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The New Reading/Book Thread: With That Same Ol' Bad Taste!
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the intro to the book basically says it is designed with loaning to the believer in mind so it really is great for that purpose
atheist spirituality is a really fun and humane read, even if you got errything figured out!
what
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sorry I'm done now
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pffffffttttahahahahahaahahahaahahaah
My brain is paining. Seriously. I have a feeling I'm going to be ruminating upon this book for a long, long time. It was fucking extraordinary.
It looks totally sweet.
Is it totally sweet?
now I'm reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
it's boggling my mind
Is this a good place to start with Murakami?
What is a good place to start with Pynchon? I have read about him, prompted by one of the characters in Fraction and Ba's Casanova claiming to be him; but I have not read any of his works.
Reading this next:
I love the way Capote writes. It's also one of the most important pieces of investigatory journalism and entertainment mystery ever
Start with Hard Boiled Wonderland at the End of The World or The Elephant Vanishes. I couldn't get into Wind-up Bird.
I didn't make it to the store, but my wife did, and called me on my dinner break. She asked what book I wanted with the coupon we had (40%) and I told her Wind-Up Bird. I liked the cover illustration and it seemed interesting.
So I have that to read, and Dick's Voices from the Street. And I should finish Catch-22 this weekend.
Every time I read Dune it's less something I enjoy for my own sake and more something I enjoy for the sake of a younger me.
Does that make me old?
The Crying of Lot 49, as Peen said, is the classic answer to this. Since Inherent Vice came out last summer, though, I think that's as good an entry point.
I finished Kraken. It was pretty great. Dense and fantastic and twisty with an ending just coherent enough to be satisfying (although you don't really read Mieville for his endings.) The whole thing is kind of a mash-up of Perdido Street Station and The City & The City (as viewed through Jacques Cousteau colored glasses!) in that it takes place in a dense urban environment that has layers upon layers of politics, economics and weirdness. The life you thought you were living, your reality, is just one stolen squid away from unraveling entirely.
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Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
on the same note, i just finished part 1 of 2666, which i know drew a lot of pynchon comparisons
i like it so far. i assume by the comparisons and the back cover summary that there are many more characters to be introduced, but bolano doesn't throw them all at you at once like pynchon does, which is nice
I did not like it at first (I only have so much patience for chortling at bureaucracy and the military, although I do get the sense that I would appreciate Catch-22's version of that if Catch-22 itself hadn't spawned so many books and movies in the same style! this is always a complicated problem) but I am further in now and it is getting much better
Read The Possessed, by Elif Batuman. It's about going to grad school for Russian literature. I... do not regret not going to grad school for Russian literature. But it's very funny.
Someone in the D&D thread told me to read The Alchemist. Couldn't get more than a few pages in; it just seemed dopey. Like The Little Prince except not charming.
Started M.F.K. Fisher's essays for Gourmet Magazine -- they have a 40's/50's charm, but I'm more reminded than ever how much I hate food snobs. She's an educated food snob, but still... I will never be wholly converted to "civilized" meals.
http://numberblog.wordpress.com/
but I'm going to order the last one with the better british cover, once it becomes available
Did you see where they just found the HMS Investigator intact and in pretty good condition?
Pretty cool.
That is goddamned mind-blowing.
Honestly, when reading The Terror I was so immersed in it that I could never really mentally wrap my head around it being a real ship or a real thing that men would have to endure such ridiculous hardship "overwintering," as the website calls it.
I hope they get a remote controlled camera down there for some pictures.
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Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
My impressions are still mixed, I think as a whole I liked the first book the best but The White Rose did have a pretty cool ending.
I can see how the tone of the series was groundbreaking, but at least in so far as the first 3 books, I think The Black Company pales a little bit in comparison to some of the more modern works that it no doubt helped inspire.
They were an enjoyable enough read but all 3 books had some pretty blatant pacing issues, which is kind of shocking considering the relative paucity of the page count. And calling the characters paper thin archetypes is generous (with a couple exceptions). Even the one character who I found really compelling in the first 2 novels turned into just a boring asshole by the end of the 3rd book.
Plus, while I appreciate what Cook is going for with colloquial narration - it was grating to read at times.
i picked up johnathon strange for 5 bucks but i want to hold off on that until school starts, so im going to read stephen king's pet semetary for now
god this book is great
He sure is angry.
Hmmm.... I have a friend who has been on me for a long time to read these. One the one hand he turned me on to Pynchon, Gaddis, Altered Carbon, Stone Junction, etc. etc. On the other hand he told me to read Kathy Acker and Market Forces, and hated The Gone-Away World. So I never know with him.
Do I really want to undertake 704 pages on a gamble like that? Dunno. I think I'll work on my physical queue for a bit before making a decision.
Assuming I ever actually finish Anathem which another friend sent me for my birthday. Someone tell me it picks up. Please? I'm 40 pages in and it's been dry as extraordinarily dry toast so far.
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Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Kind of like reading Neuromancer or Snow Crash after seeing the Matrix movies?
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Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2