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I've been reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I really dig the setting and the story thus far, but man, reading it gives me a headache. Maybe I'm just dumb, but the writing seems so scatterbrained.
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Apr 4, 2013 14:26
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jarjarbinksfan621 posted:I've been reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I really dig the setting and the story thus far, but man, reading it gives me a headache. Maybe I'm just dumb, but the writing seems so scatterbrained. I think that when it works, it works really well and you get heavily into the action scenes, but it took me a couple of re-reads before I really got everything in the book. Thankfully, I can re-read that book again and again. 
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Apr 5, 2013 02:13
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I loved Snow Crash - I think it was meant more as satire of the direction the cyberpunk genre was taking. I mean, the main character is a katana-wielding pizza delivery guy named Hiro Protagonist. Stephenson definitely meant to stretch some of the tropes to completely absurd levels, but the world and characters are so enthralling that you tend to forget about how completely nuts it is. And it meshes a bunch of Stephenson's favorite topics of (anthropology, crypto, linguistics, etc). Fantastic book.
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Apr 5, 2013 15:09
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I'm making my third run through the Hyperion/Endymion saga. Despite its flaws, it's probably my favorite space opera.
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Apr 6, 2013 02:48
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I've decided to pick up "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by T. Elliot Lawrence. I loved Lawrence of Arabia, and got about halfway though the book about 7 years ago before being sidetracked, so hopefully this will be a good read.
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Apr 6, 2013 04:35
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I've been in the mood to dive into more southern literature since I've read most of Cormac McCarthy at this point. I just bought The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, The Reivers, and the Snopes trilogy by William Faulkner. Also got The Violent Bear It Away and Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Not really sure where to start with these. I heard As I Lay Dying and The Reivers are easier to get into.
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Apr 6, 2013 05:43
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pixelbaron posted:I've been in the mood to dive into more southern literature since I've read most of Cormac McCarthy at this point. I just bought The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, The Reivers, and the Snopes trilogy by William Faulkner. Yeah, The Reivers is probably the best one to start with (won a Pulitzer, too). Personally I started with The Unvanquished and I'm glad I did, not something as dense as Absalom, Absalom!.
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Apr 6, 2013 16:07
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I'm taking a Faulkner class and the professor is having us read all of the novels in order of when they were written, starting with The Sound and the Fury. So Sound and Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, then Absalom, Absalom!. I agree with this order because you get a sense of what Faulkner was trying to accomplish. Each book tackles a different aspect of awful southern life, incest, virginity, bootlegging, etc., until Absalom, Absalom!, in which he writes about how stories are told and why they are passed on while combining all the previous elements. If you start with The Sound and the Fury, a useful tip to know is that in the first section, italicized lines mark a shift in narrative time and location. Also get a good dictionary and read slow.
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Apr 6, 2013 17:05
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Fun Times! posted:If you start with The Sound and the Fury, a useful tip to know is that in the first section, italicized lines mark a shift in narrative time and location. Also get a good dictionary and read slow. I enjoyed The Sound and the Fury, but I have to say that it's one book where there is no shame in consulting wikipedia to figure out what's going on.
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Apr 7, 2013 03:38
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I had a brief period last month where i just didn't have interest in buying games or other stuff i would normally waste money on, and i ended up using my money to buy some books that I've either held interest to or have read during my final High school years and wanted to get a copy for sentimental reasons (strangely enough, i never read any of these books as of yet and have only skimmed through them. I was in the mood of buying books, just not reading them) I began with buying a box set of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow series of the first four books. I got this over the Ender's Game box set because i have already read the four books it came with, and the ender's shadow set had Shadow of the Giant and Shadow Puppets, the two in that series I have yet to read. The week after, I started looking around locally for a copy of Hyrule Historia. I eventually had to call it in at a Barnes and Nobles and wait another week to finally get it. During this week however, i was quite interested in getting the two books that videogame reviewer and designer Ben Croshaw wrote. That week i managed to get his second, Jam and was quite interested in the story (though have yet to finish). The week after the order for Hyrule Historia came in and during the pickup i also requested Croshaw's first book, Mogworld. As the following week i picked up as well. I think i'll eventually start buying up the rest of the Ender books, and at some point A Clockwork Orange, when i start having interests in buying them again.
