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Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. A set of 10 letters written by an older poet to a younger. These are beautiful and powerful. The elemental way that Rilke sees the world is thought provoking and at times breathtaking. Not having previously read any of Rilke's poetry, I can say after reading this that I will enjoy his poetry very much.
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Sep 4, 2016 06:02
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Starting reading The Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, mostly on a whim. I always saw them at those scholastic school fairs or in the library as a kid, but kind of ignored them. Read about five books in a week. They aren't super engaging but I can finish them in about an hour or two and its easy to just pick up and go. I've heard they get pretty dark for a kids series, but I'm actually pretty intrigued by what the book is doing so far. Its kind of absurd that its just five kids against an entire alien invasion, but they play it off pretty well. There hasn't been a single real victory by the kids so far, which really gives a sense of hopelessness. And all of the kids have gotten a focus book showing their motivation for fighting. Jake's got the infected-by-a-parasite brother, Rachel wants to help her friend, Cassie is naturally nice, Tobias needs it to feel connected to the world after, you know, turning into a bird forever and Marco's found out is mom is trapped in a Yeerk too. And Ax has the dead brother.. It all seems more thought-out than I would give the series credit for. Oh, and it was a surprise to find all those weird covers were intentionally horrifying because being an Animorph is no fun at all. Its gross and weird and uncomfortable and if you're not careful, you'll lose body parts. So I think I'll keep reading through them for now.
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Sep 4, 2016 07:25
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nerdman42 posted:Starting reading The Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, mostly on a whim. I always saw them at those scholastic school fairs or in the library as a kid, but kind of ignored them. Read about five books in a week. They aren't super engaging but I can finish them in about an hour or two and its easy to just pick up and go. I saw this tumblr post the other day about the crazy poo poo that happens in the Animorphs series, I was tempted to read it but the 64 book count for the series put me off. Keep us updated!
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Sep 4, 2016 07:41
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That post may be the exact reason I decided to give it a go, but its good to know the source. So far four of the kids were attacked while they were ants and lost a bunch of limbs, but they got it back by returning to normal. And they were almost stuck as wolves, but with like. Human face on a wolf body or normal hands on wolf leg.
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Sep 4, 2016 07:59
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nerdman42 posted:That post may be the exact reason I decided to give it a go, but its good to know the source. So far four of the kids were attacked while they were ants and lost a bunch of limbs, but they got it back by returning to normal. Imagine being 12 or something and reading those, and then being frustrated by being unable to find anything else in the school's library that was anywhere near as imaginative. So then you try the other series by KA Applegate, and it's Everworld and that's far darker and way more traumatizing than Animorphs, to the point where I had some nightmares about it back then. Or: sometimes I wonder if any adults actually read what gets published in YA, or if they just listen to the pitch and go "yeah that seems like it'll sell."
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Sep 4, 2016 08:09
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Koburn posted:I saw this tumblr post the other day about the crazy poo poo that happens in the Animorphs series, I was tempted to read it but the 64 book count for the series put me off. Keep us updated! I don't think 64 books is very intimidating when you could read 2 of them in an hour StrixNebulosa posted:Or: sometimes I wonder if any adults actually read what gets published in YA, or if they just listen to the pitch and go "yeah that seems like it'll sell." More adults read YA fiction than teens do.
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Sep 4, 2016 09:05
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The Revenant - Michael Punke Fur trapper Hugh Glass is left for dead by two men and he crawls and stumbles through the harsh wilderness to get revenge. I got this book as a gift, and having seen the movie, there weren't many surprises. It was good but nothing special. Prose was sparse and offered an interesting look at the fur trade. The one diversion/difference from the film that I found really engrossing was the mock trial at a run-down trading post between Glass and one of the men who left him to die. A surreal, dark, strange moment in a book that needed a little more variety. The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness Imagine going to the same high school as the Buffy gang, but you're not really friends with Buffy or any of them. You're school still has ghouls and weird things happening, but you're on the periphery of it and you have your own problems to deal with. That's the conceit of this book. I was worried it would lean super-heavy into the meta stuff (a la Redshirts which I found almost unreadable) but that wasn't the case. It was a fun read, but the ending wrapped things up too easily and the characters seemed to wallow in their own misery for some too-long stretches.
