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razzletiger
11-21-2011, 07:56 PM
Because resurrecting the threads of Old ETS is important or something. So what has everyone been reading lately?

ltrandazzo
11-21-2011, 08:09 PM
Mass Effect: Ascension on my KINDLE FIRE!!!!!!!!!

But yeah, it's a good book.

orestes
11-21-2011, 08:36 PM
So many books in both print and on my Kindle.

Fool's Rush In (http://www.amazon.com/Fools-Rush-True-Story-Redemption/dp/0982433298/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321929082&sr=1-4)
A Paper House (http://www.amazon.com/Paper-House-Mark-Thompson/dp/0679421874/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321929195&sr=1-1)
Fables Vol. 3 (http://www.amazon.com/Fables-Vol-3-Storybook-Love/dp/140120256X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321929238&sr=1-1)

bgalbraith
11-21-2011, 09:57 PM
I just read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, since, you know, I figure I should know what the whole thing is actually about.

Do research journal articles, technical specifications, and programming APIs count as reading?

razzletiger
11-22-2011, 01:59 AM
I just read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, since, you know, I figure I should know what the whole thing is actually about.

Do research journal articles, technical specifications, and programming APIs count as reading?

Sure! No point in getting picky because reading is fundamental.

Garebear
11-23-2011, 03:28 PM
Reading Up in the Air although it's nothing like the movie! (Which is a great film) And I actually finished the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a while back...good stuff

REPLICA
11-23-2011, 03:39 PM
Re-reading Ian Fleming's Casino Royale on my ipod. Just recently finished Generation Kill too.

konstantin
11-24-2011, 01:36 PM
was never much into reading actual books, mostly due to time constraints, but since about a year ago i had to start commuting almost 2 hours a day, i've gotten into reading quite a lot. and for some reason it doesn't feel right to be reading just one book. so these are the ones i keep rotating:

The Passage (Justin Cronin)
Class (Paul Fussell)
BAD, or the dumbing of America (Paul Fussell)
The Spell (Allan Hollinghurst)

Dra508
11-25-2011, 04:50 PM
Reading Up in the Air although it's nothing like the movie! (Which is a great film) Nothing like the film = worth reading or nothing like the film = which was so good this book isn't even the same freaking story? I'm curious because I actually like, uh hem related, to the film.

YKWYA
11-25-2011, 05:26 PM
I actually really liked Up in the Air too.

Im reading 'The Quantum Universe: Everything that can happen does happen'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/16/quantum-universe-cox-forshaw-review

REPLICA
11-27-2011, 11:02 AM
Back to reading Harry Potter. I never did finish the book series so I decided to go back and get it done. Last I left off was Prisoner and I am now just about five or six chapters from finishing Goblet. It's pretty good so far but I can't wait to get into Order.

leo3375
12-01-2011, 12:22 AM
http://bestchristmasgiftsformen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Steve-Jobs-Book-Walter-Isaacson.jpg (http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322720483&sr=8-1)

It's not as cumbersome as it looks and it's a very easy read. It also doesn't paint a rosy picture of Steve. In fact, the only input he had on the book was the photo used for the cover.

Bowen
12-01-2011, 01:54 AM
Jesus' Son
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Son-Stories-Denis-Johnson/dp/031242874X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

First off, No the book has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The title comes from the Velvet Underground song "Heroin." Without giving anything away, its essentially a collection of interconnected short stories by Denis Johnson, each of which concerns a drug addict named "Fuck Head." Author Chuck Palahniuk, of "Fight Club" fame, claims he has read Jesus' Son over 200 times. He reads it every time he gets writers block. Its an incredible book, I highly recommend it.

aggroculture
12-01-2011, 07:47 AM
http://itsthestory.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/perdido.jpg?w=300&h=450

This is pretty awesome, but could have done with 1/3 of it being cut.

kdrcraig
12-01-2011, 08:11 AM
Reading book 7 of The Dark Tower series at home, it's taken me so long to get through all these books but it's been awesome. A couple of the books could've benefited from being a little shorter

The first book of the A Song of Fire and Ice series on my phone. Watched Game of Thrones when it aired so figured I'd finally get around to starting the books, I'm loving it.

Trains
12-01-2011, 09:36 AM
The first book of the A Song of Fire and Ice series on my phone. Watched Game of Thrones when it aired so figured I'd finally get around to starting the books, I'm loving it.

Me too, I'm about 3/4 through it and I'm literally gobsmacked by the level of detail and intracity. I haven't been this absorbed by a book in months.

Delusional
12-01-2011, 02:06 PM
After seeing the Harry Potter movies too many times, enough to notice the nagging little inconsistencies, I've started reading The Philosophers Stone. For that I've put aside A Tale of Two Cities which hasn't really kept my interest anyway. After this I'll have to try and remember to pick up the Fire and Ice series as well, the show was great and I've only heard good things about the books.

Diet Poison
12-01-2011, 06:29 PM
Reading book 7 of The Dark Tower series at home, it's taken me so long to get through all these books but it's been awesome. A couple of the books could've benefited from being a little shorter

Right before the very end, King's gonna suggest you stop reading at a certain point. Heed his warning. Unless you've already had the end of the whole thing spoiled for you, in which case whatever.
I'm reading 11/22/63. Brevity has never been King's strong suit (in novels, that is) but it reads so smoothly I can't believe I'm over 300 pages in.
I don't do two books at once. Last thing I read was The Boy in the Suitcase by Kaaberbol and Friis. It's a Scandinavian thriller involving a kidnapping, but don't expect it to be anything like TGWTDT. Fortunately the authors are a little more... concise than Mr. Larsson. It's a quick read, but worth it.
And next up is gonna be The Falls, 12th in Ian Rankin's DI Rebus series, which is a series I emphatically recommend to anyone who likes mystery. Book one, Knots & Crosses, is one of my all-time favourites. If the prospect of a 17-book series is too daunting, well, you could probably skip from 1 to 8, which is when they get back to being amazing rather than "pretty damn good".

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
12-02-2011, 04:01 AM
Currently reading The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. If you have any interest in the Romantics or science history at all, it's an excellent and emphatically recommended book. Full of information, very well-written, with brilliantly fleshed-out portraits of the players in these early days of inquiry.

Also have a couple books I've borrowed from friends. They ought to be next, but I'd really like to get around to reading Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. It's just been sitting here, casting a sour glare any time it can catch my eye, since I picked it up on the release date.

Rossva
12-03-2011, 12:58 PM
I partridge, we need to talk about Alan.

...fuckin genius

Magtig
12-03-2011, 02:44 PM
Can I just say that I adore the subtitle of this forum? It's so my mentality.

I'm reading Jack Kerouac's classic, On the Road. I already have crazy amounts of wanderlust, and this book is making me want to run right out the front door. Adventures really are out there waiting to be had dammit! Stupid society and rules and rent and stuff.

Dra508
12-04-2011, 03:38 PM
http://themelononline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/revelation.jpg
Just started this, the fourth in the series. Shit, there's a fifth! ARGH

Then I'm going back to read The Girl Who Played With Fire, which I started a long while ago and put down and whatever the last one is.

mostlymad
12-04-2011, 04:21 PM
I just took out books I have only half finished from my bookcase, and it's rather large, so I've got to finish those before I impulsively buy any more. First up, I'm reading selected Lord Byron Poems. He's a funny guy, snarky in the long review of reviewers.

cashpiles (closed)
12-05-2011, 08:45 PM
I'm reading Jack Kerouac's classic, On the Road. I already have crazy amounts of wanderlust, and this book is making me want to run right out the front door. Adventures really are out there waiting to be had dammit! Stupid society and rules and rent and stuff.

Reading Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums made me want to do the same thing...

Just started reading Norwegian Wood tonight, after two friends recommended it highly more than a year ago. First chapter ends with a heartbreaking revelation... I'm going back in.

Wretchedest
12-05-2011, 09:58 PM
I'm trying to get into Tropic of Cancer. I started working with the Henry Miller Library recently, so it only seemed right.

My difficulty with it lies in the lack of structure. Which is really, really wierd for me. When it comes to film or music, I'm all about the wierd experiments, odd structures... so here I thought it would be great. And he's a truly wonderful author, he oozes poetry, his words are magical.

But After pages and pages.... I wish there was some kind of plot to actually hook me. When I get pas the poetry and wonderful phrasing, I really like to have some depth of character to hold on to. In a story I kind of have to wonder what happens next. With Tropic of Cancer, it's total chaos. Maybe if I took up weed again?

It's kind of embarrassing too. I do have to finish it. My producer lent me the book, and he's a lit. scholar. I feel like not finishing it would diminish me in his eyes... lol... oh man...

heroicraptor
12-05-2011, 10:14 PM
I just finished part 3 of Batman: Knightfall, and I really enjoyed it. :3

Up next are "What If?" and "The Viral Storm".

Wretchedest
12-05-2011, 10:23 PM
Mass Effect: Ascension on my KINDLE FIRE!!!!!!!!!

But yeah, it's a good book.
With the occassional mention of the possibility of a Mass Effect movie, I've long wondered if Mass Effect could exist outside of the gaming medium... Without the choices, the interaction.... the feeling of commanding a fucking space cruiser...

How does it work?

allegro
12-05-2011, 11:24 PM
I'm trying to get into Tropic of Cancer. I started working with the Henry Miller Library recently, so it only seemed right.

My difficulty with it lies in the lack of structure. Which is really, really wierd for me. When it comes to film or music, I'm all about the wierd experiments, odd structures... so here I thought it would be great. And he's a truly wonderful author, he oozes poetry, his words are magical.