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Apr 7, 2013 10:09
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In preparation for his newest book in ten days, I picked up David Sedaris' Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. It was only one of his works that I haven't yet read, and while it's humorous and very readable, I find that I'm just not getting the classic Sedaris vibe from it. I tend to find that his stories where he's not narrating his own experiences don't grip me as much 
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Apr 13, 2013 13:43
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Martytoof posted:In preparation for his newest book in ten days, I picked up David Sedaris' Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. It was only one of his works that I haven't yet read, and while it's humorous and very readable, I find that I'm just not getting the classic Sedaris vibe from it. I'm the exact same way with him, I probably won't even buy the new one. I went on a tear a few years ago reading all his memoirs basically back to back and loved most of his stories, but I haven't really felt the urge to go back to any after Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.
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Apr 13, 2013 14:20
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I think his new book will be done in his traditional style, so if I'm definitely looking forward to it 
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Apr 13, 2013 14:31
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Celebrating the almost end of the semester, I picked up two books for my beginning of summer, and started making plans on what else I should read. My main read as of now is The Thousand Nights and One Nights, but the book is unreasonably long to read it all in one standing, so in between my bouts of slowly chipping away at it, I am reading Boulle's Planet of the Apes, which is a nice and refreshing read I'm finding. On the far back burner, I am also rereading Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West, as it's been awhile, and I seem to have forgotten a surprisingly substantial amount of the story over the flow of time. That being said, I do have intentions on rereading Machivelli's The Prince, as I read it in my first year of university, but since I was young, I didn't get most of the history references he uses. And I also recently purchased Communist Manifesto on Amazon, which I am thoroughly disgusted with myself for not reading it yet, and claiming to be a history nerd.
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Apr 15, 2013 08:36
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I'm about 100 pages into American Gospel. Amazon Link Here So far Meacham (who I love), is making a convincing argument that America is the "almost" perfect balance of religion and secular. With this "secular religion" as he calls it, Meacham is claiming so far that the revolutionary aspect of the revolution wasn't the fighting but the fact that there was no state mandated religion or specific church. The book will go on to other points of history later on. Currently on the section of about the first amendment battle. I highly suggest this to anyone interested in history/religion but not majoring in either, it is such an easy read.
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Apr 15, 2013 14:23
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FreelanceSocialist posted:I loved Snow Crash - I think it was meant more as satire of the direction the cyberpunk genre was taking. I mean, the main character is a katana-wielding pizza delivery guy named Hiro Protagonist. Stephenson definitely meant to stretch some of the tropes to completely absurd levels, but the world and characters are so enthralling that you tend to forget about how completely nuts it is. And it meshes a bunch of Stephenson's favorite topics of (anthropology, crypto, linguistics, etc). Fantastic book. Started Snow Crash because of all the love it seems to be getting. Not far into it but holy poo poo does it seem terrible, so terrible in fact it's kinda flipping around to awesome.
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Apr 16, 2013 03:52
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Just bought God Emperor of Dune for $23, and a few days ago a hardcover copy of Heretics of Dune for $1, so that evens the prices out, right?  Regardless, I think I'm gonna look forward to continuing the Dune series, after I finish the series I'm currently reading. (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)So, how do these two compare to the three before them? Dune Messiah was quite short and basically just set the scene for Children of Dune, so they'll probably be a bit better than that one at least, (well, I'm not saying DM was bad, I just wish it were longer) but how are they compared to the original Dune and CoD? Thanks
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Apr 17, 2013 03:30
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I went through Project Gutenberg to look for some classics that I haven't read yet the other night. One of the finds were The Idiot by Dostoevsky, which I just began reading. Barely two chapters in, but it seems alright so far.
