Xik posted:"Haha, look at all those idiots posting about comic books in the book barn". Who says you're an idiot? I'll fight anyone who says that! Just as soon as I finish up with Dilbert, Beetle Bailey. and The Back of the Cereal Box. Gots to get my read on! 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2014 14:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 09:53 |
|
|
1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer 8. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer Authority is too disjointed. It suffers from VanderMeer's refusal to cast any clear light on Area X. Instead this book plays out like Annihilation indoors; the main character, nicknamed Control, meanders about at the HQ of the Southern Reach in a strange attempt to understand what's happening there. New truths are teased out eventually, but there's much less tension driving the plot, especially when it dawns on you that Control is as clueless about Area X as the reader and only gains limited understanding by the book's end. VanderMeer has said that he envisioned the Southern Reach trilogy to be one that begins with a very tight focus, and then the lens expands outward with each book. This happens in Authority but not enough. The stakes are now very high for Acceptance, the finale out later this year, because the reader will feel cheated if at least a few things are not explained. 3/5 Tried the first 75 pages of Gene Wolfe's Home Fires - loving awful. Can't believe this is the same guy who wrote the Book of the New Sun series. Moving on to Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven next.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2014 15:11
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this. As per the old forum title, Don't Post (Child) Porn Here. This isn't complicated, people. i believe he may have posted doujinishi, because he was trolling, as a harmless but ultimately expensive joke. may i suggest 101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality for you, as it may be enlightening.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2014 19:36
|
|
|
Butt Frosted Cake posted:I strongly disagree with comic books being counted as only 1/2 points. Comic books are high quality literature. lol
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2014 20:41
|
|
|
...I'm not really comprehending this, is reading books suddenly a terrible thing in jokeman-land?
|
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 00:18
|
|
SALT CURES HAM posted:...I'm not really comprehending this, is reading books suddenly a terrible thing in jokeman-land? I discovered a nifty trick.  If you just glance at the pages you can get your PpD up to godly  levels! Using this method, not only did I finish my aforementioned goals (namely, Dilbert, Beetle Bailey, and The Back of the Cereal Box)  , but I also managed to zip through Remembrance of Things Past and Das Kapital today. 
|
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
SALT CURES HAM posted:...I'm not really comprehending this, is reading books suddenly a terrible thing in jokeman-land? man with da mafakin cures meme name doesn't understand that jokes are just jokes, and not attacks on the subject matter.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 07:02
|
|
|
Eh, I completely forgot to update this. Here's what I've got so far: 1. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn 2. The Age of Revolution 1789–1848 - Eric Hobsbawn 3. Fasadefall - Liza Marklund (Original title: Lyckliga gatan) 4. The Age of Capital 1848–1875 - Eric Hobsbawn 5. The Age of Empire 1875–1914 - Eric Hobsbawn 6. Siddhartha - Herman Hesse 7. A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan 8. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 9. Anleggsprosa - Tina Åmodt 10. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote 11. Diplomacy - Henry Kissinger 12. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler - Italo Calvino 13. Bushpilot: Arne Mæland sitt eventyrliv i lufta - Lars Skorpen (Bushpilot - Arne Mælands adventurous life in the air) 14. Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization - Richard Miles 15. 128 sider om tvangstanker - Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair (128 pages about OCD) 16. Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile - Daniel Nettle I'm a bit behind schedule, but I've been reading quite a few longer history-books. Favorites bolded. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 10:08
|
|
|
I'm pretty late finding this year and haven't been keeping track of books I've read so far, but let's see if I can finish another 30 books before the year is out. Here's my Goodreads profile if anybody is interested. 1. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This was a lot of fun, and I want to read more in the series just to find out more about the world. 2. Saga Volumes 1-3 by Brian K. Vaughn. Pretty fantastic comic book series so far. Gorgeous atwork and a great yet simple story blending together. 3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. It took me a week or so to finish this one but it was worth it. It was difficult to follow but it was SUPERB. It was a joy to pick apart the story and the characters.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 13:23
|
|
|
28. Divergent, Veronica Roth 29. Insurgent, Veronica Roth 30. Allegiant, Veronica Roth Read these after watching the movie with my wife, since we wanted to know more about the setting so we could speculate wildly about it. We were actually pleasantly surprised by a lot of it, including the author neatly avoiding some common-to-the-point-of-cliche fictional relationship failure modes. Allegiant in particular had a few parts where upon learning The Terrible Truth™ we went "wait, no, that's incredibly stupid", but it made more sense once we realized that basically everyone is either lying about the project, or have themselves been lied to, or both, so the actual objection is not "the fundamental basis of the backstory is stupid" but "these characters should have come up with better lies". 31. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde 32. Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde 33. The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde 34. Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde Increasingly I find myself thinking I'm not actually going to finish the Malazan series; like Wheel of Time, I want to know how it ends but just cannot bring myself to slog through the 6000+ pages between me and that ending when I'm honestly not enjoying that much. I have so much backlog these days that mere curiosity is not enough to compel me to finish a series anymore. So I went to read the Thursday Next books instead. I'd read the first two before, the latter two were new to me. They are fun and lighthearted and a bit of a headfuck if you think about the time travel too much. All in all, good times, although Fforde needs to get off his rear end and write a sequel to Shades of Grey already; I like Thursday Next, but Chromatacia is Fforde's best work and I want more of it. 35. Freakangels & Global Frequency, Warren Ellis I like Ellis and I've had these in my backlog since Freakangels was finished years ago. I enjoyed the poo poo out of Freakangels, and it doesn't surprise me to see him citing Wyndham as an influence in the afterword (mostly The Midwich Cuckoos, obviously, although there's a bit of The Kraken Wakes in there too). Global Frequency was not nearly as good. It's basically a short story collection, but the stories are kind of repetitive and also variable in quality. I can forgive the former if there's an overarching storyline, and the latter if they're written by different authors, but there isn't and they weren't; the only unifying factor is the basic theme and the characters of Zero and Aleph, who we don't generally see much of. It actually reminded me of Planetary, but unfortunately, Planetary is much better. 