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>> | No. 5456
5456
This was really good. |
>> | No. 5457
5457
>>5456 |
>> | No. 5458
5458
>>5457 |
>> | No. 5459
5459
image.jpg This was weird and genius in a number of ways. About fifty pages too long. Should be required reading for conspiracy theorists, it might shut them up occasionally. |
>> | No. 5461
5461
>>5459 |
>> | No. 5462
5462
9780374230890.jpg This was an easy enough read but a bit pointless. Just well-meaning pop-psych/pop-evo-psych. The whole thing can be summed up in a paragraph. |
>> | No. 5463
5463
neuromancer_cover.jpg This was entertaining but very silly. Strong YA fiction. The way cyberspace (or levels-of-reality) was handled doesn't compare to the artfulness of Vurt, however. |
>> | No. 5464
5464
_9781906477288__54735.jpg This is astonishingly well written for a seventeen year old. Reminiscent of Moorcock in terms of themes but the prose is much clearer and entertaining. Sadly the plot is a little bit aimless but it's less than 200 pages so you won't feel like you've wasted much time on it. The what look to be wood-cut illustrations are charming. |
>> | No. 5465
5465
>>5462 |
>> | No. 5466
5466
>>5456 |
>> | No. 5467
5467
>>5459 |
>> | No. 5468
5468
>>5467 |
>> | No. 5469
5469
>>5468 |
>> | No. 5470
5470
genuinely brilliant, words fucking on a page, not quite so much as nymphomation but still lyrical. |
>> | No. 5471
5471
Only finished the preface and introduction to PR and I already feel like I should probably rewatch the lectures on the 8-circuit mind then read the Dhammapada and Intro to General Semantics before I carry on with the rest of the book. Never mind, time for that later. |
>> | No. 5472
5472
Cryptonomicon(1stEd).jpg This one. Quite good, I'd say. |
>> | No. 5473
5473
>>5472 |
>> | No. 5474
5474
>>5473 |
>> | No. 5475
5475
511dJv3pAIL.jpg This took a lot longer to finish than I expected as life got in the way. I started off making notes on each chapter as I went along but they weren't anything of any interest to anyone else and were making me pick holes in the writing rather than appreciating it for itself so I stopped after a couple of chapters. |
>> | No. 5476
5476
>>5475 |
>> | No. 5477
5477
69_Things_to_Do_with_a_Dead_Princess.jpg >>5476 |
>> | No. 5478
5478
>>5476 |
>> | No. 5479
5479
>>5478 |
>> | No. 5480
5480
>>5475 |
>> | No. 5481
5481
>>5479 |
>> | No. 5482
5482
>>5481 |
>> | No. 5483
5483
>>5482 |
>> | No. 5484
5484
>>5483 |
>> | No. 5485
5485
>>5484 |
>> | No. 5486
5486
PerdidoStreetStation(1stEd).jpg Just finished this. Seems like a strong early novel but the use of alliteration and pointlessly obscure vocabulary crowbarred in detracts from the immersion somewhat. It felt like a serious version of Pratchett's, which is no bad thing. Not much connection felt to the characters plus the creature design was a bit weak. Points for effort in not using the same old fantasy world though. The world itself was intriguing and the plot enthralling enough. Very hard to shake the impression it wasn't just set in a weird London but that's ok. It's about on par with the city and the city, the best of his books in my humble opinion. |
>> | No. 5487
5487
maddaddam1.jpg This was an interesting contrast to Perdido Street Station. There are a lot of things to take issue with such as the oddly simplistic way her world functions, the obvious satires, the retro-active attempts to crowbar cultural references into the third novel and most particularly the infantile understanding of computers. A lot of it was just silly and it's unclear how intentional that is. In terms of the setting it's a lot weaker than The Handmaiden's Tale if only because that book didn't try to explain their reality in much detail so there's less to fall apart. But I'm being massively over-critical, because none of that stuff is particularly important. The storytelling and the dialogue is wonderful, the female characters seem very real and human, they're beautifully portrayed. Particularly the format she uses in the final of the trilogy, it was an engaging read. |
>> | No. 5488
5488
A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking by G.R. Haskins. |
>> | No. 5489
5489
mieville.jpg >>5486 |
>> | No. 5490
5490
For some reason HR Giger dying inspired me to finally get around to reading Dune, he was meant to work on the film that never happened. |
>> | No. 5491
5491
>>5489 |
>> | No. 5492
5492
>>5490 |
>> | No. 5493
5493
>>5492 |
>> | No. 5494
5494
>>5463>>5473 |
>> | No. 5495
5495
>>5494 |
>> | No. 5496
5496
>>5495 |
>> | No. 5497
5497
if-on-a-winters-night-a-traveller.jpg Just finished re-reading this. Not much to say except it was definitely better the second time around. There's an awful lot I missed out on originally but it was much easier to understand the second time. The prose (even translated) is fluid and beautiful, the ideas complex and fascinating. It's a little like reading a kaleidoscope. Very difficult to explain to anyone what it's about. |
>> | No. 5513
5513
Orwell's "Politics and the English language". I tend to think that it can be applied to some other things as well, not only to the language. |
>> | No. 5518
5518
>>5494 |
>> | No. 5520
5520
>>5518 |
>> | No. 5521
5521
>>5520 |
>> | No. 5548
5548
>>5518 |
>> | No. 5578
5578
>>5548 |
>> | No. 5579
5579
>>5578 |
>> | No. 5580
5580
>>5579 |
>> | No. 5581
5581
>>5580 |
>> | No. 5582
5582
>>5513 |
>> | No. 5583
5583
>>5581 |
>> | No. 5584
5584
>>5583 |
>> | No. 5598
5598
jamesk_1269480744203_35506.jpg http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/writing/online-writer-in-residence/blog/558/ |
>> | No. 5599
5599
>>5598 |
>> | No. 5650
5650
wallpaper-2942626.jpg >>5584 |
>> | No. 5651
5651
>>5650 |
>> | No. 5652
5652
>>5650 |
>> | No. 5653
5653
cover.jpg Funniest book i've read. |
>> | No. 5654
5654
>>5653 |
>> | No. 5655
5655
>>5651 |
>> | No. 5656
5656
>>5655 |
>> | No. 5657
5657
space.jpg This was really quite interesting. I read it as a child and somehow only picked up on one of the plots which stuck with me for years, but it was well worth re-reading. |
>> | No. 5658
5658
time.jpg This was ... weak. The plot is under developed and while striving to cover a great deal, feels short. It's also weirdly self-consciously sexist; the protagonists wife being a generally useless proto-MacGuffin who is aware of her own status as something to simply run around after the protagonist. |
>> | No. 5659
5659
origin.jpg I haven't yet finished reading this but it is much better than Time. Sadly, a lot of what's interesting about it wouldn't make sense without having read Time. I don't know how sensible any of the authors ideas are, really, the stories being not very hard science, but reading this has thrown a lot of light on what Baxter and Pratchett are trying to achieve with the Long series. |
>> | No. 5686
5686
Royal_Society_20040420.jpg >>5650 |
>> | No. 5687
5687
At Swim-Two-Birds- image 3.jpg Some fantastic and witty meta-fiction writing here, aside from the occasional segment composed of Epic Irish poetry, which tends to drag. At just over 200 pages this is a great light read. |
>> | No. 5688
5688
pale-fire-627x1024.jpg This is just absolute excellence in writing. The sort of book you can read and re-read and keep finding new stuff in. I've no idea where the treasure is hidden yet. There's not even any noncing, other than a strong pederast subtext, the most graphic of which is a sentence which refers to "plucking ripe figs and peaches" (paraphrased). It's worth reading for the poem alone, never mind the commentary. Best to not get a copy that says the author's name in a large font anywhere if there's any chance anyone will see it, else you will get some funny looks. |
>> | No. 5689
5689
>>5688 |
>> | No. 5690
5690
4cfafd4775f293ebe207e0ad7d3af5e2.jpg This book is hilariously ineptly written. The author doesn't seem to know anything about teenagers or drugs. |
>> | No. 5691
5691
>>5690 |
>> | No. 5692
5692
>>5691 |
>> | No. 5693
5693
>>5692 |
>> | No. 5694
5694
>>5693 |
>> | No. 5695
5695
SatanPresidingAtTheInfernalCouncil.jpg >>5692 |
>> | No. 5696
5696
Manwhowasthursday.jpg The Man Who Was Thursday. I stumbled upon it whilst playing Deus Ex. Cannot say anything as I've just started reading it. The excerpts from the game were quite intriguing though. |
>> | No. 5697
5697
>>5695 |
>> | No. 5698
5698
>>5697 |
>> | No. 5699
5699
>>5697 |
>> | No. 5700
5700
>>5697 |
>> | No. 6016
6016
Finished Aldington's Death of a Hero. |
>> | No. 6017
6017
c4979c39bf28af254f6bb630b2a8a92a.jpg >>5697 |
>> | No. 6018
6018
>>6017 |
>> | No. 6162
6162
9780316098106_custom-56dc2b3a24885a81b82813c096980.jpg Just finished this over my morning coffee. Definitely lives up to the reviews, and just as stylish as his Mars trilogy. I've always maintained that good SF is a study of human nature, and this really excels at blending the technological aspects with the human story without falling into the trap of just becoming a dumpload of dry technical data. Very enjoyable book. |
>> | No. 6178
6178
Dead_or_Alive_big.jpg Geoff Thompson's Dead or Alive. I don't even remember where I got this one. |
>> | No. 6222
6222
>>6016 |
>> | No. 6243
6243
FrederickForsyth_TheDayOfTheJackal.jpg 'They can't shoot straight.' |
>> | No. 6244
6244
Seveneves_Book_Cover.jpg Picked this up on the recommendation of a friend, enjoyed it quite a lot. |
>> | No. 6245
6245
>>6244 |
>> | No. 6280
6280
>>6245 |
>> | No. 6292
6292
God, I found Snowcrash unbearable. It literally gave me a headache at parts. |
>> | No. 6293
6293
>>6292 |
>> | No. 6295
6295
>>6293 |
>> | No. 6296
6296
>>6295 |
>> | No. 6297
6297
Kelly Victor.jpg Some time last year I thought I'd have a go at reading some modern Welsh literature, see what the taff answer to Trainspotting is, that sort of thing. So I got this on recommendation. |
>> | No. 6298
6298
Cynan.png >>6297 |
>> | No. 6299
6299