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Sep 4, 2016 17:58
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Queer And Trans Artists Of Color: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives, by Nia King, co-edited by Jessica Glennon-Zukoff and Terra Mikalson. A collection of interviews between Nia King and a range of different folks who fall under the QTPOC umbrella. There are discussions of art, of politics, childhoods both good and bad, abuse and recovery, creation and criticism. Each encounter feels like a snippet of a longer conversation - I'm not sure if that's accurate to how the interviews were transcribed or edited, but for a few interviewees I wasn't sure what exactly they did until it came up halfway through their segment. (Not that that's a bad thing necessarily.) As a project, and as a glimpse into the lives of people with such widely different life experiences, this book is really important, and I was engrossed. And I have a lot of names, books and artworks to look out for in future! License To Play: The Ludic In Japanese Culture, by Michal Daliot-Bul. A pretty dense sociological history of Japan with a focus on the role of 'play' (asobi) in its culture. Daliot-Bul tracks ideas of playfulness and subversion from the early women writers of the 11th and 12th centuries all the way up to the post-recession youth cultures that typify ideas of 'Cool Japan'. While some of her conclusions ring false to me, and she seems very reluctant to discuss Japan's online culture in a book published only a couple of years ago, this was an interesting exploration of ancient and modern Japanese cultural mores, with some food for thought.
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Sep 5, 2016 23:55
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Ready Player One It reminded me of a young adult version of Snowcrash, if that's possible. It's basically 80s game and movie nostalgia rolled into a 90s cyberpunk book. It wasn't half bad, and I liked the finale. I'm looking forward to being angry at the movie when it doesn't include half the cool poo poo like Gundams, Monty Python, and James Brown is Dead because they didn't want to gently caress around with licensing.
Philthy fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Sep 8, 2016 |
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Sep 8, 2016 17:58
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Philthy posted:It wasn't half bad,
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Sep 9, 2016 00:01
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Running Dog - Don Delillo The concept was interesting enough - art collectors, the mafia, pornographers, and miscellaneous individuals go to great lengths to possess a porn film starring Hitler - and the vibe felt like a Coen Brothers film, but it was just "okay". Some hints at wonderful insight, and a bittersweet ending, but nothing too memorable.
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Sep 9, 2016 03:00
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I Am Slaughter--Dan Abnett Ridiculous and fun is what I look for in a Warhammer 40K novel, and Abnett delivers, for the most part. This busy novel sets the stage and players for the rest of the 12 part series, unfortunately at the cost of Abnett's character work. He felt restrained here, like he wanted to give us more scenes of interplay, but drat, that plot wasn't going to deliver itself. The Terra scenes involving Drakan Vangorich, the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum, is where Abnett works his magic the best. Still a fun novel, overall.
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Sep 11, 2016 01:55
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Didn't he write the Malus Darkblade books? Those were great/awful
SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Sep 11, 2016 |
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Sep 11, 2016 02:26
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The Palace Job, basically Ocean's 11 with elves. Pretty alright in my uncultured opinion; the only complaint I have was that the usual exchange of "Ha! I knew you'd do that!" "Ha! You thought I was going to do that?" got kinda old by the third or fourth iteration, but the occasional really cool scene that had me giggling like a child made up for it.
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Sep 11, 2016 06:44
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I just read Scalzi's Forever War. I was hoping for a book a lot like Forever War, and it is. If Forever War was bad and written by a horny teenager.
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Sep 11, 2016 15:25
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The Plot Against America is a great alternate history book that has two major strengths. First, it's presented as an autobiography, with Philip Roth imagining how his childhood would have gone if Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940. Second, the consequences to the Lindbergh administration are subtle and insidious, and for much of the book a terrible person could argue that the Jews who fear the worst from his policies are only imagining things or wrapped up in a persecution fantasy. All of the people in Philip's family are well-realized enough that it's hard not to care when that family tears itself apart.
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Sep 11, 2016 17:08
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The Dregs posted:I just read Scalzi's Forever War. I was hoping for a book a lot like Forever War, and it is. If Forever War was bad and written by a horny teenager. Oh you didn't like it? I thought it was good. Also holy poo poo there's two sequels? Interesting. Also, why? e: okay looks like you meant Old Man's War, which Scalzi wrote. Yes that is less good. e2: gently caress me there's six books in the Old Mans War series. Jesus
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Sep 11, 2016 20:53
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Finished Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles all in one sitting last night. Awesome and amazing and creepy in all the right ways. I had read a few of these stories before in a collection but reading them together in their correct order was a great experience.