36. T-Rex and the Crater of Doom, Walter Alvarez I don't normally go in for paleontology, but this was pretty interesting. What really struck me was how recent it was; when I was learning about the mass extinction and the impact that caused it in school, it was a new and exciting discovery, not, as I assumed, something that had been known for decades. I was also amazed - and dismayed - to learn of the conflict between gradualist and catastrophist geology and how badly it had set things back. Yet another we can blame James Ussher for.  37. Mogworld, Benjamin Croshaw 38. Jam, Benjamin Croshaw Mogworld was a lot of fun. I've never played WoW (which it is very clearly riffing on, right down to the cover art), and I've played very little in the way of MMOs in general, but I still do enough gaming in general to get the jokes. Jam was considerably less fun. It feels like a parody of disaster fiction, but for the most part it's not funny, just stupid. Maybe I just don't read enough disaster fiction for it to have the same effect as Mogworld, and someone who does (but does little gaming) would have the opposite reaction to the books? Unfortunately, I now have the two bugbears of "not knowing what I want to read next" and "having a newborn to take care of", so my reading is probably going to slow waaaaaay down for a while.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 15:30
|
|
|
The school year ended this week, which meant no more grading papers or planning lessons, so I knocked out quite a few books fairly quickly. 61. The Likes of Lock Lamora - By Scott Lynch People treat this book like it is the best thing ever written. To be fair, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really clever, fun, and exciting, but I was surprised that people got so passionate about the book. It is a fantastic read, but the best books are the ones that hurt when they're over. 62. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien. I've not read much about Vietnam, (though I did take a college gen-ed class on it, so I'm somewhat educated on the subject) and I don't find the topic compelling in and of itself, but this book was really good. Politics aside, chopped off ears on a piece of string aside, this is a book about the people who had to go to war, and how they got through it, and the baggage that followed them. I'm curious to read O'Brien's memoir on the subject as a basis to compare, as this book seems to really blur the lines between fiction and fact. 63. Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Brosh I read stuff on the blog a few times and I was amused by it. I actually got this book for my wife, as she is starting to pick up in her reading habit (from not reading at all to reading 3/4ths of books). It is a really funny, really quick and light read. It also takes a very open and honest look at depression and puts it into perspective in a way that doesn't bum you out. I think the story about the cake is the best thing ever. 64. Confessions of a Sociopath - M.E. Thomas Extremely self indulgent and narcissitic, which I suppose you should expect from a book about being a sociopath. With how 'hot' memoirs are right now, this book is trying to make some money off the crazy, but it really doesn't deserve it. It's a subpar memoir at best. That being said, if you are really intersted in psychology and sociopathy, it is interesting to view the topic from the first person perspective. But make sure you really want to read it before you try to. 65. Let's Pretend This Never Happenend- Jenny Lawson Another silly memoir book. The first half is really interesting and really fun to read. Lawson's childhood it quite spectatular. The second half, telling more contemporary stories, don't really have much of a connection or theme between them. It was more of a "here is a funny story" type thing. Lawson is actually pretty funny, but at times she really, really, really tries to hard. 66. The Keep - F. Paul Wilson A pretty decent adventure/horror story. Originally intended to be its own thing, Wilson would later go on to build an entire set of mythos around this book. Had that not been the case, this book probably would habe been easy to overlook. Don't get me wrong, it has plenty going for it, but what makes it special is the connections to other works. (tried to watch the movie, it's visually interesting, but otherwise a dud). 67. The Rithmatist - Brandon Sanderson A super quick read, and a whole heck of a lot of fun too. My favorite things about Sanderson are how prolific he is, and how he keeps creating worlds and magic systems that are always fresh and interesting. I never have to worry about feeling like "this has been done before" with Sanderson's books. I'm more anxious to read a sequel of this than Steelheart.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 18:03
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:Unfortunately, I now have the two bugbears of "not knowing what I want to read next" and "having a newborn to take care of", so my reading is probably going to slow waaaaaay down for a while. Really consider audiobooks. They were a godsend when my son was born. Having your handsful tending to the kid, putting a book on the ipod was quite the sanity saver. More and more public libraries are offering downloadable collections which include audiobooks, so there are ways to get them rather easily.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 18:07
|
|
|
April: 9. Sleep Donation by Karen Russell. A novella with an interesting premise: thousands of people lose the ability to sleep, but there is technology for those who can to donate sleep to those who can't. This was okay, but it didn't have much of a story arc. 10. Equoid by Charles Stross. A novella in his Laundry series. It's about the true nature of unicorns and H.P. Lovecraft. I really liked this. May: 11. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. The only other Le Guin I've read is The Left Hand of Darkness, which I liked but didn't love; The Dispossessed was different. I loved this book and blew through it in a few days. I love the way Le Guin explores the realities of an anarchist society. Now I really want to read the other books in her Hainish Cycle, and maybe re-read The Left Hand of Darkness. 12. The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal. Another novelette, about a former astronaut and her terminally ill husband. This was pretty disappointing. Like with Sleep Donation, I was hoping it would be heavier on the science fiction aspects than it was. 13. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. I've always heard that Jeeves and Wooster stories are hilarious, but this definitely wasn't my cup of tea. I found it pretty boring.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
Roydrowsy posted:61. The Likes of Lock Lamora - By Scott Lynch Part of this may be that it's a good heist/con novel and those are far rarer than they should be. When I described Lies to my girlfriend and said I wanted more books like that, she had a number of recommendations that, while good, weren't at all what I was looking for. Then she read it and went "that's excellent but I now have no idea what to recommend to you as a followup". Please prove me wrong by recommending a bunch of good cons, not necessarily fantasy -- or even fiction.  Roydrowsy posted:Really consider audiobooks. They were a godsend when my son was born. Having your handsful tending to the kid, putting a book on the ipod was quite the sanity saver. More and more public libraries are offering downloadable collections which include audiobooks, so there are ways to get them rather easily. I hate audiobooks. They take way too long. I would honestly like to try to figure out how to operate my e-reader with my feet first.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 21:51
|
|
|