But After pages and pages.... I wish there was some kind of plot to actually hook me. When I get pas the poetry and wonderful phrasing, I really like to have some depth of character to hold on to. In a story I kind of have to wonder what happens next. With Tropic of Cancer, it's total chaos.
Sometimes it helps to cheat:

http://www.enotes.com/tropic-cancer-criticism/tropic-cancer-miller-henry

REPLICA
12-06-2011, 12:38 PM
I decided to hold off on Harry Potter - Order of the Phoenix. I picked up two new books yesterday - Bill Clinton's Back to Work and Stephen King's 11/22/63. I decided to start off with Buba's (Bill's) book then move on to the King's. So far Back to Work is pretty good.

Jacob's Ladder
12-06-2011, 01:58 PM
Infinite Jest and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. They're both fantastic, after I finish them I'm going to my schools research library to look through his personal notes. I really love this mans writing.

NIN64
12-06-2011, 07:46 PM
Reading book 7 of The Dark Tower series at home, it's taken me so long to get through all these books but it's been awesome. A couple of the books could've benefited from being a little shorter

I still haven't finished that one. I literally threw the book across the room when Randal Flagg died. That was six years ago. . .

new now
12-07-2011, 04:03 AM
Reading 'The name of the rose' by Umberto Eco as part of a book club, I'm really not into it at all

Trains
12-07-2011, 07:47 AM
I still haven't finished that one. I literally threw the book across the room when Randal Flagg died. That was six years ago. . .

That one was an acquired taste for me. On my first reading I skimmed over most of what happened and felt pretty let down by most of the key plot developments (particularly the one you mentioned). The ending left me almost heartbroken. But weirdly I really loved it second time through, I loved the storyline and the imagery and landscapes towards the end were on par with The Gunslinger in terms of trippy-ness. And the ending actually seems really fitting to me now, though could have done with a little more clarification. Only the meeting between Roland and The Crimson King really irks me because it's just so flaccid and uneventful.

andreas
12-08-2011, 03:04 AM
haruki murakami, 1Q84, pt I

i like his prose. his language is rather plain and yet his books ooze with the mysterious and the fantastical

pequena
12-08-2011, 03:23 AM
I am currently reading A Game of Thrones. I'm a slow reader but I'm almost at the end and I'm using every waking minute I can spare to read. it's an amazing book! And I'm excited to read the next one, however, I've been forbidden from reading the second one until the second season of the show comes out :p

Trains
12-08-2011, 10:08 AM
I am currently reading A Game of Thrones. I'm a slow reader but I'm almost at the end and I'm using every waking minute I can spare to read. it's an amazing book! And I'm excited to read the next one, however, I've been forbidden from reading the second one until the second season of the show comes out :p

Same, finished it the other day. I think I had more fun with that book than any other this year. I couldn't believe how detailed it was and how much Martin fleshed-out his world. Looking forward to the next book too, though I'm going to let this one sink in first.

Jinsai
12-08-2011, 04:30 PM
Same, finished it the other day. I think I had more fun with that book than any other this year. I couldn't believe how detailed it was and how much Martin fleshed-out his world. Looking forward to the next book too, though I'm going to let this one sink in first.

Yeah, I'm on Feast for Crows now. I'm generally not a very big fan of fantasy literature, but this series is awesome... and it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid spoilers.

Tea
12-08-2011, 06:09 PM
Pale Fire by Nabokov... Really, I'm listening to it. This helps since I can't imagine Russian accents very well.

cashpiles (closed)
12-08-2011, 08:28 PM
haruki murakami, 1Q84, pt I

i like his prose. his language is rather plain...
I'm in the middle of Norwegian Wood. His language is plain and I think that helps me to see the scenes vividly. I point that out because I haven't read a book in a long time that I get pulled into the world like that and actually "live" in it. With Norwegian Wood, it's so easy. Maybe because the characters in this book seem like such real people.

andreas
12-09-2011, 09:48 AM
I'm in the middle of Norwegian Wood. His language is plain and I think that helps me to see the scenes vividly. I point that out because I haven't read a book in a long time that I get pulled into the world like that and actually "live" in it. With Norwegian Wood, it's so easy. Maybe because the characters in this book seem like such real people.

yeah, that's the case with all his books (that i've read). real and ordinary people to whom most extraordinary things happen. what also strikes me, they're all so lonely. and even if in relationships, they're still loners..
if you'd like to continue with murakami, i recommend "dance, dance, dance" and "the wind-up bird chronicle"

also, i've noticed his short stories don't pull you in as much. maybe he needs more space to unwind the plot and make it so arresting...

aggroculture
12-09-2011, 09:54 AM
http://jameswharris.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/atwood-in-other-worlds_thumb.jpg?w=404&h=623

JamesKKelly
12-09-2011, 09:59 AM
Just getting stuck into Pigs Might Fly, The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. Pretty good so far. Can't get enough of music biographies these days.

Kamelion
12-10-2011, 05:09 PM
That one was an acquired taste for me. On my first reading I skimmed over most of what happened and felt pretty let down by most of the key plot developments (particularly the one you mentioned). The ending left me almost heartbroken. But weirdly I really loved it second time through, I loved the storyline and the imagery and landscapes towards the end were on par with The Gunslinger in terms of trippy-ness. And the ending actually seems really fitting to me now, though could have done with a little more clarification. Only the meeting between Roland and The Crimson King really irks me because it's just so flaccid and uneventful.

Gotta agree - those were the two main issues I had with the final volume of the series (which, on the whole, I loved). The death of Flagg, who has been my favourite SK character since The Stand was a real disappointment. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened, but it read like King wanted it to happen and had run out of time and came up with a quick way to wrap that subplot up. And as for flaccid and uneventful, absolutely agree. What I wanted was to see that whole image that had been spun in an earlier volume of Roland at the top of the tower, confronting his enemy but oh well. Loved the books on the main, though. A fantastic accomplishment.

I'm re-reading Sailor on the Seas of Fate by Michael Moorcock, because I've been picking up the Del Rey Elric compilations. Great stuff.

Ocean Blooms
12-12-2011, 07:55 AM
Highly recommend Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's "Severed" limited comic series, it's so freaking good. Issue 1 alone will most certainly grab you.

I was introduced to Scott Snyder with the New 52 books "Batman" and "Swamp Thing". I'm thoroughly enjoying those books and looked into other stuff he had done. His "Detective Comics" run has been hardcovered into "Batman: The Black Mirror" which is another outstanding read. Throw "American Vampire" in there as well as essential reading.

I'm looking to read Ed Brubaker's noir stuff like "Criminal", "Incognito", and "Sleeper". I hear nothing but high praise for that stuff.

Think I'm getting "Richard Stark's Parker" The Martini Edtion for Christmas so excited is an understatment.

icklekitty
12-12-2011, 08:49 AM
Currently reading Brecht's "The Good Woman of Szechuan".

triplesun
12-13-2011, 11:37 PM
Just started Clive Barker's Imajica. Gonna be a daunting read for sure.

allegro
12-13-2011, 11:43 PM
"The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides

aggroculture
12-15-2011, 12:16 AM
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/11/medium_48d0f2251ba315f31d23623a831bd9af.jpg

Not bad so far, if a little sub-Dickish.

Delusional
12-15-2011, 12:26 AM
Just started Clive Barker's Imajica. Gonna be a daunting read for sure.I love Clive Barker (his novels anyway), this is a great read. Thanks for mentioning this, got me to check up on and find out the third book of Abarat was released this year. I know what I'm reading next.

Trains
12-17-2011, 09:57 AM
Finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo a few days ago, wanted to try and read it before the film's release. I didn't really take to it if I'm honest. It was all a bit underwhelming. It felt like there was a good sub-plot bookended by tonnes of corporate and financial jargon and journalistic analysis. Somewhere in there was a pretty decent crime/thriller mystery that I did really enjoy and that kept me reading. But even then, when the Harriet Vanger plot finished and all became revealed it seemed a little flaccid. The clue-finding was way too Scooby Doo for me, and so was the outcome; I wouldn't have been surprised if the killer had come out with "And I would have got away with it too if it hadn't been for you pesky investigative journalists".

Not sure if I'll finish the trilogy.

botley
12-17-2011, 10:07 AM
The Year in Lebowski Studies ed. Comentale & Jaffe

aggroculture
12-22-2011, 11:22 AM
http://covers.openlibrary.org/w/id/382182-L.jpg
Not bad so far.

frankie teardrop
12-22-2011, 11:24 AM
^^^ i haven't read that one, but it's on the list!

Morad
12-24-2011, 04:18 PM
Read two fantastic books this week. First was Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. It was quite gripping, but it surely wasn't Murakami's best (nothing can top Kafka on the Shore for me). I highly recommend reading it though; it goes into some very original territory that I think is eerily similar to the chief plot in Twin Peaks.

The second was a Christmas present from a friend called First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. It was my first foray into Canadian literature, and I must say, I was quite impressed. It was touching and it was beautiful, and I definitely recommend it.

aggroculture
12-28-2011, 01:32 PM
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2535/4079459615_235d8dd3af.jpg
Currently reading this, about a future world with no men. It's not very good...

ad infinitum
12-28-2011, 08:41 PM
http://www.significancemagazine.org/SpringboardWebApp/userfiles/sig/image/AbdelUpload/9780374275631.jpg

miss k bee
01-01-2012, 06:55 PM
Small World - Matt Beaumont
One Day - David Nicholls
The Help - Kathryn Stockett

aggroculture
01-01-2012, 11:04 PM
And...it's sucking me in
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/files/2011/03/murakami.png
So my book was missing pages 85-117. I thought this one of the book's many visual tricks, but no. Have to wait for a new copy now.

aggroculture
01-07-2012, 07:25 PM
Another book about gender in the future:
http://s11.lucyphotos.com/images/orig/r/n/rnriw4jujksowijr.jpg
Pretty awful, this one.

aggroculture
01-07-2012, 10:39 PM
More.
http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n1272.jpg
This one's a bit better.

