Throbbing Member
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.
Active Member
Awesome and exhaustive but dense and exhausting too.
Throbbing Member
The Scarlet Letter!
God I was a dumb ass in high school....
Active Member
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.
Throbbing Member
Soooo good. Especially interesting after reading his Siddhartha book, where it deals with the same themes of life and learning.
Throbbing Member
My last read:
My current read:
My next read:
Yeah, NERD ALERT!
Active Member
Actually quite enjoyable.
Active Member
Pretty good. Reads like historic fiction.
Stubby Member
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.
Throbbing Member
How much experience with sci-fi do you have?
Stubby Member
Quite a bit
Throbbing Member
Yeah, read Dune.
Throbbing Member
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!
.net (24.24.2.1447)
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.
Active Member
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.
Last edited by Pillfred; 08-15-2012 at 08:10 PM.
Throbbing Member
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
Science Officer
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.Originally Posted by leo3375
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.
Throbbing Member
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.
tempus est umbra in mente
Active Member
Read 1984 and watch Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
Stubby Member
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.
Active Member
Recently re-read this: A hyperventilating, gleeful, yet also superbly poised literary trip to Hell.
Stubby Member
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
Active Member
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.
Last edited by aggroculture; 08-19-2012 at 06:28 AM.
tempus est umbra in mente
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.
Last edited by Jinsai; 08-19-2012 at 06:17 AM.
Active Member
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.
Stubby Member
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
Active Member
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.
Active Member
Re-reading this again for an essay. In places it's painfully good. In others hilarious. Bit long though.
Administrator
Finally getting around to reading this:
And this comes recommended by Henry Rollins:
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