>>6293 |
>> | No. 6300
6300
>>6299 |
>> | No. 6302
6302
>>6300 |
>> | No. 6303
6303
>>6302 |
>> | No. 6304
6304
ce.jpg I'd been meaning to read this for years and finally got around to it now there's a mini tv-series. It's entertaining but utterly ludicrous and morally iffy, at best. The human race is essentially eaten by a vast, unknowable hive-mind intelligence and this is to be applauded. Was Clarke a psychopath? All the characters seem to be identikit manipulators and there's little emotion in the prose beyond his euphoria at what seemed to me an incredibly dark apotheosis. |
>> | No. 6305
6305
>>6302 |
>> | No. 6310
6310
Shall I continue with this (with other people welcome to contribute as they always have) or will I just get shit for "showing off" how much I've read? |
>> | No. 6311
6311
>>6310 |
>> | No. 6312
6312
>>6310 |
>> | No. 6313
6313
books.png >>6310 |
>> | No. 6314
6314
>>6310 |
>> | No. 6346
6346
mobydick.jpg >Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. |
>> | No. 6347
6347
9780141397177.jpg >>6346 |
>> | No. 6348
6348
>>6347 |
>> | No. 6349
6349
6SY344_BO204203200_.jpg I read this as a palette cleanser after Moby Dick; someone recommended it to me on the basis I was reading the former. It was lovely; while the narrator has a little habit of dropping quotations and references that scream "liberal arts school education" it never quite becomes obnoxious, and there's a reason for it all in the end. The book is often compared to Moby Dick but that seems erroneous; it just mentions him a lot. I want to compare it to Atwood's Oryx and Crake Trilogy. Not only are a lot of the themes and messages or at least attitudes similar, but they both have the same sort of contemporary references and wonderfully clear storytelling style - except in these examples, Elliott does both better. |
>> | No. 6350
6350
>>6349 |
>> | No. 6351
6351
>>6350 |
>> | No. 6352
6352
>>6350 |
>> | No. 6354
6354
61bdd5b6c98d3f38f4b1cd01f38d51c1.jpg Fuck me lads I think I just emotionally scarred myself before bedtime. A bit of a slow start to this one but the ending is like a car crash in slow motion and visceral detail. You can see what's coming and it gets closer and closer and then it's no longer just the vague idea of it and you have to see all the horrible details. One for the resting actors and anyone who's ever felt badly used or manipulated. Far too fucking believable. |
>> | No. 6359
6359
PatternRecognition-Soft.jpg Pretty solid novel as far as writing goes. Good pacing, some good characters, all threads (maybe too) satisfyingly tied up at the end. Gibson's undeniably a competent author but there's nothing really new here. I don't feel like I gained anything from having read it. It has more of that American obsession with 9/11 in that personally I'm sick of hearing about but for its 2003 publishing date it's not the book's fault. It's not at all cyberpunk, which is counter to my expectations of Gibson. Frankly, Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge is more cyberpunk than this, although they're both pretty similar, that being a less schlocky version of this in many ways. |
>> | No. 6360
6360
>>6359 |
>> | No. 6361
6361
>>6359 |
>> | No. 6362
6362
>>6360 |
>> | No. 6364
6364
>>6363 |
>> | No. 6365
6365
>>6364 |
>> | No. 6366
6366
serveimage.jpg He put the cigar to his lips. "Goddamn" he said grimly. She took a drag on her cigarette. He lit a match. He was too distracted to light his cigar. She brushed imaginary ash off her lap. |
>> | No. 6367
6367
>>6366 |
>> | No. 6368
6368
ad.jpg >>6367 |
>> | No. 6369
6369
>>6368 |
>> | No. 6370
6370
>>6368 |
>> | No. 6371
6371
>>6366 |
>> | No. 6372
6372
>>6366 |
>> | No. 6373
6373
>>6372 |
>> | No. 6374
6374
Mitnick.png The Art of Intrusion, The Art of Deception and Ghost In The Wires. |
>> | No. 6375
6375
serveimage.jpg Everyone always seems to recommend this book, so I read it and now I do too. Bit of a slog to read, it pathologises everything Corporate, blaming them (seemingly fairly) for all sorts of atrocities. |
>> | No. 6376
6376
>>6374 |
>> | No. 6377
6377
American Pyscho always seemed like such an overhyped obvious book to read. |
>> | No. 6378
6378
>>6374 |
>> | No. 6379
6379
>>6378 |
>> | No. 6380
6380
>>6379 |
>> | No. 6381
6381
While we're on the topic of books about hacker culture, my favourite is probably Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen. It's a good companion to The Hacker Crackdown, as mentioned by >>6378 (the two would be my picks out of the books in that field); The Hacker Crackdown is fascinating largely because it documents just how tame the 80s/early 90s hacker scene was, a bunch of kids goofing around on (almost completely unsecured) networks, who got slammed by a grossly disproportionate response from law enforcement agencies that didn't have the first clue what these kids were doing. By contrast, Kingpin covers the encroaching criminal element of the 2000s, the carding scene (credit card fraud) and so on, and provides a good insight into the gradual metamorphosis of hacking from being primarily a pastime for tinkerers, to being the new playground for organised crime. |
>> | No. 6383
6383
>>6381 |
>> | No. 6384
6384
>>6381 |
>> | No. 6394
6394
fleurpouralgie.jpg I mentioned reading the short-story version of this earlier. I just finished the novel and it was significantly better. The prose isn't terribly exciting and feels a little gimmicky to begin with, but the themes and motifs work beautifully and the plot/message is tragic. You know that horrible drop in your gut when you realise you've unknowingly been the butt of a cruel joke? This novel is that feeling. |
>> | No. 6395
6395
what am i doing here.jpg A couple of amusing stories in here, but the rest of it gives a peculiarly fresh glance at a variety of people and places during the 20th century. I don't know if it's Chatwin's writing style or choice of subjects (mainly now-forgotten artists) and places to write about, but he manages to make interesting a number of things I'd never have thought to read about. |
>> | No. 6396
6396
my secret garden.jpg >… there’s this giant centipede or prawn, or a cross between the two, crawling into me head first, my legs being really wide apart to accommodate him. As he crawls into me, his thousands of fuzzy legs fall off onto the sheets around me. He tickles and excites me as he undulates and wiggles from side to side getting further and further in, and he becomes drenched with my nectar, which he licks up and is strengthened by. He goes on up and up. This all takes hours as he is ten thousand feet long, but I like every inch of it … |
>> | No. 6397
6397
I decided it was about time I re-read this, now as an adult. Fantastic piece of work, seemed totally heart-felt and honest in the way he admitted to struggling so much with finding the right way to write about such a tragedy. The little bit about Mary O'Hare seemed like it must have been true. Not sure what to make of the Tralfamadorians though. |
>> | No. 6398
6398
>>6396 |
>> | No. 6399
6399
>>6398 |
>> | No. 6403
6403
70_121020222.jpg I read this a few months ago. All right. Almost made me smile wryly when the effeminate lame psychopathic antagonist was killed. A bit full of himself he was. |
>> | No. 6404
6404
>>6403 |
>> | No. 6405
6405
bonk.jpg I didn't actually set out to read this as I've read so many other books about the psychology and so on about sex lately but I glanced at the intro and was hooked for the whole thing. It covers a lot of the same stuff as the others mention but Ms Roach obviously did an awful lot of research and she has a fucking brilliant sense of humour, I genuinely laughed out loud a couple of times every chapter. I wasn't expecting that. |
>> | No. 6406
6406
>>6405 |
>> | No. 6407
6407
>>6406 |
>> | No. 6408
6408
>>6407 |
>> | No. 6409
6409
>>6408 |
>> | No. 6410
6410
>>6407 |
>> | No. 6411
6411
>>6408 |
>> | No. 6412
6412
>>6411 |
>> | No. 6413
6413
serveimage.jpg I'm slightly less impressed by Hannu Rajaniemi's work after reading this, as they seem remarkably similar in tone and ideas. Having read The Quantum Thief first meant this made less of an impression on me that it really should have. It was a bit of a slog to read in places, particularly the bits narrated by Bascule (although he was a great character the phonetic spelling was a pain). The plot wasn't paced brilliantly, seemed a bit confused in places (more than once one narrator would "spoil" the plot of what was going to happen to another, then you'd have to read that bit too) and the dénouement was deus ex. Still a good book though. A solid read. |
>> | No. 6414
6414
>>6413 |
>> | No. 6415
6415
>>6414 |
>> | No. 6416
6416
wog.jpg I remember that I read The Wasp Factory when I was quite young and found it really unpleasant. I thought that, being older, may as well try his other books. No, it's worse if anything. Ian is an evil sadistic bastard. Towards the end this book I felt almost physically sick, followed by gladness and then some really positive frisson at how it was all tied up. I wouldn't call it clever but it's extremely well crafted. None of that Bascule-style phonetic wankery so the whole thing was a breeze to read. |
>> | No. 6417
6417
>>6416 |
>> | No. 6418
6418
>>6417 |
>> | No. 6419
6419
>>6416 |
>> | No. 6420
6420
>>6416 |
>> | No. 6421
6421
birthday.jpg On a quick break from Mr. Banks. |
>> | No. 6422
6422
the bridge.jpg This one took a surprising amount of time to read for something so short but it's probably as I kept taking breaks in order to properly digest it. Not sure why you lot were talking about his work all being so red in tooth and claw, this one was lovely. The little fantasy worlds he comes up with are all really imaginative and somehow seem as real as the "real" plot threads. Brilliantly described scenes and set pieces, real characters, brilliant wordplay here and there. The twist, if you can call it that, (what was actually going on) seemed pretty obvious right from the first page but I don't think that lessened the enjoyment of this book in any way. Presumably it was intentional or the situation has been overused recently so I could recognise it easily. This was a really rewarding read, far more so than Walking On Glass or The Wasp Factory. He doesn't try to gross you out or rip out your heart with this one, it's just life. |
