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Yes, that is it! Thanks a lot. If you don't mind me asking, who do you consider gives good book reviews?
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Dec 15, 2012 23:18
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toanoradian posted:Yes, that is it! Thanks a lot. If you don't mind me asking, who do you consider gives good book reviews? https://www.nybooks.com https://www.lrb.co.uk although, in the grand tradition of book reviews since time immemorial, most reviews are essays using the book ostensibly being reviewed as a jumping off point for further discussion.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:47
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Other good book review places: The Millions New York Times (I'm a big Kakutani guy myself) The Barnes and Noble Review Los Angeles Review of Books The Toronto Review of Books (they let me write for them on occasion!)
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Dec 16, 2012 04:56
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I recently stumbled upon the 1bruce1 livejournal, a Sweet Valley news and reviews site. I loved the Sweet Valley stuff as a preteen and picked up a lot of the books. A few years ago, I was looking for something as a very quick and easy read and grabbed one or two off the shelf. They're terrible. Really, really terrible. You sometimes have to dig to find the book reviews on the site, but some of them are pretty fun, like this one of Dear Sister.
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Dec 21, 2012 07:09
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Could anyone recommend a good book on Greek deities (and perhaps their respective cults)? Alternatively, something that digs into the the theological beliefs of lesser-known religions - say, for example early Mesopotamian religious beliefs?
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Dec 27, 2012 05:00
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That drat Satyr posted:Could anyone recommend a good book on Greek deities (and perhaps their respective cults)? Alternatively, something that digs into the the theological beliefs of lesser-known religions - say, for example early Mesopotamian religious beliefs? Edith Hamilton's Mythology is the place to start for greek stuff, unless you want to get really really classical and read Ovid's Metamorphoses. Alternatively, D'Aularies Book of Greek Myths is pretty good too if written for children, as is their Book of Norse Myths. For Celtic mythology I'd recommend Gods and Fighting Men by Lady Gregory. For early Mesopotamian it's actually fairly hard to find something written for popular audiences. Checking my bookshelf all I have is "Myths of Mesopotamia," Oxford's World Classics, Trans. Stephen Dalley, but it's a really scholarly translation of source texts, not "here are the stories". For study of cults you have to get a little more in-depth; most sources are just "her are the stories." I've got a really neat book titled Cults of the Roman Empire, by Robert Turcan, which covers Isis cults, Mithraic cults, etc. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Dec 27, 2012 |
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Dec 27, 2012 15:39
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That drat Satyr posted:Could anyone recommend a good book on Greek deities (and perhaps their respective cults)? Alternatively, something that digs into the the theological beliefs of lesser-known religions - say, for example early Mesopotamian religious beliefs? I've got a copy of Robert Graves The Greek Myths which is an interesting (if a little over my head at times) breakdown of Greek mythology. I also thought Ovid's Metamorphoses was a good overview of some of the same topics, too. I liked AD Melville's translation, but it's done in verse. Penguin has a prose translation, but I'm not familiar with it. barkingclam fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Dec 27, 2012 |
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Dec 27, 2012 23:28
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I have a question about the Dresden Files. I read the first book and I'm partway through the second one and I have this nagging fear that the entire series is going to be this same format. Something supernatural goes on in the city, he investigates it with or without police permission and pisses off Murphy for either holding out on her or doing his own interference. All this while the reporter chick tries to get information out of him with sex and he's constantly at odds with the white counsel and Johny Marconi. Please tell me it doesn't go like that for this whole series. edit: oh and he gets the poo poo beat out of him then at the end he wins like rocky.
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Dec 29, 2012 21:23
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I can't remember which book, but after a while, the detective part takes a bit of a back seat. He always gets the poo poo beat out of him, though.
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Dec 30, 2012 09:12
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Xandu posted:I can't remember which book, but after a while, the detective part takes a bit of a back seat. That is heartening because they hint at a lot of really cool things that I'd love see explored in depth rather than solving crimes while getting blamed for those very same crimes. I find myself thinking if I were him I'd move out of that town full of enemies and friends who treat you like enemies and start somewhere where he may be taken seriously like Berkley or something. Anyhow thanks for your response. I was almost getting ready to dump the series when in the second book he summoned a demon who gave some very tantalizing information about his parents and their past doings which greatly renewed my interest.
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Dec 30, 2012 18:22
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The second book is pretty much the worst in the series. Books 4 and 5 start kicking off the major mythology of the series, and book 7 is still my favorite of the series.
