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Helmacron posted:I don't know if that's bad, if so the connotation has passed me by like the period of time I probably could have caught my tinea with simple pharmaceutical creams instead of how I'm now working up the nerve to apply this tincture I've concocted from formulin and dettol, of which yes, I just happened to have. I was surprised too. I'll tell you after you've taken your medication.
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Oct 10, 2011 14:20
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EDIT: Sorry. I apologise. I had a bad few days. I'll save my abuse for underlings at work. I apologise. VV We call it Salvos in Australia. Like, they're changing the name on shops to that. Price tags say "Salvos" now. And St Vincent De Paul is now Vinnies. Helmacron fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 11, 2011 |
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Oct 10, 2011 15:05
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Helmacron posted:I don't know if that's bad, if so the connotation has passed me by like the period of time I probably could have caught my tinea with simple pharmaceutical creams instead of how I'm now working up the nerve to apply this tincture I've concocted from formulin and dettol, of which yes, I just happened to have. I was surprised too. I'm going to take a guess and say he meant the smaller size = more pages, but feel free to get your money's use from your Rogets. Next time you're at the Sally Ann, might I recommend Stunk and White?
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Oct 10, 2011 16:33
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The list of National Book Award finalists was released today. Some stuff there I've been interested in reading (especially Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife and Manning Marable's biography of Malcolm X), but none that I actually got around to. Anybody here get around to these? Any books that really stand out?
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Oct 13, 2011 17:30
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So just a general sort of question. Does anyone else have trouble readin more than one book at a time? I just can't seem to do it, even if one is fiction and one is non-fiction. I just end up getting "lost" when I go back and forth after a while. I'd say that I'm a fairly advanced reader, but this is something I just cannot do. I like to focus my attention at one book at a time. Are there any tricks to reading more than one book at a time?
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Oct 17, 2011 02:25
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I don't know why you would, it seems strange, like having 2 tvs on, playing 2 different movies, and constantly pausing/unpausing each one. But I suppose just reading up till a major conflict has been resolved would help, you could digest that third of the story while reading something else?
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Oct 17, 2011 03:01
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I don't think I've been "reading" less than 10 books at a time ever since I was 15.
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Oct 17, 2011 03:11
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Wow. 10 is a little extreme but I can easily have 3 or 4 going at a time. I see it less like pausing/unpausing two movies next to each other, and more like following a number of TV serials from week to week. I can easily pick up one book, read 30 or 40 pages, then move to another, then another, every day, while keeping track of storylines and characters.
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Oct 17, 2011 03:50
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Yeah, it's kind of an attention span problem for me, with a lot of longer books I can't really sit and read the whole thing through without losing interest so I switch to another one, finish that, and then go back to the one I had to put down. Sometimes they kind of pile up and I've got three or four that I'm weaving in and out of. I don't do switch back and forth constantly, though, I try to make a good amount of progress in each book before switching out.
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Oct 17, 2011 04:46
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pakman posted:So just a general sort of question. Does anyone else have trouble readin more than one book at a time? I just can't seem to do it, even if one is fiction and one is non-fiction. I just end up getting "lost" when I go back and forth after a while. I'd say that I'm a fairly advanced reader, but this is something I just cannot do. I like to focus my attention at one book at a time. I used to be able to juggle 3-4 books at a time, but as I've gotten older, I've gotten worse at it. I was discussing this with my wife, and we came to the conclusion that I'm reading more "intricate" books than I used to, and I'm trying to "get more" out of each book... In other words, I'm getting "old and dumb."
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Oct 17, 2011 15:47
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I keep 2 or 3 going at the same time when I read. Basically, if I start to get burnt out, or bored with one, I swap over to the next one and keep going. Some days I don't feel like reading action/adventure, so I might swap to a humor book I am reading, and if I don't feel in the mood to laugh I might swap over to a horror book I am reading. If the novel is extremely dense (mistborn, daybreak, etc) then I tend to swap a good bit so I don't get burnt out on what I am reading.