>> | No. 6423
6423
51y3ugwQDzL.jpg Not a lot to say about Espedair Street beyond that it was a solid and entertaining novel although the main character's motivations felt a bit forced in parts. |
>> | No. 6424
6424
crow.jpg A partial return to type with a Scottish setting again, but no dreamlike weirdness this time. Faultless book. Witty, intelligent, fantastic characterisations, a melancholic beauty and his prose has become significantly smoother to read. Got through this one in almost one sitting; multiple, intense experiences of frisson at the end. |
>> | No. 6425
6425
16029970.jpg The sequel to >>6354, it has been sat on my shelf for some time. There are some humorous scenes and ideas in this but the Anonymous author seems to think that having an unreliable narrator means also omitting things like formatting, spellcheck, page numbers, consistent character names and a plot. He clearly has material for "that notoriously difficult second novel", but that's all this is. Material. Not a story. What made the first book worthwhile and not just some Mick arsehole crowing about how clever and cruel he thinks he is, is missing entirely. |
>> | No. 6426
6426
1234.png Whit and The Business were the strongest of the four, although ASoS was a very nice mood piece (almost Borgesian in simplicity but without the philosophy/metaphysics). He did a fantastic job of describing a war situation but without explaining what or where the war was or it being frustrating that he did so; the focal point was the characters and it felt appropriate the entire way through that nothing else was brought up. |
>> | No. 6427
6427
NLH.jpg Well that was fucking dismal. More of a pamphlet than a book, reminded me of the XKCD strip of all the stick people on a train simultaneously thinking that they're the only ones who can think for themselves and that everyone else is a sheep. Except with more womanising and narcissistic self-loathing. Osamu did a great job of making Yozo's internal motivations consistent with his actions, even if he is a fuckhead. I'm certain there's more to this than I read into it but I'd need more culturally contextual information. Sparknotes perhaps. |
>> | No. 6428
6428
>>6426 |
>> | No. 6429
6429
>>6428 |
>> | No. 6430
6430
Come to think of it, the Grandmother in Whit makes a half-hearted defence of hedonism but it's not all that. |
>> | No. 6431
6431
>>6429 |
>> | No. 6432
6432
>>6431 |
>> | No. 6433
6433
Icarus_Effect.png This wasn't particularly deep or anything. Just a piece of action and a prequel to DX: The Fall. I expected worse. Turned out to be a fairly alright novel regarding action but it could do better in terms of conspiracies all that shit. |
>> | No. 6434
6434
deadair.jpg No castles or incest this time but left-wing rants make up about 60% of the content of this one. Still quite entertaining despite the plot being a bit unfocused. It started out as though it was going to be something sort of political about 9/11 but he got distracted by gangsters and women and a couple of minor plot arcs that materialised from nowhere and rapidly went back there. |
>> | No. 6435
6435
>>6434 |
>> | No. 6436
6436
>>6435 |
>> | No. 6437
6437
garbad.jpg ☑ Stately Home |
>> | No. 6440
6440
transition.png Well that was bloody brilliant. Combined all the best stuff of the previous novels into some The Long Earth meets Abu Ghraib madness. |
>> | No. 6442
6442
stonemouth.jpg Not a lot to say about this. Just another Iain Banks book. Well written characters, nice slow reveal of stuff not underestimating or patronising the reader. Nothing innovative or challenging about it though either. Pumped-out schlock. Higher quality schlock than most but that's not an excuse. |
>> | No. 6443
6443
tampa.jpg I'm not entirely sure what the point of this was. Apparently it was intended to point out the hypocrisy of what attractive female child molesters can get away with but Alissa seemed very good at writing about the beauty of adolescent boys. Towards the end she definitely tries to undermine Debra Lafave's court defence by making it seem totally dishonest but there are some extremely pornographic segments which undermine that. |
>> | No. 6444
6444
>>6443 |
>> | No. 6445
6445
quarry.jpg This was... incredibly bitter and full of self-loathing. The story of a man dying (relatively) young from cancer as told through the eyes of his social disorder-ridden son. The son behaved outwardly as you'd expect someone with a degree of Aspergers to, but his internal dialogue (the prose itself) was far too normie for it to scan. Still, the man's rant about the state of the world and how he wasn't sad to leave the mess we've made struck home. A bit meta at times, when Guy, the father, disappears and they think he may have gone to kill himself the first places they check are a bridge, a tower and a lake which seem like overt references to the author's favourite set pieces. High quality but not mind blowing literature, although given that Banks was dying of cancer when he wrote it, it does feel very genuine and heartfelt. |
>> | No. 6497
6497
lonely.jpg This was a drunk purchase for reasons I forgot, but it was really fascinating. I don't feel I learned a great deal about loneliness specifically, in fact I got a bit annoyed at the author for her actual period of loneliness didn't exceed six months and the small r9k part of me was insulted by her little jaunt into being alone, like a rich kid playing at being poor, but once I got over that the book was hard to put down. |
>> | No. 6510
6510
Re-reading Forsyth's The Dogs of War. One hell of a preparation they do. That Manson guy is one sly magnificent bastard. |
>> | No. 6512
6512
So American Pyscho. |
>> | No. 6513
6513
>>6512 |
>> | No. 6514
6514
>>6513 |
>> | No. 6515
6515
>>6514 |
>> | No. 6533
6533
Started reading Brothers Karamazov and, good grief, it's boring. What a shame as the synopsis is chock-full of interesting themes. |
>> | No. 6534
6534
>>6533 |
>> | No. 6535
6535
>>6534 |
>> | No. 6536
6536
>>6534 |
>> | No. 6537
6537
Google says Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky did the most critically/academically acclaimed translation of The Brother's K. |
>> | No. 6541
6541
echo spring.jpg Interesting sort of travel diary and retrospective of a number of classic American authors who liked to drink too much. Not just Hemingway but Tennessee Williams and Scott Fitzgerald in detail with many others mentioned. |
>> | No. 6542
6542
wind.jpg Another short story collection. This was published almost 30 years before >>6421 and it shows in every respect. The ideas and characters aren't as clearly presented and the stories feel a bit muddled and unsure of themselves. I feel like she was just finding her footing for the fantasy/SF cross that she's known for. That's not to say it wasn't worth reading, just that I won't be recommending it specially to anyone. |
>> | No. 6543
6543
grey.jpg All Englishmen should love Will Self, the man with the lugubrious voice. With some authors works you get the feeling that you know what they're trying to do but it falls short somehow; this is never the case with Self. Some of his novels are a bit intimidating in terms of complexity and length but I feel like Grey Area is a great sampler of the overall tone of his work. Some of his other short story collections are more innovative or entertaining but this is a really solid piece of work. |
>> | No. 6544
6544
betternever.png The most thorough and popular anti-natalist philosophy I'm aware of having been laid out. He does say he's not arguing for suicide but you still may want to kill yourself at the end of it. If you're worried about the Trumpocalypse through nuclear warfare or climate change then this at least will comfort you that, in the end, that's for the best. |
>> | No. 6545
6545
realtime.png Mr. Vinge back with his wonderfully crisp, clear prose. A fantastic storyteller even if this book feels a little dated now. I'm not completely sure why this trilogy is a trilogy, despite the continuing timeline the second book doesn't feel thematically connected to the other two and could be skipped without losing a sense of what's going on. Still, it's entertaining in its own right. |
>> | No. 6546
6546
fireupon.png This seems to be very "soft" SF. Vinge seems to have re-written a number of laws of physics to create the setting, although perhaps it's just a bit scientifically dated. |
>> | No. 6547
6547
100 years.jpg Nothing much to say about this that you won't have already heard. Really beautiful book, blah blah, confusing character names. Márquez really is a master of magical realism, I love how the lines are blurred or non-existent. |
>> | No. 6549
6549
one-hundred-years-of-solitude-400x400-imadj8fyvx6g.jpg >>6547 |
>> | No. 6550
6550
3body.jpg I've heard great things about this book. It was surprisingly bad. Ignoring the weird dialogue because it's translated from Chinese, there are some very nicely written scenes. Cixin has a very vivid imagination for little heroic or dramatic set pieces like paintings of war, but there are only a small handful throughout. |
>> | No. 6551
6551
Hello /lit/lads. |
>> | No. 6552
6552
>>6551 |
>> | No. 6553
6553
