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"id read a lot more books for grownups if someone simplified and spoonfed them to me so i didnt have to put in any effort or encounter any kind of ambiguity"
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Jan 1, 2020 23:14
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siri tell me what im supposed to get out of hamlet
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Jan 1, 2020 23:16
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chernobyl kinsman posted:"id read a lot more books for grownups if someone simplified and spoonfed them to me so i didnt have to put in any effort or encounter any kind of ambiguity" I get the hate but I think the poster intends to read the book. I’ve read some books that had forewords that would sometimes mention the cultural impact of a story and sometimes it’s interesting to know going in, though I’ll admit I usually dip past forewords.
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Jan 1, 2020 23:17
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nut posted:I get the hate but I think the poster intends to read the book. i am aware but do not think it makes it any less stupid nut posted:the cultural impact of a story this is not at all what is being discussed
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Jan 1, 2020 23:28
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Well I should’ve said the bigger impacts of the book on society/lit/whatever, not only cultural impact
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Jan 1, 2020 23:43
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that is still not what is being discussed
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Jan 2, 2020 01:10
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Is there a site that gives you a succinct overview of particular literary author’s works like the above? Cause it was extremely helpful.
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Jan 2, 2020 02:55
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Thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson, book barn.
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Jan 2, 2020 03:01
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson, book barn. the lesson being TBB is filled with sociopaths.
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Jan 2, 2020 03:21
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ketchup vs catsup posted:If not...there should be. I’d read a lot more literary fiction if I knew what I was supposed to get out of it / think hard about before I dove in.
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Jan 2, 2020 03:49
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Philthy posted:Foundation by Isaac Asimov It's the first Asimov I read and it really got me into the "oh hey huh not all fantasy is BAD poo poo THAT SUCKS" vibe. And it left me wanting for more.
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Jan 2, 2020 03:51
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Finally finished my mount everest of the year, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. I def don't think I'd have made it through without the audiobook with its incredible narrator helping me follow who's who throughout this murder mystery, cause I suck rear end with remembering character names. Even with the help of the audiobook I can say this is the most difficult book I've ever finished, and many reading sessions were interrupted by wikipedia deep-dives into the history of the catholic church and the people they've executed. I'm sure there's a ton of stuff in here that didn't land or that I misinterpreted simply by my lack of subject knowledge, and I'm def going to have to track down some discussions on this book and its themes to find out what all I missed. This book was rad, and I can tell it'll get better on every re-read, I can't wait to revisit it. Next on my list is Warlock by Oakley Hall which surely won't be another giant headache with my struggle to remember characters names if the cast is bigger than 3 people!!
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Jan 2, 2020 20:01
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TommyGun85 posted:the lesson being TBB is filled with sociopaths. TBB, and the lit thread especially, is great for cataloguing the infinite ways of making "You can't sit with us" sound like a doctoral thesis. EDIT: So as to contribute, I'm "reading" South by Sean Brock, chef and all-around genius. Beautiful cook book, though a lot of the stuff might be beyond my small kitchen. ThePopeOfFun fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jan 2, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 21:44
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ThePopeOfFun posted:TBB, and the lit thread especially, is great for cataloguing the infinite ways of making "You can't sit with us" sound like a doctoral thesis. i am sorry you feel that way about the lit thread, ThePopeOfFun
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Jan 2, 2020 21:59
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i just finsihed the island of the day before by umberto eco and it is not as good as name of the rose or foucaults pendulum, but is still pretty good
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Jan 2, 2020 22:00
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Ibexaz posted:Finally finished my mount everest of the year, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
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Jan 2, 2020 22:02
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Ibexaz posted:Next on my list is Warlock by Oakley Hall which surely won't be another giant headache with my struggle to remember characters names if the cast is bigger than 3 people!! Warlock is really good. The cast is quite manageable, that won't be a problem. When reading Warlock, it helps to remember that it was written against the backdrop of McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. Many of the central themes relate to the tension between democracy and mob rule, and the relative benefits of charismatic leadership vs. an effective bureaucracy. Any similarities to the 2020 environment are left to the reader.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:52
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CestMoi posted:i am sorry you feel that way about the lit thread, ThePopeOfFun Ehhhh now I feel bad. My comment was ~30% serious. I probably just need to lurk more.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:56
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Lords of the Sith by Paul Kemp. I had been hoping for some deep Sith lore, but this is basically just Vader and the Emperor murdering people and animals, broken up with the Emperor sniping at Vader. It's also odd how Kemp portrays many Imperials as just basic people doing their jobs, while the rebels outright murder defenceless people.