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Apr 17, 2013 06:43
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Reading Oliver Twist by Dickens. Just in case it wasn't clear in the book, Fagin is "a Jew." Dickens only mentions it about 2,000 times...
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Apr 17, 2013 14:51
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tonytheshoes posted:Reading Oliver Twist by Dickens. Just in case it wasn't clear in the book, Fagin is "a Jew." Dickens only mentions it about 2,000 times... Well Dickens was paid by the word, and likely the story was serialised. New readers might forget and he would be many a penny poorer.
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Apr 17, 2013 23:40
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juliuspringle posted:Started Snow Crash because of all the love it seems to be getting. Not far into it but holy poo poo does it seem terrible, so terrible in fact it's kinda flipping around to awesome. People will swear up and down that's the point of it, but I'm skeptical. It does have some cool ideas later on as infodumps, but yeah.
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Apr 18, 2013 01:25
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As the story goes Dickens considered "the jew" as his worst deed and a damage he could never ever undo. He's still a wonderful YA villain.
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Apr 20, 2013 22:40
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This is kind of consuming my life right now. It's a bit gimmick-y, but I'm about 200 pages in and can't put it down.
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Apr 21, 2013 02:22
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Snow Crash is a lot of fun: I actually just mentioned it to someone today. I enjoy how it shamelessly revels in it's ridiculous nature. As for myself, I just started John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Got it in the Humble Bundle ebook bundle months back, but wasn't expecting much. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying the Hell out of it. I'm about halfway through and worried about the pacing, though.
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Apr 21, 2013 05:33
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Just Begun: Goblin Quest: Jig the Goblin - Jim C. Hines Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (3) - Joel Shepherd Both for Kindle Gonna try Goblin Quest, because the next A. Lee Martinez book isn't for three more months.  The Kresnov novels are very much in the vein of Shadowrun/Cyberpunk 2020- with some interstellar war thrown in for good measure. Fun, political, action sci-fi. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Apr 21, 2013 |
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Apr 21, 2013 08:35
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Prons posted:Just ordered Watership Down on audiobook Thinking of getting a hardback edition of Plague Dogs from my local. All I know is that the Watership Down animation is AMAZING. Speaking of local, was in it browsing books, figuring out what to buy, why my surendipitous eyes spied Farenheit 451 (is that the number?)
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Apr 21, 2013 11:29
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A Song of Ice and Fire series 
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Apr 22, 2013 04:46
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I just started reading The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief by Ben MacIntyre, and while I'm only about 25 pages in I'm pretty hooked and can't wait to get these drat end-of-semester assignments out of the way so I can devote some real time to it. It's a work of non-fiction about a thief who seems to have stepped out of a movie during the late nineteenth century (for an example of how larger-than-life he is, in just those 25 pages, he has repeatedly fleeced both the Union and Confederate Armies by signing up for the North for their enlistment bonus then crossing the lines to collect the cash reward offered to deserting Union soldiers before crossing the line again to re-enlist under a new name for a new enlistment bonus and starting the cycle again, and broken out of Sing Sing. This is the prelude to his real criminal career) and the Pinkerton agent obsessed with catching him. I also just purchased Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, her account of spending three years living in one of Mumbai's infamous slums, and In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire by Tom Holland, the story of...well, I guess the subtitle says it all, eh? I'll probably start one of these two after I finish MacIntyre's but I can't decide which one. Boo's book sounds fascinating, but I'm already a huge fan of Holland after I read his Persian Fire... Either way, I'm just glad to be reading non-fiction again after a too-long fiction break.
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Apr 22, 2013 07:48
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Siddharta and Discworld #19 - Feet of Clay. Siddharta on my Kindle and Feet of Clay in audiobook format, I accidently got the abridged version of Feet of Clay and got 40% through it before I found out and had to get the unabridged version.