The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France (surprise) - Very short stories / poems about adventurers , princesses and most importantly brittany. Basically super short fairy tales. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - I enjoyed it but i feel like it's probably a lot better in spanish. Re-use of the character names didnt bother me that much (especially considering their thematic importance). With that said, I feel like i was hit over the head with obvious themes many many times. The very dense writing style is quite different from the very descriptive style of the other authors I've read in the last few months , so that was a bit jarring. The Assistant by Robert Walser - Another Walser book. I think this is probably my least favourite so far (which isn't saying much , because i still deeply enjoyed it). A man becomes a live-in clerk for an inventor / engineer. As with all Walser's books , nothing really happens but I feel like its missing many of the strong points of other walser short stories / novels, ie descriptions. None of the characters are particularly realistic but they have a certain depth to them. Walser is an author that if you enjoy his writing style , you will love his works (again because they really don't go anywhere). The original ending paragraph is far better than the one found in the novel, it really demonstrates what I find enjoyable about Walser's writing style. Not really worth putting into spoilers because again none of his works are plot driven at all. The translator Susan Bernofsky absolutely knocks it out of the park. " When they had reached the road down below, Joseph Stopped, took one of Tobler's cheroots out of his pocket, lit it, and then turned around to look at the house one last time. There it lay above him, silent in a wintry isolation, as if it felt cold. From the neighbouring chimneys, delicate columns of blue-tinged smoke rose up, dispersing in the gray air. The landscape appeared to have eyes, and it appeared to be closing them, filled utterly with peace, in order to reflect. Yes, everything appeared a bit pensive. All the surrounding colours appeared to be gently and sweetly dreaming. The houses resembled slumbering children, and the sky lay, friendly and weary, upon all things. Joseph sat down on a rock beside the road and gazed back at it all for a long time. Fleetingly he thought once more of the woman, the children, the garden and all those mornings, noons, evenings and nights, the voices that for so long he had found familiar, Tobler's voice, the smells wafting from the kitchen that had given him such pleasure, all this he now saluted in his thoughts, and then the two of them walked on." The Tanners by Robert Walser - Waler's first book published in 1908 (I think). It's semi-autiobiographical in a loose dreamy kind of way. The main character Simon Tanner is basically an unemployed care free young man. Book heavily features his relationship with his siblings and walks through nature / moving from poor job to poor job. The main character is similiar to Joseph from the Assistant and the lead from Jakub von Gunten, a naive but earnest young man. "I’m still standing at the door of life, knocking and knocking, though admittedly none too forcefully, and breathlessly listening to see whether someone will decide to open the bolt and let me in. A bolt like this is rather heavy, and people don’t like to come to the door if they have the feeling it’s just a beggar standing outside knocking. I’m good at nothing but listening and waiting, though in these capacities I’ve achieved perfection, for I’ve learned how to dream while waiting. "
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 22:51
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:Part of this may be that it's a good heist/con novel and those are far rarer than they should be. When I described Lies to my girlfriend and said I wanted more books like that, she had a number of recommendations that, while good, weren't at all what I was looking for. Then she read it and went "that's excellent but I now have no idea what to recommend to you as a followup". Some of my favorite "heist" novels are the Donald Westlake, Dortmunder books. They're pretty clever, and have quite a bit of humor. "Drowned Hopes" "Good Behavior" or "Get Real" would all be decent books to start with. Not so much 'heists' but I always really enjoyed Lawrence Block's Burglar books, in which burglary skills and trickery are used to solve murders. If you want to go way back, Arsene Lupin stories tend to be really good, as do the old Raffles stories. John Sandford had a series of "Kidd" novels about hacking, burglary and con-games. (Each title references a card in the Tarot deck. Order is not necessary). Not exactly the deepest stuff, but usually a lot of fun to read. Otherwise, pickin's are pretty slim. If you want Non-Fiction, you might want to give "Sex on the Moon" a shot, perhaps the greatest (and stupidest) heist people don't know about. Roydrowsy fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
Roydrowsy posted:
That was a pretty good book. Nice story, but in my opinion not very well written (how overly dramatic can you make it?). I did wonder how accurate this book actually is though since the writer really gives the impression that he values sensationalism more than accuracy. Side note, am I the only one that was a bit annoyed/disturbed by how the FBI worked? If they hadn't become involved, the heist would probably never have happened. They pretty much encouraged somebody to commit a crime so they could catch him.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 12:20
|
|
|
The Clowning posted:
I read my first Wodehouse just the other week. I found it amusing, Wodehouse can certainly write a comic plot that is cute and fun, but I wasn't exactly slapping my knees.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 23:02
|
|
|
Unfortunately, my ebook version of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is near unreadable so it'll be replaced by The Battle Royale Slam Book in order to complement the novel.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 13:23
|
|
satsui no thankyou posted:man with da mafakin cures meme name doesn't understand that jokes are just jokes, and not attacks on the subject matter. I mean, I get that they're just jokes and I actually did find them pretty amusing, it's the fact that they're here and not somewhere else that I'm curious about. It strikes me as a little odd because it's honestly the first time I've ever seen y'all venture into the grey forums without something offending your sensibilities as the cause (see also: BFC erotica thread, NaNoWriMo thread, etc). Just so I'm not taking this more off-topic than I already was (pardon the lack of organization): American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis - frankly, I didn't like it quite as much as the movie, but that may just be my familiarity with the movie coloring my opinion. It was still pretty drat good; I could read Ellis' prose for centuries. Catch-22, Joseph Heller - loving fantastic book. It didn't really grab me at first, but once it started to be a little less surreal I was hooked. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (reread) - one of my favorite books. I didn't really engage with it as well the first time through, but on a reread it resonated with me more than Cat's Cradle (my first Vonnegut) ever did. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman - eeeeeeeh. I can see why someone else would enjoy it, but I guess military SF isn't really my bag. I did appreciate how progressive it was compared to other examples of the genre that I'm familiar with, but it just wasn't really that interesting, and I feel like my familiarity with things that took influence from it (Gunbuster, the Starship Troopers film, etc) made it feel a lot less fresh than it otherwise would have. Neuromancer, William Gibson (reread) - I'm actually iffy on calling this one a reread, since I slogged through it in middle school and barely comprehended it the first time. Revisiting it at age 20, it's loving brilliant; Gibson's prose is honestly some of the best I've read in the breadth of sci-fi fiction, and even though I'm a massive whore for anything cyberpunk and I've seen and read a billion things that stole from Neuromancer, it still felt new and exciting. Definitely another of my favorites.
