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Metal Loaf posted:I finished re-reading The Great Gatsby yesterday. It's still great (no pun intended) and I found myself enjoying it a lot more now that I've had the opportunity to read it since school. I re-read it for a Lit class last semester, and I can't think of a book that is more applicable for teens than The Great Gatsby. A whole bunch of rich, over-educated layabouts who grind each other down because they're bored; the holocaust of boredom and the destruction of the American Dream. I have a friend that is Gatsby in real life (minus the cash), and his Daisy is ripping him apart.  Anyhow, I just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. drat. I loved Blade Runner, but I wasn't prepared for how loving soul-sucking Dick's late nineteen century was. The last fight sequence is only a small paragraph's length, and my rear end in a top hat was clenched in terror. Check it out if you're into trans-human themes, crushing despair, and electronic owls.
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Aug 16, 2012 22:29
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I just finished reading The Song of the Dodo. It is hands-down the best book I have read in a long time, if not ever. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, extinction, or anyone even remotely interested in biological sciences. It's written by a naturalist who goes around the world showing how islands and island biogeography give clarity to evolution. It's wonderful.
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Aug 17, 2012 01:00
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Paragon8 posted:I have read it and I didn't think too highly of it. It wasn't aggressively terrible or anything it just felt a bit melodramatic with the constantly escalating stakes. Sure, I should say going in my expectations were that it would be complete garbage so when I found things that I enjoyed about it I was surprised and happy that it wasn't totally awful. It was suggested by a friend who I feel doesn't make great decisions
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Aug 17, 2012 15:57
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Just finished Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, a book chronicling the lives of a few North Koreans who defected to the "other side." It's mostly oral history regarding the lives of people in a country shrouded by mystery. The depths in which a human being would dig just to survive never fails to astound me... as well as the lengths in which some people will go to just to protect their own wicked interests. This is a pretty compelling read even though the subject is a hard one to stomach. North Korea, if the accounts written here are all true (and they may very well be because these people have no incentive to lie), is 1984 in real life. I also finished Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Well, let's just say I liked it because it's a book made for someone like me. She perfectly described what I'm going through in every day dealings with the world especially having just migrated here in the US 4 years ago.
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Aug 18, 2012 07:25
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Verr posted:Anyhow, I just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. drat. I loved Blade Runner, but I wasn't prepared for how loving soul-sucking Dick's late nineteen century was. The last fight sequence is only a small paragraph's length, and my rear end in a top hat was clenched in terror. Check it out if you're into trans-human themes, crushing despair, and electronic owls. Everything that was changed would have sucked on screen, but most of it was awesome in the book. I recently finished A Princess of Mars. Great action, but the vision of Mars, in both the details and the broad strokes doesn't exactly stand the test of time. I don't suppose there are many settings safe from that in science fiction. Dejah Thoris's condemnation of the Tharks for being communists kind of came out of nowhere and similarly went nowhere. I kind of have a knee-jerk reaction to anti-communist or anti-worker propaganda that made me want to put it down at that point (like I did with Taiko both times I read it to the point where Hideyoshi cuts the strike leader in half... though I realize that probably wasn't intended to portray the action or even the charracter in a positive light); but it really didn't come up again. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 18, 2012 08:05
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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Can't believe I fistpumped when Elizabeth accepts Darcy's proposal 
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Aug 20, 2012 05:34
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IQ84 It was meant to be Murakami's magnum opus, but it was pretty much his worst work I've read. The plot was meandering and lethargic and never really goes anywhere meaningful. Normally, I enjoy this kind of text if during the haze of working your way through an uncertain text a revelation dawns, but nothing came of it - just a confused haze through the entire read.
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Aug 20, 2012 06:28
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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke It's really good when it doesn't drag. Clarke built a great world and waited until the end to really do something with it.
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Aug 20, 2012 21:34
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Rework - Jason Fried & David Hansson I was bitching at a friend about how many meetings I've had to do since the company I work for got acquired... He recommended I read this. I thought it was helpful, and got to use fun four letter words in real meetings. lordofthefries fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Aug 21, 2012 |
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Aug 21, 2012 02:46
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I just finished Flowertown by S.G. Redling. There was nothing wrong with it, it was perfectly readable, enjoyable enough, sci-fi-ish slightly trashy filler. There was a bit too much of characters having hidden agendas to the point where when the big reveal came, it wasn't at all a surprise that the character in question was secretly up to something, it was just a question of what. I was nice enough though. It was intended to be a non-challenging pallete cleanser after Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class and Crime and Punishment, and it served that purpose well enough. Just starting Murakami's Kafka On The Shore, I've never read any of his work before so I'm looking forward to it.
