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Also, John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider, which is not only fantastic in its own right, but gave us the term "worm" (in the software sense) in 1975.
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Jan 15, 2013 20:50
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Along the lines of cyberpunk, I keep being tempted by John Shirley's A Song Called Youth omnibus -- is it worth the thousand-page read?
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Jan 15, 2013 20:54
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Thinking about reading a collection of Anne Sexton's poems. Have any of you read them? What do you think? Yea or nay? EDIT: I guess the same goes for Sylvia Plath, too. Adib fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Jan 16, 2013 |
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Jan 16, 2013 06:22
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Adib posted:EDIT: I guess the same goes for Sylvia Plath, too. Oh god. DADDY OH DADDY I THINK I AM A JEW AND YOU ARE A NAZI OH DADDY YOU BASTARD i'm through edit: I really don't like Plath, probably because I had to study her in year 12.
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Jan 16, 2013 12:51
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Hedrigall posted:Oh god. DADDY OH DADDY I THINK I AM A JEW AND YOU ARE A NAZI OH DADDY YOU BASTARD i'm through Point well-taken, most people I know who had to study her in high school hated her as well. Setting aside her poetry, what about her other works like her novel, The Bell Jar?
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Jan 16, 2013 15:04
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So, a few pages ago, this was postedPanicked Spathi posted:Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'm being so indecisive because I'm back reading fiction after a long hiatus and have forgotten how in some regards - I tend to approach it like I approach reading scientific articles. And I said that I couldn't offhand think of more stuff that was "like Coldfire", but Friedman had recently finished another fantasy trilogy, Magister, and while I hadn't read it that might be worth checking out. I'm now most of the way through the last book and yes, yes you should. If you liked Coldfire, go read Magister. It's not a sequel, but there are a lot of thematic parallels and in some ways, at some times, it almost feels like it could be.
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Jan 16, 2013 17:34
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Adib posted:Point well-taken, most people I know who had to study her in high school hated her as well. I think The Bell Jar suffers a bit from Catcher in the Rye syndrome in that a lot of people adore it when they're young but then find it to be overrated and too angsty when they're older. That said, I unabashedly love The Bell Jar as well as Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, which is a collection of stories, essays and diary entries.
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Jan 16, 2013 22:30
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Does anyone have a recommendations on the best translation/version of A Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights)?
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Jan 17, 2013 13:27
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ArcticZombie posted:Does anyone have a recommendations on the best translation/version of A Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights)? Either the Haddawy or the Lyons. The Haddawy is a good sample of the stories, but put together from an incomplete and slightly dubious manuscript. The Lyons is working from a far larger ms (filling 2500 pages compared to Haddawy's 500), preserves the full structure, and bears more obvious traces of the oral tradition that the stories sprang from. It's an amazing book, but I can understand if you opt for just visiting the pyramids as opposed to being entombed there.
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Jan 17, 2013 15:24
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I read the Mardrus & Mathers version growing up and rather liked it, but as the only version I've actually read I don't know how it compares to other translations.
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Jan 17, 2013 15:39
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I've heard nothing but good things about the Lyons translation, but the only one I've read is N.J Dawood's older Penguin translation. No idea how it's thought of scholarly, but I thought it was pretty fun.
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Jan 17, 2013 16:50
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ToxicFrog posted:I read the Mardrus & Mathers version growing up and rather liked it, but as the only version I've actually read I don't know how it compares to other translations. I really like the Mardrus and Mathers translation, it has a sort of luxuriant decadence I haven't found in the others I've read. The problem with it, from what I understand, is that Mardrus added a lot of risque details and basically sexed it up in a way that only the French can. Burton's translation is more textually accurate but also more explicitly racist and misogynist (not that any version of the Nights is free of such things). Here's an article making a comparison: http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=34 From what I've read the Lyons version is probably the "best" but I like Mardrus and Mathers (partly because I'm a fan of E. Powys Mathers generally, ever since I read the quotations from his works in Steinbeck's Cannery Row).