solaris.jpg Lem has a reputation and it is well deserved. This book addresses some of the same issues that the philosopher Thomas Nagel would become famous for writing about 13 years later, that is, what is it like to experience or fully understand The Other entirely? They both make the same mistake in assuming that people "fully" understand anything but that's really by-the-by, it's a good book and worth reading both for the thoughts it might provoke and just for simply being a landmark piece of science fiction. Lem and PKD were contemporaries and whilst PKDs ideas are probably more complex, Lems are by far more coherent and not schizophrenic. Apparently PKD believed Lem was a group of communist writers all publishing under the same name for cold war reasons, Lem was flattered by this. PKD was mad, whatever. |
>> | No. 6554
6554
ways.jpg Nice little collection of short stories. Wyndham only seems to have the one "voice" and most of these stories hinge on almost identical conceits but he does a rather nice job of approaching them from a variety of people's points of views, seeing how those might turn out. His idea of contemporary society is quite dated (as is to be expected from a 50+ year old book) but in a way that evokes a sense of nostalgia for the previous century. Very comfy, or cosy, or whatever it is bernd says. |
>> | No. 6555
6555
nord.jpg Good light read, Gaiman's sense of humour makes a nice fitting to his retellings of Prose Edda and the rest of the Norse cycle. The language used in most translations of things like that is often a bit dull to read, this makes it far easier to get through and is about as close to the spirit of the original stories as you're likely to get. Like everything he writes it's aimed at Young Adult readers but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Norse Mythology but put off by the "originals". |
>> | No. 6556
6556
>>6555 |
>> | No. 6557
6557
cb.jpg This is actually two, unrelated novellas, save for the name and theme of gender fuck-ups. Cock is about a woman who grows a penis and rapes her husband, Bull is about a man who grows a vagina in the back of his leg. Don't worry, those aren't really spoilers. They both seem chiefly concerned with cynicism about human nature; the first is both frightening and grotesque (not so much the directly sexual parts as everything else, some parts were preminiscent of his novel My Idea Of Fun) and the second darkly humorous. Both display great characterisations and understandings of different parts of life. I'm not sure if he intends to shock with his writing but he certainly relishes and wallows in unpleasantness. Only having read his early works I'm curious to see if he grows out of it. |
>> | No. 6558
6558
>>6557 |
>> | No. 6559
6559
>>6558 |
>> | No. 6560
6560
>>6559 |
>> | No. 6561
6561
>>6560 |
>> | No. 6562
6562
>>6557 |
>> | No. 6563
6563
trustme.jpg This was a bit of an eye opener. I'm always a bit wary of the content of any book written by someone who claims to be good at manipulating or lying to people but the evidence for what he says is really all around us, he just provides an explanation for it. What he did when working for Tucker Max and American Apparel, someone is very obviously doing for Milo Yannohisname. It really boils down to "all media stuff is nonsense and lies made up to get click-throughs, let's cross our fingers until someone works out a better way to do it or it stops working on its own". I'd add "keep your adblock on at all times unless you're certain the page belongs to the original content creator and isn't news". Given that it's now five years old, things are probably worse than he describes by now. |
>> | No. 6564
6564
>>6563 |
>> | No. 6565
6565
>>6563 |
>> | No. 6566
6566
Rend.jpg This sort of cyberpunk-lite is a lot more entertaining than his space opera-esque novels but... I don't know. Vinge is capable of writing high-concept stuff but this just seems like well-written, generic futurism. It's a bit dated even now, due to some of the cultural references but if works if you think of it as an alternate future-present that split off around the time the book was released. Better world-building than the Maddaddam series but sort of aimless. Lots of fun little details using an anime avatar to avoid kids because they'd find it too sophisticated and old-fashioned was a great sly move yet there's little in this that leaps out and grabs you as a concept. Advances in medical, networking and VR tech are old hat. |
>> | No. 6572
6572
close.png I can't spell this man's name for shit. |
>> | No. 6574
6574
4929[1].jpg I have decided that I don't really like Murakami (Norwegian Wood bored me shitless), but will admit that this one captivated me toward the end. Honestly I'd have preferred if he hadn't decided to include the whole Oedipus allusion thing, the surreal otherworldliness was solid enough to carry the book without that nastiness. |
>> | No. 6575
6575
dancing in the no fly zone.jpg Incredibly good. Brings me back to when I was there, pre and post invasion. |
>> | No. 6578
6578
>>6575 |
>> | No. 6579
6579
>>6578 |
>> | No. 6581
6581
>>6579 |
>> | No. 6582
6582
>>6581 |
>> | No. 6583
6583
island.jpg I think this book is supposed to be philosophy in the way that Camus or Kafka can be but there wasn't a great deal of that, at least not in the way they handle it. The book deals with potential eternal life in a way that doesn't seem to me to be even remotely philosophically sound. Immortality through cloning yourself and injecting some liquid from your brain into the clones that supposedly gives it your personality but not, it seems, any of your memories. |
>> | No. 6584
6584
map.jpg This was better, definitely scratched a philosophical itch and seemed to be saying something interesting about models, maps, children, all sorts of reproduction and their eventual decomposition, a very melancholy book by the end of it and kept thematically tight. |
>> | No. 6585
6585
mie.jpg I've been fairly critical of Miéville in the past but reading this I think he's finally matured as a writer. It has many of his favourite themes (anti-fascism, partisans, mech-people, urban fantasy, etc) but they're assembled cogently, the world makes "sense" and is full of interesting stuff he has clearly researched extremely thoroughly. At just over 100 pages, unlike Embassytown you don't get the sense that he's stretched out a small number of ideas needlessly for the sake of being the length of a novel. |
>> | No. 6586
6586
rechy.jpg Some superficial similarities to Close to the Knives, but pre-AIDS so somewhat different. It's not unlike a series of character studies in segments tied together into an over-arching narrative of the narrator's own journey. Lots of very real, very lonely and insecure people. A very powerful piece of writing. |
>> | No. 6594
6594
nameofthewind.jpg Someone lent me their copy of this, recommending it. |
>> | No. 6595
6595
sands.jpg Everything is a copy of a copy and the copy is the reality. This is really dense to read and takes a lot of digesting, even though it's not saying much that couldn't be more easily summed up by someone who just accepted the presupposition and wasn't trying to argue it. If you define everything as a copy, doesn't that render the distinction between copy and reality, and from there the entire thesis, meaningless? I think postmodernism is quite possibly little more than crypto schizophrenia. Deleuze and Guattari don't even bother with the crypto part. Still, it's interesting and they make me feel funny when I read them. |
>> | No. 6597
6597
Cyclonop.jpg I can't say I got anything out of this or really understood anything more than the general idea. This is touted as "theory fiction" which means it's a knowingly false psychoanalysis of war for oil through some sort of Mesopotamian religious lens. It's not even a headfuck, just a barrage of invented Theosophy and Numerology. The Middle-East as egregore. I think Borges was right to write reviews of fictional books instead of writing the books themselves; some ideas are neat but don't need to be fully realised like this. Postmodernism a shit. |
>> | No. 6598
6598
perec.jpg I don't know what to say other than that this was quite beautiful. |
>> | No. 6599
6599
threestig.jpg This was really quite nightmarish in a way that the bland characters just seemed to accept. The setting and technology is fairly campy in that way Dick usually approaches future settings, but then the central conceit starts to kick in about half way through and that all goes out the window. I'm left reeling a little, trying not to think too hard about what was actually supposed to be happening because it'll just descend into schizoid branching loops. Good book, totally mental. |
>> | No. 6600
6600
different.jpg An overlooked gem of a book. The weakest stories in here are horror, because horror isn't scary, but the weird things and particularly the characters are brilliant; humanly portrayed and touching descriptions. Apparently the author's best known for writing for Doctor Who and frankly that's a shame because he's clearly so much better than that. Highly recommended. |
>> | No. 6601
6601
onion.jpg A man with three testicles inherits a castle which is then subsequently invaded by a parade of fucking strange people with a variety of perversions. This doesn't seem to have any real plot to speak of but the prose is interesting if confusing at times. Gormenghast-lite with a cast of lewd Monty Python-esque characters. |
>> | No. 6602
6602
fearme.jpg Another of Shearman's short story collections. Really excellent writing, not the 'horror' genre-fiction it's touted as. These cover images are really inappropriate for the content, frankly. |
>> | No. 6603
6603
>>6602 |
>> | No. 6604
6604
>>6603 |
>> | No. 6609
6609
seize.jpg Themes of drowning and eventual rebirth ... great characterisation especially when it comes to Dr. Tamkin, I suspect we've all met one or two people who behave very much like that. |
>> | No. 6610
6610
bok.jpg The Book of Dave is a good book haha |
>> | No. 6611
6611
>>6610 |
>> | No. 6612
6612