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Jan 3, 2020 03:06
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ThePopeOfFun posted:TBB, and the lit thread especially, is great for cataloguing the infinite ways of making "You can't sit with us" sound like a doctoral thesis.
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Jan 3, 2020 03:15
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Nothing is stopping anybody from reading Babyfucker and joining the cool dork table. Oof. I forgot about that. It's more that the lit thread is especially intolerant of bad takes. I'd like to see more handholding from the one lit thread in a sea of genre fiction, but maybe that's the issue in the first place.
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Jan 3, 2020 05:41
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You can always start an alternative introductory lit thread I'm sure tbb can handle two non sf/f threads
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Jan 3, 2020 06:17
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You can also ignore the few snarly folks and just press on until they give up. There are a lot of supportive folks in that thread willing to discuss good books
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Jan 3, 2020 17:41
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i have found the serious lit thread very fun and good. I think the in thing is that just because it's for serious lit doesn't make every post very serious and people like to tease
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Jan 3, 2020 23:26
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The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue. It’s a year in his life while he is addicted to heroin. I have struggled with addiction and it’s almost like I wrote some of the passages. Highly recommended to anyone struggling with addiction. If you want to know what the mind of an addict is like, especially one who has an almost unlimited supply of drugs available at any time, this is a great read. I’m reading Tommyland now. It’s Tommy Lee’s book. I’m going to a Motley Crue concert this summer, so I’m on a kick right now.
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Jan 4, 2020 21:01
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I just finished The New Me by Halle Butler. I have real mixed feelings about this one. It described some of my experiences with depression and alienation in a predominantly female workforce almost uncannily. As a possible inversion of the stereotypical chick-lit trajectory (move to the big city, start at the bottom in a design house, win over your boss, drinks and bonding with your best buddy!), it was pretty clever and harrowing seeing someone just be completely hollowed out by their own flawed expectations. On the other hand, it’s nihilism felt pretty hollow and a little condescending from a celebrated and presumably pretty fulfilled young author, and while I didn’t want or expect everything to work out okay in the end, the end clanged a little like Paris Hilton’s ‘Stop Being Poor’ shirt. I’ve been drawn to some other millennial fiction, like My Year of Rest and Relaxation or Severance and I’d say they were both better novels, but I’m still mulling over this one and it might feel different in a day or two.
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Jan 6, 2020 02:43
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Literally just finished The Leopard by Jo Nesbø earlier tonight, which is book 8 in his series about a police detective in Oslo, and holy poo poo this man can write crime novels (I read The Snowman a few months ago). Both books are so richly plotted and Nesbø writes with such a compelling urgency that they were nearly impossible to put down. And even though yes, the protagonist of the series ultimately prevails (which is the point), he's a flawed character who's self-aware enough to know that he's flawed, but also flawed enough that he's unable or unwilling to fix those flaws. Nesbø writes like a man on fire and it's fantastic. Next up on my list is The Bat, which I think is book 1. I've never been huge on crime/mystery novels, but I am completely hooked on this series.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:06
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Zamboni Rodeo posted:Literally just finished The Leopard by Jo Nesbø earlier tonight, which is book 8 in his series about a police detective in Oslo, and holy poo poo this man can write crime novels (I read The Snowman a few months ago). Both books are so richly plotted and Nesbø writes with such a compelling urgency that they were nearly impossible to put down. And even though yes, the protagonist of the series ultimately prevails (which is the point), he's a flawed character who's self-aware enough to know that he's flawed, but also flawed enough that he's unable or unwilling to fix those flaws. That describes about 100% of male Scandinavian crime novel protagonists. I forget - does he also have a daughter (it's never a son for some reason) and diabetes?
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Jan 7, 2020 06:27
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Jerry Cotton posted:I forget - does he also have a daughter (it's never a son for some reason) and diabetes? No to both, but it's interesting you mention the daughter/son thing -- he's involved with a woman who has a son. I came in late to the series so she's his ex by The Snowman, but based on context I'm going out on a limb and say they're actually together at some point earlier on in the series. Guess I'll find out since I'm going back and starting at the first book.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:36
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Is that what the terrible film is based on?