Now I am reading this, and it's brilliant:
http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6568-L.jpg

miss k bee
01-14-2012, 06:18 PM
Yes! Got this book from the library !

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FOUR6OvUL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

aggroculture
01-14-2012, 06:33 PM
Just finished the latest Houellebecq:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UMNyhQ_B63I/TwODjK0ZLjI/AAAAAAAAAJs/waD-QNQVftM/s400/mapterr1_415.jpg
Not bad, a somewhat more "mature" offering than usual. And no sex...tres etrange.

aggroculture
01-18-2012, 08:37 AM
Giving this a shot: a bird wordy so far
http://culturemob.com/wp-content/uploads/Zone-One.jpg

leo3375
01-20-2012, 01:18 AM
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/119130000/119132402.JPG (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/art-of-fielding-chad-harbach/1100737228?ean=9780316126694)

So far, so good. I like the main characters, and it's a human story with college baseball as a backdrop.

aggroculture
01-21-2012, 08:39 PM
After Colson Whitehead's drab vagaries, it's nice to read a writer with real talent:
http://theasylum.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/100822freedom-standalone-prod_affiliate-79.jpg
Excellent, very involving book. A page-turner. I think he wraps up the ending a little too nicely, and there are a couple of questionable steps at the end, but on the whole this is fantastic fiction writing. Franzen has a real knack for giving you the big picture in a few paragraphs, whilst never losing track of the details that make you want to keep reading. I kind of wish this was double the length and went into more detail about all the secondary characters.

allegro
01-21-2012, 10:04 PM
As soon as I finish Eugenides' latest, I'm starting that book ^^ - it's been sitting on my shelves since its publication.

Hurry and read the latest Eugenides book, okay, so you can tell me what you think? It's about English Lit majors, hahaha.

aggroculture
01-22-2012, 04:47 AM
OK, but I generally think Eugenides is overrated. I enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, and I also liked Middlesex (but a bit less), though it was too long. He has a Nabokov thing going on (especially with regards to teenage sexuality), but to me he's in the "good but not great" category. I also read a review that said that prior to his death he was negative towards David Foster Wallace, but in The Marriage Plot he sort of apologizes.

allegro
01-22-2012, 07:46 AM
I had those same feelings about Franzen's "The Corrections" until I *finally* finished it (having put it down to read something else, several times). This Eugenides book, so far, is way fucking too long, too.

leo3375
01-23-2012, 12:39 AM
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/152330000/152336714.JPG (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/redbreast-jo-nesbo/1100058283?ean=9780061134005)

Figured I'd try another Scandinavian murder-mystery author. I loved Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy so I might as well take a shot at Jo Nesbø's first Harry Hole novel.

miss k bee
01-23-2012, 05:38 AM
Yes! Got this book from the library !

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FOUR6OvUL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

I am a hardened horror book reader and this book is scaring me!

Chris_CDN
01-26-2012, 03:02 PM
Just finished this and highly recommend it!
http://www.duskbeforethedawn.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/moore-lamb-gift_ed.jpg

millionmilesaway
01-26-2012, 03:20 PM
Just finishing this up, kinda reminds me of some of the books I had to read in my animal behavior classes but easier to read than some of them.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g7J7tTQMnaM/TaHfHCdQfTI/AAAAAAAAEPo/gN_-e4DX9Tk/s1600/inside.a.dog.JPG

aggroculture
01-26-2012, 03:36 PM
Currently reading:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dATcSjBS_Nk/Ta3cJblQDpI/AAAAAAAADhQ/3WEj7AsYVBg/s1600/Embassytown.jpg
It's taking a while to get going.
Edit: Awesome awesome book. But Mieville really does need a better editor. There's chunks of this that should have gone, and a lot of writing where the meaning is really hard to parse. Perhaps it's intentional (the book is after all about the difficulties of language), but it's sometimes really frustrating.

allegro
01-27-2012, 09:48 PM
Just finishing this up, kinda reminds me of some of the books I had to read in my animal behavior classes but easier to read than some of them.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g7J7tTQMnaM/TaHfHCdQfTI/AAAAAAAAEPo/gN_-e4DX9Tk/s1600/inside.a.dog.JPG

G was reading this, was reading parts of it aloud to me. I wasn't buying all of it.


Just finished this and highly recommend it!
http://www.duskbeforethedawn.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/moore-lamb-gift_ed.jpg

This is sitting on my shelves, in paperback, as it was highly recommended to me, too, by a coworker who gave me the scoop on the funniest parts, including why Jews go to Chinese restaurants on Christmas. Hoping to start on it, soon. I really need it just about now.

Fixer808
01-28-2012, 02:23 PM
I just finished "The Trial" by Kafka. Jesus fucking bleakness!

andreas
02-01-2012, 07:18 AM
"the castle" is bleaknes factorial

aggroculture
02-01-2012, 08:51 AM
Giving this a spin
http://craphound.com/images/robopocalypse.jpg
This began well, but ended up disappointing. Adds little or nothing to the robot uprising genre.

the duder
02-01-2012, 09:20 AM
"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Amazing.

kdrcraig
02-01-2012, 09:29 AM
Right before the very end, King's gonna suggest you stop reading at a certain point. Heed his warning. Unless you've already had the end of the whole thing spoiled for you, in which case whatever.

I kept reading and didn't mind it, I could see where it would piss people off but it didn't bother me.

Started book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire on my phone, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite series. It's so god damn good.

Reading Inheritance at home, the last book of the Eragon series. It's ok but it's taking forever for anything to happen, I'm half way through and thought more cool stuff would've happened by now.

andreas
02-10-2012, 02:23 AM
http://www.thelitwitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/on-beauty.jpg


LOVED white teeth, expecting another awesome ride

theimage13
02-13-2012, 05:31 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Slapstick(Vonnegut).jpg

Found this in the closet in my room when I was 10. Read it then, and while I enjoyed it, I sure as hell didn't get it. Now? This is one weird fucking book. And I still like it.

Fixer808
02-13-2012, 07:25 PM
Any time anything clown-related shows up with no warning or reason, you should fear.

allegro
02-15-2012, 03:54 PM
After Colson Whitehead's drab vagaries, it's nice to read a writer with real talent:
http://theasylum.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/100822freedom-standalone-prod_affiliate-79.jpg
Excellent, very involving book. A page-turner. I think he wraps up the ending a little too nicely, and there are a couple of questionable steps at the end, but on the whole this is fantastic fiction writing. Franzen has a real knack for giving you the big picture in a few paragraphs, whilst never losing track of the details that make you want to keep reading. I kind of wish this was double the length and went into more detail about all the secondary characters.
Reading this now.

aggroculture
02-15-2012, 05:19 PM
Currently reading a lot of Deleuze/stuff about Deleuze. In a word: ugh.

bgalbraith
02-18-2012, 05:05 PM
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YXPMGSGrL._SS500_.jpg

Enjoying it so far.

tireless.mind
02-19-2012, 08:41 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/The_Marriage_Plot_(Jeffrey_Eugenides_novel)_cover_ art.jpg

kind of like Perks of Being a Wallflower, only the author is trigger happy on name-dropping books on literary criticism, not albums.

BUT dude does an amazing job capturing what it's like to be in fall in love (hard and irresponsibly), love academic work (or be a pretentious twit) and not know what the fuck you're doing with your life (yeah, that).

allegro
02-19-2012, 09:23 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/The_Marriage_Plot_(Jeffrey_Eugenides_novel)_cover_ art.jpg

kind of like Perks of Being a Wallflower, only the author is trigger happy on name-dropping books on literary criticism, not albums.

BUT dude does an amazing job capturing what it's like to be in fall in love (hard and irresponsibly), love academic work (or be a pretentious twit) and not know what the fuck you're doing with your life (yeah, that).
I just finished that one. I had a hard time with the characters in this book, very much like I did with Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (wait, is it okay that I hate Vronsky? and I don't really like Anna, either?). I loved Mitchell, but then he'd disappear from the plot and I'd wonder when he'd be back or wtf he had to do with the plot, at all. Sometimes I hated Bankhead and other times I felt really sorry for him, struggling so hard with his illness. And the "marriage plot" that Madeleine was using as her thesis gave way to Victorian literature (but her article gets published in an Austen journal, even though - as Madeleine admits - Austen was Regency and not Victorian). It wasn't until the very end (no spoilers) where I went, "Oh, okay."

The Lit Crit name-dropping is true (I had to run to Google a few times and I was a Lit major undergrad) but I think he captures Lit nerds very well. Science nerds, too. And I sure learned a lot about manic depression.

I'm having the same trouble with the characters in this Franzen book (Freedom). Do I like Patty? Am I supposed to like Patty? It's a real page-turner so far, though.

tireless.mind
02-20-2012, 10:16 AM
...I loved Mitchell, but then he'd disappear from the plot and I'd wonder when he'd be back or wtf he had to do with the plot, at all. Sometimes I hated Bankhead and other times I felt really sorry for him, struggling so hard with his illness. And the "marriage plot" that Madeleine was using as her thesis gave way to Victorian literature (but her article gets published in an Austen journal, even though - as Madeleine admits - Austen was Regency and not Victorian). It wasn't until the very end (no spoilers) where I went, "Oh, okay."