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Dec 31, 2012 00:17
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PatMarshall posted:although, in the grand tradition of book reviews since time immemorial, most reviews are essays using the book ostensibly being reviewed as a jumping off point for further discussion. Competent book reviews can be found in pretty much any daily newspaper, the wider discussions on books' themes offered in journals is exactly what makes them worth the effort to get hold of and read.
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Dec 31, 2012 02:05
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So how are you liking the new upgrade? So far it seems really nice, although I find the hover on the breadcrumbs a bit annoying. No bugs or issues for me so far, and some nice new features. 
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Jan 1, 2013 00:31
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I'm looking for general reading books on the Byzantine Empire especially anything in or around the reign of Justinian I. Any suggestions are appreciated!
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Jan 1, 2013 03:48
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That drat Satyr posted:Could anyone recommend a good book on Greek deities (and perhaps their respective cults)? Alternatively, something that digs into the the theological beliefs of lesser-known religions - say, for example early Mesopotamian religious beliefs? This is a really good book: http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Cadmus-Harmony-Roberto-Calasso/dp/0679733485 but might not be 100% what you're after (read it anyway).
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Jan 1, 2013 03:51
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shirunei posted:I'm looking for general reading books on the Byzantine Empire especially anything in or around the reign of Justinian I. Procopius' Secret History is a crazy read about the darker sides of Justinian (and really throws Theodora under the bus, too).
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Jan 1, 2013 04:40
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Zola posted:So how are you liking the new upgrade? So far it seems really nice, although I find the hover on the breadcrumbs a bit annoying. No bugs or issues for me so far, and some nice new features. I like it but I don't know what a breadcrumb is.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:26
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Do you guys notice that YA books on goodreads always have insanely high ratings. I constantly get excited when I see a highly rated book with a cool cover in a genre I enjoy then I have to stop myself and a do a YA check. I guess it makes sense. when I was a kid, if I liked something I rated it as high as possible to balance out all the haters.
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Jan 1, 2013 16:31
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One posted:I like it but I don't know what a breadcrumb is. The Book Barn › General TBB Chat/questions thread - ongoing chat about anything! Breadcrumb like breadcrumb trail to show you where you have been. When you hover over "The Book Barn" a little box pops up and gives you the parent forums. This in and of itself is no problem, but I wish that it would leave "The Book Barn" part alone and show the box with "The Finer Arts" and "Something Awful Forums" because I go to click on the Book Barn link to leave a thread and have to let the box finish popping up so I can move on. As I said, minor gripe.
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Jan 1, 2013 17:02
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One posted:Do you guys notice that YA books on goodreads always have insanely high ratings. I constantly get excited when I see a highly rated book with a cool cover in a genre I enjoy then I have to stop myself and a do a YA check. I guess it makes sense. when I was a kid, if I liked something I rated it as high as possible to balance out all the haters. Goodreads ratings are generally trash, and i find even Amazon's to be better. Part of it is the Goodreads community has zero taste—check out their end-of-year awards if you don't believe me. But more widely than that, there's this awful feedback loop where the better literary fiction tends to be more widely read, which tends to bring it into contact with readers who aren't used to that style and rate it poorly as a result. (This is why Jonathan Franzen's books will always have exceptionally low ratings on Goodreads and Amazon, regardless of their quality.) It's very frustrating, and there are some simple things they could do to better improve the site, like calculating the percentile from a rating so they're more expressive and not just a narrow swath between 3 and 4.5. Or even better, they could normalize it to the average rating for books in that genre to eliminate the effect that you're noticing. Amazon has some of the same issues, but isn't primed to be a supportive/zero-judgement community, and offers much better signaling as a result.
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Jan 1, 2013 18:49
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SgtSanity posted:Goodreads ratings are generally trash, and i find even Amazon's to be better. Part of it is the Goodreads community has zero taste—check out their end-of-year awards if you don't believe me. But more widely than that, there's this awful feedback loop where the better literary fiction tends to be more widely read, which tends to bring it into contact with readers who aren't used to that style and rate it poorly as a result. (This is why Jonathan Franzen's books will always have exceptionally low ratings on Goodreads and Amazon, regardless of their quality.) I do like that they show the little graph of what percentage of each number gave it the score. If I see something that has people giving it a lot of 5's and a lot of 1-2's then that usually signifies to me there's something cool about it and/or it's controversial. If there's a ton of 3's then it's bound to be very mediocre (that's a funny word combination. like extra medium). Thanks Zola for that breadcrumb explanation.