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Aug 21, 2012 14:16
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Finished A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge last night. Not badly written, but disappointing, mainly because the subject I was expecting to make up the brunt of the book (interactions between the humans and the Spiders) wasn't even touched upon until I was at the epilogue's doorstep. Expanding my list of conquered classics next with And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
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Aug 21, 2012 17:25
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Just finished Jack McCallum's Dream Team chronicling the 1992 USA Olympic Basketball team. I'm a HUGE basketball fan but I was a bit let down by this book. Having watched the documentary first, the book didn't offer any surprise. The best part of the book are the "Interludes" in which the author interviewed the members of the Dream Team about their thoughts 20 years since its formation. It's an enjoyable read but it's not THAT compelling and in-depth as I expected it to be. And Sir Charles 
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Aug 21, 2012 18:23
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I know it maybe doesn't count, but I'm reading a collection of Isaac Asimov short stories after maybe years of not reading anything. Just finished "All the Troubles of the World". gently caress, what an amazing idea. I didn't really dig how the twist was handled (The computer suddenly got sapience!) but if a computer in that position really did reach that point, would it wish for its own death? Would it plot its own murder, and if so, lie to ensure it? Or would it chronicle every event, like the one in the story did? I'm gonna keep reading because poo poo, this was awesome. I need to read more.
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Aug 22, 2012 01:30
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I just finished Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez, which is near-future scifi about the military industrial complex trying to force autonomous drone warfare onto the country. The plot was pretty forgettable and some pieces read like the author was trying to impress you with the techno-jargon he knows at a journeyman's level, but it does contain some pretty neat ideas and concepts and a somewhat unique take on war and democracy. Worth a look.
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Aug 22, 2012 02:47
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I think he wrote Daemon and the sequel to it that I can't recall the name of right now. Both kinda interesting in that "What in the holy gently caress?  " way that the plot wanders off into.Last thing I read was Project 1337 , and holy poo poo this book was bad. I can't remember where I got it from, probably a freebie on amazon, but it was bad. Very, very bad. I wasn't expecting much from the title, but holy poo poo it was bad. Not even "bad in a good way" airport fiction bad, just bad in a "gently caress I think it gave me cancer" bad.
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Aug 22, 2012 16:21
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Just finished the Iron Druid series. It was actually good. Lots of action (for the most part), some good character writing. Check it out if you are trying to find a good "urban" fantasy.
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Aug 22, 2012 16:51
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I hav finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. I've read the Mistborn trilogy and enjoyed it, as well as Elantris and his contributions to the Wheel Of Time series. This one was a little disappointing, though. I'm not really sure how to explain it; to a certain extent it didn't feel quite finished. I'm not sure what I should read next.
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Aug 23, 2012 02:09
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Just finished The Wounded Land by Stephen Donaldson a couple of nights ago, and that book definitely shook up the world Donaldson had created! Also interesting how Covenant didn't wake up at the end, as per usual. Maybe they'll go through the entire chronicles before Linden wakes up perhaps, and tries to stop the bleeding from Covenant's chest wound, from the start of the book. Hmm... Anyway, I've just started The One Tree, so I'm looking forward as to how this chronicles unfolds!
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Aug 23, 2012 05:28
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I just finished Survival, book 1 of the Species Imperative trilogy by Julie E Czerneda. My 4 star review on Goodreads:me on goodreads posted:A fun adventure with a real biological slant, which I absolutely enjoyed, being a biologist myself. I will be reading this whole trilogy because I want to find out more about the other alien species in this universe (plus of course all the answers to the mysteries).
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Aug 23, 2012 10:38
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Last thing I read was Project 1337 , and holy poo poo this book was bad. I can't remember where I got it from, probably a freebie on amazon, but it was bad. Very, very bad. I can't find any information on the existence of this book. Are you sure it wasn't some kind of waking nightmare? As for me, I just finished two consecutive reads of And Then There Were None, and holy poo poo that was a brilliant book. There were multiple moments when I felt smug for having figured out who the culprit was before the reveal, only to discover that I was dancing in the palm of Agatha Christie's hand until the very end. I feel humbled. What are some of the other really famously awesome Christie stories?
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Aug 23, 2012 18:21
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ProfessorProf posted:I can't find any information on the existence of this book. Are you sure it wasn't some kind of waking nightmare?