The Lit Crit name-dropping is true (I had to run to Google a few times and I was a Lit major undergrad) but I think he captures Lit nerds very well. Science nerds, too. And I sure learned a lot about manic depression.


i get the feeling - based on you identifying literary misidentification - that, as a science grad that alot of the subtle literary flourishes flew way, way past my head. but for sure - i think he generally captured what it's like to be a nerd in the finest academic sense.

it's neat how people respond to characters. i had no problem whatsoever with mitchell or leonard - probably because i've been mitch for years over one woman, and i was a terrible leo to another. mitchell's sporadic/flaky nature is totally plausible - take it from a dude who also was interested in Quakers at some point. and while i do not have manic depression, leo's insecurities hit so uncomfortably close to home. but i guess that's why i wanted to compare it to Perks. it's been that long since a book explained parts of me to myself, in my opinion the best achievement of anything written.

allegro
02-20-2012, 04:50 PM
it's neat how people respond to characters. i had no problem whatsoever with mitchell or leonard - probably because i've been mitch for years over one woman, and i was a terrible leo to another. mitchell's sporadic/flaky nature is totally plausible - take it from a dude who also was interested in Quakers at some point. and while i do not have manic depression, leo's insecurities hit so uncomfortably close to home. but i guess that's why i wanted to compare it to Perks. it's been that long since a book explained parts of me to myself, in my opinion the best achievement of anything written.
Eugenides did that for me in Middlesex: what it was like to live in Detroit at the very same time as the protagonist (actually, the protagonist was born on the same day as me, weird) and the Detroit race riots, all perfectly described, but also how Eugenides described what it was like to be "a girl" back then, even though Eugenides, himself, is a guy. He obviously did some extensive research, down to the little stuff like Jean Nate and Love's Baby Soft.

Re Leonard Bankhead, this reminded me of him today:

http://m.gizmodo.com/5886762/

It's fun reading Franzen's "Freedom" right after finishing Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot" because both have female characters with East Coast upper-class families, and various forms of dysfunctional American families in and around the same time period (80s). If I was still in school, I'm sure I could milk a comparative essay out of the two.

jmtd
02-22-2012, 02:04 PM
Just finished American psycho. It'll take a while for me to digest it.

Dra508
02-23-2012, 06:17 PM
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327174229l/7896458.jpg

Fifth of the series. My dad shipped them all to me and now wants me to send off to my sister in law. Oh, and he hasn't read them yet himself. That guy will read them in a week. Freak. ;)

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
02-23-2012, 06:38 PM
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/images/8/80/Cover_IJ.jpg
(not in hardcover, though)

jmtd
02-24-2012, 04:23 AM
"the castle" is bleaknes factorial

Post "American Psycho" I looked at my bookshelf to figure out what to read next. I fancied something a bit more uplifting.

On the to-read pile is a pile of Iain Banks; The Trial *and* the Castle; The Outsider (Camus); some Ballard…

I've settled for a non-fiction book instead.

allegro
02-24-2012, 11:25 PM
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/images/8/80/Cover_IJ.jpg
(not in hardcover, though)
I just got that one, too, arriving via Amazon.

edit: nixed taking this on ski trip idea, this book weighs to much. Taking Kindle instead.

poinoup
02-24-2012, 11:35 PM
I just started "Psychic Confusion: The Sonic Youth Story". I'm only a few chapters in, but the history of the no-wave bands in there is amazing. Listening to a few examples on YouTube shows where old Sonic Youth took a lot of inspiration from.

Jinsai
02-25-2012, 12:49 AM
I just started "Psychic Confusion: The Sonic Youth Story". I'm only a few chapters in, but the history of the no-wave bands in there is amazing. Listening to a few examples on YouTube shows where old Sonic Youth took a lot of inspiration from.


I'll have to pick that up

coolguy
02-25-2012, 03:59 PM
I just started a collection of H.P. Lovecraft. So far so good.

andreas
02-26-2012, 03:56 PM
Post "American Psycho" I looked at my bookshelf to figure out what to read next. I fancied something a bit more uplifting.

On the to-read pile is a pile of Iain Banks; The Trial *and* the Castle; The Outsider (Camus); some Ballard…

I've settled for a non-fiction book instead.

wow, some nasty, grim (and awesome) pile you've gathered yourself there... i'm not surprised you're chosen something different to read, especially since you've just finished american psycho, but when you feel like you're again ready to explore some dark corners of your mind:

i'm pretty sure you've got the wasp factory in your pile - 'cause that's the book by banks that majority of his readers would recommend, but hopefully "walking on glass" is also on the list - i highly recommend it - it's 3 stories that seem to be separate but in the end interwine in such an amazing way it just blows your mind...

throw "and the ass saw the angel" on top of your pile and you're set to go.

into the abyss, hehe

p.s. so, what non-fiction did you choose?

bgalbraith
02-27-2012, 12:10 AM
http://www.kera.org/files/2012/01/Infinity-Puzzle-300x300.jpg

Nothing like reading about the history of QFT to make me seriously want to study QFT.. If you like pop-sci books about quantum physics, this is a good one.

jmtd
02-27-2012, 08:12 AM
wow, some nasty, grim (and awesome) pile you've gathered yourself there... i'm not surprised you're chosen something different to read, especially since you've just finished american psycho, but when you feel like you're again ready to explore some dark corners of your mind:

i'm pretty sure you've got the wasp factory in your pile - 'cause that's the book by banks that majority of his readers would recommend, but hopefully "walking on glass" is also on the list - i highly recommend it - it's 3 stories that seem to be separate but in the end interwine in such an amazing way it just blows your mind...

Thanks, I've read the wasp factory but not walking on glass so I'll double check for that one (tbh I've forgotten exactly which banks are on my unread pile!)


p.s. so, what non-fiction did you choose?

"the tiger that isn't", about stats. It's really good, but most of the examples are about gaming hospital targets.

aggroculture
02-27-2012, 09:58 AM
I also really liked Iain Banks' The Bridge, about a guy in a coma. Gearing up to read my first SF book by him, Consider Phlebas.

jmtd
02-27-2012, 10:18 AM
I also really liked Iain Banks' The Bridge, about a guy in a coma. Gearing up to read my first SF book by him, Consider Phlebas.

Enjoy :) I re-read Phlebas recently. It was better on the second read (but still good on the first)

andreas
02-28-2012, 01:53 AM
I also really liked Iain Banks' The Bridge, about a guy in a coma. Gearing up to read my first SF book by him, Consider Phlebas.

Enjoy :) I re-read Phlebas recently. It was better on the second read (but still good on the first)

i've read wasp factory, walking on glass, the bridge and the crow road. i've been keeping myself away from his iain M banks, sci-fi output, 'cause i've heard it's worse than what he wrote under iain banks name. would you agree?

jmtd
02-28-2012, 02:45 AM
i've read wasp factory, walking on glass, the bridge and the crow road. i've been keeping myself away from his iain M banks, sci-fi output, 'cause i've heard it's worse than what he wrote under iain banks name. would you agree?

I've only read about four of his non genre works, and perhaps double that of his sci fi work. To be honest I've found his sf stuff to be much stronger.

andreas
02-29-2012, 01:19 AM
i should give it a try then, thx!

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
03-01-2012, 06:59 PM
Apropos my own selection and also the previous mention of Kafka as being among "nasty, grim" content, here's David Foster Wallace talking about Kafka's humor—on "deeper alchemy by which Kafka's comedy is always also tragedy, and this tragedy always also an immense and reverent joy."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEO0qFFzwI (9:28)

You can also read the same in Harper's, via .pdf: http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1998-07-0059612.pdf

aggroculture
03-11-2012, 09:02 PM
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X7GfqSh4j9Q/Tp0F04etUHI/AAAAAAAAAAA/ggJ5tnKXr4g/s1600/767aeb6709a0217140962110.L._A300_.jpg
Disappointing. Essentially Salman Rushdie lite.

Fixer808
03-12-2012, 04:24 PM
Can anyone recommend me some good post-apocalyptic fiction/sci fi?

jmtd
03-14-2012, 01:41 PM
Can anyone recommend me some good post-apocalyptic fiction/sci fi?

Stretching the definition a bit but the day of the triffids by John Wyndham, also "the crysalids" by him (which might be his best book). "on the beach" Nevil chute is highly regarded but I haven't read it; a canticle for lebowitz is good; I am legend;the wild shore by kim Stanley Robinson is a personal favourite.

I'm sure I've read a load more but I struggle to remember them. Lots of short sf in particular one about sysadmins by Cory Doctorow; mid career pkd; galactic north by Alastair reynolds (more like post galactic than apocalyptic)

Oh! Oryx and crake by Atwood and the drowned world by Ballard.

Fixer808
03-18-2012, 06:08 PM
Excellent, I've read some of those, but not all. TO THE BOOK DEPOSITORY!

andreas
03-19-2012, 02:55 AM
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X7GfqSh4j9Q/Tp0F04etUHI/AAAAAAAAAAA/ggJ5tnKXr4g/s1600/767aeb6709a0217140962110.L._A300_.jpg
Disappointing. Essentially Salman Rushdie lite.


to my great shame, i haven't read any rushdie yet, but i really liked white teeth. i found it funny and cocky and insightful

ad infinitum
03-19-2012, 08:04 PM
Re-reading some stuff I haven't seen since high school (read: a long time)-

http://thenothingist.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/crime-and-punishment-bookcover.jpg

And

http://i5.pixs.ru/storage/5/7/4/1bpblogspo_1351933_4198574.jpg

Surely this is the best of all possible worlds!

icklekitty
03-20-2012, 03:52 AM
http://ia600801.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/34/items/olcovers14/olcovers14-L.zip&file=141670-L.jpg

miss k bee
03-20-2012, 08:23 PM
I liked it too a funny account of immigrant families living in the UK, never heard it compared to Salman Rusdie before!!

Pillfred
03-27-2012, 11:19 AM
Just finished Letters to a Young Contrarian, thought it was a pretty decent read.

kdrcraig
03-27-2012, 11:42 AM
Just finished up A Dance with Dragons last night, so back to A Brief History of Time.

aggroculture
03-27-2012, 10:13 PM
http://images.indiebound.com/702/550/9780812550702.jpg
Just finished this. After the brisk ride that was the first volume of Hunger Games, I found this quite slow, dense, and even boring in places, but it kept me engaged and interested nonetheless: the occasional flash of intensity and the trippy ending somewhat redeemed its drawn-out and claustrophobic tendencies.

jmtd
03-28-2012, 07:36 AM
Just finished this. After the brisk ride that was the first volume of Hunger Games, I found this quite slow, dense, and even boring in places, but it kept me engaged and interested nonetheless: the occasional flash of intensity and the trippy ending somewhat redeemed its drawn-out and claustrophobic tendencies.