|
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 22:02
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:44: Blood and Iron - Jon Sprunk 57: Skin Game - Jim Butcher 58: The Forever Man - Pierre Ouellette 59: Rivals - David Wellington 60: Cold Days - Jim Butcher 61: Men At Arms - Terry Pratchett 62: Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett 63: Eric - Terry Pratchett 64: Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett 65: Sourcery - Terry Pratchett 66: The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett 67: The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett 68: Ansible 15715 - Stant Litore 69: Pyramids - Terry Pratchett 70: Mort - Terry Pratchett 71: Hostile Territory - Tom Andry 72: Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett 73: Desperate Times - Tom Andry 74: No Hero - Tom Andry 75: Sinner - Greg Stolze 76: Talus and the Frozen King - Graham Edwards 77: The Amulet - William Meikle 78: The Chapel Perilous - Kevin Hearne 79: All Bad Things - Stephen Blackmoore 80: Code Zero - Jonathan Maberry 81: The Dame, The Doctor, and The Device - Chris Holm, etc. 82: Darker Things - Rob Cornell 83: Hot Lead, Cold Iron - Ari Marmell Lots of books read this month, and all of em pretty good. Obviously the Discworld books are amazing. Skin Game - Latest Dresden Files book, and it's pretty awesome. Not gonna spoil anything about it, just gonna say it's been worth the wait. Can't review The Forever Man at the moment. It's an earc and part of that means no good/bad reviews till it's published. Rivals was decent. A little weird, but decent. David Wellington is starting to learn how to write an ending that just doesn't immediately slam to a halt. Basically a brother and sister get super powers, and then fight a lot when one wants to be a hero and the other just wants to do what they want. Cold Days - Second to last Dresden Files book, and if you like the series you will dig the book, nothing more to be said. Ansible 15715 is a short story/novella with an interesting premise. Basically, while a young girl is being burned alive in salem during the witch trials, she's trying to warn us of a horrible upcoming event. Give it a read, it's actually pretty damned good. No Hero/Desperate Times/Hostile Territory - Imagine if you were a normal dude, who happened to be the ex husband of one of the most powerful heroes on the planet? Now, imagine you were a PI and you investigated "Supers"? That was the hook that drew me into the series, and it's actually been pretty good. Can't wait to see where they take the series. Gets kinda dark in places, which is a bit of a welcome change from most superhero novels. Not "dark for the hell of it" dark though, just "wow that got pretty noir". I'd recommend em. Sinner - Eh... weird book. I liked it, but the plot was pretty scattershot. Basic plot is supervillain turns himself in and goes to jail. EVERYONE thinks this is some sort of weird ploy on his part and then everything just goes completely bonkers. Talus and the Frozen King - Didn't like it that much. Imagine a stone age/bronze age Sherlock Holmes. Now, imagine that instead of writing a good Sherlock story, you had the character hand hold and pontificate about every single logical thing he's seen in the book. No real mystery since the book blatantly tells you what's going on, and if you don't get the big mystery reveal, you really have not been paying attention. It's unique, and probably worth a read just on the fact it's a stone age/bronze age sherlock holmes, but it's not a series I see myself following. The Amulet - Pretty decent book. It's a mixture of detective story meets lovecraftian horror, and it handles it pretty well. I think there's a few more books in the series but I only grabbed the first one. I liked it enough to try the next one though. It's based in england, so for US people like myself some stuff just didn't quite catch (monologues about driving from one place to another past some landmark in a country I've never been in and probably never will go to), but it's nothing super plot important. If you like detective novels and you like weird amphibian monstrosity weird poo poo happening, you'll dig the book. The Chapel Perilous - short story/novella of the Iron Druid. Basically his version of the hunt for the holy grail. Not fantastic, not horrible, but interesting. Nothing I'd recommending avoiding this month, even at the worst Talus was a decent read. Edit - Updating now so I don't forget later on. All Bad Things was pretty good. Hard to really describe but basically it's a post apocalyptic story about a crazy dude starting a church. Code Zero just sucked. Writeup in the airpport fiction thread. The Dame, The Doctor and The Device was not that great. It sounded kinda cool, and it's basically a short story collection that centers around time travel and is written by different authors all writing about the same guy. Only problem is it kinda sucks. Darker Things was the first book in a new? series. Guy gets tracked down by daughter he didn't know he had, vampires attack them, turns out guy is a former spec ops guy who killed supernatural threats, life goes wonky. Decent read though. Nice to see a book about a kid written where the kid isn't a magical genius or a complete spaz. Hot Lead, Cold Iron is the first book in a new series by Ari Marmell, who I already liked as an author because of his Corvis series. This book is way completely not the same as that series though. This is a noir book based in the 20s or so. Slang is used that's appropriate to the time (chicago typewriter for tommy gun, etc). Main character is an elf who is also a PI. Surprisingly pretty great. It's got a gritty noir feel to it, and is actually a somewhat decent mystery. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 01:52
|
|
|
Roydrowsy posted:Some of my favorite "heist" novels are the Donald Westlake, Dortmunder books. They're pretty clever, and have quite a bit of humor. "Drowned Hopes" "Good Behavior" or "Get Real" would all be decent books to start with. I will check out all of those. Although I was under the impression the Arsene Lupin stories were more straightforward mysteries, while I am looking for cunning and (arguably over-) complicated plots executed with panache -- think Leverage or Hustle. If I'm wrong about that I'm about to be very happy indeed.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 02:01
|
|
|
Female authors: 8/24 Non-fiction: 4/12 Goodreads. I don't like zombies, but I do like unicorns, so Zombies Vs. Unicorns, a collection of short stories (half about zombies, half about unicorns) was a bit of a mixed bag. Nothing particularly remarkable though. Everyday Sexism was the stand-out book this month and I think everyone should read it. I didn't much care for Frankenstein. Even setting aside the whole creation of the creature, the whole thing seems pretty implausible. Like, if Frankenstein hadn't been immediately horrified by his own creation as soon as he brought it to life and fled then the entire rest of the book would have gone completely differently. Even assuming there's something about the creature that just makes people hate it as soon as they see it, Frankenstein consistently misses opportunities to make the situation better and just sits around doing nothing. And I know forensics is a pretty modern thing, but surely it's not that difficult to tell that someone's been strangled by a giant as opposed to a young woman. I liked the way the characters were written in Carrie, but other than that I didn't really see anything to recommend it. I'm not sure what the point of it even is, and the way it was