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Oct 17, 2011 21:18
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I've recently found that the fewer books I'm reading, the slower I get through them - and not in a "I'm trying to get the most out of this book as possible" kind of way, but such a way that I actually get bored only reading one thing so my mind wanders while I read. For me, it's best to keep 3-4 books on my night stand that I can switch between night after night. This also helps me get through huge short story collections, if I can read a story and then a few chapters from an novel or two.
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Oct 18, 2011 11:21
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I want to get The Walking Dead Compendium Part 1 from my local independent bookseller, but it's nearly twice as much as Amazon. $36.72 vs. $59.99+tax. Bleh. I really want to support the local guy but it's so hard.
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Oct 21, 2011 22:27
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I know what you mean. For me it's hard to be sympathetic when the sellers are charging fi;; retail price for their books. Amazon has been around for awhile now. Most other store types offer discounts, it mostly seems to be the bookstores that don't.
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Oct 21, 2011 22:39
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It's because generally, Amazon is able to strong-arm publishers into mass quantity discounts that just plain aren't on offer for independents (or chains, for that matter). Publishers are by and large at Amazon's mercy as a result, as Amazon has made entire oeuvres of publishers unavailable before when disagreements occurred. Publishers like Ten Speed Press, Melville House, among others. Oh yeah, and a little start-up outlet by the name of Macmillan (was reversed shortly thereafter). They get their books for comparatively cheaper than the others do, and don't have to really worry about any storage cost/rent issues that are the bane of the existence of your typical brick-and-mortar bookstore, so what is basically a nominal profit is trumped by effectively cornering the market. There was an interesting read in the Boston Review a few months ago on the subject of Amazon's interactions with publishers: http://bostonreview.net/BR35.6/roychoudhuri.php EDIT: Come to think of it, it wouldn't surprise me if this sort of trend was the same across the board as far other products Amazon sells, re: discounts available to Amazon v. those available to other retailers. ColonelCurmudgeon fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 21, 2011 |
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Oct 21, 2011 23:09
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So I've been reading a whole bunch of Elmore Leonard, and a lot of the time, he has characters end sentences with "uh?" which to me seems like a strange sound (English is my second language). Is it a Florida or Detroit thing (seeing as a lot of his books take place in those places, and I haven't been there, only Boston/NY/Baltimore/SF/Philly for any real length of time)? I interpret it sortof like the Canadian "eh?" or a more lazy "huh?" which I guess is what he means, it just seems a little odd to me to write it like that.
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Oct 22, 2011 15:42
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Carthag posted:So I've been reading a whole bunch of Elmore Leonard, and a lot of the time, he has characters end sentences with "uh?" which to me seems like a strange sound (English is my second language). Maybe it's the sound with which Mark E. Smith ends every sentence: http://youtu.be/Y43ZChsP7kQ It doubtless isn't, but that's what popped to my mind.
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Oct 22, 2011 16:22
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Hah, that makes the books even more entertaining.
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Oct 23, 2011 12:44
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Just jumping in here, I need help finding a book, and Google hasn't been forthcoming so far. I read a thread here some months ago that mentioned a book that might have been in the fantasy genre, though I'm not sure. All I can remember was that it was a story of a group of islands, the narrator couldn't leave his island because of a local superstition that the island was cursed as such and so he could never leave. I'm sorry that it's so vague, any ideas?
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Oct 28, 2011 00:34
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I just downloaded the Kindle reader for PC and purchased my first ebook from Amazon. Quick question though, where are the purchased ebook files stored? Is it possible to convert them to a different format to use in Calibre?