I read and enjoyed this many years ago, but on a naive level. Check out this excellent critical essay of the morality buried within the tale: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm

Tighfield11
03-31-2012, 10:43 AM
im reading the wind from nowhere by English author J. G. Ballard. It is with scenarios of 'natural disaster', in this case seeing civilization reduced to ruins by prolonged worldwide hurricane force winds.

aggroculture
03-31-2012, 05:19 PM
Currently reading:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/RabbitRunbookcover.jpg
Ambivalent about Updike: he is a great stylist, but also infuriatingly long-winded.

ibanez33
04-03-2012, 02:12 PM
http://www.culturevulture.net/Books/images/houseofleaves.jpg

Reading this again, because the first time I had no idea what was going on.

andreas
04-04-2012, 12:20 PM
omg, one of the freaking awesomest books ever

i loved HoL, but had problems with "only revolutions" - this one i did not get

botley
04-12-2012, 09:37 AM
"Wizard" by Marc Seifer — a fascinating and revelatory biography of Nikola Tesla

allegro
04-12-2012, 10:52 AM
I've been a huge Titanic buff nearly all of my life, but somehow never read this book until now. It's AWESOME!
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791590l/61834.jpg

theruiner
04-13-2012, 04:17 AM
http://www.culturevulture.net/Books/images/houseofleaves.jpg

Reading this again, because the first time I had no idea what was going on.I was just thinking about that book a few days ago, out of nowhere. I really want to read it.

As for me, I just started reading Slaughterhouse-Five. Finally. It's on my "I should have read this in high school everyone else on the planet has read it it's supposed to be amazing why did this take me so long what the hell is wrong with me" list. I'm 70 pages in and really enjoying it so far.

henryeatscereal
04-13-2012, 01:39 PM
Trendy i know, but fuckin solid as well...

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-DwvLUl2-6j8/TrQMIblcrgI/AAAAAAAAAsM/Yk-947iOTSQ/IQ84-Haruki%252520Murakami%25255B5%25255D.jpg

carpenoctem
04-13-2012, 03:18 PM
I've been a huge Titanic buff nearly all of my life, but somehow never read this book until now. It's AWESOME!
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1317791590l/61834.jpg

Whoa, shame on me, I'm obsessed with the Titanic and I haven't read this either. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll stop by my library and see if I can find it!

By the way, I'm reading W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. I heard it name-checked in, of all places, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode from years ago and I've always been mildly curious about it. I happened upon it at my library and decided out of curiosity to check it out - it's amazing. It's so awesome yet extremely uncomfortable to find a character you relate to so well, especially when they share all your flaws and bad habits.

aggroculture
04-14-2012, 05:46 PM
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/SiteCollectionImages/news/wetlands-as222.jpg
About 60 pages into this, but I'm going to quit. I don't mind gross books, but this feels really limited and shallow.

theruiner
04-19-2012, 06:02 AM
I know I'm going to ruffle some feathers around ETS with this one, but I'm finally, finally getting around to reading The God Delusion. I know, welcome to 2006. I tried reading it before but found it really hard to get into for some reason. I probably wasn't in the mood to read it at that time and was trying to force myself to. I don't know. All I know is, I'm a hundred pages into it and can't stop reading. I'm forcing myself to put it down and go to bed.

NIN64
04-19-2012, 03:11 PM
Just finished: Christopher Hitchens - God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Currently reading: Penn Jillette - God, No!
On deck: Stephen King - The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel

halloween
04-19-2012, 04:47 PM
http://www.culturevulture.net/Books/images/houseofleaves.jpg

Reading this again, because the first time I had no idea what was going on.

What do you mean? It's just a love story ;)
I also pulled this off the shelf recently, and put it into "re-read" pile.

october_midnight
04-19-2012, 04:58 PM
Trendy i know, but fuckin solid as well...

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-DwvLUl2-6j8/TrQMIblcrgI/AAAAAAAAAsM/Yk-947iOTSQ/IQ84-Haruki%2520Murakami%255B5%255D.jpg


Ooooh I've been meaning to look in to that when I saw a blurb on it. Please advise on it!

Magtig
04-19-2012, 05:19 PM
What the hell? I haven't even looked at this thread since the new board started, and I came in here to post:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/de/House_of_leaves.jpg/200px-House_of_leaves.jpg

I found this quote in it today, and thought it was profound:


‎"Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of "not knowing." Of course not knowing hardly prevents the approaching chaos."

henryeatscereal
04-19-2012, 10:07 PM
Ooooh I've been meaning to look in to that when I saw a blurb on it. Please advise on it!
I think this is probably the Darkest book by Murakami, even darker than Tokio Blues, and also its the most ambitious because the descriptions are so complex you have to pay attention at every detail, the book has also the Fantastic and Sad vibe most Murakami books have but with a constant sense of hope, it's very long and very intense but pays of well, like the kind of movie you watch were you think nothing is going to happen and then... boom, it hits you in the face, i recommend it a lot, but only if you have read Murakami before, because it has lots of references from other works

aggroculture
04-22-2012, 05:07 PM
http://ia600807.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/5/items/olcovers661/olcovers661-L.zip&file=6619359-L.jpg
Awesome. Nick Hornby has some great insights.

kitz
04-24-2012, 04:30 PM
http://www.jpc.de/image/w600/front/0/9783462039429.jpg

Just finished this

and started this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/63/Into_the_Wild_(book)_cover.png

miss k bee
04-26-2012, 08:30 PM
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/SiteCollectionImages/news/wetlands-as222.jpg
About 60 pages into this, but I'm going to quit. I don't mind gross books, but this feels really limited and shallow.

Glad I am not the only one who found this book nasty had to quit reading it, total crap.

carpenoctem
04-27-2012, 06:03 PM
Just finished Kazuo Ishiguro's heart-smashingly sad/amazing Never Let Me Go (saw the film first, fell in love, checked the book out from my library, fell even more in love) and just started John Irving's The World According to Garp, which is turning out to be one of those books that makes me laugh out loud quite frequently. As soon as I finish that one I think I'm going back to Ishiguro's other novels.

jmtd
04-28-2012, 02:09 PM
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/SiteCollectionImages/news/wetlands-as222.jpg
About 60 pages into this, but I'm going to quit. I don't mind gross books, but this feels really limited and shallow.

How gross is it? I heard it was sexually explicit... Is it just too much?

aggroculture
04-28-2012, 02:29 PM
Stuff about hemorrhoids and operations to remove them. That didn't gross me out though: the book just seemed like it wasn't going to provide any insight...into anything, not even hemorrhoids.

theruiner
04-28-2012, 11:09 PM
http://i.imgur.com/L7z2w.jpg

aggroculture
05-01-2012, 11:01 AM
http://i43.tower.com/images/mm112535483/sons-lovers-d-h-lawrence-paperback-cover-art.jpg
Awesome so far.

Loving the realistic parts about miners and their families' lives.
Hating the airy-fairy mystical romance claptrap.

EDIT: In the end, I didn't like this book much. It lured you in with a very convincing realist representation of working class life, to then go off on this horrible mystical tangent about love, and clingy mothers, and weak sons, and self-sacrifice, and unrequited love, and this totally douchey protagonist. Ugh. Some great scenes, but on the whole this book was rather painful to get through.

allegro
05-01-2012, 10:40 PM
^ That's on my Book Bucket List. Edit: Heh, or maybe NOT!



I'm back into Franzen's "Freedom" (after my brief Titanic distraction). I'm not sure if I hate Patty or love her, I initially hated Joey but now I like him, ditto for Connie, I don't like Walter much at all, I hate Lalitha, and I (of course) love Richard Katz. All the hip music name-dropping in this book is surprising, I didn't know Franzen had it in him. At some point, I was really glad to find out why there is a BIRD on the damned cover.

hellospaceboy
05-02-2012, 01:57 PM
I'm finishing the last chapters of The Night Eternal, the 3rd book in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's Strain trilogy. I can sum up their take on the vampire mythology with these two words: holy shit!

razzletiger
05-02-2012, 07:38 PM
The Strain and related have been on the periphery of my to read list forever, pretty much, but that's basically the nature of my to read list.

I've currently been reading Damned (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9912994-damned) by Chuck Palahniuk and I'm slightly surprised to find myself really enjoying it. Maybe it's because my expectations were pretty low going into it, but it's proving to be a lot of fun. It started out one way and then went in a direction I wasn't totally expecting, and the (in)famous Palahniukian twist wasn't obvious to me from the very beginning. I'm pleased.

carpenoctem
05-03-2012, 07:48 PM
^^^ I think I've been unfairly judgmental to Palahniuk because he was the "it" author back in my high school days, where even those who didn't like to read would generally like to be seen carrying around a copy of Fight Club, thus giving them some kind of hip literary cred. But I have to admit that book sounds awesome. On my to-read list right away!

aggroculture
05-10-2012, 07:40 AM
Reading this again. Hopefully this time I finish it:
http://cdn4.fishpond.co.nz/0005/030/307/146854/4.jpeg

kdrcraig
05-10-2012, 08:28 AM
Just finished Dexter is Delicious last night and I really enjoyed it, much better than the last couple books. No clue what I'm going to read next, my book backlog is pretty huge right now.

mixxy
05-12-2012, 07:15 PM
I know I'm going to ruffle some feathers around ETS with this one, but I'm finally, finally getting around to reading The God Delusion.