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Apr 22, 2013 12:25
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i am paul newman posted:As the story goes Dickens considered "the jew" as his worst deed and a damage he could never ever undo. He's still a wonderful YA villain. I suppose it's a product of its time, and the book is actually pretty good. Also extremely funny in parts.
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Apr 22, 2013 14:15
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I read Trainspotting again two weeks ago, went to the bookshop to look for something else to read, then stumbled over a display of Skagboys. I had no idea Welsh wrote a prequel, it's really great so far. Edit: Wow, reading reviews for this comparing it to Phantom Menace is hilarious. What exactly did people expect after Porno? I just bought it for more adventures of Welsh's best cast of characters. Illinois Smith fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 22, 2013 |
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Apr 22, 2013 14:41
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Homemaster posted:Thinking of getting a hardback edition of Plague Dogs from my local. All I know is that the Watership Down animation is AMAZING. The Plague Dogs is NOT a happy book. It's a good book, but boy is it a rough read. Just started reading the Wheel of Time books.
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Apr 22, 2013 15:05
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Currently in the back quarter of The Name of the Wind and half way through Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff. The former is absolutely amazing and ashamed I haven't read it yet. The second is decent, but I think its because I'm from the Detroit burbs. Sometimes it feels a bit high school narrative-ish, but it does flow and keep you interested like Dan Brown does, good or bad. I am not sure I'd be as glued as I am with it being a different subject. Detroit is keeping me in it. I find myself wondering if is really as rebellious as he is or if its authors privilege. Either way, I'm enjoying it. Next up, the Stephen King JFK book (audio) and maybe the Great Gatsby as I went to a Detroit area public school and never read anything more challenging than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in class.
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May 6, 2013 22:07
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I'm about to finish up the Mistborn trilogy and just purchased A Deepness in the Sky and Altered Carbon from seeing them in this thread. Thanks to whomever posted about them. Should be nice to hit some sci-fi after reading so much fantasy.
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May 7, 2013 02:35
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Been reading The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, and I'm quite enjoying it so far. I've read a lot of vitriolic stuff about the book (especially from The Atlantic--man, that guy came off like a pretentious douche), but whatever, I dig it.
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May 7, 2013 14:41
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I just started Against All Things Ending by Stephen Donaldson, as I recently finished Fatal Revenant. Seems good so far, although I haven't yet read a lot of it. Should be interesting to see how it pans out though, due to the way the previous book finished.
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May 8, 2013 00:44
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I'm about to start reading Burmese Days by George Orwell. I've heard pretty good things about his writing outside the often-read Animal Farm/1984, and certainly have liked what I've read of Down and Out in Paris and London, so hopefully this will also be well worth my time.
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May 8, 2013 01:19
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Just finished the Mistborn Trilogy and decided to pick back up where I left off in Terra Nostra a few years ago at the end of book 1. Did a bit of research so now I know that El Senor is a real guy and that palace he was building is a real place
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May 8, 2013 01:41
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MrFlibble posted:Well Dickens was paid by the word, and likely the story was serialised. New readers might forget and he would be many a penny poorer. He was not paid by the word. This is a myth. The story was serialized, though; all of his novels were. For anyone troubled by Dickens's portrayal of Fagin, read Our Mutual Friend, where his portrayal of Riah is extremely sympathetic, and the novel plays with racist expectations. Also, "Fagin" as a name was taken from the [non-Jewish, I think] kid whom Dickens worked beside when Dickens had to work in a blacking factory when he was 12. No one really has any idea what to really make of this.
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May 8, 2013 01:59
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Just started reading the limited edition Alastair Reynolds collection, Deep Navigation. It has a bunch of his short stories that weren't in Galactic North or Zima Blue, including the most recent Revelation Space story, "Monkey Suit", and the first story Reynolds ever published, "Nunivak Snowflakes". I thought Reynolds' other two collections were both amazing so I know I'm going to love this one.
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May 8, 2013 15:29
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