21TtTDHN6pL.jpg Absurd title aside, this memoir strikes me as an English, heterosexual equivalent to the Wojnarowicz and Rechy books earlier in the thread. While AIDS did for all three of them in the end, her more matter-of-fact, uncluttered obvious enjoyment of sex and lack of guilt regarding it in a post-war, pre-free-love way is quite admirable. |
>> | No. 6704
6704
sphinx.jpg I haven't read any fewer books since the last post, but this is the only one I've felt worth recommending to others. |
>> | No. 6706
6706
reacher.png I tried reading some stuff outside of my usual interests. |
>> | No. 6707
6707
bosch.png This is an almost identical book to the Lee Child one except the self-righteous and grumpy middle aged American man vibes are turned up so high you can smell him. Not to imply the other one is a good book but this one is worse in every conceivable way. Except he doesn't make a tit of himself talking about computers or phones, mainly because it was written seven years earlier in 2002 and they weren't really relevant. |
>> | No. 6708
6708
the passage.png I quite liked this, although it goes on for 800+ pages then you find out it's just the first in a trilogy which is a bit mental. That said, Cronin's research, empathic characterisation and ability to combine different styles makes it not a regrettable read. If someone told me it was originally I Am Legend fanfiction I'd believe it. The only real problem I found was that the sheer number of characters got a bit confusing sometimes, particularly about 2/3 of the way through. |
>> | No. 6709
6709
rebus.png This was brilliant compared to the other two. It's not exactly The Name of the Rose but nor is it trying to be. I thought detective fiction was traditionally an American speciality, trust a Scotsman to utterly outclass them at their own game. |
>> | No. 6710
6710
rebus1.png This was interesting to read; the first of the "Inspector Rebus" novels. It doesn't really compare to the previous one which is what's so interesting about it, you can really see Rankin's progression from one to the other, all the elements of the other books are in there but not played quite as slickly. |
>> | No. 6726
6726
Castel_di_Sangro.jpg Scrittore americano, Joe McGinniss, spends the season with Castel di Sangro Calcio after they won promotion to Serie B in 1996, the second tier in Italian football despite hailing from an impoverished town in the middle of nowhere with a population of c. 5,000 at a time when the Italian league was the best in the world. |
>> | No. 6727
6727
Hide and Seek (1991) |
>> | No. 6729
6729
>>6727 |
>> | No. 6730
6730
>>6729 |
>> | No. 6731
6731
>>6729 |
>> | No. 6732
6732
>>6731 |
>> | No. 6733
6733
>>6732 |
>> | No. 6734
6734
>>6733 |
>> | No. 6735
6735
cunt-on. |
>> | No. 6736
6736
>>6733 |
>> | No. 6737
6737
I've been thinking about it some more, and it may actually be a new disguised form of cunt-off: |
>> | No. 6739
6739
>>6737 |
>> | No. 6740
6740
Fleshmarket Close 2004) |
>> | No. 6774
6774
cat-marnell-book-cover-how-to-murder-your-life-liz.png While I am usually a fan of the memoirs and autobiographies of the users, the junkies, the alcoholics, life's general riff-raff that end up laid up at the lower stratas of society, this one left me not just unfulfilled but also fairly sad that I'd bothered to read it all. |
>> | No. 6795
6795
I've just killed an hour reading a short story from Frederick Forsyth about some poor sod who got blackmailed by a prozzie. Money with Menaces it's called, I think. |
>> | No. 6861
6861
good-omens-miniseries-700x300.png I'd forgotten how much I enjoy the works of Sir Terry. You can tell that Pratchett and Gaiman were challenging themselves to make the other laugh when they were writing it; it's the most fun I've had reading a book in quite some time. |
>> | No. 6981
6981
hurt.jpg Bar the typical American fashion self-help giddy bollocks it's been an interesting story so far (I'm 6-7 chapters in). |
>> | No. 6982
6982
>>6861 |
>> | No. 6983
6983
>>6982 |
>> | No. 6984
6984
>>6981 |
>> | No. 6987
6987
>>6984 |
>> | No. 7028
7028
25817471.jpg I expected this to be yet another variant of How to Kiss Arse and Perform Backstabs. It wasn't, instead focussing more on 'pay attention to what's going on around you', 'take care of yourself', a few bits about corporations being corporations. Nothing particularly groundbreaking of any sorts. Not too bad, just moderately generic. |
>> | No. 7033
7033
0099479338.jpg When I read things like this I constantly worry that I'm not knowledgeable enough to identify most of the references being made and that points will go over my head because I'm not clever enough to pick up subtlety. |
>> | No. 7034
7034
>>7033 |
>> | No. 7035
7035
>>7034 |
>> | No. 7036
7036
>>7033 |
>> | No. 7037
7037
D2WA_zsX4AA0OAK.jpg I might be taking a dim view on this because I've recently re-read Bad Science and this has suffered in comparison, but I found it rather poorly written and not very engaging. |
>> | No. 7038
7038
>>7037 |
>> | No. 7039
7039
>>7038 |
>> | No. 7040
7040
>>7038 |
>> | No. 7041
7041
>>7040 |
>> | No. 7042
7042
oooh.jpg >>7040 |
>> | No. 7043
7043
>>7040 |
>> | No. 7044
7044
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/ |
>> | No. 7054
7054
Geoff Thompson's Watch My Back. Quite brutal stuff in there. |
>> | No. 7055
7055
doty-book-banner-nyt-2.png If we were the other place I would have posted the usual 'What I have / What I expected / What I got' strip. |
>> | No. 7056
7056
ALAN MOORE241.jpg Started reading Old Wizard Moore's Jerusalem. Really enjoying it. Best thing I've read in a while but only 10% into it according to my kindle so will see how it progresses. |
>> | No. 7074
7074
1_MxxR1MAVvWHCAt13qIHngA.jpg It's standard Jon Ronson fare, but it's making me re-evaluate how much time I spend on the internet. In particular, whether I need to have my phone almost always with me when I'm at home which I'll be checking constantly. It's a bit of a waste, 4eally. |
>> | No. 7162
7162
index.jpg Antkind by Charlie Kaufman is really funny. |
>> | No. 7163
7163
>>7074 |
>> | No. 7164
7164
>>7163 |
>> | No. 7165
7165
812jaYEKuiL.jpg I found it lacking something, as if it only scratched the surface of what it could be. |
>> | No. 7167
7167
300913._SX318_.jpg Never Trust a Rabbit is a collection of short stories, often morality tales, by Jeremy Dyson, the lesser known member of The League of Gentlemen. The first couple of stories were quite the chore to get through but after that it picks up markedly, although none of them were truly outstanding. |
>> | No. 7168
7168
61aVXbO2S1L.jpg This was a fine little adventure story. |
>> | No. 7169
7169
62373.jpg The play on words and absurdism didn't always land for me, but if you strip all of that away it's still an entertaining whodunnit. |
>> | No. 7170
7170
unnamed.jpg This resonated with me more than I'd like to admit. |
>> | No. 7171
7171
>>7170 |
>> | No. 7172
7172
>>7171 |
>> | No. 7173
7173
hrf.jpg Hard Rain Falling - 3/5 |
>> | No. 7174
7174
>>7171 |
>> | No. 7175
7175
11834.jpg I imagine this is what slightly more highbrow fanfiction is like. Although I believe it was deliberate, to show Patroclus' simplicity, I found the first few chapters too infantilised; it picks up markedly beyond them it still felt like I was reading YA fiction, albeit at the more mature end of this. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. |
>> | No. 7176
7176
9781635573954.jpg I'm about halfway through 'the Anarchy' by William Dalrymple and it is an excellent history book on EEIC. |
>> | No. 7177
7177
It's hard to find, but are there any novellas (or novels) on a suicidal person finally killing themselves/dying by other means? |
>> | No. 7178
7178
>>7177 |
>> | No. 7179
7179
>>7177 |
>> | No. 7180
7180
A400078.jpg This was a vast improvement on The Song of Achilles. Circe was an actual rounded and fully fleshed out character, which I think is in part Miller's improvement as a writer although I did find her use of words like 'trash' a little jarring and also her motivations when writing each novel; this was focused upon showing the protagonist as a strong female character in contrast to how Greek poets diminished the roles of women in their tales or simply used them as a plot device with no agency. |
>> | No. 7181
7181
>>7180 |
>> | No. 7182
7182
>>7181 |
>> | No. 7194
7194
breakfast-of-champions-doodles.jpg I'm not sure what I made of this. It wasn't unpleasant to read, although Vonnegut's faux-naïf writing style wore thin at times. It's largely a meandering stream of consciousness, but most of the commentary within it is rather tame by today's standards. |
>> | No. 7195
7195
>>7194 |
>> | No. 7196
7196
9781913462482.jpg This is quite good. |
>> | No. 7200
7200
f5b93cd51bbdbce8d210774774c8e227.jpg It never really went anywhere. It was an interesting premise but it just sort of petered out. |
>> | No. 7201
7201
lion_last.jpg Very much enjoyed this. British appeasement and German rearmament. Reccomends. |
>> | No. 7202
7202
17619188.jpg This was an enjoyable read, although the mystery and intrigue over the scheming was far more interesting than what actually ended up happening and there wasn't much of a pay-off at the end. |
>> | No. 7203
7203
155297_1572863202_crop_550x825.jpg I enjoyed it, but I feel that PKD is much better as a short story writer than a novelist. |
>> | No. 7204
7204
20027.jpg Yeah, I think I'll stick with his short stories from now on. |
>> | No. 7205
7205
>>7204 |
>> | No. 7206
7206
71D viHub0L.jpg The first ~30 pages were a little awkward and clunky but after that it picked up and left me with the same feelings of peacefulness and contentment that I get from watching one of my favourite films. |
>> | No. 7207
7207