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Jan 17, 2013 17:04
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Hedrigall posted:Oh god. DADDY OH DADDY I THINK I AM A JEW AND YOU ARE A NAZI OH DADDY YOU BASTARD i'm through How can you not like that poem, I think it is be the best I have ever read Too high-strung?
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Jan 17, 2013 20:10
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Adib posted:Thinking about reading a collection of Anne Sexton's poems. Have any of you read them? What do you think? Yea or nay? In my opinion Anne Sexton is hell yes 99% of the time. Check out her letters, too, they're awesome.
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Jan 17, 2013 20:27
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:I want to read the very best of cyberpunk. I've read Neuromancer, and I thought it was pretty good, but where do I go from here? I'd like to stick to the old stuff which created the genre, at least to start; I have a feeling modern works depend a lot on the reader's knowledge of previous work. You might want to try Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. I just finished it last week and I liked it a lot better than Neuromancer. Pretty sure WJW was another father of cyberpunk but his stuff never got as much recognition. It's pretty bleak and has some great characters.
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Jan 18, 2013 00:47
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Any books on the origin of government? Not any particular government, but government itself.
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Jan 19, 2013 19:03
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I'm looking for Australian fantasy, by which I mean fantasy that actually has Australian influences, not just stuff written by Australians. The country has plenty of fantasy authors - Sarah Douglas, Garth Nix, Fiona McIntosh etc - but they all write generic European/Tolkienesque fantasy for an international audience. (And I do mean fantasy, not sci-fi, of which there is plenty, especially of the post-apocalyptic variety.) I suppose what I'm looking for is a version of what Stephen King did in the Dark Tower series, which was undoubtedly a fictional fantasy world, but one based on an American setting rather than the typical European Middle Ages setting. The only Australian fantasy I can think of so far is Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and The Magic Pudding. Curiously, both of these were published in 1918, which is weird - aside from being a strange coincidence, I would have thought authors from the post-British Australia era would be the ones to be writing Australian-inspired fantasy, not authors born in the 19th century when we were a staunchly British outpost in foreign seas.
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Jan 20, 2013 10:16
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I want to read something that's weird and interesting, like Jeff Noon or John Dies at the End. What should I look for?
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Jan 20, 2013 14:03
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Be Depressive posted:I want to read something that's weird and interesting, like Jeff Noon or John Dies at the End. What should I look for? My favorite recent mind-gently caress of a novel is Blueprints of the Afterlife, and of course there's always PKD (maybe Three Stigmata, A Scanner Darkly, or Flow My Tears for ones more Noon-like). VVV dokmo's is good, too. funkybottoms fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jan 20, 2013 |
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Jan 20, 2013 14:33
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Be Depressive posted:I want to read something that's weird and interesting, like Jeff Noon or John Dies at the End. What should I look for? Beat The Reaper - by Josh Bazell
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Jan 20, 2013 17:06
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freebooter posted:I'm looking for Australian fantasy, by which I mean fantasy that actually has Australian influences, not just stuff written by Australians. The country has plenty of fantasy authors - Sarah Douglas, Garth Nix, Fiona McIntosh etc - but they all write generic European/Tolkienesque fantasy for an international audience. (And I do mean fantasy, not sci-fi, of which there is plenty, especially of the post-apocalyptic variety.) I suppose what I'm looking for is a version of what Stephen King did in the Dark Tower series, which was undoubtedly a fictional fantasy world, but one based on an American setting rather than the typical European Middle Ages setting. The only thing I can think of is Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent. It's more "British fantasy author does a riff on funny things about Australia" than it is something by a native Australian though. It's also kindof late in the series for Pratchett and not the best place to start if you haven't read any of his other stuff.