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Sep 13, 2016 05:14
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I just finished The Old Man and the Sea which was my first Hemmingway and pretty enjoyable, I liked his descriptive style. e: and also finished Sit Down and Shut Up which is a book on zen by the writer of this blog http://hardcorezen.info/ Warner's style is a little too casual for some but I really enjoy it. When you're trying to get to grips with a 13th century Japanese religous text sometimes it helps to have 21st century prose. Shikantaza fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Sep 13, 2016 |
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Sep 13, 2016 15:54
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Jive One posted:Finished Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles all in one sitting last night. Awesome and amazing and creepy in all the right ways. I had read a few of these stories before in a collection but reading them together in their correct order was a great experience. I really like the feeling of that book, where you get some disparate short stories retrofitted into a longer narrative.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:51
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Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire Memoir of a Cuban boy who was sent to the states after the revolution. Interesting peak at pre-Fidel Cuba, and I get that the revolution really sucked and things were rough - but I found Eire really indulgent and pretentious, and the book was way too long. I had to do some really liberal swiping and skimming to make it to the end. Some great stuff in there, but you have to slog to get at it. I can't really recommend it.
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Sep 14, 2016 01:00
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Finished The Fireman by Joe Hill. It kind of sucked. I feel like it needed a couple more rewrites, but I guess if you're Stephen King's son, you skate by on rep alone.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:30
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Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch Started out as a great Dickens riff - a young London boy starts working for a man who sells exotic animals - before settling into a Heart of Darkness trip into the jungle, and examining the fallout that adventure brings. I liked it, even if the 3rd quarter of the book dragged on too long, (a shipwreck and devolution into cannibalism that isn't as exciting, scary, or as profound as it could be) because it was kind of awesome in the way it didn't avoid the dirt, gore, and squalor of the time. The ending was also incredibly well-executed. I'd recommend it.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:38
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I just finished Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. A lot of really interesting ideas but I feel like it maybe could have been two books with a more decompressed exploration of the future setting.
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Sep 15, 2016 03:02
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Authority (Southern Reach #2) - Jeff VanderMeer Another okay read. I liked it more than Annihilation, because the mysteries/weirdness came organically from the characters, setting, and what had been set up in the first book - rather than all the confounding stuff being there because the author feels like messing with you. It felt like a natural extension of previous setups.
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Sep 17, 2016 22:04
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The Abominable Showman by Robert Rankin. Much better in that it is more like his older brentford trilogy books than the recent steampunk ones he put out. I mean it does have some of the steampunk in it but the framing and everything else is more like his usual with the wordplay and metafictional jokes. Also I cannot believe the whole book builds up to with all the religious symbolism and the bratty kid being involved, meeting god etc to a monty python reference. If it weren't self aware it would have been awful but as it was with it especially being put a new page for effect was amazing.
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Sep 17, 2016 22:06
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I'm vigorously chewing through the Jack Reacher novels still. Book 5 (Echo Burning) is probably the best of them thus far, with a coherent and compelling mystery that gets solved in a plausible way. Book 6 (Without Fail) is solid but not as emotionally gripping. Book 7 (Persuader) is peculiar, thrusting Reacher out of his element in to an undercover operation; Book 8 (The Enemy) is an interesting flashback to his MP career and showing one of his greatest successes and biggest gently caress-ups. All of them are waaaaaay better than Book 4.
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Sep 20, 2016 22:28
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Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun. Thought this was a really intriguing book. Offered a look at what life must have been like for many people. Made me think a bit about what society has become and what we value and problems we face. Writing was pretty bland and conversations were very hard to follow and I'm sure a few things were changed for the translation. Unfortunately the intro spoiled a few major plot points and the moral quandaries about the author tended to influence me more then I wished. Would still recommend this book as it was unlike any thing else I have read. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami . Liked this book a lot. I have read two of his other novels and thought this was the best so far. Felt like I was reading a biography and was completely engrossed into the characters and what happened to them. Lead to some interesting discussions about what the characters represented and how they went through life. I wonder if knowing more about Japanese culture would affect the thoughts I had on this book. Finished it a few days ago and the ending is still in my mind trying to work it out. Cant wait to read more by this author.
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Sep 21, 2016 06:01
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11/22/63 by Stephen King, the last King I read was Duma Key, so it's been awhile, but I'm really glad I picked this considerable book up. King is still page for page one of the most engrossing and enchanting storytellers out there. This tome was a real uhh, page turner? Screen flicker? What do we say for Kindles anyway? The premise is pulpy as hell, a time traveler attempts to stop the assassination of JFK for the greater good, but finds that the past is really adverse to being meddled with, which is exemplified in grand Kingian ways, tragic, comical, and comically tragic. For Constant Readers, there is some fantastic stuff in Derry, including cameos by two of our favorite clown slayers, King is really awesome here, he's just in his wheelhouse when he's writing about Derry, and it was probably the best stuff in the book. The third act kind of flags, because there's a lot of minutiae that's dwelled upon, and as with most time travel stories, you can usually think of more efficient ways to do things and it starts to gnaw at you that the characters prefer to explore the author's story instead of getting things on with in a way that makes sense. All in all, it's definitely worth a read if you're a King fan, or interested at all in a tumultuous time in American history, because there's a lot to feast on here.