6c2.png I read Jordan Peterson's new book, it's more or less the same as previous but he seems to have learnt to stop himself going too deep into politics. I'm not sure I'd recommend it and especially how obviously poor his taste in media is but it does seem more constructive. |
>> | No. 7208
7208
>>7207 |
>> | No. 7209
7209
>>7208 |
>> | No. 7210
7210
>>7208 |
>> | No. 7211
7211
>>7210 |
>> | No. 7213
7213
>>7211 |
>> | No. 7214
7214
>>7211 |
>> | No. 7215
7215
>>7213 |
>> | No. 7216
7216
>>7209 |
>> | No. 7217
7217
>>7216 |
>> | No. 7218
7218
>>7211 |
>> | No. 7219
7219
Have you lot just tried being happy in yourself and being single? It's pretty fucking good. I suppose if I wanted kids it'd be a different story. |
>> | No. 7220
7220
>>7218 |
>> | No. 7221
7221
>>7220 |
>> | No. 7222
7222
>>7218 |
>> | No. 7223
7223
Have a look at rudgewick's datingoverthirty, lads. It's mental. |
>> | No. 7224
7224
>>7223 |
>> | No. 7225
7225
>>7224 |
>> | No. 7226
7226
>>7224 |
>> | No. 7227
7227
image.jpg There's someone out there for everyone. |
>> | No. 7228
7228
Conflict-Avoidant Picard.jpg >>7222 |
>> | No. 7229
7229
>>7228 |
>> | No. 7230
7230
>>7226 |
>> | No. 7231
7231
>>7230 |
>> | No. 7232
7232
>>7231 |
>> | No. 7234
7234
>>7230 |
>> | No. 7235
7235
>>7232 |
>> | No. 7236
7236
Had a look at this FDS sub you guys are talking about, seems like dating advice for/from TERFs. Don't put out, ban porn, ban kinks, ban sex workers, women are inherently great and men are inherently evil - u wot m8? No thanks. |
>> | No. 7237
7237
>>7236 |
>> | No. 7238
7238
>>7236 |
>> | No. 7239
7239
swerf-terf-dinner-main.jpg >>7238 |
>> | No. 7240
7240
>>7239 |
>> | No. 7241
7241
>>7240 |
>> | No. 7244
7244
TheDENNISSystem.png >>7236 |
>> | No. 7245
7245
>>7244 |
>> | No. 7246
7246
>>7241 |
>> | No. 7247
7247
>>7246 |
>> | No. 7248
7248
>>7247 |
>> | No. 7249
7249
>>7248 |
>> | No. 7250
7250
>>7249 |
>> | No. 7251
7251
>>7250 |
>> | No. 7252
7252
I hate to be a cunt, but you lads have very quickly bounced from "I don't really like my missus that much but she helps me pay for my nice house" to "these women are awful for looking for men who can offer them certain material benefits" |
>> | No. 7253
7253
>>7252 |
>> | No. 7254
7254
>>7253 |
>> | No. 7255
7255
>>7254 |
>> | No. 7256
7256
>>7252 >but from my perspective it seems like post-twenties monogamy ultimately does boil down to weighing up your benefits rather than your actual desire |
>> | No. 7257
7257
>>7228 |
>> | No. 7258
7258
>>7257 |
>> | No. 7259
7259
>>7256 |
>> | No. 7260
7260
>>7259 |
>> | No. 7261
7261
>>7260 |
>> | No. 7262
7262
>>7261 |
>> | No. 7263
7263
Get some MDMA down her and she'll be all over you like a rash. |
>> | No. 7264
7264
E2OxiA0UUAAEVrY.jpg I'm sure most of this stuff is being written by 17 year-olds who're bitter about their one experience with men but it gets spread around by people who click like or share without thinking but it's just egregiously stupid and dangerous rhetoric. |
>> | No. 7265
7265
>>7264 |
>> | No. 7266
7266
jihad.jpg >>7264 |
>> | No. 7267
7267
download (4).jpg >>7262 |
>> | No. 7268
7268
>>7264 |
>> | No. 7269
7269
I just read Infinite Jest. |
>> | No. 7270
7270
>>7269 |
>> | No. 7271
7271
>>7270 |
>> | No. 7272
7272
>>7224 |
>> | No. 7332
7332
unnamed.jpg I didn't dislike it, but I'm not quite sure that I liked it either. |
>> | No. 7333
7333
1394257961.0.x.jpg It could have been about a hundred pages or so shorter but it was an enjoyable easy read. My main issue is that the next sequel was announced in 2006 and it doesn't look like it'll be out any time soon. |
>> | No. 7334
7334
9781844719204.jpg I picked this up because I assumed the film of the same name with Willem Dafoe was adapted from it, which turned out to be completely incorrect. |
>> | No. 7335
7335
Does anyone have a recommendations for books that are just a fun read? Over the past few years, I've been trying to get stuck into all the books that are supposed to be so amazing, but I find they usually just bore the arse off me. I'm not really enjoying reading anymore because of it - I've basically been trying too hard, and found I'm not bright enough to get anything out of it. |
>> | No. 7336
7336
>>7335 |
>> | No. 7337
7337
>>7335 |
>> | No. 7338
7338
>>7335 |
>> | No. 7339
7339
>>7335 |
>> | No. 7340
7340
939709[1].jpg >>7335 |
>> | No. 7341
7341
>>7335 |
>> | No. 7342
7342
Machine_of_Death.jpg Machine of Death is a collection of 34 short stories based on the premise from an old Dinosaur Comics strip; there's a machine test which will tell you how you're going to die, but these have a habit of being ambiguous, e.g. the machine reading could say 'old age' and that could mean you get killed by an old person driving a car. |
>> | No. 7343
7343
>>7342 |
>> | No. 7344
7344
>>7343 |
>> | No. 7345
7345
>>7344 |
>> | No. 7346
7346
61Xz4YYkr0L.jpg Fuck Thomas Mann and fuck Germany. There's no humanity in this book, it's just a young insular man pattering about in a mountain health retreat getting browbeaten by an Giuseppe, a failed clergyman, some hoe and his doctor. Yes, you can certainly tell that the author stopped and came back to it at which point he shoved his mental diarrhea onto the pages and found a narcoleptic editor to approve it. |
>> | No. 7347
7347
>>7346 |
>> | No. 7348
7348
dirk-gentlys-holistic-detective_1_06867f037eeedcd0.jpg I should read Douglas Adams more. |
>> | No. 7351
7351
grb.jpg The author is a misanthropic bastard, but this is really good travel writing. |
>> | No. 7352
7352
brave-new-world-11.jpg I'm finding Brave New World difficult to finish. I don't care about the characters nor understand how the 'civilised world' works. Thank god it's short, else it'd join the long list of books I've only partially read. |
>> | No. 7353
7353
>>7352 |
>> | No. 7354
7354
>>7353 |
>> | No. 7355
7355
>>7354 |
>> | No. 7356
7356
>>7355 |
>> | No. 7357
7357
>>7352 |
>> | No. 7358
7358
>>7355 |
>> | No. 7359
7359
s-l400.jpg This is the second Iain Banks novel I've read. I picked up The Wasp Factory about four years ago and it's one of my favourite books. I've found A Song of Stone, on the other hand, to be rather shite. |
>> | No. 7360
7360
>>7359 |
>> | No. 7361
7361
>>7360 |
>> | No. 7362
7362
Complicity is pretty good. Hard Boiled Scottish Detective Noire written in the second person with a soundtrack by the Pixies. |
>> | No. 7363
7363
412BEQEMIuL.jpg This book is fucking dumb and I say that as a fan of Joe Pera. What we got for the long wait was a simple picture book that isn't particularly funny or insightful and whose artwork is just ugly. |
>> | No. 7364
7364
'When_the_Sleeper_Wakes'_by_Henri_Lanos_.jpg The Sleeper Awakes is a dystopian science fiction novel about a man who finds out he owns most of the world, thanks to a trust managing his money on his behalf whilst he slept for just over 200 years. The trust, of course, never expected him to wake up again. It's alright, quite campy, but it gets very racist when the 'negro police' are on the scene. |
>> | No. 7366
7366
51pVDZTQzwL.jpg Qualityland is hilarious, its a dystopian novel about what if Amazon was brought in as consultants to help fix Germany following a financial crisis. In one section in outlines how books have become personalised to the user so the Bible becomes a father-son story with a Star Wars twist and The Trial is an action story. |
>> | No. 7367
7367
B4F26A69-EE5E-42B1-A827-1357107C7D7BImg400.jpg The title is a little clickbait but its an assessment of what has gone wrong between Sino-American relations in recent years followed by a sober analysis of the difference between the two and some predictions for the future. |
>> | No. 7368
7368
>>7367 |
>> | No. 7369
7369
america and iran.jpg >>7367 |
>> | No. 7378
7378
21k4icux5fu71.jpg I'm hoping the rest of the Culture series is a marked improvement because this was alright, but it certainly wasn't anything to write home about and it dragged in parts. |
>> | No. 7379
7379
2012-01-27_image1.jpg This was, indeed, a marked improvement. |
>> | No. 7380
7380
700x1000bb.jpg I think Mieville is definitely writing for adults now. Not to everyone's tastes but this one just works as a little gem of a story; somewhere between The Road and... I want to say Kafka but can't really say why. Something Liggotiesque maybe. It has the feel of Urban Fantasy but is extremely bleak. |
>> | No. 7381
7381
610aIX-H53L.jpg I've not finished it yet but it, it's an odd book. I get many of the examples are cromulent solutions with real evidence behind them but as a 'maximiser' (you can find the quiz here: https://www.loganury.com/quiz) it feels like it falls into the same pitfall most dating stuff suffers which is that you can't really write a book on men and women at the same time. I'm also horrified at the thought of women freezing their eggs as they reach their 30s - it makes me feel old. |
>> | No. 7382
7382
>>7381 |
>> | No. 7383
7383
>>7382 |
>> | No. 7384
7384
And I've just done her quiz and I hate it. And it doesn't even tell you your results unless you hand over your email address. Nope. What a shit quiz. |
>> | No. 7385
7385
>>7383 |
>> | No. 7386
7386
>>7385 |
>> | No. 7387
7387
>>7386 |
>> | No. 7388
7388
>>7385 |
>> | No. 7389
7389
md30129572540.jpg I'm about 120 pages into this, roughly a quarter of the way through, and I'm toying with whether to give it up. This is the third Banks novel where it's very hard for me to care about any of the characters or be invested in what happens to them. I've noticed all three of them have a female character whose sole personality is "being a badass", but his female characters in general seem quite two-dimensional. |
>> | No. 7390
7390
>>7389 |
>> | No. 7391
7391
>>7390 |
>> | No. 7392
7392
>>7388 |
>> | No. 7393
7393
Finished Against A Dark Background (and the unpublished epilogue online). |
>> | No. 7394
7394