written didn't make sense. The Shadow Exploded, the book within the book, seems to be a non-fiction account of events from within the world in which they take place, yet it seems to contain these details that couldn't possibly be known by its author. The Happiest Days of Our Lives just made me dislike Wil Wheaton. He's a grown adult with special D&D dice that no one else is allowed to touch. He uses the words "grok" and "frak" in everyday conversation. He really cares about video game achievements. He's one of those people who say "dogs have owners, cats have staff". Every chapter made me dislike him more. And even when he's not being obnoxious, his stories are just so ordinary. I don't understand why anyone would want to read this stuff. It's not noteworthy or interesting. It's like reading the diary of an ordinary, middle-class father. How to Archer was good though. If you like the show you'll probably enjoy it. Tiggum fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jun 29, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:I will check out all of those. I've not read everything regarding Lupin, but what I have read are all stories about stealing stuff and getting away with it. There are some connections to Sherlock Holmes, but it was Maurice Leblanc using Lupin to basically make a fool out of Holmes. Doyle actually was so unhappy about it that Leblanc had to change the name of the Detective of Hermlock Sholmes. I'd say the best place to start is probably Westlake, and dabble about from there. Roydrowsy fucked around with this message at 05:05 on May 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 05:01
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:I read my first Wodehouse just the other week. I found it amusing, Wodehouse can certainly write a comic plot that is cute and fun, but I wasn't exactly slapping my knees. I think his short stories, especially the golf and Mulliner ones, are superior to his novels. That is, I've giggled more often over them than over any of the longer stuff.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
screenwritersblues posted:21) The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster: This is the second book that I read by the man and it is the most depressing book that I've read. It also was hard to follow at times, which kind of turned me off. May 22) Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell: Yes, this is your stereotypical YA love story, but the on thing about it is that it doesn't fall into the typical YA things. Instead it goes against the norms and has a more adult feel to it. I loved the fact that Rowell used music that I know and have heard and decided that it was the best to set it in the 1980s, instead of the current time frame, that made me really love the book. 23) Winger by Andrew Smith: I heard about this book through a few different websites that kept saying that it was really good, funny book. While I doubted it, it turns out that it was. Once again, this was another book that broke the mold of the YA novel and threw all the conventional stuff out the window. It was a quick read and I can't wait for the second book to come out next fall. 24) Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip by Jordan Sonnenblick: I really wanted to like this one, but I just didn't. It fell into that typical YA novel category for me. Too may things to list on why I didn't like it, but it was still a decent read. 25) Will Greyson, Will Greyson by John Green and David Levithan: I had high hopes for this one, but it fell short. While it was good, my main problem was that it felt kind of pointless and boring. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. Currently reading: MFA vs NYC Editied by Chad Harbach: I'm kind of on the fence about going to Grad school, so this book is kind of going to help me decide. 25/30
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 18:16
|
|
|
I think I'll start my reading challenge from basically the half way mark and so I will set myself a target of 36 books, or around one every 5 days. 1) The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by Gilbert Keith Chesterton - Good, but what the heck was up with those notes Sunday threw over his shoulder in the chase at the end? Also how come they didn't just recognise that Sunday and the guy who recruited them had the same voice? Still, most of the words were good and it's only 150 pages so it's an easy one to start me off 
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 18:45
|
|
|
Prolonged Shame posted:1) Winters Heart - Robert Jordan I read a lot in May: 39) Pompeii - Robert Harris: I really liked this one. The imminent threat of the eruption of Vesuvius lent a lot of tension to the book, though I wish he'd spent more time fleshing out his characters and less describing the intricacies of Roman aqueducts. 40) I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Malala Yousafzai: Definitely written (or dictated) by a teenager. I suspect we'll be hearing a lot from Malala in the future. 41) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens: A classic I've been meaning to read forever. Not bad, though not my favorite Dickens. 42) Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 - Stephen Puleo: I remember hearing about this when I lived in Boston, and this was a very explicit account of exactly what happened. Recommended if you like unusual non-fiction. 43) A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present - Howard Zinn: I was a little disappointed in this. I was expecting it to have been a little more surprising, but I guess that since it's been out for 30+ years much of the info has been incorporated into mainstream education. 44) Chester Alan Arthur - Zachary Karabell: The consensus on Chester Arthur seems to be that he was a thoroughly mediocre and unremarkable president. 45) The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X: Very good. Witnessing the evolution of his thinking is really neat. 46) The Winters Tale - William Shakespeare: Pretty good. Now I know where the 'exit, pursued by a bear' joke comes from. 47) A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking: Just when I felt I had a handle on what he was saying, he'd go far beyond my knowledge of quantum physics. I guess I'll never win a Nobel Prize. 48) Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks: This was a good read about a 'plague village' in England. I enjoyed it right up until the totally tacked on out of nowhere ending. 49) Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season - Nick Heil: Not bad, but it was no 'Into Thin Air'. I felt there was too much padding and not enough about the actual 2006 Everest season. 50) The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth - Matthew Algeo: Definitely the longest title I'm likely to read all year. A good biography of Grover Cleveland, though the supposed vilification of the reporter is pretty mild. Also, the tumor removed from Cleveland's mouth is still on display at the Mutter Museum. 51) The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History - Robert M. Edsel: Not bad, but sometimes it was hard to follow who was who and where they were. It's definitely an aspect of WWII you don't read a lot about. 52) Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel: I usually don't go in for magical realism but this wasn't bad. It definitely made me hungry. Overall:52/100 Sub-goals: Presidential biographies: 6/12 Books over 600 pages: 10/15 Non-fiction books (not counting prez bios): 13/20