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Sep 21, 2016 15:49
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Peacemaker by CJ Cherryh, the fifteenth book in the Foreigner series and quite possibly the best stopping point for the series. The writing was as stellar as ever, every major plot thread has been tied up with a bow on, and it ended with everyone in a happy place, exactly where they deserve to be after all of the political maneuvering and fighting they've done to get here. Also, massive kudos to the author - I think it's the first book in the series where it hasn't ended in a long bus ride to a shoot out - and because she broke her usual pattern it was far more tense and compelling, and I had a good time reading it. Now, of course, the author has also written more in this series, and I have book seventeen but not sixteen so I'll make a purchase in a few weeks and pick it back up when I'm ready.
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Sep 21, 2016 19:41
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Acceptance (Southern Reach #3) - Jeff VanderMeer A fine enough ending. Answered the big, burning questions. Used language in a stronger way than the previous two books. Glad it shifted time periods, points of interest, and characters; actually felt like it was fleshing things out. Still slightly underwhelming, still filled with people not asking the right question or on the cusp of asking the right question, only to have the author evade it in a transparent, bullshit way.
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Sep 24, 2016 08:00
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The Giant, O'Brien, by Hilary Mantel. A short novel that took me a long time to read. Set in he 1780s, it follows the titular Giant and a group of his companions as they travel from Ireland to London to seek their fortune, charging the public to come and gawp and ask questions of the enormous man. Meanwhile Hunter, a miserable "anatomy" from Scotland travels south in search of new and interesting bodies to dissect. Eventually, Hunter and the Giant find each other. The Giant's true talent is telling stories, and a few times the book is given over to these tellings - there is a running theme of escapism and faith. Loosely based on real events and people, the book is unremittingly bleak and miserable, wallowing in the violence and poverty of Georgian-era Britain. While well-crafted and evocative, it was a difficult read, and while I appreciate the skill and imagination Mantel poured into it, I don't think I'd read this again. We Stand On Guard, by Brian K. Vaughan, Steve Skroce, Matt Hollingsworth, Fonografiks. Graphic novel set 100 years in the future, telling of a US invasion of Canada in order to sieze Northern water reserves. Unabashedly, patriotically Canadian, the story is classic action-movie fare, with a ragtag team of insurgents up against the technological might of the US oppressors. With narratives of immigration, steailng natural resources and visceral torture scenes, the allegories to modern US warmongering are pretty blunt. The artwork is gorgeous and colourful, with a great future-tech aesthetic (and really cool-looking explosions). It reminds me most of Independence Day, but in a good way.
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Sep 24, 2016 17:25
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Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor A colleague lent this to me, and the premise is a fun one on paper - a bunch of eccentric historians with access to time travel and their quirky adventures through history. Unfortunately, the book reads like escapism for middle-aged women in academics. The protagonist is one of those clumsy, introverted, "plain" middle aged women who the story and characters completely revolve around as the most amazing person ever and is lusted after by almost every male character given a personality. Which there aren't many of, as everyone is quickly sorted into good guys (eccentric) and bad guys (evil and bitchy) and no actual historical work is performed at any point in favor of explosions, dinosaurs, and a predestination paradox/conspiracy that makes no sense. The protagonist also is pregnant for twenty minutes and miscarries for no reason but angst and more contrived conflict. I give it a firm pass - even Michael Crichton's Timeline is better at the "historical" time travel adventure schlock.