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Jan 1, 2013 19:57
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Hate to be "that guy", but I need some recommendations for my wife. She's been a fantasy reader in the past and I'm feeling her out for what she might want to read. Keep in mind that she's not a typical "reader" and that she doesn't like books with overly drawn out "war" scenes for the most part. She's one of those kind of people I'm trying and so far successfully converting to a constant reader. She has read in the past: - The Mallorean and Belgariad (loved them) - Song of Ice and Fire (loved it, though she felt it was a bit overwhelming) - Sword of Truth (enjoyed them, but got bored after the 8th or 9th) - Hunger Games (loved them, not really fantasy but just giving you an idea of things she likes) - early Anne Rice stuff (she liked the non vampire stuff, the Witches and S&M Beauty books) I'm thinking The Dark Tower, but that might not be her bag and she seemed reluctant when I talked about it. Maybe Mistborn? Way of Kings?
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Jan 1, 2013 21:48
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Maybe Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books? They're epic fantasy books with really good characters. And if she loved Hunger Games and would be interested in YA fantasy, get her a copy of Graceling. It's about a young woman with a magical talent for killing, and there are a couple of sequels.
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Jan 1, 2013 22:23
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bengraven posted:Hate to be "that guy", but I need some recommendations for my wife. Fledgling or Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. I believe that Scout's Progress is still in print in an omnibus edition. These are two excellent entry points to the Liaden Universe. Lois McMaster Bujold is excellent, I would highly recommend just about anything by Patricia A. McKillip, Terry Windling did a great collection of retold fairy tales, Charles De Lint for kinder, gentler urban fantasy, and of course Jim Butcher's Dresden Files
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Jan 1, 2013 22:24
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Some very excellent choices. I'm also thinking of having her try The Night Circus since she's been reading a lot of series lately and in case she ends up jumping into another.
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Jan 1, 2013 23:09
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One posted:Do you guys notice that YA books on goodreads always have insanely high ratings. I constantly get excited when I see a highly rated book with a cool cover in a genre I enjoy then I have to stop myself and a do a YA check. I guess it makes sense. when I was a kid, if I liked something I rated it as high as possible to balance out all the haters. Yeah, I think that's it. YA fans are very passionate fans. I think it's cute. In general, I don't trust GoodReads ratings though. I mean, they're more a measure of popularity than anything else. I have some good reviewers that I follow, but otherwise I mostly read the reviews after I finish books, so I can see what other people got out of it/laugh at their dumb opinions.
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Jan 3, 2013 07:10
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deviledseraphim posted:Yeah, I think that's it. YA fans are very passionate fans. I think it's cute. I avoid reviews, summaries and pretty much anything I can about a book before I read it. I like to go in as a blank slate. All I generally want to know beforehand is "should I read this". Numerical ratings are helpful to me in that way but I've been misled a few times. I stick to authors I like and usually check out the sidebar suggestion things where it says people who liked this also liked.... I just finished 2 kick rear end books that had fairly high goodreads ratings so I'm doing ok so far this year. I do agree that it is fun to laugh at the stupid opinions after you're done with the book. Though, if there are too many it turns into angering me so I have to limit myself.
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Jan 3, 2013 21:25
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I tend to go by ratings when choosing what book to get. Or they at least help me anyhow. When I can though I read a few pages of the book to see if I like the writer's style. That makes me pick a book (or not) even more than reviews or a summary. There have been some books that have been lobed by all, but I just didn't like the style of writing. Anyone read The Pendergast series?
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Jan 7, 2013 03:56
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Pendergast posted:I tend to go by ratings when choosing what book to get. Or they at least help me anyhow. When I can though I read a few pages of the book to see if I like the writer's style. That makes me pick a book (or not) even more than reviews or a summary. There have been some books that have been lobed by all, but I just didn't like the style of writing. I've read the first five, they're a lot of fun. Mindless thrillers, to be sure, but as long as you're not expecting high literature you'll really enjoy them, I think.
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Jan 7, 2013 04:38
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They were pretty good for a while, but they got pretty retarded after a bit. I gave up on em after he went after some tibetan scroll that made you crazy if you looked at it too long. Just, gently caress that's a stupid plot even for that series, and it had lasers that made people crazy and a crazy retard who lives in a cave and eats people because of fairy tales. Book plot spoilers for a few later books. Didn't help that the author is a bit of a douche as well. Still, Relic is one of my favorite books, and the movie was pretty good as well.
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Jan 7, 2013 05:02
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Does anyone know where to buy the orange Popular Penguin books in America?