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:34: The Book Thief because it was around and fiancee had finished it. So far it's OK, but the occasional interludes in funny typography asking and answering side questions etc are really bugging me. Stop trying to be ~~##**ART**##~~ and just get on with the loving story. 34: The Book Thief was strong, interesting and random asides... aside... well-written, but I couldn't help but feel that the end was wildly abrupt, and the conceit of it being narrated by death was a bit... lost. 34: Skin Game. Nuff said. 7 or 8 chapters in thus far, and enjoying it.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 22:26
|
|
|
Does anybody know of an app that will scrape your Goodreads profile, or even the CSV file you can export from your profile, and does data visualization stuff with it? A coworker wants it to show "how many books I read over time" and "a pie chart that breaks down books by type or tag," specifically. I know the stats page on Goodreads does a little of the "books read over time." I think she's looking for something a bit more flexible.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 22:55
|
|
|
May - 4: 16. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima) 17. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 (Alistair Horne) 18. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) 19. Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell) Another four down in May. Not bad for an otherwise very busy month. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea is, wow. I honestly think this might be my favourite novel. It's dark, it's harrowing, the prose is excellent even in translation. I had this sudden overwhelming urge to read it and ended up buying it on like the Sunday, receiving it Tuesday and smashing through the whole thing by Wednesday. Amazing. The Fall of Paris is some great history writing. Horne manages both depth and breadth; the overall narrative is good but he finds time to include small chapters focusing on things like the balloon flights out of Paris in real detail. He also manages to strike a pretty good balance when dealing with the Commune, which isn't always easy to find. Definitely an area I want to read more on, but imo if you haven't read anything about this year in French/Parisian history before this is the place to start. The Handmaid's Tale, again, excellent. Atwood's character work in this is so good, really intense. It did make the epilogue quite jarring to read, though. I almost wish I'd left it, but I'm too much of a completionist not to read it all. I've always liked Orwell so reading Homage to Catalonia felt very familiar. I enjoy his style and the unassuming way he deals with being involved with some pretty big events is appealling. It's obviously not the best view of the Spanish Civil War because as he readily admits he only saw one corner of it, and much of the second half deals with the events of a very short period of time in Barcelona (never mind that at time of writing the war hadn't actually finished) but as a personal account it's brilliant. I saw someone on Goodreads who suggested that wherever Orwell writes "Communist" you should read "Stalinist", which makes some of the inter-party politics make more sense. I really enjoyed this month, four very strong reads that all had different appeals. A nice mix although on no real theme except that The Fall of Paris tied in with what I was reading in the latter half of last month (really I meant to read it first this month, but The Sailor... jumped the queue). At the moment I'm reading Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (recommended in this thread I think), which 50 pages in seems to have another really strong voice for its main character, then I have a four-book run on the Ottoman Empire. Exams are over next week so I'll be able to start smashing through books, I can't wait. Year so far: 01. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Robert Tressell) 02. Always Managing: My Autobiography (Harry Redknapp) 03. Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe) 04. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened (Allie Brosh) 05. Dracula (Bram Stoker) 06. The Drowned World (JG Ballard) 07. The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty (G.J. Meyer) 08. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel) 09. The Politics (Aristotle) 10. The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) 11. Twelve Years a Slave (Solomon Northup) 12. The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) 13. If on a winter's night a traveller (Italo Calvino) 14. The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels) 15. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (Eric Hobsbawm) 16. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea (Yukio Mishima) 17. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 (Alistair Horne) 18. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) 19. Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell) Total: 19/40, 3/5 women, 3/5 non-white people, 9/20 non-fiction Living Image fucked around with this message at 12:35 on May 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 12:32
|
|
|
Corrode posted:
I read Half Blood Blues earlier this year, and then it was featured on CBC's Canada Reads competition. I've subsequently been working my way through the rest of the Canada Reads books from this year's competition, and would also recommend Rawi Hage's Cockroach, which was passionately (and tearfully) defended in the competition by Samantha Bee.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 13:30
|
|
|
Fellwenner posted:21) JR, by William Gaddis. May was much busier for me than April, am sitting at 30/65... 22) Cyberpunk, edited by Victoria Blake. Overall I liked it. Mostly just an ok collection of stories, but it had a few really amazing ones. One thing going for it is the subject matter of the stories are rather broad, not just what you picture William Gibson writing. 23) Dance of Cloaks, by David Dalglish. This is pretty much just pulpy action. Characters aren't really relatable and the idea of a collection of thieves guilds hoping to overcome an opposition of well trained and armed mercenaries and troops is a stretch to say the least. 24) Hondo, by Louis L'amour. I started off liking this, as the description of the land and environment was nice, and the tone was sparse. By the end I hated it. It's juvenile and sexist and I wished that Hondo was scalped by the Indian at the end. 25) The Silence of Medair, by Andrea Host. This was fantastic! Our heroine on a quest to save her homeland succeeds 500 years too late. It is a story about Medair's emotional journey as she deals with everything that has happened and how she is to deal with a new threat which has arisen. The introspection is handled well and there's not much in the way of action. If you're at all a fan of genre books you should pick this one up. Here, it's only $3.99. 26) Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brien. Well this was an interesting book. It took a bit to get into the swing of the language, the pacing, the nautical terms, but it became a very rewarding experience once I got into it. The main characters were what made this, their complexities and relationships quite compelling. 27) The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. Convoluted plot, but rich dialogue and brusque prose. I haven't read much in the way of noir, but Chandler has to be the pinnacle of the style. 28) The Big Nowhere, James Ellroy. Much better than Black Dahlia, the plot seemed more focused. The characters were as flawed and intense as ever and continue to be my favorite aspect of James Ellroy's writing. Dudley Smith is the perfect bogeyman. 29) Skin Game, by Jim Butcher. What's to say, Harry's back! Good book, it seemed a little unfocused after the last few; Turn Coat through Cold Days were better. I'm getting tired of the nerd references and Harry's misogyny, hopefully he grows the hell up some day. 30) In the Loyal Mountains: Stories, by Rick Bass. I've read two of Bass' short story collections and they're both remarkable to say the least. He writes mainly of the west and south, wilderness and small towns. Gorgeous prose. Any fans of Wallace Stegner or Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy would enjoy him.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 13:30
