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I just read The Hitchhikers Guide (just the first book) for the first time yesterday, and I don't really see why it's always regarded as such a great book by so many people. Adams really knows how to have a clever laugh, and I did find myself laughing quite a bit, but that's really all the book added up to for me - just a series of somewhat ridiculous/funny happenings that really never add up to anything. It was definitely very British humor - I didn't know it when I read the book, but wasn't very surprised to find out that Adams did some writing for Monty Python. So, I guess I could recommend it to someone just looking for a quick laugh, but I usually like my books to have a bit more depth. Colonel Taint fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jun 20, 2011 |
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Jun 20, 2011 04:46
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Just finished reading The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre. Pretty good, suspensful read, but I have to wonder... was the whole thing really a plot by Control to keep Mundt in place, or was that explanation just Leamas rationalizing a failed op?
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Sep 8, 2014 20:14
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Just finished Words Without Music - a memoir by Philip Glass. Pretty good read though it kind of drags a bit at points . I'm used to more suspenseful works of fiction, and biographies/memoirs aren't usually my thing, but I generally enjoy the music of Philip Glass and maybe a bit more so now having read this and getting to know a bit how he thinks about and creates music. I don't have much else to say but Philip Glass is a p cool guy I guess.
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Dec 29, 2016 03:33
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Just finished the second installation of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy, The Confusion. Onto the next 800 pages! I'm already debating in my head what I'll be reading next. I have both The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, neither of which I've ever read, waiting in my queue. I'm tempted to go with Gibson just to get back into relatively modern times.
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Feb 19, 2017 18:58
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:Honestly, if you can get over the inherent preconceptions about a book about monks then Name of the Rose is just really enjoyable and engaging. I finally finished The System of the World and therefore the Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle earlier this week. I definitely felt like it was the slowest of the 3 books. Maybe just because I couldn't follow - and didn't really care enough to follow - a lot of the descriptions of London streets and buildings. I think I will tackle The Name of the Rose next instead of the Sprawl trilogy, but not for some time. The last book I read that featured monks was Stephenson's Anathem and I mostly enjoyed it - not that I expect this to be similar.
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Mar 24, 2017 21:58
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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco I really don't get the hype behind this book. I didn't know much about the book before reading it, but this was one of the first books in a while that I nearly gave up on. While the ending was somewhat rewarding/cathartic, I straight up skipped a few of the passages later in the book that seemed like they were going into religious visions and arcana of catholic history (which really, I can't think of many things I'd care less to read about).
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May 5, 2017 02:37
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chernobyl kinsman posted:why, uh, why were you reading Eco at all Someone recommended Eco for people who like Neal Stephenson books, which I mostly enjoy. I really enjoyed Anathem so I thought reading another book, this time about actual monks, might be OK. I'm not saying it was all bad. I get that there was probably a lot of symbolism in the visions/dreams etc but I just couldn't care about it or the esoteric history stuff. Just not my cup of tea really. Colonel Taint fucked around with this message at 12:45 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 12:12
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Just finished 'The Monk' by M.G. Lewis. I definitely enjoyed that the plot had a few threads about it. Quite a few characters are introduced in the beginning, and I had to make a little diagram when I started reading it to keep track of all of them and their relations. Kind of forced me to think a bit about what was going on and where things were going to go from the first chapters and on. Overall a pretty good read though. Colonel Taint fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Oct 12, 2017 |
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Oct 11, 2017 20:45
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Just finished The Romance of the Forest by Anne Radcliffe Was quite good as far as "classic" novels go. Good story telling all around and the language is very vivid at times and easy to read - fun to read through the very end with only a few drawn out bits. This is the second gothic-type novel I've read in the past few months and I've found they're fairly enjoyable. Next in queue, Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" - I imagine I'm in for something quite different.