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Jan 7, 2013 08:04
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Here's a good preview for what's coming out this year. Highlights for me: a new William H. Gass novel, Speedboat by Renata Adler, The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee and a new Pynchon book (that may or may not come out this year). But there's a lot of interesting stuff coming out in 2013.
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Jan 7, 2013 21:47
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barkingclam posted:Here's a good preview for what's coming out this year. Highlights for me: a new William H. Gass novel, Speedboat by Renata Adler, The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee and a new Pynchon book (that may or may not come out this year). But there's a lot of interesting stuff coming out in 2013. Ooh, thanks for posting this. I'm really excited for a new Khaled Hosseini novel, and Manil Suri's "The City of Devi" sounds really good as well.
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Jan 8, 2013 00:47
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barkingclam posted:Here's a good preview for what's coming out this year. Highlights for me: a new William H. Gass novel, Speedboat by Renata Adler, The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee and a new Pynchon book (that may or may not come out this year). But there's a lot of interesting stuff coming out in 2013. Nice, just deleted my 'most anticipated of 2012' and '...of the second half of 2012' millions bookmarks and updated. Couple more 2013 previews: Atlantic Wire, Flavorpill
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Jan 8, 2013 17:09
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Anyone read Ulysses? I have never felt like something was so very far above my head, and I have read some "difficult books". But that is the point I suppose. I want to continue because I catch faint glimmers of brilliance every so often but it is padded heavily by a complete failure on my part to comprehend what Joyce is alluding to and/or saying. This book is a drat puzzle! I'm looking up either a latin phrase/orthodox-christian term/obscure irish slang every paragraph. Reading this book is more like studying an entire subject then just, you know, reading a book. At least now I know what a lex eternum is. Thanks James. I might get the annotations from my library and read that alongside, or just give up completely. I'm torn between deriding it as practically unreadable or hailing it as a masterpiece. I'm probably not smart enough to tell the difference.
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Jan 11, 2013 23:05
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So I want to brush up on my cyberpunk. I'd like to know if there are any really good contemporary examples of the genere that you fellow goons could reccomend. And by contemporary I mean published since 2000, perferably within the last five years.
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Jan 12, 2013 00:13
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Benny the Snake posted:So I want to brush up on my cyberpunk. I'd like to know if there are any really good contemporary examples of the genere that you fellow goons could reccomend. And by contemporary I mean published since 2000, perferably within the last five years. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan is where you should start.
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Jan 12, 2013 00:20
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hobbez posted:Anyone read Ulysses? I have never felt like something was so very far above my head, and I have read some "difficult books". But that is the point I suppose. In the archives there's a good thread about Joyce/Ulysses which you might find helpful. Also this post is full of good advice for a first reading, too!
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Jan 12, 2013 00:24
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hobbez posted:Anyone read Ulysses? I have never felt like something was so very far above my head, and I have read some "difficult books". But that is the point I suppose. In my opinion you should be looking very few things up your first readthrough. Maybe look up a few things like who Parnell was and a little bit on Irish Independence in general, also read The Odyssey if you haven't, or at least be familiar with its theme and structure. It's far too much of a slog to try and catch all the references using a guide the first time through. As far as the puzzle elements go, if you're anything like me you'll likely be satisfied at figuring out what even happened over the 18 or so hours that this books takes place. While it is one of the most intricately constructed labyrinths (get it? Daedalus.) in literature, it's also some of the most fantastic prose in the English language. As Robert Pinsky said, "It's got a good rhythm, you can dance to it." Just sit back and wait for things to reveal themselves to you as you enjoy the writing. I would recommend getting something like the Bloomsday book over the annotations since the Bloomsday has a helpful summary for each chapter and even that's over 300 pages. The annotations will just slow you down more often than not.
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Jan 12, 2013 19:23
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Thanks for the advice. I re-read the first three sections on some impulse and got a completely different read on them the second time. The reading was much more enjoyable however. I slugged through Proteus using this http://www.columbia.edu/~fms5/ulys.htm to catch up on the allusions I couldn't follow, which was helpful, though it took over two hours. To me, that's part of the fun though, unlocking the book's secrets. Maybe I'm a masochist. I feel I actually understood a good amount of what he was saying on the second read... That was an amazing section. I'm going to have to settle for a lesser understanding of future sections... I will not have the time to break down the harder chapters in the future. But I think I'm hooked and hopefully have the focus to at least finish the book.
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Jan 12, 2013 19:50
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