Yeah, I actually haven't read that either and it's on my list. Gotta get around to it soon. Glad to hear that it's keeping your attention.

Right now, I'm reading a VERY long bio of Henry VIII that I got on sale. I'm trying to read more nonfiction and make myself more smarter. ;)

xmd 5a
05-13-2012, 02:56 AM
http://www.culturevulture.net/Books/images/houseofleaves.jpg

Reading this again, because the first time I had no idea what was going on.

Read through this last (internet-free) week. Absolutely adored it- top 5 of all time easily. I would kill to see a film version of The Navidson Record!

Edit: Pretty creepy how many others here have recently read it... (First time I've come into this thread too)

kdrcraig
05-15-2012, 07:06 AM
Started reading The Walking Dead Compendium 1 over the weekend, love it and I'm about 3/4 of the way through already.

Also reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson on my kindle, it is really good. And from what I understand it's going to be a 10 book series. I really need to stop getting myself invested in long book series.

Minpin
05-15-2012, 07:55 AM
Also reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson on my kindle, it is really good. And from what I understand it's going to be a 10 book series. I really need to stop getting myself invested in long book series.
As long as he doesn't kick the bucket mid way, because who do you bring in to finish it then (he IS that guy haha) To his credit he churns out books at a production line rate...
Ive only read the first book of the Mistborn trilogy by him, but yeah was pretty cool. Heard his WoT stuff was good, but no matter how many times I set about reading that long arse series I never made it past book 7 or 8. One of these days...

kdrcraig
05-15-2012, 08:14 AM
As long as he doesn't kick the bucket mid way, because who do you bring in to finish it then (he IS that guy haha) To his credit he churns out books at a production line rate...
Ive only read the first book of the Mistborn trilogy by him, but yeah was pretty cool. Heard his WoT stuff was good, but no matter how many times I set about reading that long arse series I never made it past book 7 or 8. One of these days...

The only other book of his that I've read is Elantris and I really loved that book, read it twice so far. I've heard good things about the Mistborn trilogy, might have to check that out at some point.

dlb
05-17-2012, 06:27 AM
After holding the film up high for so long I finally read through this 600 pages epic and it was quite a ride. Not that different from the movie, but Buchheim's Das Boot gives you much more insight into the minds of the crew. Whether everything that is described here is true remains unanswered. A bit too much happening for a single war patrol one may think...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/415FIrjAygL._SL500_.jpg

Together with the slighty better iron coffins by Herbert A. Werner this remains as one of my favorite war-time novels.

miss k bee
05-17-2012, 01:57 PM
the average american male by chad kultgen

meh tempted to stop reading but will persevere through it.

owinn
05-19-2012, 07:08 AM
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Much better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

jmtd
05-19-2012, 07:23 AM
Just finished 'Hyperion' by Dan Simmons.
Canterbury-Tales like stories-in-story set up. Some fun stuff in there and a lot of variety of writing styles; but the book doesn't resolve itself, it merely stops. I hate that.

aggroculture
05-19-2012, 10:38 AM
the average american male by chad kultgen

meh tempted to stop reading but will persevere through it.

It's OK, quite average. The Lie is a lot more fun.

allegro
05-19-2012, 10:59 AM
Finished Franzen's "Freedom" last night, cried for 10 solid minutes after closing the book.

Then I started this one:
http://www.bookstores.umn.edu/images/system/product/28591.jpg

orestes
05-20-2012, 06:54 PM
Per recommendation from razzletiger:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HQcqIOz8C_c/Txb9RGGZBEI/AAAAAAAAD2s/64RQYj7tixg/s1600/Cinder.jpg

mixxy
05-21-2012, 11:43 AM
Finished the bio of Henry VIII (summary: He was a weak little man obsessed with public opinion who really played no leading role in the war efforts of his time, the end of his marriages, or the Reformation, but let more talented ministers do it all for him).

Now reading this for a book club, a detective story in which sheep must figure out who murdered their shepherd.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_U03Oww-8U/TnZHLx8b78I/AAAAAAAAAUU/LpFfBCnXizU/s1600/779463.jpg

kdrcraig
05-22-2012, 08:33 AM
If You Love This Game...: An MVP's Life in Baseball by Andre Dawson and Alan Maimon. Dawson is my favorite player of all time, didn't even know he had written this but my Mom got it for me for my birthday. Man is a class act.

ad infinitum
05-22-2012, 03:10 PM
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61C53MOaQpL.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P8MZzESJL._SS500_.jpg

Time for some essays. More Didion, whose writing style I seem to have a love/hate relationship with, but it keeps me coming back. And more DFW, who for all his verbosity somehow never comes off as pretentious. To me, anyway.

aggroculture
05-22-2012, 03:32 PM
Reading this again for a paper:
http://anatomylesson.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/waspfactory.jpg?w=500
Edit: Knowing the surprise ending made this book a much less interesting read the second time around.

Alexandros
05-25-2012, 05:43 AM
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_btwwfNy_OAQ/TG_AmaUT28I/AAAAAAAABgc/YhpkYztYKKg/s1600/Collapse.jpg

I have nearly finished reading this and I recommend it to anyone interested in environmental and socio-economic matters. It does get a bit bogged down at times, because Diamond, in trying to paint a complete picture, sometimes offers a LOT of detail. It is admirable, but can be a bit tiring. However, the bigger picture is fascinating and, depending on how you interpret the facts, can be also quite ominous when applied to contemporary times.

aggroculture
05-25-2012, 09:37 AM
Re-reading this:
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1250654465l/227463.jpg

allegro
05-26-2012, 12:59 AM
Okay, all the women at the salon are reading "Fifty Shades of Grey" so I just downloaded it to my Kindle. I gotta see what all this fuss is about.

aggroculture
05-26-2012, 08:34 AM
Sorry but there's no way I'm reading a book that started out as Twilight fan fiction. That's like listening to a band that was formerly a Justin Bieber cover band.

Iran_Ed
05-26-2012, 09:35 AM
I just finished reading Meg Jay's The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them now. It was comforting and a little scary. I've never been a partying person and the amount of people who seem to just party their second decade away is terrifying. The book just hammered home the fact that I'm nowhere near where I want to be in life, and that I need to constantly be moving forward to obtain the goals I set. Whatever those turn out to be.

carpenoctem
05-26-2012, 09:47 AM
Just finished John Irving's The Cider House Rules. UGH, SO AMAZING. I cannot get enough of Irving's writing. I love his sense of whimsy, but he doesn't get carried away and start putting in random quirky things just for the sake of it, there's a good balance between the oddball humor and the serious character and plot development.

Now I'm going to read books three and four of the Percy Jackson series, which my library finally got in. They have like a million copies of the series now - did an entire middle school class check them out at once? Hmm.

allegro
05-26-2012, 03:23 PM
Sorry but there's no way I'm reading a book that started out as Twilight fan fiction. That's like listening to a band that was formerly a Justin Bieber cover band.
Yeah, I know, it's hard to start reading a cheap crotch novel when this one is sitting there on my bedside table in its hardcover splendor:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Wolf_Hall_cover.jpg

miss k bee
05-27-2012, 04:27 PM
Yeah, I know, it's hard to start reading a cheap crotch novel when this one is sitting there on my bedside table in its hardcover splendor:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Wolf_Hall_cover.jpg

I must read Wolf Hall sometime.

allegro
06-01-2012, 12:52 AM
Reading this now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/books/my-cross-to-bear-gregg-allmans-memoir.html

Awesome.

aggroculture
06-04-2012, 12:45 PM
http://kalafudra.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/kingrat.jpg
EDIT: pretty awful fantasy novel, not a patch on Perdido Street Station.

mixxy
06-06-2012, 07:54 PM
Just started reading The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. It really is so beautifully written; the descriptions of the landscape are so vivid that you can almost feel the atmosphere he's trying to create. I've read Steinbeck before, but I don't recall it being so deftly written. Maybe I'll have to go back and re-evaluate.

littlemonkey613
06-07-2012, 01:02 AM
Just started reading The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. It really is so beautifully written; the descriptions of the landscape are so vivid that you can almost feel the atmosphere he's trying to create. I've read Steinbeck before, but I don't recall it being so deftly written. Maybe I'll have to go back and re-evaluate. This book made me a socialist. I have never been an author's bitch quite like I was when I read this. Write again when you've finished!

allegro
06-07-2012, 01:34 AM
You two have just inspired me to read that book.

I highly recommend Willa Cather's "My Antonia."

mixxy
06-07-2012, 10:45 PM
This book made me a socialist. I have never been an author's bitch quite like I was when I read this. Write again when you've finished!

Will do. I'm actually reading it for a book club, so I imagine I'll have lots of different opinions to share. By the way, while I'm here, I gotta say I love book clubs. I enjoy reading so much, but with my job and the craziness of life in general, I find a deadline helps me to actually a finish a book I'm reading for pleasure within a reasonable amount of time. Plus the talking and sharing and stuff.

kitz
06-07-2012, 11:23 PM
http://justwilliam1959.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/nick-hornby-high-fidelity.jpg

Why haven't I read it earlier? It's awesome!

aggroculture
06-08-2012, 08:16 AM
Great book. About A Boy is awesome too.

carpenoctem
06-08-2012, 07:13 PM
Maybe a hundred pages into Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Pretty good so far. I wonder if these brief interludes at the end of the chapters are going to connect to anything - the woman who believed in piskies, the Vikings sacrificing to Odin, etc. I'm still not entirely sure what the book will be about, which is kind of exciting, I think it makes it more fun to read.

aggroculture
06-09-2012, 11:01 AM
http://ia600809.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/11/items/olcovers48/olcovers48-L.zip&file=486877-L.jpg

october_midnight
06-09-2012, 11:10 AM
http://thesleeplessreader.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/devil-in-the-white-city.jpg

Crazy good.

littlemonkey613
06-10-2012, 07:23 PM
Immersing myself in a lot of feminist and Victorian lit. recently.