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Jan 5, 2018 04:17
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Finished a few books in the past few months: Moby Dick - I was taken in by the first hundred pages or so, but getting through the whaling chapters felt like a slog at times. I don't know that I can add much to the discussion of this book. I was surprised by the suddenness of the ending. For most of the book, I failed to see Ahab as any sort of villain character, despite reading about the character often described as such. The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (Author), Naveed Noori (Translator) - Translation of a Persian novel. The shortness and pacing of this was a welcome change after reading through Moby Dick. A good amount of the thin paperback consists of notes from the translator, which I found interesting. I don't know anything really about Farsi or much about the culture of Iran, so I'm glad the translator offered some insight into his process. The story itself is on the surreal side as they go. I don't recall too much of the plot details, but I do remember feeling like the contents of a fever dream or opium dream were being conveyed through the author's hand. I also found some of the lore around the book itself to be of interest. The book was banned from Iran at some point with the reasoning that it reportedly drove some readers towards suicide. I can't say I remotely felt moved in such a way. Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (Author), Charles Terry (Translator). The dramatized story of Japanese warrior and artist Miyamoto Musashi. Just finished this just a few minutes ago. It's been a while since I enjoyed a whole book so thoroughly. I was a bit afraid at the beginning that I'd be lost with all the Japanese names and places, but I think I managed pretty well to keep them straight in my head. This book was originally brought to my attention through the podcast of Jock Willink, who spoke highly of it and dedicated an episode to it. I decided to go in blind and read the novel before listening to the pod episode. The growth of the characters throughout was enjoyable. Also enjoyable was the way Japanese culture of the time bled through. It took me some time to get through the whole book (900+ pages), and I feel at the moment a bit sad that it's over. I may go back and re-read this book at some point. e: whoops got the author right for Musashi Colonel Taint fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 5, 2023 23:30
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Just finished The Recollections of Rifleman Harris by Benjamin Harris - a first-person recounting of an English foot soldier's experience in the Napoleonic wars. A truly hellish narration filled with death, plague, and the struggles and an infantryman who finds his experience glorious despite it all. The narrative itself was somewhat scatterbrained at points, but details Harris's experience being recruited into the English Rifle corps, some of the battles, a grueling retreat, his experience on recruiting duty, and Harris's life as a soldier after becoming ill with malaria (though it's never mentioned/not known exactly what the disease was in the book itself). Something that surprised me a bit was that reading some of Harris's rather graphic descriptions of the deaths and mutilations of fellow soldiers was a lot more affecting to me than, say, watching a war movie depicting graphic violence or even actual bodycam footage of modern battles that occasionally comes out - maybe I'm just overly desensitized to violent imagery. I don't know that I would recommend this to a general audience. Aside from the graphic descriptions, there was not a lot of dramatic tension, making it a bit of a slog at some points. Harris would also often take diversions from the narrative that sometimes made the overall narrative hard to follow (eg "I fought with Soldier X in the battle today, Soldier X did x y z things and then died in another battle a few years later... back to the battle today). The edition I have also has numerous OCR errors. Still, if you want to know about life as a foot soldier in the 19th century, there aren't many (any?) other first hand written accounts (most infantrymen of the time were apparently illiterate). Next onto something lighter: "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" by Janna Levin .
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Mar 30, 2023 13:09
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Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy - This was the first book I've read by McCarthy. Fast read in a unique style. Bleak and atmospheric, but I personally didn't get much out of it. Though I did have a good laugh at reading reviews of the book by disgruntled high school students who were forced to read it. Also finished reading A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin. This was kind of interesting to me because it focused more on the personal and emotional lives of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, other books I've read that feature them as characters/focal points typically focus on the mathematical achievements, so this was... different. Can't really recommend for or against this book. It was OK.
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Apr 25, 2023 22:25
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Geometry For Ocelots by exurb1a - A sci-fi-ish space opera that starts with beef between demi-gods and ultimately spirals into war between a society driven by science/technology and a society driven by religion. The book is fast paced and a fun read, but not really too substantive in my opinion. The major theme of the book is that societies which fail to moderate themselves will ultimately expand to their own demise - that resources even at a galactic scale can/will be mined to exhaustion by such a society. Termed "the bivnik effect" in the book, this idea is the spark that ignites the war between the two factions (because one side does not want to acknowledge it as truth). There's lots of drinking and the characters to me felt kind of flat and cartoonish. Overall not a terrible read but nothing really to write home about.
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May 10, 2023 18:51
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Just finished Ascension: A Novel by Nicholas Binge - sci-fi with elements of aliens, time/space fuckery, conspiracy, and other surprises throughout - including the constant pull of discovering the unknown. I found out about this book by querying google bard for books that someone who liked "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson might like. I can't say it was anything really like that book, other than there maybe being some sense of adventure involving scientists. It was however fairly quick and enjoyable read. The book is written mostly as a series of letters (hey, thanks to Ortho's Dracula post, I now know there's a term for this) from a scientist on an expedition, to his niece, who isn't involved much in the action of the book. As sci-fi goes, there wasn't a whole ton of character development, and the character development that was present was nothing to write home about really. Still, I did enjoy that the book continued to surprise as I kept reading, and new ideas were introduced throughout - pretty much to the end. Overall, I enjoyed the book. e: Forgot to add - it's been a long time since I've watched x-files (probably since it originally aired), but this book gave me total x-files vibes. Colonel Taint fucked around with this message at 18:59 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 15:20
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Just finished Observer: A Novel by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress. It was... eh, not quiet a slog but not really anything too exciting or new. The pacing was off IMO in the beginning, it took a while to get to the main ideas presented in the book. I think the intention was to build a bit more of character/back story but it just kind of fell flat for me, as did the actual plot, which I did not personally find to be compelling. I did finish the book, but just kind of wanted it to be over by the end. Ah well, next book on the list is You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant by Brad Neely.
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Apr 16, 2024 14:30
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You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant: A Farcical Biography by Brad Neely - It's about as serious of a biography as the author and title would imply, but that's not to say you won't learn anything about Ulysses S. Grant. The important points do shine through Neely's bullshit artistry while the same's humor keeps the book a fun read, and there were some sincerely endearing passages throughout. This was the first book in a while that I can say I was disappointed it was over so soon. Highly recommend for any fan of Brad Neely's other works. Also worth noting that while I did read the book, the audio book version is done in the voice of "Wizard People, Dear Reader," so if you're into audio books it might be worth checking out.
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May 7, 2024 16:06
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