ThunderPeel2001

Books, books, books...

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Went to my local independent book shop today. It is the last day before it closes down, it's been there since 1913. Sad, been going there since I was little.

Everything was reduced to a pound, by the time I got there all the shelves were bare and the only things left were Cliff Notes, a Wife Swap official companion book(hilarious but I resisted the urge) and a pamphlet sized autobiography of some nomark footballer.

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I just had a wonderful time reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt. Anyone else read it? I found it very humorous (without being farcical). I'd describe it as a contrary, Blackadder-like parable.

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I keep meaning to read that. I loved his previous book, The Sisters Brothers.

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I just had a wonderful time reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt. Anyone else read it? I found it very humorous (without being farcical). I'd describe it as a contrary, Blackadder-like parable.

lend it to me :3

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Finished Umberto Eco's latest novel Numero Zero yesterday. I had set my expectations quite low, but was still bitterly disappointed. To me, the book read more like a parody of an Eco novel than a mediocre Eco novel, with surface level observations and lessons in journalism and media presented literally as disconnected lessons in most unlikely editoral meetings ever, descriptions of various historical events quickly devolving into long lists of names and dates with very little to connect the different events, and the writing relying more and more on literary and other cultural references that, to a much larger extent than in his previous novels, seem to be there mainly to illustrate how well-read the author is.

 

In short, the book left really bad taste in my mouth. The Name of the Rose is one of my favorite books ever, and I quite liked Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. How are his other novels? I feel like I need to cleanse my palate after this.

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If someone was going to attempt to read Dickens for the first time, where would one best start?

 

A Christmas Carol is brilliant, or if you want something even shorter, The Signalman is a good listen as well!

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Oh, well I guess I have read The Signalman, as short horror fiction is the one realm of literature I'm pretty well-versed in. Forgot that was Dickens.

 

I might try A Christmas Carol, but I'm a bit worried it'd be so familiar as to feel tedious? Is there more to the story than the thousands of stage and screen adaptations let on?

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If someone was going to attempt to read Dickens for the first time, where would one best start?

It's not particularly short, but A Tale of Two Cities was the book that really made me fall in love with Dickens, and it was a very comfortable and engaging read for me.  I never truly connected with Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol in the same way. 

It's been a long time so it's hard to trust my memory, but I think the density of adaptations on the latter books made it hard to appreciate them as much, and I didn't have that problem with Two Cities.

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If someone was going to attempt to read Dickens for the first time, where would one best start?

 

I personally found Great Expectations to be the most enjoyable of Dickens' novels, although nonstopintrospection is right that the density of adaptations can make any of that author's works feel tired and predictable even if you haven't sought them out. The power of Dickens is in the surprising extent of his description and his ability to draw happy connections between unhappy individuals, both of which are a little bit sapped by the diffuse pop-culture awareness of his works. If I wanted to treat you as a perfect guinea pig, I'd suggest sticking to minor Dickens like Bleak House or Hard Times, both of which capture Dickens the writer without being masterpieces that have their own agency in the public mindshare. I actually liked Hard Times a lot but I know it's not "great" per se.

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This year I've gone back to an older reading method where I'll read something fairly heavy, literary or contemporary followed by something a little easier, in both cases so far, it has been classic science fiction.

 

The Clasp by Sloane Crosley: Fun but very light. I enjoyed spending time with the characters but didn't feel it was particularly memorable.

Gateway by Frederick Pohl: Really enjoyed this, found a lot of touch points where it's influence on contemporary sci fi video games in particular was clear. 

Purity by Jonathan Franzen: I know they're not for everyone but I really enjoy these Franzen family "epics." Lots of variation and shifting through time periods here that had me pretty gripped all the way through.

 

Currently reading:  Wasp by Eric Frank Russell

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I'm starting to read openly gay fiction for what might be the first time; well, apart from William S. Burroughs. Now admittedly I haven't strayed from my usual genre of self indulgence -fantasy/sci-fi. But I've found the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling interesting even if it revolves around at least one confirmed gay and another possibly bi (I haven't read too far) white dudes who as of yet have almost no real personality faults beyond being vain, preening, but usually correct or trusting, naive, with a strong moral compass.

