to be fair, though, I've read some bad stuff, so my judgment may be slightly biased. First seven books of the Sword of Truth series, anyone? I'm already about 200 pages into A Clash of Kings, which I am enjoying just as much, if not a little more so. Needless to say, I'm excited to keep going with the series.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2009 07:57
|
|
|
Tiborax posted:Needless to say, I'm excited to keep going with the series. Don't get that excited.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2009 08:26
|
|
|
Tiborax posted:Just finished A Game of Thrones, after being instructed by numerous different parties to start reading ASoIaF. I read it in about a week, and drat. Just...drat. Just wait until you get to a certain chapter in A Storm of Swords. Let us know your reaction. You'll know when you get there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 01:38
|
|
|
Just finished New Seeds of Contemplation by Merton. An excellent contemporary work of this kind, if contemplation, meditation, and like matters interest you. It appears to owe a bit of debt to The Cloud of Unknowing, but the original work is n the whole quite good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 04:18
|
|
|
I wanted some "light" reading before trying out Vonnegut again. I read Orwell's Animal Farm for the first time since high school. What an amazing book. Vertigo fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 8, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 17:24
|
|
|
Just went on a trip and picked up Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook, which is an anthology of three of the books in the series. Kind of a strange writing style to get used to, but overall I thought it was pretty good. It's kind of a proto-GRRM: gritty, nontraditional, realistic fantasy. The second two books don't quite reach the bar set by the first, but are still entertaining. Worth a read.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 20:38
|
|
|
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger was incredibly good. The guy can write dialogue better than anyone I've read in a long time. I absolutely loved this book, especially the Franny story. The Death of Ivan Ilych by Lev Tolstoy was short but very dense. It was a very interesting account of the final days (months) of a dying man and I could relate to it somewhat. I'm reading Anna Karenina now. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It was a difficult read, especially compared to the previous two books, but it was very worthwhile. Woolf is an amazing writer and this seems like a book that I could read ten times and not really have a grasp on...but in a good way. I really want to read some more Joyce and Faulkner after this. I'm going to read To the Lighthouse before this summer is over, as it's been gathering dust on my bookshelf for quite a while now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 21:37
|
|
|
vegaji posted:Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It was a difficult read, especially compared to the previous two books, but it was very worthwhile. Woolf is an amazing writer and this seems like a book that I could read ten times and not really have a grasp on...but in a good way. I really want to read some more Joyce and Faulkner after this. I'm going to read To the Lighthouse before this summer is over, as it's been gathering dust on my bookshelf for quite a while now. I'd totally, totally recommend Orlando and Between the Acts on the V. Woolf front as well-- both underrated (especially the latter!) and truly bizarre in different ways. The Waves is superb as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2009 22:38
|
|
|
Just finished Perdido Street Station by China Mieville My thanks to The Book Barn for turning me on to this highly entertaining work, I now am absolutely fascinated by the world of Bas-lag. Heading to the library to snag The Scar tomorrow!
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 07:24
|
|
|
I too just finished Perdido Street Station by Commie Mielville and thought it was a steaming pile of poo poo. Why do people like this book so much? I understand that it's fantasy/sci-fi and not some new revolutionary style of literature but people throw his name around like he's a golden God. If anyone is thinking about reading this book I would steer clear or maybe I'm just being a literary snob. Also just finished Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner and found it hard to get into but good lord that man could write some rich prose.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 10:41
|
|
|
Well, that's an interesting juxtaposition.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 11:47
|
|
|
I think I kind of had both of those reactions to Perdido Street Stations. At first I was excited and enthralled and felt like I was on to something knew, but by the end of the book there were some big set pieces that didn't seem like they had anything to do with anything and I couldn't remember why I was reading it. I got distracted with ~40 pages left and never went back to it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 14:00
|
|
|
I finally finished Pride and Prejudice after fighting through it for over a week and half. It's not that I didn't like it or anything, but it took me 200 pages just to get "into" it. I really liked the relationships between most of the characters, but my favorite was Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Lady Catherine and Elizabeth's was good too, if only because Lady Catherine is a bitch (and after recently reading A Game of Thrones, I am reminded of Cersei [insert goonsay here]). It'll probably be the only Austen novel I bother reading, if only because those 367 pages were so "eh" by the time I was done. I was told Sense and Sensibilty was worth a read, too, so I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 15:37
|
|
|
Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit - John Douglas. This guy was a big part of developing criminal profiling, and it is interesting to get some of his background, and their insight in how they reach their conclusions on the serial killer (accurately most of the time). This is definitely a pro-FBI/law enforcement book. There seems to be very little if any wrong that the FBI does in this book. He is also clear about his POV such as being for the death penalty. This book covers a lot of horrendous crime cases, that he was involved with personally and others that his colleagues would have worked on (usually with some insight from him). Overall an interesting book, especially for the profiling.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 16:18
|
|
|
Inside the Aquarium by Victor Suvorov (actually a psuedonym). It's a memoir of a former GRU agent's time in training and experience in the GRU. Excellent understanding of the culture within Soviet military intelligence and the one thing I really admire about it is how dedicated they individually were to the cause of espionage.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2009 21:17
