The Book Thread

CML

CML

Contributor
just finished The Name of the Rose, it was OK, i guess? i found the first-person narrative convincing and the story compelling, but eco suffers from the same problem as borges where his other characters aren't interesting and don't do interesting things, relegating them to symbol status (though maybe there is no way to avoid this when attempting to faithfully recreate the middle ages). sometimes he goes overboard in his erudition, the character names 'william of baskerville' and 'jorge burgos' are terrible. though eco-friendly i am no eco-freak.

started The Emigrants, huge fan of Sebald

after leaving vegas i wanna read Fear and Loathing again, HST was one of the last 'real writers' in America to croak (his 'generation' including Vonnegut, Hitchens, DFW).

i have never anticipated a movie as much as i have The Wolf of Wall Street (the dismissive New Yorker review makes me want to see it way, way more), maybe not even Jedi
 
Konge

Konge

Since Eco is a fellow semiotician, I tried my best to get into it, but it's just very dense and slow paced. I've only read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Leona and Foucault's Pendulum, and while Foucault's Pendulum was by far the best of the two and might actually be recommendable, it isn't something which makes me want to pick more up.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
i didn't mind the pacing, but it did feel like an amateur effort as he tried to bring things to a timely close -- the "refractory period" was excellent, but the build-up was meh

Sebald's books are so good, there's no way they can be reverse-engineered either, which i imagine makes them delightfully repugnant to academics
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
At CML's recommendation I read "Cat's Cradle" by "Curt Vonnegut". Just finished it today, it was very good. Much to mull over.
Now back to Hunter S. Thompson's articles for Rolling Stone, or maybe I'll pull Hyperion off the shelf and try that. I'll probably try some Lester Bangs too.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I have recently read Ubik and Lies of Locke Lamora, and will post reviews if I ever get more time on my hands. Lies is great for anybody who was a fan of Name of the Wind.
 
Konge

Konge

James Stevenson said:
At CML's recommendation I read "Cat's Cradle" by "Curt Vonnegut". Just finished it today, it was very good. Much to mull over.
Now back to Hunter S. Thompson's articles for Rolling Stone, or maybe I'll pull Hyperion off the shelf and try that. I'll probably try some Lester Bangs too.
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Hyperion is excellent, especially the first book.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
James Stevenson said:
At CML's recommendation I read "Cat's Cradle" by "Curt Vonnegut". Just finished it today, it was very good. Much to mull over.
Now back to Hunter S. Thompson's articles for Rolling Stone, or maybe I'll pull Hyperion off the shelf and try that. I'll probably try some Lester Bangs too.
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HST, saying "Romney Eats Shit" since 1972
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Jason Waddell said:
I have recently read Ubik and Lies of Locke Lamora, and will post reviews if I ever get more time on my hands. Lies is great for anybody who was a fan of Name of the Wind.
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I liked lies of Locke lamora. Just finished the third book, republic of thieves. You can tell he really struggled with this one, with some parts over long and just not that interesting. But still, the good bits are good and I enjoyed it.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
We had our book club discussion on Ubik, and the overwhelming consensus was that it seemed like the author had like, three ideas for concepts he wanted to bake into a book, and ultimately chose the least interesting of the three. It seemed like the book was going to be fantastic about 25% of the way in, when it was focusing on one of the other concepts.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I just finished Hyperion, that's an awesome book! 7 stories in one, and still coherent. My only gripe is there was a lot of sex, which makes it feel more like a flick. I feel like I've been tricked into liking a book just because the sex scenes were good, you know? But then again there's all this poetry and shit in Hyperion which makes me think most of it went totally over my head and actually it was a very thoughtful, well written, complex book.
Now I'm reading random Hunter S. Thompson articles in Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone, and holy shit, I still can't get over how well he writes. Last Tango in Vegas, an article about Muhammad Ali, was fantastic, and Fear and Loathing in Elko had me grinning like an idiot while I was reading it in a cafe today.
But now I need something to read. I'm gunna try Mark Twain's "A Tramp Abroad", sounds like my kind of thing.
 