 

...

 

Okay it's not exactly winning awards for amazing depth and development but it's still weird to read even this. 

Next books on the cards are The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith and possibly a long coming reading of Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas.

 

In case one or more of these books are misguided or blown away by books of much higher quality I'm all ears for suggestions.

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I'm starting to read openly gay fiction for what might be the first time; well, apart from William S. Burroughs. Now admittedly I haven't strayed from my usual genre of self indulgence -fantasy/sci-fi. But I've found the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling interesting even if it revolves around at least one confirmed gay and another possibly bi (I haven't read too far) white dudes who as of yet have almost no real personality faults beyond being vain, preening, but usually correct or trusting, naive, with a strong moral compass.

 

 

In case one or more of these books are misguided or blown away by books of much higher quality I'm all ears for suggestions.

 

The sorcerer of the wilddeeps by Kai Ashante is worth checking out. Also through the valley of the nest of spiders but read this review first cause there is alot of sex scenes involving alot of taboos.

 

The queering F&SF series on tor.com covers books featuring queer characters/relationships. 

 

Kameron Hurley's World breakers saga also has characters across the range of LGBTQ.

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I would recommend Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brisset. It's main characters are all people of color, and predominantly lgbt. Really good first novel. My elevator pitch for it is "would you be interested in a kind of Cloud Atlas as written by Murakami?" 

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I finished Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond this week.

 

It is really good. I picked it up because the author gave a talk on it at a local bookstore, and he was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. I highly recommend it.

 

Probably one of the most damning things from the entire book is that we do have a functional and robust public housing program in America, and we spend a lot of money on it -- but it's only for home owners. If you can't save up the many thousands of dollars and have the credit score you need to buy a home, you can't participate in it. The mortgage interest tax deduction alone was roughly equivalent to all spending on public housing programs in 2008. When you add up all the home ownership programs from 2008, you end up with a sum of money in excess of the combined budgets of the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Education, Veteran Affairs, and Justice for that year.

 

This is a good sample of what the book is like: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/forced-out

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This is going to be a heavy non-fiction year for me.

I finished Black Flag: The Rise of Isis, Ghettoside and about to finish Being Mortal.

The first is an excellent biography of Zarqawi, an in-depth exploration of the clusterfuck that was the Iraq War and how this all lead the birth and rise of Isis.

The second explores why there's heavy "black-on-black" crime in South LA and why it goes underreported. It also explores the detectives who do their damnest to solve the crimes and the people who have to live with the crimes.

And the third talks about the science of aging and how medicine and nursing homes have done an abysmal job giving people quality end of life.

After Being Mortal, I'm off to Evicted, Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire, The Warmth of Their Suns, The Enternal Enemy, Freedom's Mirror, a book on Bitcoins, Empire of Cotton, The Half Has Never Been Told and others. I drop these books because y'all need to get on them

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I went to a neighborhood bookstore this weekend where there was a poetry reading going on. I was a little apprehensive just because I think we all are familiar with stereotypes of these types of events being kind of self-indulgent and ridiculous, but in this case it was worth keeping an open mind! I went specifically because one of the people was Dan Higgs, who has been the vocalist of a number of bands and musical projects that I am a fan of, and I already knew I was really into his weird metaphysical lyricism. Well, it turns out he was a pretty great performer as a poet too!

 

I picked up a copy of his book, The Fool's Sermon, and also snagged a copy of a book about French New Wave that included a bunch of essays and articles from the Cahiers du Cinema, a magazine I've read a lot about without ever having actually read anything in it, so I'm looking forward to finally getting to see what it was all about.

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Well after a brief discussion of DevOps in class I've picked up a copy of The Phoenix Project. I'm prepared for a skeptical reading of what feels like the new version of The Deadline.

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Reading a few books right now and it's hard trying to balance them.

Future Crimes talks about bout how easily exploited and hacked our technology is and there's barely any safeguard.

Dreamland is such a painful read. Talk ks about the opiated addiction around the rust belt. it's painful because I got to see it first hand growing up. Many of friends got hooked and destroyed their lives.

Empire of Cotton explores the evolution of capitalism through cotton.

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