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Aug 23, 2012 20:56
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ProfessorProf posted:I can't find any information on the existence of this book. Are you sure it wasn't some kind of waking nightmare? Nah, I don't think my brain hates me enough to make think up that crap. I'd prefer to think if I had to think up some kinda horrible reading crap it'd at least be comparable to Twilight. I got the title wrong though, it's Protocol 1337.
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Aug 24, 2012 07:35
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Was there anything just comically bad that you can share with us?
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Aug 24, 2012 12:40
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chippy posted:
I recommend you read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle after this, even if you dislike Kafka on the shore. While a lot of people say Murakami's works are all the same (I really couldn't say, I've only read these two) these two works are really different in presentation, so you may like one and dislike the other. That's how it was with me and a friend of mine. She loves Kafka, but disliked Wind-up. I loved Wind-up, and I'm somewhat neutral on Kafka. I dunno, maybe someone who has read more of Murakami's stuff will disagree with me. I've read a decent amount of stuff. Including two things I didn't think I'd ever get to read thanks to the power of Inter-library loan! For my ILLs, we got Villains by Necessity You've got a group of evil people who have to go save the world from good. No seriously. If good wins too much, the balance of the world is wrecked and it could very well ruin the world. So a group of unemployed evil-doers has to go save the world. (Hard to assassinate people when everyone loves each other) It had some interesting aspects, like the fact one of the old heroes has perfected a spell to make evil people good. I also enjoyed when it discussed good vs evil being more about motivation than the acts. It was interesting to think about. But probably most importantly of all, it was just fun to read. I felt a little sad finishing it since my ride was over. The Iron Dream This is a metafictional book containing alternate universe Hitler's best sci fi work, Lord of the Swastika. It was a satirical book about how some terrible sci-fi fantasy can be really close to nazi ideals. It was painful to read, because Hitler's a terrible author. I have to compliment Norman Spinrad, because it seriously takes some talent to write that terrible. I'm not kidding. Every word was crafted to be the most painful purple prose. I sort of liked the book. I don't regret reading it, but that prose was seriously painful. I read C.S. Friedman's Magister Trilogy on recommendation. I really liked it. It was full of powerful women (Well that was sort of the point.) I just started her Coldfire series, and it's not gripping me quite as much, but I certainly don't dislike it. I also read Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search For History's Hidden Heroines . Basically about an Archaeologist's examinations throughout Eurasia and critiques of Archaeological protocol at least at the time (I would hope not anymore but this was published in 2009.) Basically about how in her opinion, a lot of protocol came down to "if the skeleton has a knife, it's a male skeleton! Maybe a boy if it really looks feminine!" It was interesting to read her interpretations of various things (the word "warrior-priestess" come up a lot.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:08
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Caustic Chimera posted:I recommend you read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle after this, even if you dislike Kafka on the shore. While a lot of people say Murakami's works are all the same (I really couldn't say, I've only read these two) these two works are really different in presentation, so you may like one and dislike the other. That's how it was with me and a friend of mine. She loves Kafka, but disliked Wind-up. I loved Wind-up, and I'm somewhat neutral on Kafka. I dunno, maybe someone who has read more of Murakami's stuff will disagree with me. Thanks for the tip. I'm enjoying it so far so I'll definitely be giving some of his other stuff a go. I just read the hosed up bit with Johnnie Walker eating the cat's hearts and to be honest at this point I still don't know what the gently caress, but I'm enjoying it. I was surprised to see that my edition was translated by someone else, given that Murakami is at translator I would have expected him to have done his own book. Or is that not the done thing? chippy fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Aug 24, 2012 |
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Aug 24, 2012 16:28
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VideoTapir posted:Was there anything just comically bad that you can share with us? The entire book?  It was just written as a complete wish fulfillment of nerd fantasy. Literally, hacker guy gets busted for hacking, gets kidnapped and hired by a secret government organization with an unlimited budget and wacky characters (and somehow they can't afford a second nurse in the medical wing), has sex with the hot chick, goes undercover as an army officer literally a week after waking up from a 3 month coma and blasting through physical therapy (and banging hot chick). Goes to army base, bangs hot cougar lady who turns out to be hot chicks mom after proving he is totally a nice guy, gets another nerd guy laid by virtue of being awesome, has a wacky black sidekick, intimidates a general in the army by virtue of being a smartass, is the only common sense person in the book by virtue of the other characters being pants on head retarded. "I have cloned alien life! Oh poo poo, it makes rats go crazy! Hey I am just gonna put this stuff on ice and then take the latest batch home and put in a cooler in my closet cause, you know, I might be a nerd geneticist but this TOTALLY isn't a bad idea at all man, why are you looking at me funny?" The end of the book is the cougar lady/hot chicks mom running away with the virus because she's a total crazy bitch (as described by every character that knows of her, meaning literally every description of her that isn't her having sex with the main character is someone going "That crazy bitch?") Just... drat that book was bad.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:40