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Sep 27, 2016 21:17
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Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security, by Robert Guffey. So this is nonfiction, and the blurb makes it sound like a cool "weird poo poo the US Government did/is doing" exposé. Like, a Men Who Stare At Goats MK Ultra kinda thing with invisibility and a vulnerable guy out of his depth. Turns out it's about said vulnerable guy's deep paranoia and a whole lotta writing about "gang stalking". Guffey writes about his friend Dion, a junkie and general burnout with clear bouts of paranoia and schizophrenia. After being hassled by government workers over some stolen equipment, Dion reports being followed by "invisible midgets" and stalked and harassed as he tries to flee across the mainland US. Inbetween telling of Dion's plight - which includes a preposterous scene in which he's kidnapped by conspiratorial rednecks - we are treated to a mix of interesting "stuff the US military has actually worked on / is working on", and "Nixon attacked political enemies in secret, so the Bush government could totally be harassing my friend for the hell of it". I spent most of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Guffey to be like "okay so all of this was bullshit but interesting, right?" But it becomes clear that he's a true believer. There's a fifty-page interview transcript between Guffey, Dion and a scientist who patented a form of "invisibility" technology, which is really interesting until they start talking about UFO coverups and how 'the transistor was reverse-engineered from the Roswell crash'. Also our author can't stop talking about how he's a 32nd-level Mason. The book is a disappointing, rambling mess, delivered with the smug, ironic prose style of an Internet radio shock jock from the mid-00s. Guffey is either immensely credulous or exploiting his friend's severe mental issues: either way, he's kind of an arsehole. At least there are some funny bits. All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders. A trainee witch and a tech whizkid find each other in high school, where they are each other's only respite from the misery of bullying and parental neglect. Then, they lose each other, while the world succumbs further to catastrophic climate change, political turmoil and disease. Years later, in the not-too-distant future, they reconnect, and each might have the power to save the world. It's a standard trope-heavy novel, and for the first chunk I found myself rolling my eyes at almost cartoonish scenes. But after the timeskip, Anders really finds her voice, spinning a story of desperation, miscommunication and perseverence. Warring ideologies on the macro- and personal scales, some satisfying arcs, and an ending that got me more choked up than I could have predicted. If you like non-DnD-style magic, neat future tech, and stories about trying to save the world, it's worth checking this out.
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Sep 30, 2016 18:15
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Armageddon's Children by Terry Brooks. I originally thought it was the start of a stand alone series by Terry Brooks, and didn't realize it was a prequel series to all the Shanara stuff. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting which is cool enough yet a little slow paced. There are some demons and other supernatural things going that fit in, but then he pops in this goofy story line about an elf kingdom with a whiny elf and a talking tree. That storyline doesn't interact with the other characters at all and feels completely out of place. I realize it's a setup for later books, but I think each book should be able to stand somewhat on it's own at least. The novel also ends with a cliffhanger into the next book of the series, which is a pet peeve of mine.
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Oct 2, 2016 18:25
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Railsea - China Mieville I loved it. The scale of the world and the wonderful sense of adventure fueled every page turn. Animal Farm - George Orwell A basically-perfect classic. The final paragraph is one of the most devastating things ever written.
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Oct 11, 2016 04:08
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Finished "Penric and the Shaman" by Lois McMaster Bujold. Part of her 5 Gods Universe, it is the second Penric novella. I enjoyed seeing Penric as a person of some importance; he lost none of the qualities that made him interesting in the first novella. I also enjoyed how the novella dealt with things that happened in The Hallowed Hunt which occurred about 200 years previous and how they directly impacted what happened in this novella.
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Oct 11, 2016 05:47
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Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Don't let the title fool you: it's actually a humorous novel about a scheming Russian noble roving around rural Russia purchasing the title to dead serfs from their justifiably incredulous owners. It's sort of Kafkaesque in that it's filled with these sort of violent, sudden interruptions that drive the plot forward. My favorite part of the novel was definitely the way the writer characterized himself as unreliable: "now don't trust me because I'm not that smart" he says over and over. Unfortunately, Gogol committed suicide before he was able to finish Part II, so (also similar to Kafka) the work as a whole is a fragment, unless you consider Parts I and II to be distinct novels. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Russian realism like Dostoevsky or Turgenev, but also enjoys a more lighthearted presentation. Another (much shorter) work by Gogol I would highly recommend is "The Overcoat," which does away with his usual realism and presents a chilling tragedy of working class Russians. On to Infinite Jest next!
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Oct 12, 2016 17:36
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Just finished Deviant: True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho by Harold Schechter. I found it extremely entertaining, but I do wonder about the veracity of some of it--that said, it's a great Halloween read and more chilling (to me anyway) than almost all of the fictional horror stuff I've read. It does a good job of highlighting what a monster he was, while still allowing just enough sympathy to remind you that he really did have a terrible life leading up to his ghoulish crimes. It does have one of the cheesiest book covers I've ever seen, though... it's like a beginner photoshopper's nightmare. 
tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 18:24
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In a big spooky/ghost story mood at the moment and just finished Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I know some people think his prose is over-wrought and melodramatic, but I kind of like it for that. He always makes me feel nostalgic. The story made me both feel wistful and sad and also was quite genuinely creepy, with poo poo like the witch with stitched-together eyes. I think this is the first Bradbury I've read that I'd consider horror, aside from The Veldt. Does anyone know of any more of his stuff with a similar feel?
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Oct 14, 2016 00:36
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