|
|
|
Updating for April and May (goal is still 52):code:Other books I'm working on (I have a tendency to have 2-3 in progress simultaneously, especially with longer non-fiction books): - A history of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Suojelupoliisi) - Rick Perlstein's Nixonland And in the pipeline: - Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett - Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson, a murder weapon disguised as a book I'm a little behind pace but I've got almost two months of vacation coming up.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 15:09
|
|
|
Fremry posted:1. Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky Brothers 7. Foundation by Isaac Asimov 8. Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr. The Foundation series has been sitting on my list for a while and I didn't get to it until just now. I can understand why this is considered a Sci-Fi classic series. I enjoyed it quite a bit, so I've started Foundation and Empire. I know that there's debate back and forth as to whether you should start from the series order or the publication order, but I've decided to read it as it was published. Who Goes There? was the novella that the movie The Thing was based on. The movie from the 50's always has a place in my heart because my dad taught me my first bit of film knowledge when we watched it (that there are no pauses in the dialogue between speakers to create a feeling of anxiety in the viewers). It has aged surprisingly well considering it was written in the 1938. I'd suggest it to anyone who enjoys corny b-movies, and it's also one of the more interesting monsters I've read. Edit: Who Goes There? is also a free "rental" in the Kindle Lending Library if you have Amazon Prime. One of the few decent books on there. Fremry fucked around with this message at 19:07 on May 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 16:34
|
|
|
~May~ 51. Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden 52. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 53. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett 54. Germinal - Emile Zola 55. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 56. The Farthest Shore - Ursula K. Le Guin 57. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr 58. Double Feature - Owen King 59. Forever - Pete Hamill 60. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer 61. The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker 62. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym - Edgar Allen Poe 63. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin A lot of great books this month. Germinal is the story of a mining strike in a French town in the late 1800s; like many novels of its day, it tends to preach the gospel of socialism a little heavily, but given the working conditions of French miners in that day, I can see why. The Farthest Shore was my third Earthsea book, and it brought a nice ending to the first trilogy. I feel like I might dive into the second trilogy one of these days, but I'm branching out more into LeGuin's science fiction now, which is equally good if not better. Double Feature is the debut novel by Owen King, Stephen King's other writer son, and reminded me a great deal of Chabon's "Wonder Boys" - though in this case it followed a group of frustrated movie-makers, not writers. Very funny and charming. The Age of Miracles was a solid coming-of-age story set against the ending of the world - in this case, the world's spin begins to slow, so days grow longer and the Earth's magnetic field loses its potency, wreaking havoc. The focus, though, is not on the catastrophe, but how a preteen girl deals with the oncoming apocalypse and the gradual breakdown of her family. Finally, All the Light We Cannot See is a brand-spanking-new book that I got through the library; it follows a blind French girl and a German boy who's a mechanical genius during World War II. It is almost screaming for an Oscar-bait movie treatment, but despite that the writing was lovely and it'll linger in my mind for a good long time. As I tend to do, I also reread some of my old favorites. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Everything is Illuminated, and A Prayer for Owen Meany were all old friends that I revisited, and they're still as wonderful as when I first read them. The first two are quite heavily in the magic realism genre - hell, "One Hundred Years" is kind of its founding text - and "Owen Meany" is a classic Irving yarn, where I feel right at home in the New England winters. "Everything is Illuminated" I especially loved revisiting, if only for the chapters written by the young Ukrainian Alex, whose mangled English makes his chapters an absolute riot. (It then, of course, descends into tragedy - nothing good happens to Jewish people in Ukraine during World War II.) Overall a great month! Since I'm only 13 books away from my goal of 75, I'm going to up my goal to 100 - one that I'll easily make at this rate. I've got some great books lined up for the next few weeks - I've just started Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, and I'm already halfway in love with it. Chamberk fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jun 1, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 19:01
|
|
|
Spadoink posted:17. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion 24. Seeing - Jose Saramago 25. The Red Wolf Conspiracy - Robert V.S. Redick 26. Cockroach - Rawi Hage 27. The Wreckage - Michael Crummey 28. Annabel - Kathleen Winter 29. The Rats and the Ruling Sea - Robert V.S. Redick 29. Red Rising - Pierce Brown Seeing was the first book by Jose Saramago that I have read - I watched the movie adaptation of Blindness with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, and was worried that not having read the book would have me at a disadvantage going into Seeing, but I think Saramago sets it up well enough that you needn't be familiar with Blindess to read Seeing. None of the characters are referred to by given names, and there is a narrator providing voice and opinions on the action of the story. The basis of the story hinges on another unusual event - during the federal elections in an unnamed country (such as Portugal, for example, the narrator suggests) the majority of the capital city's population casts blank votes. It creates a crisis of government, fears of a revolution, and starts as a satire that slowly unwinds into something less easily defined. The Red Wolf Conspiracy and The Rats and the Ruling Sea are two of a series. The Red Wolf Conspiracy was one of those books I requested from the library, and then when it arrived I could not fathom why I had requested it. I started reading it a few times and had to stop - due to the over-the-top ridiculous naming conventions. It was so bad, I was embarrassed to be reading it in my own living room. On the third or so try, I just went with it and found myself enjoying the story. Its a