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Verr posted:I re-read it for a Lit class last semester, and I can't think of a book that is more applicable for teens than The Great Gatsby. A whole bunch of rich, over-educated layabouts who grind each other down because they're bored; the holocaust of boredom and the destruction of the American Dream. I have a friend that is Gatsby in real life (minus the cash), and his Daisy is ripping him apart. When I had to reread The Great Gatsby for a university lit class, it blew me away! I read it in high school and I thought it was okay, but after studying it I really find it quite remarkable. I think most teens just don't have the understanding necessary to grok the levels of meaning in that novel. Also, I think it helps to be a bit older, so one can really feel the tragedy of living so meaninglessly and dying so meaninglessly. Personally (I know this is sacrilege) I didn't really dig on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Blade Runner is such a gorgeous film and I just didn't feel that same gritty despair in the novel. Somehow it all just seemed more trivial, but maybe part of my problem is I must've seen Blade Runner about 10 times (minimum!) before I read the book. Perhaps I was just expecting the wrong thing. I might try and read it again, now that I'm not expecting the movie in novel form... Caustic Chimera posted:I recommend you read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle after this, even if you dislike Kafka on the shore. While a lot of people say Murakami's works are all the same (I really couldn't say, I've only read these two) these two works are really different in presentation, so you may like one and dislike the other. That's how it was with me and a friend of mine. She loves Kafka, but disliked Wind-up. I loved Wind-up, and I'm somewhat neutral on Kafka. I dunno, maybe someone who has read more of Murakami's stuff will disagree with me. Murakami is one of my favourite authors and I definitely agree - Kafka and WUBC are very very different. I wouldn't agree that his books at "all the same" but they do have a lot of similar themes: isolation, music, disassociation. A lot of bizarre and surreal situations. Personally I think WUBC is his best, but I also adore Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. @chippy: I don't think Kafka is typical Murakami, it's a little more ... hm... off? than usual? Hard to describe anything that guy does.  Basically if you can get past the cat heart bit, you can probably handle anything he'll throw at you.For anyone who digs Kafka on the Shore but likes their books even more surreal, I'd recommend Komo Abe. He really takes it to the next level of what... the... gently caress. Secret Rendezvous is the last one I read of his. So bizarre. I don't even know if I enjoy reading his books, but they're a trip. Woman in the Dunes is his most famous work, but it's still on my to-read shelf.
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Aug 24, 2012 23:53
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Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham). The first half is riveting. You know Philip, you understand Philip, he's trying to find satisfaction, the meaning of his life and not much of it works out. Then, it starts to lag a bit and parts of it are predictable, but Maugham writes it well enough that it's never unbearable. I am, though still expecting Mildred to turn up again somehow not dead yet, even after I've read the last page.
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Aug 24, 2012 23:57
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Theomanic posted:Personally (I know this is sacrilege) I didn't really dig on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Blade Runner is such a gorgeous film and I just didn't feel that same gritty despair in the novel. Somehow it all just seemed more trivial, but maybe part of my problem is I must've seen Blade Runner about 10 times (minimum!) before I read the book. Perhaps I was just expecting the wrong thing. I might try and read it again, now that I'm not expecting the movie in novel form... That expectation for me didn't last past the literal electric sheep.
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Aug 25, 2012 07:00
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Just finished Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I was looking for a new fantasy writer to check out while I wait for something new from Erickson, Abercrombie or GRRM (lol), but...this really didn't do it for me at all. I understand its his first book and he probably upped his game after this, but even as a rough sketch I just wasn't really into what he was doing here.
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Aug 25, 2012 19:49
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Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce. The characters are weak and can't carry the book beyond the central mystery of where a teenager disappeared to for twenty years. The best parts are memories or journal entries rather than scenes from the present day. This is a big problem when the plot moves away from the mystery and focuses on the main character adapting to a community after 20 years away. Skip it.
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Aug 25, 2012 23:04
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Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. After a false start a couple of years ago, I finally decided to finish this book no matter what and I'm really glad I did. It's dense in both information, double meanings, sub-plots and conspiracy theories. It's completely packed of it, in a lot of points you are just bombarded of references and connections, you just can't avoid to check if they are real. The main characters are just amazing, their slow transformation is a thing to behold. The book really worked for me once I really got the story going and understood the need of all that information in a satirical way. My mind is so full of things I think I'm going to read something really light for a few weeks...