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Nov 1, 2011 00:48
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Has anyone here read Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White? I have a question about the character of Henry Rackham at the end of the book, but it's not worth starting a thread over. The question is why do you think Faber had Henry pop up in a number of characters' thoughts in the end, long after he had died? Faber even made the point of having Sugar, who had only seen Henry once in passing, think she saw him on the bus as she fled London. Also, in the book's "sequel" of sorts, The Apple and other stories, a grown Sophie has named her son Henry. I just thought that was curious, and I feel like Henry must have a greater symbolic or philosophical significance for Faber to keep him in the characters' (and readers') thoughts like this, when nothing about the plot or other characters' stories necessitates it. (I loving love this book, by the way. It's one of the only books I've ever read every single word of without skimming, and I've also listened to the ~40-hour audio book twice. The narration itself is so enchanting.  )
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Nov 1, 2011 02:01
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Jive One posted:I just downloaded the Kindle reader for PC and purchased my first ebook from Amazon. Quick question though, where are the purchased ebook files stored? Is it possible to convert them to a different format to use in Calibre? I use windows 7, and it's under libraries/documents. You can convert it if it doesn't have DRM, but if it does you need to strip it first. Google is your friend on this.
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Nov 1, 2011 06:32
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A long time ago I remember a goon-voted list of top 100 books. Is there anything like that still around (but updated)? One of my friends is in jail for awhile and I want to send him some good books but I'm low on ideas. Any help would be much appreciated. edit: Oops. I need to get better at reading the rules, I just saw this link: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2584650 almostkorean fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Nov 5, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 03:19
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Are we gonna do Secret Santa this year? I remember the signups happening around the beginning of November last year, and I gave away/received lots of really neat stuff. 
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Nov 5, 2011 23:45
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It's probably a matter of someone stepping up. Noted toilet-licker Viconia ran it last year and she's since been banned or something.
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Nov 6, 2011 01:09
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Well hell, I'll wait a week in case Loosechanj wants to do it, and then I'll step up to run it this year. I still get dirty looks over the Gor books I was given. 
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Nov 6, 2011 09:13
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Rabbit Hill posted:Has anyone here read Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White? I have a question about the character of Henry Rackham at the end of the book, but it's not worth starting a thread over. I think Henry very much symbolises the fact that is hammered home over and over in the novel: that idealism, rigid adherence to a belief system and lofty morals cannot survive in the grubby reality of ever-changing London. Henry (and poor Agnes) couldn't adapt in the way Sugar or Mrs Fox do, and consequently find it impossible to survive. He is a good man, that isn't in doubt, and I think that Faber wants us to remember that; hence the repeated references to him in other characters thoughts. But he is unable to adapt or break free of the (self-imposed) rules that hedge him about, and that heralds his doom. Plus, having the ghost of characters dead and gone waft through the pages in an indulgent farewell in the final chapter is very much in keeping with the feel of the entire thing. It is a Victoran pastiche, after all, and Dickens, the Brontes and Wilkie Collins were all very prone to doing that sort of thing at the end of books. (It is a truly wonderful book, isn't it? The BBC did a remarkable 4-episode dramatisation of it earlier this year, you should try to track it down if you can. Mark Gatiss was a marvellous Henry)
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Nov 7, 2011 22:59
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I finally bought a copy of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodline from Steam for $5 during the Halloween sale, and I have my copy of Vampire: The Requiem roleplaying book. I am finding myself looking for good vampire fiction. I read Interview with a Vampire several years ago, but never continued with the series. I really like the World of Darkness setting. I especially love books with a lot of politics and maneuvering for position. Are there any vampire novels that encapsulate this?
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Nov 8, 2011 02:11
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pakman posted:I finally bought a copy of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodline from Steam for $5 during the Halloween sale, and I have my copy of Vampire: The Requiem roleplaying book. I am finding myself looking for good vampire fiction. I read Interview with a Vampire several years ago, but never continued with the series. I really like the World of Darkness setting. I especially love books with a lot of politics and maneuvering for position. Are there any vampire novels that encapsulate this?
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Nov 8, 2011 02:26
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pakman posted:I especially love books with a lot of politics and maneuvering for position. Are there any vampire novels that encapsulate this? There's a series of books called Twilight that features two teams of vampires, Team Edward and Team Jacob, competing for a girl called Bella, who symbolises war (Bella = latin for war. Knowledge is important.). There's a lot of parts and it gets really intricate in the end, I highly recommend it.