little all over the place, with talking animals, magical humans, unexplored realms, tiny sprite-like creatures and "the fate of the world" resting on a not-very-ladylike general's daughter and an orphaned outcast with a magical gift that is as much a curse. While not original, it is enjoyable. Cockroach was one of the Canada Reads contenders this year - the story of an immigrant scraping by on the margins in Montreal. I found the story interesting, but couldn't understand Samantha Bee's heartfelt, tearful defense of the story on Canada Reads .. until I hit the end, and burst out crying at something that, were I to describe it, would seem totally un-tear-worthy. In those moments, the whole of the book swept up on me, and was transformed. Annabel was also a Canada Reads contender. For the subject matter (a hermaphroditic child is born in the 60s to a family in rural, coastal Labrador), it was a strangely calm book. The Wreckage was another based-in-Newfoundland book, with a totally realistic depiction of the Catholic vs Protestant sentiment that used to permeate Newfoundland. For  goons that are not aware - the public school system continued to be denominational up until the mid 1990s, with every school district being legally obligated to offer a Catholic and a Protestant option, which led to small districts having ridiculous divisions (If you were neither, you ended up at the Protestant school). It also has a great, and realistic, depiction of outport life in the 40s during the first few chapters, and caused me to bake tea buns since they mentioned about 3-4 times in the first couple of chapters. Red Rising is Gattaca through a Hunger Games filter, with a dash of Brave New World, set on Mars. Awesome. I really had fun with this book, that was written for adults but keeps getting the YA tag affixed (I guess teenagers killing and brutalizing each other is more PG than R these days .. ahaha). Go read it, it'll take part of the day on the weekend, and then we can all get to talking about it 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 20:46
|
|
|
I haven't posted completed books since January because I have not been reading nearly as much as I would have liked. The last two months I've been getting back on track though. 05. Molloy - Samuel Beckett 06. Faust - Part I - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 07. Faust - Part II - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 08. Fear and Trembling - Johannes de Silentio (Søren Kierkegaard) 09. Repetition - Constantin Constantius (Søren Kierkegaard) 10. Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche 11. Demons - Fyodor Dostoevsky Earlier this year I decided to read Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosophical and religious writer. He wrote upwards of twenty books, most of which I will be reading and in the case of Either/Or, rereading. Typically instead of abstract systems and formal logical arguments, Kierkegaard illustrates his ideas with references to literature. Fear and Trembling is an ethical discussion of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, not the most interesting subject matter to me, but ideas such as accepting paradox and absurdity are certainly extendable beyond the very narrow context of the book. Repetition is a considerable departure from Fear and Trembling in both style and content, instead of essays it's a narrative with supplemental letters about a 'psychological experiment', i.e. Repetition. Faust is pretty self explanatory, a German classic. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Nietzsche in general are similar to Kierkegaard in readability. I'm sure Nietzsche is a familiar enough name that I don't have to explain him. I'm not really sure why I'm reading Nietzsche, I don't think he's as compelling as most people find him, but he's enjoyable at times. Music For Cats fucked around with this message at 01:46 on May 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 01:11
|
|
|
Goal is 30. I primarily use audiobooks, and my consumption of those has really slowed down this year and I'm behind where I want to be. My list so far:
I liked The Hero of Ages, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, but I am kind of burned out of Brandon Sanderson now, though the whole Cosmere thing still intrigues me even though I haven't picked up very many references to it. I kept hearing about The Dark Tower being pretty good, and I was really wondering about it so I picked up The Gunslinger and I was kind of disappointed and it wasn't until I got The Drawing of the Three that I actually got into it, and The Waste Lands felt like an extension of that though not as good. Life of Pi was okay, I wanted to compare it to the movie and they are pretty similar in terms of quality but I do think the movie has being visually stunning in its favour where as my imagination for the scenes described in the book were pretty toned down. My favorite so far is Cloud Atlas, it just stayed on my mind for like a month afterwards and that is one of the first times a book has done that for me. I also got this to compare it to the movie, and the book really is just so much better. The Dhammapada was disappointing and not particularly enlightening. Snow Crash felt like a book I would have enjoyed if I was 12. Right now I'm going through Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King and afterwards I'll probably get Skin Game (The Dresden Files #15) by Jim Butcher.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 03:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 09:53 |
|
|
elbow posted:April - 30/52 May - 35/52 31. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver. This took a little while to really grab me - I had even put it on hiatus for a few years - but once it got going, it had me rapt. I found it incredibly hard to read about all of the years of Kevin growing up, being The Worst Child, and Eva just sitting by, somewhat meekly, letting Franklin be willfully ignorant and not leaving. But that's a testament to how well this was written; the characters are unpleasant, you know how it's going to end, and yet you can't put it down. I'm glad that Shriver didn't come down on one side of the 'nature vs nurture' argument, and that question is handled incredibly well. The only major flaw for me was in the ending. There's a hint at redemption for Kevin, which felt like a huge cop-out to me. But that's a relatively small annoyance in light of a strong book. 4.5/5 32. Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde. The book has an interesting and very unusual premise, and Fforde definitely tries to make the most out of it - unfortunately that was also the novel's biggest flaw. Fforde spends so many pages on worldbuilding and character introductions that the plot doesn't really get started until about 250 pages in. At that point it does really take off though, and it's worth 33. The Complete Horowitz Horror, by Anthony Horowitz. I loved Horowitz's scary stories when I was a kid, and they mostly stand the test of time. He's a fantastic children's author. 4/5 34. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Fantastic, every bit as good as everyone has made it out to be. I found the connections between the stories a bit far-fetched in the first half, but it's tied up nicely in the second half. 5/5 35. How to Archer. Eh, funny at times but a bit too much of the same stuff. I wish it had more about/from the other character. On the upside I managed to read the entire book with H Jon Benjamin's voice in my head, which made it 100x funnier. 3/5
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 03:12
|
|
