Books, books, books...

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well we've got music, we've got TV and film... how about we try books?

I'm currently reading Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon (the wonderful person behind The Wire). It's a very explicit non-fiction account of a homicide unit in Baltimore in 1988 (not that it feels like anything has changed since then). It sounds pretty dry, I guess, but this IS from the guy who brought us The Wire. I've mentioned it here before and someone said they'd read it and that parts of it had become unforgettable... I can totally understand why, it's a pretty harrowing book in many ways -- but perhaps not in the ways you'd think.

The book does an incredible job capturing the mindset of a homicide detective (an unusual and not particularly desirable thing, really) that I can feel myself becoming emotionally distant from the things I read about, in the same way they have to. If series one of The Wire piqued your interest into how things like homicide units actually work in real life, then I would seriously recommend it. (Hint: CSI isn't anywhere near close to reality.)

I've been very surprised at just how good a writer Simon is. I mean, I love The Wire, but writing for TV is very different than writing a non-fiction book. In The Wire it's mainly about how brilliantly the characters have been captured, but in Homicide: AYotKS there isn't much dialogue, so the people and the situations have to be captured in different ways. It turns out that Simon is just as good at this as he is at writing for TV. He manages to make you feel precisely how the detectives felt on each case. From cold indifference to shocking tragedy -- you feel it exactly the same way the people in the book do.

I can't exactly recall how I imagined murders, murderers, police and detectives actually operated before I starting reading this book, but I'm pretty sure my perspective has been changed forever. I can remember I used to think that CSI and Law & Order represented moments of grim reality... but now I see them for what they are: Sensationalistic bullshit for the masses.

So that's something

Edit: Forgot to menton, the book is non-fiction!

Edited March 31, 2009 by ThunderPeel2001

[Historical_Society]

I thought a thread like this existed but no one replied to it and got lost in the backlog.

I'm currently reading a comic by Grant Morrisohn. The Invisibles: Say You Want A Revolution. I've found it to be rather interesting and unique. I get a vibe of A Clockwork Orange meets the Matrix meets the hotel scenes of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

The book I put down because of the comic but will soon come back to was Godel Escher And Bach. It's a book where a guy proposes about the similarities between those three different men and how their works created infinite loops. I feel I'm giving it a bad description. But thus far it's been quite interesting and I've studied along side of it seeing Bach's more interesting and unique works.

Lastly, one of the threads here has inspired me to get a book called The Pardox Of Choice. I've been anticipating it for a while, just haven't had money to purchase it.

Great thread Thunderpeel. Hope to be inspired to get more books.

Edited March 28, 2009 by Historical_Society
Forgot to link

[elmuerte]

I don't read a lot of fiction in the form of books. I find a difficult to keep attention while reading a book (I have less issues with that when reading it from the screen).

The last book I read was "Clean Code" by Robert C Martin. It's a must read for every programmer (because it has a lot of good points). Anyway it's not fiction.

A book I'm currently reading (while compiling, etc.) is a bit more fiction. It's based on real life events. It's "Managing Humans" by Michael Lopp (a.k.a. Rands In Repose). While it's a useful read, it's also funny in some cases.

[Roderick]

I'm with Elmuerte here, I usually read non-fiction, but I do really enjoy reading books. Most fiction I read will be classic works, things I feel I have to read to increase my literary knowledge, or things that particularly tickle my fancy. But most of what I read is history, philosophy or science.

Right now I'm reading In Europe by Dutch author Geert Mak. It's a chronicle of his year-long journey traversing the entire European continent, describing through touching small stories and anecdotes the grand lines of the incredible events that transpired in the 20th century here. Every country and every city he visits has its own history, and with their tales a grand scheme is woven that's really amazingly interesting. A lot of things one already knows, the intricacies of the third Reich, the rise of communism, etc, but there are a million fascinating details told that keep me glued to the book.

I'd recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in modern European history.

[ysbreker]

My bookcase let me show it to you:

So yeah you might say that I like to read. I'm a big scifi nerd and love me a good space opera. I can heartily recommend anything written by Alastair Reynolds. Another big favorite of me is Neal Stephenson. But I bet you've heard of him before. Another writer you undoubtedly know is Terry Pratchett, his latest book, Nation, is superb. Read it.