Jane Eyre, Mrs. Dalloway, The Awakening, Howard's End, A Room with a View etc.

Next will be texts that are less "white" ;). Woman Warrior, In the Time of Butterflies and the like.

Womenwomenwomenwomenwomenwomenwomen.

kitz
06-19-2012, 02:12 PM
Great book. About A Boy is awesome too.

I'm definitely going to read that too. BUT before that, I had to jump on the bandwagon, because.. well just because

I'm reading the second book atm

I'm reading it in Hungarian, because of the complicated storylines and the names I can't even memorise in my mother language.

http://strangechemistrybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/a-clash-of-kings.jpg

so the correct cover is like that:

http://marvin.bookline.hu/product_images/1454/B123612.JPG

miss k bee
06-19-2012, 07:15 PM
I Can Do It - Louise L Hay
The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
The Tibetian Book of Living and Dying -Sogyal Rinpoche
The Family - Martina Cole
Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

aggroculture
06-25-2012, 05:22 PM
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1332855171l/263812.jpg
Enjoyable and refreshing after the turgid annoyance that was Great Apes.
EDIT: on final analysis this book was OK, nothing more. A Philip K Dick tribute-type thing, with bits of A Clockwork Orange thrown in. Ultimately felt a little slight.

Mantra
06-25-2012, 11:23 PM
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/102060000/102069592.jpg

halloween
06-26-2012, 10:04 PM
I've been going on a bit of a "spiritual journey" recently with the help of books- I recently finished Herman Hesse's "Siddhartha" and now i'm heading into Carl Jung's "Man and His Symbols". (I'm taking advantage of my time between school and work to read up on the juicy stuff that's already filling my artsy head with ideas for the future of my creative endeavors!)

orestes
06-27-2012, 11:42 PM
Eighteen chapters into the latest Anita Blake book and not one sex scene yet. Amazing!

aggroculture
06-28-2012, 12:35 PM
http://s3.amazonaws.com/monsoon/ed9mKrBBJtzDm2HbJNSsfg__/mon0000092394/image1.jpg
My Russell Hoban kick continues.
EDIT: very so-so book, quite dull in places; a wanting to be serious medieval theological picaresque novel; feels like a sort of guilt-trip or expiation after the playful awesomeness of Riddley Walker.

littlemonkey613
06-30-2012, 04:02 PM
Lolita. God is this hard to get through. I'm genuinely surprised at how much life the author gives the victim in this story. Her general decline mentally and her suffering is really screaming to me and seems very realistic. Friends made me think getting caught up in Humbert's logic, language and defenses was an inevitability at some point. ( I know too many sheep methinks, also I know people whom actually come to the conclusion that defending him is ok) LOL I have to say it's never been easier to hate a narrator from page 1. I don't think I've ever read a book where the narrator's ego was quite as large as this. I was completely taken aback by it.

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
06-30-2012, 11:40 PM
So I'm reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, currently on H.M.S. Surprise, and they're so fucking good, you guys.

So fucking good.

You should read them.

Or at least listen to them, because the audiobooks read by Patrick Tull are fuckin' stellar.

aggroculture
07-01-2012, 09:26 PM
http://tomcatintheredroom.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/cities.jpg
Just arrived in Berlin and reading this, seems appropriate.

EDIT: Cool set-up/world-building, disappointing story/plot.

Baphomette
07-03-2012, 02:51 AM
http://undonethoughts.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/goon.jpg

Couldn't finish it. Seemed like the music industry version of Slaves of New York.

aggroculture
07-04-2012, 08:14 AM
I read her Look At Me a couple of years ago and thought it was awful. Astonished she's now Pulitzer material. Either there's been a vast improvement here, or...

hobochic
07-04-2012, 09:19 AM
The Fountainhead

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpar73ghsk1qk87jo.jpg

Baphomette
07-04-2012, 02:52 PM
I read her Look At Me a couple of years ago and thought it was awful. Astonished she's now Pulitzer material. Either there's been a vast improvement here, or...
There hasn't been. I don't understand the Pulitzer award at all. I read two chapters, skimmed the rest and then returned it.

Goldfoot
07-04-2012, 03:28 PM
Read Dragon Tattoo a few months ago, just started Played With Fire, and will follow it up with Hornet's Nest. Only ~70 pages in and it's already starting to get interesting, but Dragon Tattoo took me a long time to read, so I'm probably not going to be done with these two for a month yet.

Dra508
07-05-2012, 04:25 PM
Don't be hating, but I picked up Fifty Shades of Grey. Talking to a friend of mine who was 150 pages in, she was acting all "this is a offensive" and "I'd never do that". I told her I'd read so I could explain it to her.... Geeeze.

aggroculture
07-05-2012, 05:31 PM
http://cdn2.fishpond.co.nz/0005/565/990/1765944/4.jpeg

Quite frankly I am not sure what the point is to Will Self's waffle.
But I wrote an article on one of his books (The Book of Dave, which I loved) and I feel the need to read more of them...Great Apes was a total chore, and the first 50 pages of this is no different.

aggroculture
07-08-2012, 08:15 PM
http://winstonsdad.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/hhhh-laurent-binet.jpg
Digging it.

Pillfred
07-10-2012, 03:04 PM
Started on the Magus again hopefully i won't lose this copy too.

allegro
07-12-2012, 01:53 PM
Started on the Magus again hopefully i won't lose this copy too.
Oh, man, I *loved* that book when I was in high school, my mom still has a really old hardcover copy.

I guess there are unrevised (1966) rare versions out there somewhere.

Pillfred
07-14-2012, 02:24 PM
I think thats what i found at the library, upon closer inspection it appears to from '65, maybe i should "lose" my copy.

Also on a whim and a 20 spot a buddy gave me for beer from earlier in the week i picked up Corey Taylors book since i got off work way early and didn't want to head home before going to my other job. About 50 pages in so far and not surprisingly he rambles a whole lot, and while no Rollins he is still pretty fucking funny.

aggroculture
07-14-2012, 05:50 PM
http://patrickmackenzie.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the_kindly_ones1.jpg
Spellbinding...

EDIT: This book was amazing, an awesome literary experience and the kind of grand, ambitious and rewarding novel which is all too rare today. It was a little on the long side: I think it would have been improved by having 1/3 of its 975 pages cut. Littell read 200 books and this novel does a great job of historical synthesis, giving you an incredibly vivid overall picture of WWII. TBH it left me wanting more, leaving several parts of the story unresolved. I even think a sequel wouldn't be too far-fetched, but I doubt it will happen. I found this book a very brave and compelling work: it certainly taught me a lot. And it's not every day that you get to read a novel in which people apparently directly responsible for the deaths of your family members appear as characters.

dlb
07-15-2012, 04:47 AM
Been meaning to read that for quite some time. Tell us if it is worth the time when you're finished, will you? ;)

Another book that is often mentioned in the same breath is Robert Merle's death is my trade.

Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_is_my_Trade

REPLICA
07-16-2012, 03:18 PM
Reading 50/50 by Dean Karnazes right now. I like it a lot, there are a lot of interesting things that happened on his quest. Plus he gives advice about hydration, eating and training.

Baphomette
07-17-2012, 11:07 PM
http://keizertimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BOOK-REVIEW-Red-Market.jpg

joplinpicasso
07-17-2012, 11:25 PM
Awesome selections here.

I've been reading David Foster Wallace, several Batman graphic novels I have to catch up on, and this person's poetry: http://elusive-eloquence.blogspot.com/

carpenoctem
07-20-2012, 02:08 PM
The Catcher in the Rye. For years I thought it was The Catcher AND the Rye. Oops, someone's face is red. I really like it, but I can see why other people might hate it. Holden's narration and his attitude just makes me laugh, it's such a pitch-perfect depiction of arrogant, restless youth.

aggroculture
07-20-2012, 02:22 PM
http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262633154-f30.jpg
Awesome and exhaustive but dense and exhausting too.

littlemonkey613
07-21-2012, 10:54 AM
The Scarlet Letter!

God I was a dumb ass in high school....

Pillfred
07-31-2012, 06:12 PM
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At first i din't think i wanted to read a book about a bunch of hippies but when the urge came i picked it up and was more or less pleasantly surprises even if Wolfe tends to ramble on at points. Seems like it must have been an interesting experience.

halloween
07-31-2012, 08:16 PM
http://www.santarosa.edu/english/wolm1990f.jpg

Soooo good. Especially interesting after reading his Siddhartha book, where it deals with the same themes of life and learning.

leo3375
07-31-2012, 10:14 PM
My last read:
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/180700000/180708402.JPG

My current read:
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/180700000/180708400.JPG

My next read:
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/180700000/180708398.JPG

Yeah, NERD ALERT!

aggroculture
08-01-2012, 12:43 PM
http://www.cclapcenter.com/archives/butt.jpg
Actually quite enjoyable.

Dra508
08-05-2012, 09:28 AM
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/91311-review.jpg/10706349-1-eng-US/91311-review.jpg_full_600.jpg

Pretty good. Reads like historic fiction.

Leman Russ
08-08-2012, 08:27 AM
I picked up Dune the other day for $7 at my local bookstore. Anxious to start it as many people have told me how good it is, but hesitant for the same reasons. I'm hoping it lives up to the hype my friends have given it.

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
08-08-2012, 11:02 PM
How much experience with sci-fi do you have?