Lucre

Lucre

I'm really digging Jack Vance. I was really sick of fantasy before I got to his Dying Earth books and now I just want to read everything he's written. Eyes of the Overworld, Cugle's Saga and Rhialto the Marvelous are some of the funniest most tropey things I've ever read and act as something of a forefather for most of our fantasy tropes and many classic game elements. I really wouldn't recommend reading it as much as consuming it via audiobook, the florid language of the colourful characters is way more fun to listen to than to decipher.

"The game situates players in Vance's world populated by desperately extravagant people. Many other role-playing settings pay homage to the series by including fantasy elements he invented such as the darkness-dwelling Grues."

I never knew what made my favourite D&D characters and comic relief characters in fiction until I read the words "desperately extravagant".

Hyperion always seemed like it would be dated in a way that was not fun and that it would feel a little too much like every other epic you've seen, but I put a lot of value in recommendation.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Finished Dan Pink's To Sell is Human in one sitting yesterday, mainly because I'm freaking out about advertising, a thing for which I have no natural talent (see also: suffering fools, sartorial choices, women). I was pleasantly surprised; both the self-awareness and the specificity of the writing set it above meaningless generalists like Malcolm Gladwell.

Though contradictions and absurdities come up from time to time -- If information is now more "symmetrical," and we're "all in sales," then isn't "selling yourself" all about making your information stand out more than an equal competitors?; and Am I supposed to say "yes, and" even if they're pitching me the worst fucking idea I've ever heard? -- they didn't make me want to shut down intellectually; rather, they spurred productive thoughts about how to resolve them, or how to leave them alone. This is what Pink talks about when he says salesmen don't so much try to solve problems so much as identify them, advice lame literature moralists could take to heart -- especially if they're self-publishing! That kind of multi-level analysis, so much richer and variegated than the homogeneous pyramids of "multi-level" marketing, is what makes the book well worth a read.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I've owned a copy for a few months, but haven't cracked it open yet. Sounds like the right time to do so!
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
James Stevenson said:
Man, any of you guys read The Name of the Wind? I'm loving it so much, I just want to read all day and do nothing else.
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Yeah, I think I've mentioned it several times before. It's my favorite fantasy book that I've ever read, not that I'm the most well versed. It's gotten pretty popular too, especially with the Penny-Arcade guys always banging on about it.
 
Konge

Konge

Poor book thread needs some love. For quite some time I've had this routine where I read one non-fiction or tough/literary book, and then mix it up with a light read (think Jasper Fforde, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, and such).

However, in January or something I picked up a Discworld book for the light-read part of the rotation, and I haven't looked back since. Almost done with the series, and damn is it good. If anyone needs a final prod to begin reading that series, consider this a stellar recommendation. A wonderful comedic and ironic take on fantasy tropes, all packed in a huge variety of delightfully enjoyable plots. In that way I felt like it reminded me a bit of China Mieville - just because you have a rocking concept for a book, it doesn't mean that you can't wrap it up in a wonderful crime story package or similar. Then there's just two aspects to appreciate.

And you can definitely read the books on their own, if the mammoth length is discouraging. I have a feeling that you'll be roped in either way :)
 
Modin

Modin

Terry Pratchett is awesome! I can also recommend "Good Omens", my favorite book of all time. It's set in the real world and it's just hilarious, you'll laugh out loud in the bus and people will stare at you totally bewildered.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
The first one I read was Guards! Guards! and I laughed so so much, it was absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed many of his books but after a while I found they got a bit samey. I had to stop reading Pratchett for a year or so, but I pick them up now and then.

I'm looking for something serious and important to read. I'm curious about Ken Kesey. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, what else should I read?
 
Konge

Konge

Modin said:
Terry Pratchett is awesome! I can also recommend "Good Omens", my favorite book of all time. It's set in the real world and it's just hilarious, you'll laugh out loud in the bus and people will stare at you totally bewildered.
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Yeah, I can second that. Good Omens is actually what led me to Discworld, through Gaiman.
 
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