If you like you can see (almost) all of my books in the photo's in this folder.

[Historical_Society]

I tried looking through your folder, but what are those collection of red books in the corner?

[Roderick]

Hahaha, I would like to dare a suggestion: Suske & Wiske? =D

[elmuerte]

Pratchett, King, Adams... ysbreker, I approve your collection

[ysbreker]

Hahaha, I would like to dare a suggestion: Suske & Wiske? =D

Yep Know to the british as Spike and Suzy and in the US as Willy and Wanda

[ThunderPeel2001]

You can browse through some of my collection at LibraryThing (lots of comics ).

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/JohnnyWalker

[LOPcagney]

Stephenson is incredible. Snow Crash and Diamond Age are independently two of my favorite novels.

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake was amazing as well.

I've heard great things about, and read excerpts from, Godel Escher Bach.

For something different, check out Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities was really interesting, and I'm in the middle of reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, which is essentially a fictional story about reading fictional stories, written in the 2nd person.

[Thyroid]

I'm reading something you probably haven't heard of, poems called Al-Mu'allaqat, or "The Hung". These were long, epic poems written over 1400 years ago. They would be then hung (hence the name) on the Ka'aba in Mecca (the big black building), and they're incredibly difficult to read. For sheer power, they're equal to Shakespeare or Dante. I'm not sure if they lose any of it in translation, though; they probably do, considering that they get their power from manipulating the bolts and screws of Arabic.

More info here.

Edit: Guys, I am so sorry I came across as such pretentious douche in this post. I hang my head in shame.

Edited November 11, 2011 by Kroms

[Roderick]

You're just a secret muslim!!

[Nappi]

There have been a lot of interesting books I've been meaning to read but between my studies and all the other more or less important things I have never found the time or energy to actually do that. However, I recently realized that I might just as well do what I did as a kid: listen to audio books before going to bed.

I just finished Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's trilogy (which I have read before) and continued with Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I'll be looking for suggestions in this thread as I have pretty much forgotten all the books I once wanted to read.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'll be looking for suggestions in this thread as I have pretty much forgotten all the books I once wanted to read.

Weren't you going to start with this one?

boom boom!

[Nappi]

Weren't you going to start with this one?

boom boom!

No, I don't... erm..

Maybe it was... hmm..

eh..

Forget it.

------

Btw, I was thinking of buying this book. has anyone tried it?

[Thyroid]

You're just a secret muslim!!

Err, what does Islam have anything to do with it?

[DanJW]

Yeah, at 1400 years old, aren't those poems older than Islam? If not then close.

out of interest, are they related to the Upanishad at all?

[Thyroid]

They're from pre-Islamic Arabia. Actually the first of them was more than 1500 years ago, as the seven poets were spread out over a century. And I believe Islam is now 1450 years old, but it's the 1430th Islamic year (i.e.: since the "Hijra," which is Arabic for "immigration", and in this case Muhammad's to al-Madinah, a city whose name, quite literally, translates as The City. A city called The City. Is that creative or what?)

Upanishad are Hindu scriptures, so they're not related.

Although I haven't looked up all of this, so I may be inaccurate. Using my memory here.

[David]

I'm about halfway through Watchmen.

I am probably shit for not reading this a decade ago, but whatever. It is a quality thing so far.

[ysbreker]

I just finished reading daemon. If you like techno thrillers you'll like this one quite a lot I think. Think Eagle Eye done actually good.

[Ben X]

I'm just starting on some Lovecraft, and halfway through a zombie short story compendium. Then I've got The Godfather and The Road to read.

[LOPcagney]

Oh man, The Road. I got about two 3rds of the way through it before I just got bored. Wasn't really my cup of tea (or rather, I loved it at first, but it was just too much of the same).

[Ben X]

Oh man, The Road. I got about two 3rds of the way through it before I just got bored. Wasn't really my cup of tea (or rather, I loved it at first, but it was just too much of the same).

Phew! That's two people who have lowered my expectations of this book now - I might enjoy it a bit more than before when all I'd heard was that it's this unfilmable classic.

[Thyroid]

So I have to finish The Joy Luck Club, Look Back in Anger and The Remains of the Day in 72 hours for my final - while also having to hand in a Java GUI assignment and a C assignment. Should be fun!