|
|
|
The Porno Girl by Merin Wexler. Wexler divides this short-story collection into three sections: Mothers, Daughters and Wives. The Mothers section, which contains the first three installments, is uneven, especially the title-story opener about a mother who brings her baby to quarter-slot peep shows at the porno theater: Unbelievable characters doing ridiculous things. If it weren't for my compulsion to finish every book I start, I would have abandoned it before reading the rest. However, I'm glad I continued, because the remaining stories are pretty solid, with subtle yet engaging plots and impressive descriptive writing. Highlights included a teacher using a dating service called Off Campus Connections to distract her from relentless defeats in the classroom, and a teenage girl who becomes freakishly obsessed with saving the marriage of a neighbor couple she'd never met. Recommended if you have any interest in short stories told from female characters' perspectives.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2009 16:35
|
|
|
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercombie, 1st book in The First Law Trilogy - It was a decent book, both well written and with interesting characters. Very much in the same style as The Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. Little overt magic or fantastical creatures, gritty, harsh, 'realistic' fantasy. I especially liked how the main characters were flawed in some way. The selfish swordsman, the crippled torturer, the cowardly savage. The protagonists where not heroic in the least. The book is also very grounded in realism, for example, the fights were brutal and graceless. However, the one criticism I had is that the first part of the book is very unimaginative for a fantasy work in terms of the world. To be honest, it made the going a little dull at first. This was more than made up for by the strong characters, and the world got more interesting towards the end. It finishes strongly and I look forward to reading the following novels in the trilogy. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, 1st book in The Gentleman Bastard Sequence - An excellent introduction to the series. The world is very interesting and the plot is all kinds of fantastic. It's like an Oceans Eleven style heist movie in terms of complexity. I particularly enjoyed the use of flashback style interludes throughout the novel, to demonstrate their training and provide background. I must admit, these interludes were somewhat annoying when I started reading the book, but they worked really well when I got used to them. Lovin' the whole italian culture that the city had; if you count yourself an aficionado of fantasy and you haven't read this yet, get it, savvy?
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2009 01:15
|
|
|
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I'd seen it mentioned around here before, and honestly samurai pizza man sounded pretty stupid. I was glad to see that that plot line didn't last for long. I just finished a book that dealt with Sumerian mythology, so reading a sci-fi (cyberpunk I guess) book that drew upon that subject heavily was pretty cool. I definitely got a "Water World" vibe from the scenes on the Raft. In all a fun book. John Adams by David McCullough. Adams must be the most unduly unappreciated of the more well known Founding Fathers. He basically designed our government, managed to get everyone to sign the Declaration of Independence, negotiated various treaties and loans in Europe, kept us from fighting loving Napoleon (paving the way for the Louisiana Purchase), all while not going into massive debt like Jefferson. The book is written in a very readable style, almost like fiction. If you have any interest in the period, it's definitely a must read.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2009 05:39
|
|
|
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. The Author, a motorcycle mechanic with a PhD in political philosophy, argues that we should promote trades as careers to young people, and avoid sending everyone to college to work information sector jobs. He synthesizes Marx's theory of alienation and Heidegger to explain how trades allow us to know the world, provide self esteem and connection with one's work. I would suggest it for for students majoring in the humanities and unemployed and underemployed liberal arts graduates. The downside is that he goes on about motorcycles for far too long, which can be distracting. This excerpt encouraged me to read the book: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2009 14:44
|
|
|
Finished both The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie--definitely one of my favorite authors--and then, for contrast, I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and some dude. (Seth Grahame?) I knew P&P&Z would live or die depending on how well the new stuff was integrated with the old, and while it wasn't hard to tell what had been added, the actual integration wasn't bad. Competent execution of a clever conceit--but I don't mind cleverness from time to time. I enjoyed reading it but I can't say it changed my life.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2009 00:12
|
|
|
After six weeks of reading, I finally finished Ulysses. Words fail me. I don't know what I'm going to read next. At first I thought I was going to jump right into Finnegans Wake, but frankly as much of a genius as Joyce is, I need a little break. I'm thinking about reading The Idiot or something short and sweet like Utopia by Moore. For now though, I just need to rest.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2009 19:30
|
|
|
I recently finished reading The gently caress-Up by Arthur Nersesian. The book reminds me of The Rum Diary but set in New York during the 1980s. I thought it was pretty crazy how it progressed to just small, petty screw ups and then to huge, large problems that the character had to face. My book cover has the MTV logo on it so I guess this is one of the very few good things MTV put out.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2009 23:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
Harvey Carlson posted:I recently finished reading The gently caress-Up by Arthur Nersesian. The book reminds me of The Rum Diary but set in New York during the 1980s. I thought it was pretty crazy how it progressed to just small, petty screw ups and then to huge, large problems that the character had to face. The MTV edition is a reprint, it was originally published by an independent house in NYC; Akashic, I think. He got picked up by MTV on his third book, Dogrun, and they reprinted his first two. So I guess what I'm saying is that I like Nersesian.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2009 23:54
|
|