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Jan 7, 2020 11:04
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EmmyOk posted:Is that what the terrible film is based on? Yeah. It was actually the How Did This Get Made? episode about the movie that made me want to read the book. I didn’t watch the movie, but their discussion of it was so completely bananas that I felt like there was NO way the book could possibly be that insane. But even having not seen the movie, I can safely say the book is light years better. Definitely worth a look if crime noir is your cup of tea. Honestly, I think it speaks to the strength of Nesbø’s storytelling ability that I decided to read one of his books based solely on the discussion of the movie adaption on a podcast dedicated to dissecting bad movies. I had never even heard of the series before I listened to that episode.
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Jan 7, 2020 12:55
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In print, The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty. At only 50,000 it's a tightly written novella that disregards everything else in favor of a few masterfully crafted scenes and only four main characters. I'd recommend it especially for anyone that grew up, but no longer lives, in a small town.
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Jan 7, 2020 22:45
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Just finished Gold Fame Citrus which had one of the worst endings in a book I've ever read, 1/5 do avoid. It was getting kinda ok too and the bam! Godawful last chapter and scene.
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Jan 8, 2020 03:47
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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë I found book this buried in a box of my moms stuff that had been given to me. She was born and raised in England, and took me to see my relatives a few times back in the 80s. During one of those trips I got to see the house the Brontë sisters grew up in. Charlotte Brontë was my mothers favorite author, and I found a pile of Brontë books packed away and even a pamphlet from the tour of the house we had done. Jane Eyre was the most worn of the bunch, so I simply opened it to read the first page and I couldn't put it down. I'm still processing much of it, but for a book that was written in the mid-1800s this is pretty powerful for a woman to endure and resist men, religion, and "society" the way Jane does. While it had some eye brow raising moments, it was a fantastic book overall.
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Jan 8, 2020 06:37
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Philthy posted:Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Awesome, I just started reading Wuthering Heights and I love that feeling of being surprised by the contemporary feeling of a 19th century text.
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Jan 8, 2020 14:10
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Revival by Stephen King. I read this on a recommendation from a Twitter thread titled "Name one piece of fiction where the monster is scarier after the reveal". This book is probably 200 pages too long and probably would have made a better short story than full length novel. The story is set up in the first 30 pages and then nothing of substance happens until the last 30, which was a bit frustrating. The recommendation based on the monster being scarier after the reveal certainly holds true; since there literally is nothing until the monster is revealed. Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke I love books about decision making processes and this is one of the best. Almost no poker talk at all if that's not your thing. Made a ton of highlights which I need to re-review.
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Jan 8, 2020 19:15
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Sock The Great posted:This book is probably 200 pages too long and probably would have made a better short story than full length novel. what is every stephen king book written in the last 20 years, alex
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Jan 8, 2020 19:22
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Sock The Great posted:Revival by Stephen King. Makes me wonder if there's some online resource that helps people abridge the books. Like "read these pages, then these, then understand that x happens, then finish the book starting here". I just finished, on audible, Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. I didn't know Thomas Cromwell beyond "one of the people caught up in Henry the 8th shenanigans", so my picture of him is entirely from this book, and it speaks to the author’s skill that he’s become such a compelling character for me. The persona of Thomas Cromwell that Hilary Mantel creates is fantastic; his tone somewhere on a spectrum ranging from dry wit to disgusted cynicism. Cromwell's often surrounded by powerful people that don't seem to foresee the full implications of their actions, whereas he is a man virtually weighed down by his own foresight and vision; it makes for a surprising blend of pessimism and empathy. I should say that I’ve since learned that this is apparently a revisionist portrait of Cromwell, at odds with a more negative narrative established by A Man for All Seasons, which I now badly want to read or see. There's a sequel but, paradoxically, because I've come to love the character as much as I have, I'm hesitant. That's because, after finishing the book, I foolishly convinced myself I needed to at least look at the Wikipedia entry on who Thomas Cromwell was and, suffice to say, my expectations for the second half of this historical fiction are upended.
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Jan 8, 2020 20:12
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do not take mantell’s extremely sympathetic portrayal of Cromwell as historically sound
chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 8, 2020 |
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Jan 8, 2020 22:17
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Yeah, that's one reason I want to get to A Man For All Seasons asap, because I (now) know Wolf Hall reverses the portrayal of More and Cromwell.
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Jan 8, 2020 23:43
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