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Jan 20, 2013 17:13
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Be Depressive posted:I want to read something that's weird and interesting, like Jeff Noon or John Dies at the End. What should I look for? Weird and interesting, you say? I heartily recommend Glamorama, by Bret Easton Ellis. It's weird. It's interesting.
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Jan 20, 2013 17:17
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I've heard this William Vollmann chap's name bandied about a bit, which of his is a good book to start on?
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Jan 21, 2013 01:04
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I have a friend who is interested in the future of genetics/bio-engineering. Id like to get them a book on it as a gift. Any ideas?
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Jan 21, 2013 21:38
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Anyone have some recommendations for some good horror novels? Not Stephen King or Clive Barker, and preferably not serial-killer/true crime type of stuff. Beyond that I'm pretty much open to anything as long as it's scary.
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Jan 22, 2013 05:33
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Starks posted:Anyone have some recommendations for some good horror novels? Not Stephen King or Clive Barker, and preferably not serial-killer/true crime type of stuff. Beyond that I'm pretty much open to anything as long as it's scary. I like William Hope Hodgson, but I haven't read that much horror so I can't compare. Precursor to Lovecraft, cosmic horror type stuff. It's pulpy as poo poo, but Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series is fun. Guy sees ghosts and portents of horror. Failing that, Stephen Laws was good when I was in high school. Somewhere South of Midnight and Macarbe were adequate, I think.
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Jan 22, 2013 08:29
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Be Depressive posted:I want to read something that's weird and interesting, like Jeff Noon or John Dies at the End. What should I look for? If you haven't read the sequel to John Dies at the End, you should. It's called 'This Book is Full of Spiders'
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Jan 22, 2013 15:57
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Starks posted:Anyone have some recommendations for some good horror novels? Not Stephen King or Clive Barker, and preferably not serial-killer/true crime type of stuff. Beyond that I'm pretty much open to anything as long as it's scary. Dan Simmons' Terror is pretty great, although only the last half could really be called horror.
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Jan 22, 2013 16:00
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Mr. Squishy posted:I've heard this William Vollmann chap's name bandied about a bit, which of his is a good book to start on? You Bright and Risen Angels is his best, and I suspect he won't surpass it, although it's rarely found in bookstores and you'll likely have to order it. The Royal Family was also good if that kind of subject/setting appeals to you. I would avoid Europe Central until you see if you like his style, and even then it's a bit of a slog even if you're a mid-20th-century history buff. His non-fiction is also very good, start with the one-volume cut (obviously) of Rising Up and Rising Down. Only read Imperial if you're from southern California. There's a Vollmann reader somewhere out there with essays and short stories and novel excerpts, but it's been collecting dust on my shelf and I can't render an opinion on it.
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Jan 22, 2013 17:08
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Thanks for all the recommendations for Arabian Nights, I went with the Haddawy translation and am really enjoying it so far.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:44
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Starks posted:Anyone have some recommendations for some good horror novels? Not Stephen King or Clive Barker, and preferably not serial-killer/true crime type of stuff. Beyond that I'm pretty much open to anything as long as it's scary. Richard Matheson - Hell House, or also the classic Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House - both great if you're into haunted houses. Christopher Buehlman's Those Across the River was also really good if you don't mind historical fiction and a slow build. I read a lot of horror so not much truly scares me these days but the last thing I read that really freaked me out was a comic short in the back of Junji Ito's Gyo graphic novels called The Enigma of Amigara Fault.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:47
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Looking for books that take historical events, but twist them into some crazy story? Similar to what Tarantino does with Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds. Also looking for some of the best adventure stuff. I'm reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and I like the mix of mystery, adventure, and reality that it has. Anything similar would be great.
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Jan 22, 2013 23:31
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Historical fiction, eh? How about Sharpe's Nouns, by Bernard Cornwell? Or the Flashman tales, by George MacDonald Fraser? I imagine the Hornblower novels are also set in real historical events, though I've never read any of them.