61R4llNQbkL.jpg I've been reading Ray Dalio's recent book Changing World Order. Basically a billionaire investor talking about his process to understand and predict economic trends on a global level and how we're at the end of a 75 year debt cycle and about to get utterly fucked in about 10-15 years as China becomes the dominant superpower. |
>> | No. 7395
7395
>>7394 |
>> | No. 7396
7396
9780141190174.jpg The other week I was chatting with a couple of sci-fi enthusiasts, aged in their eighties, and asked them to recommend a few books to try. |
>> | No. 7397
7397
mouth-scream-harlan-ellison-1967_1_7b2f4213ed5ff83.jpg This was the first thing I'd read by Harlan Ellison. It left me with the distinct feeling that his writing may have been seen as groundbreaking about 60 years, but to the modern reader it won't stick out as being remarkable. My favourite story in the collection was Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes. |
>> | No. 7398
7398
>>7397 |
>> | No. 7399
7399
nightflyers_and_other_stories__1591532630_baa3c6c4.jpg It wasn't brilliant, but it was the first book in a while that I've actually felt myself enjoying whilst reading it. |
>> | No. 7400
7400
>>7399 |
>> | No. 7401
7401
9781447273301.jpg Finally got around to reading Children of Time and yeah it was alright. The book is Avatar done right where the alien civilization is actually radically different and it's all accounted for which is pretty neat to explore for worldbuilding. Plus there's the whole dying embers of humanity subplot that take place over thousands of years due to the non-FTL universe. |
>> | No. 7402
7402
>>7401 |
>> | No. 7403
7403
81BBJDWCVNL.jpg This was entertaining enough, but it did leave the impression what could have been an impressive novella was stretched out by at least a hundred more pages than necessary. |
>> | No. 7404
7404
DgEHsHzWkAYFZ0o.jpg I had been reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, but I made the mistake of putting it down for a week and I just could not get back into it. |
>> | No. 7405
7405
610zNTYy32L.jpg I enjoyed this, although I imagine Sedaris would be rather insufferable in real life. |
>> | No. 7406
7406
Brentford1.jpg This didn't land for me. It felt like reading a shit version of Douglas Adams. |
>> | No. 7407
7407
>>7406 |
>> | No. 7408
7408
>>7407 |
>> | No. 7409
7409
Rankin_author_photo.jpg >>7408 |
>> | No. 7410
7410
>>7406 |
>> | No. 7411
7411
juczs8ashu041.jpg Either of you two read any of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series? I'm thinking of starting it but reviews remain sharply divided between it either being poorly written rubbish or a work of genius. By all accounts it's not something fit for audiobook given you need to pay attention and infer events. |
>> | No. 7412
7412
71LEpbSYN L.jpg I'm not really sure what I made of this, but I didn't entirely know what to expect going into it. I felt quite detached reading it. |
>> | No. 7413
7413
71O lxKGSiL.jpg I really liked this. |
>> | No. 7414
7414
50121213.jpg Americans unleash a bioweapon in Afghanistan. The bioweapon spreads and within four years it has killed almost all of the world |
>> | No. 7416
7416
Francis_Parkman_profile.jpg This is a real travel journal from a Harvard grad who explores the wild west. |
>> | No. 7418
7418
GUEST_8f807841-bf80-4414-af1c-a4d7a86684a5.jpg An anti-war classic, I first found out about it after watching the music video to Metallica's "One", then watching the movie, and finally buying the book. |
>> | No. 7426
7426
La_Boudeuse.jpg A captain's journal from one of the first sailing expeditions around the world. Interesting observations of Buenos Aires, The Falkland islands, Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti and Indonesia. Also lots of rather boring nautical observations about location and the depth of the sea. |
>> | No. 7427
7427
91Qb41VjOvL.jpg This was weird. Not good weird or bad weird, just weird. |
>> | No. 7428
7428
animal-lovers-2.jpg I'm going to have to stop reading the reviews on the cover because, as with Mr Phillips, this has left me with the wrong expectations before reading the book. It's not really a humorous book and it shouldn't be promoted as such. The story is well crafted and easy to read but a lot of the witticisms didn't land for me. |
>> | No. 7434
7434
1427580706.0.x.0.jpg I'm only around a third of the way through, but the lines that have stuck out to me so far are: |
>> | No. 7436
7436
Finished the rest of The Black Company. The writing is rather cheesy at times but once it got going it was an entertaining enough story. I'll have to see if I can pick up more in the series. |
>> | No. 7437
7437
tahiti.jpg Part travel journal, part fiction. Loti is a French navel officer who romances a young Tahitian girl, but after two years he and his ship return to France, and his distraught wife dies of alcohol abuse and consumption (Tuberculosis). |
>> | No. 7444
7444
images.jpg I asked my girlfriend to pass me one of her books to read and this is what she gave me. I Will Need to Break Your Other Leg is a collection of 26 vignettes from Prasanna Gautam's career as a doctor, starting in Nepal before working in England and Scotland. They're about six or seven pages long each, so it's very easy to work through and is the sort of thing suited to toilet reading. I did find there to be something a bit off about many of the stories set in Nepal, with an example of this being mentioning the fine body of a young woman with a cleft lip. |
>> | No. 7445
7445
>>7444 |
>> | No. 7446
7446
91L6iP2BGML.jpg This was pretty good, although the quality noticeably dipped around the halfway mark and by the end it was clearly building towards the sequels rather than being a great story in its own right. |
>> | No. 7447
7447
604a830a4fb50346390341a858b66cae.jpg This was pretty good. It felt like Glen Cook had found his rhythm more compared with the first Black Company book so it flowed better. |
>> | No. 7448
7448
This is primarily a satire of Starship Troopers, with other sci-fi authors such as Asimov parodied as well. It's essentially Catch-22 in space, but nowhere near that level. |
>> | No. 7449
7449
il_794xN.4075471256_6b6u.jpg Forgot pic. |
>> | No. 7450
7450
s-l400.jpg It took a little while to get going but this was a fine conclusion to the Books of the North trilogy. I'll have to keep an eye out for the rest of the series. |
>> | No. 7451
7451
Witches Abroad.jpg Terry Pratchett's style is unique and entertaining, but most of his stories lack momentum. They sort of just trudge along-side humerous tangents and before you know it the premise is resolved and you've finished the book without really noticing. |
>> | No. 7464
7464
71S zKJpVvS.jpg This, for the most part, was a really enjoyable read. |
>> | No. 7465
7465
>>7451 |
>> | No. 7466
7466
>>7451 |
>> | No. 7467
7467
>>7466 |
>> | No. 7468
7468
>>7467 |
>> | No. 7469
7469
>>7468 |
>> | No. 7470
7470
>>7469 |
>> | No. 7471
7471
Oh, and still shitloads of Fifty Shades of Grey. |
>> | No. 7472
7472
>>7470 |
>> | No. 7473
7473
bkr-Barchas-slides-slide-LSD4-articleLarge.jpg I had expected this would be the final book I read last year, but it took a little longer than anticipated because my brain kept switching off after a few chapters; the chapters are each only around six pages long. There's an impish quality to the story, but it's not really my cup of tea; if someone started wittering on for a few pages on end then I could tell whilst reading it that it wasn't fully sinking in. |
>> | No. 7477
7477
71xiB8jzTKL.jpg This was a little formulaic but it wasn't unpleasant. I believe this is what they call cozy sci-fi and it was more character driven, rather than plot driven, than I'm used to. |
>> | No. 7478
7478
sirius.jpg This was more like it. |
>> | No. 7479
7479
>>7478 |
>> | No. 7480
7480
>>7479 |
>> | No. 7481
7481
>>7480 |
>> | No. 7482
7482
>>7481 |
>> | No. 7483
7483
9781800248939.jpg >>7478 |
>> | No. 7484
7484
>>7483 |
>> | No. 7485
7485
>>7484 |
>> | No. 7598
7598
059dfd8549020a70c59de03b14615ec4.jpg I didn't think too much of this. |
>> | No. 7599
7599
>>7598 |
>> | No. 7600
7600
>>7599 |
>> | No. 7601
7601
>>7600 |
>> | No. 7602
7602
Bear-Head-616x968.jpg >>7483 |
>> | No. 7603
7603
81NWASX2iDL.jpg I enjoyed this. |
>> | No. 7604
7604
15821931.jpg After reading Mogworld and this I'm fairly certain I could create a bingo card for things that will crop up in one of his books. It'd definitely include things like making jokes about fat women, repetitive use of 'retarded' and being over reliant on similes. I'm guessing a hefty lass wronged him at some point in his life because he's got it in for them. |
>> | No. 7616
7616
91xfYinubLL.jpg I'm not entirely sure this was my cup of tea, but it was beautifully written. It was quietly haunting and powerful. |
>> | No. 7617
7617
>>7616 |
>> | No. 7618
7618
>>7617 |
>> | No. 7619
7619
>>7618 |
>> | No. 7620
7620
5.jpg Picked up Krondor: Tear Of The Gods by R.E. Feist, apparently a novelisation of a 1993 videogame. Couldn't help but notice the in-game map featuring far-off, fantastical place names such as Sar-Sargoth, Sorcerer's Isle, Ylilth, Taunton and Cheam. |
>> | No. 7621
7621
71-x7qbKmCL.jpg Don Tillman is a professor of genetics who, thanks to his heavily implied but undiagnosed Asperger's, is approaching his fortieth birthday with very little luck dating. He comes up with a questionnaire to meet a compatible wife but everything about his perfectly structured life gets turned on its head when he meets Rosie, a cool rock chick with spiky red hair and daddy issues! |
>> | No. 7622
7622
68333.jpg I know it's only around 150 pages long, but this felt like it was over just as it was starting to get going. |
>> | No. 7623
7623
the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-14208.jpg Stephen Kings Dark Tower series is going well so far, though the breaks into known reality during 'Drawing of the Three' are getting a bit boring. |
>> | No. 7624
7624
>>7623 |
>> | No. 7625
7625
1_3cKtw9uTfwB-KKgracravA.jpg This was excellent. |