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Aug 26, 2012 00:33
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Talas posted:Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. After a false start a couple of years ago, I finally decided to finish this book no matter what and I'm really glad I did. Hah, I had more or less the exact same experience with that book. I'd read The Name of the Rose in a couple days previously, but Foucault's Pendulum was a slog. An enjoyable one, once you understand what is going on, but it drops you in near the end of the story. I suppose if it didn't, you might end up giving up on it not because of being overwhelmed with information, but for not seeing how it could possibly be going anywhere. The way it is, you already have a good idea what's going to happen in the end, but not how the details of that ending will play out, so you've got assurance that yes, there is a point to all this, AND you (potentially) still want to see the resolution of the opening cliff-hanger. I think most things that do this kind of thing lack the first reason. Now go play "Broken Sword."
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Aug 26, 2012 10:37
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One of the high points of my summer reading was The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. Really fantastic nonfiction journey through the periodic table. It hits on just about every element with stories about their discovery or their interesting run ins with history. It manages to do so in an extremely entertaining series of stories with a nice overarching theme of the development of the fields of Chemistry and Physics over the past 200-300 years. I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in science history. In fact it was so good that right after I put it down I picked up his next novel, The Violinist's Thumb, on my kindle. It's supposedly does the same thing for genetics that his first book did for elements. Pretty stoked to read thought it.
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Aug 26, 2012 21:03
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Contact, Carl Sagan, 4 stars.my goodreads review posted:The first two-thirds ("The Message" and "The Machine") were a bit drawn out and waffly, and lacked some of the grand revelatory moments that the movie did so well. But the final third ("The Galaxy") was deeply fascinating and touching, and done much better than the movie. The final chapter was particularly fantastic, and gave a sense of triumph to the end of Ellie's story, while the movie remained more ambiguously hopeful.
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Aug 28, 2012 06:50
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke I couldn't do it, she lost me about a third of the way through. Judging by how many other copies there were when I donated it to the bookstore, a lot of other people also dropped out part-way through. Just finished Chris Cleve's newest, Gold, in preparation for interviewing him tomorrow. It's... not what I would normally read at all. I was surprised at how much I liked bits of it, but he definitely leans towards the soapy end of the spectrum and I'm not at all interested in checking out any of his other work. Big, obvious and fun.
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Aug 28, 2012 10:02
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Caustic Chimera posted:The Iron Dream This is a metafictional book containing alternate universe Hitler's best sci fi work, Lord of the Swastika. It was a satirical book about how some terrible sci-fi fantasy can be really close to nazi ideals. It was painful to read, because Hitler's a terrible author. I have to compliment Norman Spinrad, because it seriously takes some talent to write that terrible. I'm not kidding. Every word was crafted to be the most painful purple prose. I sort of liked the book. I don't regret reading it, but that prose was seriously painful. Great book! I definitely liked it, although I felt it suffered a lot from Spinrad's insistence on making the plot mirror every aspect of the Third Reich exactly. I think that its critique of sci-fi would actually have been a lot more powerful if the parallels had been looser, because as it is it seems less like a story and more like Spinrad is checking things off a list. The resemblance on the science-fiction side is not as strong as it could be. Still a great book though. If you're interested in what Spinrad has to say about science fiction, you might want to track down his essay collection Science Fiction In The Real World. It's pretty thought-provoking, a lot of interesting analysis on the genre / individual authors. Very good.
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Aug 28, 2012 22:22
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enuma elish posted:If you're interested in what Spinrad has to say about science fiction, you might want to track down his essay collection Science Fiction In The Real World. It's pretty thought-provoking, a lot of interesting analysis on the genre / individual authors. Very good. Another book from a noted SF author along those lines that I really enjoyed is one by Thomas Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of.
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Aug 29, 2012 00:04
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Finished Stephen King's It a few days ago. I read The Shining and Carrie years before (both very good!), but It has definitely pushed me towards being a real fan. I'm about to start in the Dark Tower series.
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Aug 29, 2012 03:15
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VideoTapir posted:I just finished Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. I'd read The Diamond Age and Snow Crash before. It wasn't as easy to get into as those, but I definitely saw echoes of those books here. A lot of Quicksilver reminded me of the KFC scenes in The Diamond Age, for instance; and the "hey guys I read some stuff"-ness about Snow Crash was present and a lot more intense, purposeful, and better integrated into the story here. Quicksilver is generally regarded as the hardest of the books to get into and the most boring, so if you liked it, you're going to love the rest of the series. It's really his best work as a full set.
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Aug 29, 2012 04:24
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