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Jan 23, 2013 02:40
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Poutling posted:Richard Matheson - Hell House, or also the classic Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House - both great if you're into haunted houses. Christopher Buehlman's Those Across the River was also really good if you don't mind historical fiction and a slow build. I read a lot of horror so not much truly scares me these days but the last thing I read that really freaked me out was a comic short in the back of Junji Ito's Gyo graphic novels called The Enigma of Amigara Fault. Yeah I think I'm gonna go with Haunting of Hill House and maybe The Terror afterwards if I'm still in the mood. Thanks for the recs all. I'm pretty disappointed by how lacking this genre seems to be, going through goodreads (not the best source I realize) it's all stephen king and zombie/vampire novels. Also I have read a bunch of Ito and yes he owns.
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Jan 23, 2013 05:10
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Starks posted:Yeah I think I'm gonna go with Haunting of Hill House and maybe The Terror afterwards if I'm still in the mood. Thanks for the recs all. I'm pretty disappointed by how lacking this genre seems to be, going through goodreads (not the best source I realize) it's all stephen king and zombie/vampire novels. Also I have read a bunch of Ito and yes he owns. Haunting of Hill House (to me) is the greatest haunted house novel ever written. I would suggest (for horror at least) to read Simmons' Summer of Night over The Terror. Poutling also suggested Those Across the River which I found to be one of the better horror novels of last year. Another writer you should be looking out for is King's son Joe Hill. Both of his novels, Horns and Heart-Shaped Box, are really good reads. For something different Niceville by Carsten Stroud was my favorite multi-genre (horror + crime) novel last year. I do agree with you about Goodreads. I looked at their end of the year best list, and it was pretty bad. Uselss. Speaking of horror has anyone read Penpal by Dathan Auerbach or 14 by Peter Clines? I read a lot of positive buzz about both books, but I been burnt so many times by horror.
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Jan 23, 2013 14:53
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Anyone know of any great fiction books based in London or Japan? That's really all I'm requesting... great fiction books in those places. I've read the first book of 1Q84 and some of Kafka, but I want something more...real? Maybe a story about a young person in Japan and living a life there. Maybe runs into some trouble, meets new people, a typical story like that.
noirstronaut fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 23:10
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If 1Q84 is a bit too mystical, try Norwegian Wood. It's a straight (more or less) boy meets girl story without any fantasy stuff.
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Jan 23, 2013 23:24
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noirstronaut posted:Anyone know of any great fiction books based in London or Japan? That's really all I'm requesting... great fiction books in those places. I've read the first book of 1Q84 and some of Kafka, but I want something more...real? Maybe a story about a young person in Japan and living a life there. Maybe runs into some trouble, meets new people, a typical story like that. How about David Mitchell's number9dream?
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Jan 24, 2013 00:08
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noirstronaut posted:Anyone know of any great fiction books based in London or Japan? That's really all I'm requesting... great fiction books in those places. I've read the first book of 1Q84 and some of Kafka, but I want something more...real? Maybe a story about a young person in Japan and living a life there. Maybe runs into some trouble, meets new people, a typical story like that. Ransom by Jay McInerney sounds like a good fit to what you're looking for. It's about an ex-pat living in Kyoto, teaching English and studying karate, and gets into all sorts of crazy poo poo with his friends. I also second the suggestion of Norwegian Wood. If you're into some crazier more psychedelic 70's sex, drugs, rock and roll type stuff you might want to try Ryu Murakami's Almost Transparent Blue (Japan) or Dead Babies by Martin Amis (England).
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Jan 24, 2013 01:14
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Checking out Norwegian Wood and Coraline since I've never read either. Any other recommendations are welcome, but now I'm just looking for straight fiction. The thing I like about the books I read is that they flow like stories, have characters, and time isn't really relevant. As in, there's no idea of castles or knights, but just a story with people doing things that could exist in any time.
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Jan 24, 2013 01:52
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