>> | No. 7626
7626
>>7623 |
>> | No. 7627
7627
>>7626 |
>> | No. 7628
7628
>>7625 |
>> | No. 7629
7629
>>7628 |
>> | No. 7631
7631
715944.jpg This was alright. |
>> | No. 7632
7632
>>7631 |
>> | No. 7633
7633
>>7632 |
>> | No. 7635
7635
dispos-1336x2048.jpg The Dispossessed is great and what proper sci-fi should be. It's a novel where a man comes down from the Moon which houses an anarchist offshoot society to explore his equivalent of Earth complete with exploring different ethics and ways of life from an outsider perspective. |
>> | No. 7636
7636
pw1.jpg Blindsight was great and I'm currently working through its sequel Echopraxia. |
>> | No. 7637
7637
IMG_3387.jpg >>7635 |
>> | No. 7640
7640
>>7637 |
>> | No. 7642
7642
>>7637 |
>> | No. 7643
7643
Valerie by Gennadiy Kim@instagram.jpg >>7636 |
>> | No. 7644
7644
excession.jpg This was great once it got going, although it was a bit difficult keeping track of all of the characters. |
>> | No. 7645
7645
shopping.jpg This was pleasant enough, but it's a fairly inconsistent book so there were parts of it where I felt my attention drifting after a few pages. IIRC, it wasn't originally written as a humorous book and was heavily edited down so that may be why it feels like it can't make its mind up entirely what it's meant to be. |
>> | No. 7646
7646
>>13951 |
>> | No. 7647
7647
Plagiarist.jpg This novella is about a plagiarist, someone who travels into simulated worlds to memorise their great works of literature. The twist is that the protagonist is part of a simulated world, with a plagiarist mining him for his output. It wasn't anything special. |
>> | No. 7648
7648
EMgXyEuWsAEdaqB.jpg_large.jpg Got round to reading Dogs of War. Thanks for the suggestion, lads, it was pretty good. |
>> | No. 7649
7649
>>7648 |
>> | No. 7650
7650
Shadow_Games.jpg The Black Company travel to the Southern continent, i.e. fantasy Africa. The first two-thirds or so of this book are largely an unremarkable interlude with the occasional fetishisation of negroids, brownies and glistening dark skin thrown in for good measure. It's fine when it does eventually get going, although most of the twists can be seen a mile off. |
>> | No. 7651
7651
Dreams_of_Steel.jpg This was much better. |
>> | No. 7655
7655
s-l1200.jpg This spin-off is essentially The Black Company 3.5 as it's set at the same time as Shadow Games but concerns characters remaining north. It was good, for the most part, but patchy. |
>> | No. 7657
7657
Bleak_Seasons.jpg This is the most experimental book in the series so far because a) it's non-linear in time due to traumatic events happening to the narrator and b) it features a comatose wizard who can be used to float through time and space for spying on people. However, it's largely set during the events of Dreams of Steel so the narrative barely moves on; ultimately, it's largely filler. |
>> | No. 7658
7658
>>7657 |
>> | No. 7659
7659
fw1nbbc2j9m41.jpg >>7658 |
>> | No. 7660
7660
s-l1600.png This has been my least favourite book of the series so far. I found myself losing interest and not really caring what happened. The ending was fairly interesting, provided that you accept the main characters become uncharacteristically stupid and careless enough to fall into an easily avoidable trap set out for them. |
>> | No. 7661
7661
s-l1200.png Bob, who has just made a small fortune selling his software company, signs up to be cryogenically frozen when he dies and then goes off to a comic con to celebrate, which includes watching a panel discussing self-replicating spacecraft. The following day he is killed crossing the road. He wakes up in the year 2133 and finds out there has been a coup in America by religious fundamentalists known as Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony (FAITH) who've destroyed his body but replicated his brain to be the pilot of their self-replicating spacecraft, Habitable Earths Abiogenic Vessel Exploration Network (HEAVEN), in their race against other empires to explore the universe. |
>> | No. 7662
7662
A_Little_LIfe.jpg I've done it. I've read the book every woman in the world loves. It's definitely a women's book, but it is nevertheless very good. It's a thousand times better than I expected. The famously unrelenting horrifying child abuse and bum-rape is not unrelenting at all; there are only three or four bits like that although if you don't like self-harm and suicide, there's a fair bit more of that. It's very long, but it's easy to read so it's not a daunting prospect if you want to read it. |
>> | No. 7663
7663
>>7661 |
>> | No. 7664
7664
>>7663 |
>> | No. 7665
7665
THSHDWFTHB1981.jpg Shadow of the Torturer is something I've seen recommended loads of times over the year so I thought I'd check it out. I feel like I've been tricked by the internet again because it's not very good even for a YA quasi-fantasy. |
>> | No. 7666
7666
TerrorTome-HB-jacket-scaled-1914095181.jpg Matthew Holness writes as Garth Marenghi, a self-obsessed egotistical narrsisistic horror author of questionable talent. The book is pretty okay, not quite the Garth Marenghi you'd expect from Dark Place, but it's similarly ironic, self-aware to a degree and easy enough to enjoy. |
>> | No. 7667
7667
KLARA-HBPLC-1-e1643375892173.jpg This was crap. There was a brief moment, probably about 230 pages in, where it vaguely threatened to get interesting but that soon fizzled out and it went back to being flat. Stories from the perspective of an overly naive character making observations on humanity don't do it for me, especially when they're about as insightful as you'd expect in a book for children. |
>> | No. 7668
7668
hbg-title-9781841490595-376.jpg I've read four Culture novels so far. I'd say this is my third favourite out of those and it was excellent. |
>> | No. 7669
7669
1103808869.0.x.jpg I finally finished The Dark Tower series and wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they have a deep interest in Stephen Kings work. The series starts interesting but it gradually breaks down into a boring episodic quests toward the a lacklustre ending. The main character reaches The Dark Tower, and that's it. In a way I'm thankful for the ending as it's let the series simply fade out of my mind (I even forgot that I'd finished it one night when picking up the book for my reading session). |
>> | No. 7670
7670
>>7669 |
>> | No. 7671
7671
>>7668 |
>> | No. 7672
7672
>>7671 |
>> | No. 7673
7673
>>7672 |
>> | No. 7688
7688
>>7665 |
>> | No. 7700
7700
Screenshot from 2024-01-24 01-37-32.png A friend recommended this to me on Saturday night. I wasn't going to buy a copy, but when it's reduced by 110%, perhaps I should reconsider? |
>> | No. 7701
7701
>>7700 |
>> | No. 7702
7702
>>7700 |
>> | No. 7705
7705
>>7701 |
>> | No. 7713
7713
>>7700 |
>> | No. 7714
7714
>>7700 |
>> | No. 7715
7715
>>7714 |
>> | No. 7716
7716
>>7669 |
>> | No. 7717
7717
>>7715 |
>> | No. 7718
7718
Why can't I find Phillip K Dick on Library Genesis? |
>> | No. 7719
7719
>>7718 |
>> | No. 7720
7720
>>7719 |
>> | No. 7757
7757
Screenshot_20240203_152107_Google.jpg Just finished reading Animal House by James Brown. It's the memoir of a Ln NME editor who went on to launch Loaded. Its made me all nostalgic for when magazines were good before the Internet and I do wonder if the moral crusade against lads mags in the 2010s is in part responsible for the rise of wronguns like that Tate character in prominence. |
>> | No. 7758
7758
>>7757 |
>> | No. 7759
7759
>>7758 |
>> | No. 7760
7760
>>7759 |
>> | No. 7767
7767
TheUnteleportedMan(1stEd).jpg >>7719 |
>> | No. 7768
7768
4955876005_818aafc875_c.jpg I'd put this at #4 on the list so far. |
>> | No. 7769
7769
Rory Stewart's Politics on the Edge put to bed any desire, however unlikely, to become an MP. Fascinating but utterly miserable sounding existence. |
>> | No. 7770
7770
>>7769 |
>> | No. 7771
7771
House_Of_Leaves_Motto_1462.jpg House of Leaves is okay, I guess. Sure, it's experimental, but that's really all it is. It's a book about, effectively, that Simpsons Halloween special where Homer gets lost in "the third dimension", and I loved that far more than I liked House of Leaves. My main problem is, the author will have fun and interesting ideas for the layout, but he still needs words to type, and he often just reverts to empty filler. For example, the chapter in this picture I found is pretty much as weird as the book gets, and there's a footnote about architecture that occupies the side of about 15 consecutive pages, before ending with another footnote which starts on the opposite page and continues, backwards, to the page you initially started on. That's a cool idea, but what do these footnotes actually entail? Well, one is a list of every single famous architect ever throughout history, and the other one is a list of names of probably over 1000 film directors. A cool idea it may be, but it's not enjoyable to read and it feels like the author couldn't be bothered to actually write a proper story. |
>> | No. 7772
7772
maxresdefault-3350127349.jpg >>7771 |
>> | No. 7773
7773
wstgff.png Mogworld and Jam are decent enough stories which are quite poorly written. Will Save the Galaxy for Food is a dull story, quite poorly written. |
>> | No. 7774
7774
LB.png This is a retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of Jamie, Peter's right-hand man, who realises over time how evil Peter really is. The ending of the book, where he has turned from Lost Boy to Captain Hook, was obvious from the very beginning so it was more an exercise in trying to unsettle the reader and build up suspense (at least by YA standards) with what Peter gets up to in the meantime. It was an inventive enough premise but the writing was a little infantile for me, although that could be because the protagonist was a child. |
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