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Nov 8, 2011 03:03
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pakman posted:I finally bought a copy of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodline from Steam for $5 during the Halloween sale, and I have my copy of Vampire: The Requiem roleplaying book. I am finding myself looking for good vampire fiction. I read Interview with a Vampire several years ago, but never continued with the series. I really like the World of Darkness setting. I especially love books with a lot of politics and maneuvering for position. Are there any vampire novels that encapsulate this? I hear this book "Dracula" is pretty good.
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Nov 8, 2011 07:03
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I've actually read Bram Stoker's Dracula as well.
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Nov 8, 2011 13:54
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Try Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin (mostly vampires, not much politics) or The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford (lots of politics, but the vampires are less important.)
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Nov 8, 2011 20:45
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I liked the Secret Service Vampire series. It's 2 books long, but they are both pretty good with the main character being a vampire who basically eats people and wrecks poo poo. Christopher Farnsworth is the author, and the first book is Blood Oath. It sounds retarded as poo poo, but it's actually a pretty great series.
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Nov 8, 2011 22:28
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I liked the Secret Service Vampire series. It's 2 books long, but they are both pretty good with the main character being a vampire who basically eats people and wrecks poo poo. I agree with your recommendation, but you're off a bit in your description; Cade doesn't eat people, it's a major plot point in both books. And apparently the third book is wrapped up and just awaiting dust jacket art, so it'll be out (probably) early next year. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Nov 8, 2011 |
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Nov 8, 2011 22:39
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Irisi posted:I think Henry very much symbolises the fact that is hammered home over and over in the novel: that idealism, rigid adherence to a belief system and lofty morals cannot survive in the grubby reality of ever-changing London. Henry (and poor Agnes) couldn't adapt in the way Sugar or Mrs Fox do, and consequently find it impossible to survive. Henry is one of my favorite literary characters ever, and while I love Mark Gatiss, he is not how I imagine Henry at all....so now I really have to see this adaptation to see what he makes of him. (And looking at the IMDB page, Romola Garai as Sugar? Gillian Anderson as Mrs. Castaway? There's all kinds of eccentric casting up in this joint!) Editing this a day later but whatever: I think, too, that Faber may have put Henry in all those characters' thoughts at the end because he -- as one of the few characters in the novel who was singularly good-hearted and completely free of malice -- had left an impression on them, however tangential their connection was to him. He would have been unlike any man Sugar had ever met, someone who would not have seen her as a resource to consume, and I think that however indirect their interaction was in that scene at church, something in Sugar's nature recognized him for what he was and subconsciously felt his absence from the world after he had gone. Maybe I'll make a thread about this book when I have the time. Rabbit Hill fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Nov 9, 2011 |
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Nov 8, 2011 22:39
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Ornamented Death posted:I agree with your recommendation, but you're off a bit in your description; Cade doesn't eat people, it's a major plot point in both books. Agree with the spoiler 100%. Basically the guy keeps getting referred to as an apex predator, and he acts like it. I love the series Although I am pretty sure he would break that promise to never drink people if he got the chance to take out Frankenstein with a quick snack attack
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Nov 9, 2011 08:52
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I'm fishing around to see if there is any interest in a Let's Read Dante's Inferno thread. I've been working away on a Dante thread and it occurred to me that there is so much awesome stuff in it that it might be better to work our way through it together and let our journey through hell lead the discussion. If not I'm happy to post a general discussion thread, however, I worry that a huge effort post about all the circles of hell delivered at once will be so super dense people will turn off to it. So, does anybody fancy a wee trip into the depths of icy hell this winter?
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Nov 12, 2011 10:18
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I teach high school English and I'm having my students read the Inferno this spring. We're using Durling's translation, which is the best one in my opinion. It's easy to read and the notes are great.
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Nov 12, 2011 20:14
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Dr Scoofles posted:I'm fishing around to see if there is any interest in a Let's Read Dante's Inferno thread. Hell, I'd be down for this.
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Nov 12, 2011 21:40
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