Leman Russ
08-09-2012, 07:51 AM
Quite a bit

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
08-10-2012, 12:24 AM
Yeah, read Dune.

halloween
08-10-2012, 04:25 PM
I took my friend's "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and started it today on the bus ride to work. What a way to start- depressing the hell out of me already, jesus christ. I can't wait to keep reading it though!

jmtd
08-15-2012, 04:12 AM
Just read 6 novels on holiday and had a really lucky run of great ones:

• "Generation A" by Douglas Coupland - classic Coupland with a near-future, slightly weird Sci-Fi plot, a bit of a love letter to bees. I guess I know what I'm getting into with Coupland and I got a bit more than I expected which was nice. ★★★★★
• "Complicity" by Iain Banks - great narrative wordplay with the writing perspective for different characters ★★★★★
• "The Ghost" by Robert Harris - similar to Coupland I calibrate my expectations-o-meter for Harris accordingly. An unashamed thriller; a merciless deconstruction of Blair which I enjoyed and a marvellous twist ending. ★★★★★
• "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge - I'm SO overdue reading this and I was blown away. Fantastic, the best SF novel I've read in at least a year, perhaps years. ★★★★★
• "The Apocalypse Codex" by Charles Stross - thoroughly enjoyable but I can't help but feel that he's not reaching as far as he used to. Perhaps there's some inverse-square relationship with a book's position in a series (#1 the best, steadily declining). ★★★★☆
• "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds - Reynolds has never disappointed before, but there's a first time for everything. I expected this to be an intra-solar story but it has a much wider palette. Quite reminiscent of KSR's Mars trilogy in places. I really hated the main characters! The ending was pleasing for me in a strange way: one character is rewarded, but I felt the reward would be more like a punishment, which was due. ★★★☆☆

Currently reading "Thinking: Fast and Slow" (Daniel Kahneman) and "A Year with Swollen Appendices" (Brian Eno), both non fiction and very pleasing so far.

Pillfred
08-15-2012, 08:07 PM
Just finished Shooting Dr. Jack which was a pretty good, forget the guys name just found it randomly at the library. Before that i had read Steppenwolf, Hesse. Today I picked up Clouds and Eclipses: The collected short stories by Gore Vidal, as well as Portions From A Wine-Stained Notebook, Bukowski. I've also been paging through, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture In The Age of Academe, which i read once about ten years ago, which at the time i found it interesting, though I couldn't make much sense of it.

leo3375
08-15-2012, 10:24 PM
I need help deciding what to read next. I've narrowed it to three possibilities:

1. Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/139470000/139471060.JPG

2. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/181360000/181361042.JPG

3. 1984, George Orwell
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c3/1984first.jpg

bgalbraith
08-15-2012, 11:23 PM
I need help deciding what to read next. I've narrowed it to three possibilities:

1. Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
2. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
3. 1984, George Orwell


I loved Ready Player One, and ended up burning through it in a couple days. It's just non-stop dopamine spikes (i.e. awesome references) if you grew up in the 80's and are a gamer. It's a bit formulaic at times, but fuck that, it was fun to read.

1984 is interesting, but it's kind of a downer. It's more valuable as literature for its depiction of the fascist state, and you'll probably feel smart for reading it. That said, it's easier to read than, say, Brave New World from what I recall, and has some iconic images.

I haven't read Gone Girl, but if I had to pick, I'd go with Ready Player One.

Corvus T. Cosmonaut
08-15-2012, 11:57 PM
Um, read 1984, because it's deservedly classic and lit canon and because Orwell is under-appreciated despite being pretty standard reading, by way of Animal Farm and 1984 and the short story "Shooting An Elephant", in public high schools; because the images and numerous passages are brilliant and indelible, and so much of it has been integrated into common culture that the numb familiarity you'll feel should be eerie and terrifying; because it's a truly great book you'll read again maybe in 30 years and come away having found more in it, and not just an entertaining one.

Jinsai
08-16-2012, 12:10 AM
http://i43.tower.com/images/mm101136566/silent-cry-novel-kenzaburo-oe-paperback-cover-art.jpg

aggroculture
08-16-2012, 04:43 AM
Read 1984 and watch Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Trains
08-16-2012, 04:59 AM
Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero

Not sure if I'm enjoying this; bleak, disturbing, and without a single shred of hope to be seen. Seriously depressing.

aggroculture
08-16-2012, 05:12 AM
http://www.goodbooksinthewoods.com/pictures/003209.jpg
Recently re-read this: A hyperventilating, gleeful, yet also superbly poised literary trip to Hell.

Leman Russ
08-16-2012, 08:09 AM
Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero

Not sure if I'm enjoying this; bleak, disturbing, and without a single shred of hope to be seen. Seriously depressing.

I could never get in to Easton. I have tried reading several of his books, and never finished a single one. I don't know what it is either, bleak and seriously depressing forms of entertainment are right up my alley

aggroculture
08-19-2012, 05:51 AM
My favourite Brett Easton Ellis is The Rules of Attraction, by a country mile: a totally compelling trip into the obsessional emotional world of college adolescence, when everything is magnified to horrific effect and you are constantly finding opportunities to worry about how you think others see you. American Psycho is great fun too: using passages from this book in class, to compare with The Great Gatsby, worked well. Less Than Zero I was disappointed by, finding it a little too detached and unengaging. The Informers is very underrated: it's my second-favourite BEE book, and since it's short stories, maybe it's easier to digest. It was my intro to BEE. I tried reading Glamorama, but put it down after a couple dozen pages: it seemed bloated, directionless and tbh I am not that interested in the topic of "celebrity." I've never read another BEE since, and really don't like the idea that now he's doing sequels, ugh. But when I have some time I will probably try Glamorama again, a friend said it's good. More than his new stuff, I'd be interested in reading the two unpublished autobiographical novels he wrote before LTZ: I hope he puts them out at some point.

Jinsai
08-19-2012, 06:09 AM
I liked American Psycho, but I've had a hard time getting into Ellis' other books.

EDIT: and Leo, out of those books you listed, if you haven't already read 1984, that's the obvious choice.

While on this point, Ready Player One is a fun book, but it's stupid fun. I like to stagger what I read so that I don't wear myself out, and throwing in a fun/quick read is a good strategy. As a debut novel, it's impressive enough to recommend, but the story fails in a lot of ways. If you feel like you need a fun book that you can run through quickly, it's a good one for that. Just don't expect to walk away with anything thought provoking or interesting going through your head. If you grew up in the 80s, it's an enjoyable nostalgia trip.

Pillfred
08-30-2012, 10:43 PM
Been reading a collection of Bukowski 44-91(?) probably not the best choice. I think ill see if i can find Real Player One maybe to take the edge off.

Leman Russ
09-05-2012, 09:02 AM
Reading J.L. Bourne's Day by Day Armageddon series right now (for the second time). Hands down one of the best zombie stories I've ever read. I completely stumbled across the first book on a "Buy 2 Get 1" sale table. Came home, started reading, and ordered the second book online before I had hit 20 pages. I just read that the third book will be coming out 12/26...can't frigging wait

kdrcraig
09-05-2012, 11:36 AM
I'm a little ways into Double Dexter, so far it seems like it will be just as good as the last book. Thank god because the couple books before these two were pretty piss poor.

aggroculture
09-05-2012, 11:47 AM
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173531259l/300736.jpg
Re-reading this again for an essay. In places it's painfully good. In others hilarious. Bit long though.

orestes
09-25-2012, 06:47 PM
Finally getting around to reading this:
http://angeerenee.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120714-214935.jpg

And this comes recommended by Henry Rollins:
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/515C81KW30L.jpg

aggroculture
09-25-2012, 07:26 PM
http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/images/AmericanGods_MassMarketPaperback_1185415388.jpg
I'm digging the interludes. But the main part I'm finding bland.
EDIT: 350 pages in. This book is a real chore. I really don't understand what people see in Gaiman.

Baphomette
10-03-2012, 03:26 PM
http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262633154-f30.jpg

This but the 10pt type is killing my vision.

Magtig
10-10-2012, 12:44 AM
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327920099l/18864.jpg

This is no Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it's a pretty solid novel.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5xDmHRYpzV4quSDDewZsZY1p5XckEP 6inRHl9lctc4tgOJFhnRA

A book authored by a bio-engineering pioneer. It's crazy fascinating, well written and has me oscillating between thinking technology really will save us and thinking it will be our doom.

aggroculture
10-12-2012, 09:02 AM
This is no Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it's a pretty solid novel.

I found it a somewhat enjoyable, yet ultimately rather disappointing Hemingway rip-off.

Magtig
10-13-2012, 12:35 PM
I found it a somewhat enjoyable, yet ultimately rather disappointing Hemingway rip-off.
Hemingway?! Well, I guess I'll have to admit I've only read The Old Man and the Sea. Rum Diaries is pretty far away from that book. I get the first hints of the more delirious and hallucinogenic Gonzo work that was to come rather than Hemingway. If anything he conjures a more cagey Kerouac in Rum Diaries.

aggroculture
10-13-2012, 01:20 PM
From what I recall, The Rum Diary is pretty much the Spanish parts of The Sun Also Rises (which I totally recommend btw) - but set in Puerto Rico.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/04/the-rum-diary-hunter-s-thompson-s-time-in-puerto-rico.html

Iran_Ed
11-12-2012, 04:14 PM
http://images.bookcloseouts.com/covers/large/isbn978068/9780684854670-l.jpg

Probably the most insightful and painful book I've ever read.
I've found myself in this book, and I'm trying to get out of it.

Trains
11-13-2012, 05:52 AM
^ Given my ongoing relationship with the big D, I think I'll be steering clear of that one.

Just finished Iain M Banks' new SF novel The Hydrogen Sonata, which was just fantastic. Now enjoying some light-weight, straightforward heroic fantasy in the form of Robin Hobb.

miss k bee
11-15-2012, 01:21 PM
Lucky by Alice Sebold, got given it as a birthday present but it is a tough going read!

Fixer808
11-18-2012, 06:45 PM
Picked up a copy of "Beyond Band of Brothers: The war memoirs of Major Dick Winters". Pretty good so far.