Now Reading

[Nebraska]

[Bechuga]

Vonnegut: The Complete Short Stories. Nearly 1,000 pages of all his short work, including a few unpublished bits. Lush hardcover.

[tec]

Hell yeah, I have this too.

 

Finished the Southern Reach trilogy, definitely the best thing I've read in awhile. Up next, the autobiography of Gary Numan.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

300 pages into Godel Escher Bach, it seems the introduction is finally over and this dude's actually going to have a point sometime in the next 400 pages

[auxien]

 

Hell yeah, I have this too.

 

Finished the Southern Reach trilogy, definitely the best thing I've read in awhile. Up next, the autobiography of Gary Numan.

 

 

Southern Reach was good, it kept me interested throughout but also I think begs a second reading. May do so soon if I can keep to my reading every day thing I'm trying this year. It was a little too much on the trying-to-be-weird tip maybe? I dunno, that may be my hindsight being confused.

Edited January 4, 2018 by auxien

[misc]

I'm about 100 pages into Dhalgren after seeing a recommendation in this thread a while back. It's good! Some bits are a bit cringey but really enjoying the mystery of the whole thing.

[hello spiral]

Not tackled Dhalgren yet but be sure to check out The Star Pit if you haven't already done so

[misc]

Not tackled Dhalgren yet but be sure to check out The Star Pit if you haven't already done so

 

Nice! Just added it to the list 

[Bechuga]

Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13 won the Costa Novel Prize, one that I think is highly deserved. If you have not read it, I recommend you do, as I thought it was one of my favourite novels I read last year.

 

If you want a story told in a different way but not so different you can't follow along, give it a try.

 

Excerpt:

 

They gathered in the car park at the hour before dawn and waited to be told what to do. It was cold and there was little conversation. There were questions that weren’t being asked. The missing girl’s name was Rebecca Shaw. When last seen she’d been wearing a white hooded top. A mist hung low across the moor and the ground was frozen hard. They were given instructions and then they moved off, their boots crunching on the stiffened ground and their tracks fading behind them as the Heather sprang back into shape. She was five feet tall, with dark-blonde hair. She had been missing for hours. They kept their eyes down and they didn’t speak and they wondered what they might find. The only sounds were footsteps and dogs barking along the road and faintly a helicopter from the reservoirs.

 

[beerwolf]

3/4 of the way through Clive Barkers Books of Blood Vol 4-6, very good though not the mindblowing classic 1-3 was. Still time though....

 

Helter Skelter about the Manson Family by Vincent Bugliosi up next.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

has anyone here read anything by sergei dovlatov? Got a book of his ("Craft") as a christmas gift. Never read any russian literature before

[Nebraska]

I'm about 100 pages into Dhalgren after seeing a recommendation in this thread a while back. It's good! Some bits are a bit cringey but really enjoying the mystery of the whole thing.

 

 

 

i highly recommend hogg. it's probably my favorite of delaney's books. 

[QQQ]

i've had a few false starts recently. got about 20(?) pages into Neuromancer but dropped it (not in the mood for it). tried to push through The Rachel Papers (Martin Amis) but it's not doing much for me. stopped reading around 90 pages in. i loved Money but i haven't much enjoyed the other stuff i've read of his. starting to think his early work just isn't very good. i'll try another of his newer works next time.

 

i did make it through Amnesia Moon (Jonathan Lethem) which was pretty good but nothing mind blowing. it got more interesting as it went on. PKD worship.

 

i also finished The Road which was really good. not as good as anything else of McCarthy's i've read, but it had some really nice moments. i was expecting it to read a little more like a mainstream novel with more 'story' so it was a nice surprise. it could be summed up as 300 pages of 2 people being cold but he somehow makes it an interesting read despite the repetition. i watched the film after as well which was a pretty good and faithful adaptation.

 

also read a few Lovecraft short stories after buying a couple of cheap collections.

 

currently reading The Road to Wigan Pier for a change of pace because i don't read much non-fiction and i'm also about to begin Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe. it's something i've wanted to read for a long time so hopefully it holds up to expectation.

Edited January 17, 2018 by QQQ

[Bechuga]

Finished Don Quixote. Really enjoyable, especially once book 2 starts. Suprisingly meta.

 

Now to read Franzen's Farther Away essay collection. The tone of the first one makes me suspect I won't enjoy this one as much as How To Be Alone.

 

it could be summed up as 300 pages of 2 people being cold

 

lol

[Cryptowen]

ubik

[Dpek]

Just read The Interface Series by Mother Horse Eyes and this could be a great first draft for something grand if it will ever get properly published.

The Interface Series is btw a collection of random creepy comments by a single user on Reddit which form a narrative if read in chronological succession. The story is fucking crazy and very well done actually. LSD, CIA, WW2, alcoholism, occultism, gore, etc.

[sweepstakes]

Just read The Interface Series by Mother Horse Eyes and this could be a great first draft for something grand if it will ever get properly published.

The Interface Series is btw a collection of random creepy comments by a single user on Reddit which form a narrative if read in chronological succession. The story is fucking crazy and very well done actually. LSD, CIA, WW2, alcoholism, occultism, gore, etc.

Yeah that was a fun read. I think without the gimmick it's just mediocre horror/sci-fi without any real structure or vision and the author was just making it up as he went along but it was decent for what it was. It had me captivated just for the sheer novelty and weirdness.

[Bechuga]

Been stalling on Sunny by Taiyo Matsumoto for some reason, even though I love his stuff. Time to buy what I can before it all rockets to sky high prices.

[Bechuga]

RIP Ursula K Le Guin

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/23/ursula-k-le-guin-sci-fi-fantasy-author-dies-at-88

[caze]

nice little short story of hers I just read:

 

http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html

[marf]

currently;

 

Pliny the Elder; Natural History Selections

 

Pliny the younger; letters of

 

Ovid, art of love

[Gammy Bits]

Alastair Reynolds - Elysium Fire.

 

only just stared it l, but so far it’s a great follow up to The Prefect spin-off within the Revelation Space series.

 

I hope Reynolds pulls his finger out his arse and writes more within the Revelation Space series. All his recent books have been really quite tame and slow going :(

[misc]

I'm about 100 pages into Dhalgren after seeing a recommendation in this thread a while back. It's good! Some bits are a bit cringey but really enjoying the mystery of the whole thing.

 

This fuckin book.

 

Finished it about a week ago and not been able to get it out of my head. I really wasn't sold on it for maybe about 200 pages, but then suddenly I was completely hooked. Could not stop thinking about it. I have so many questions, and I'm sure none of them really have answers, but I don't remember the last time I was this wrapped up in a world created by a book. The mystery is so delicately woven throughout the pages that it becomes so difficult to distinguish what is important and what's not. Makes it feel like even the minutest detail is somehow relevant to unlocking what's going on. Also the sense of time is done so well. It's a long book of course, but it does such a great job of making you feel like you've been in bellona for a long long time. So many great characters as well. Honestly I can't recommend this book enough.

 

Anyone who's read it got any recommendations for similar sci-fi?

[Bechuga]

Finished Sourdough by Robin Sloan and I really enjoyed it. Kinda reminded me of a lighthearted Thomas Pynchon: mysterious people who may or may not be real, technology used for good and bad ends, a bunch of dudes saying dude...and a main plot about how to make sourdough. Oh, and a finale that is bizarre but, considering the rest of the story, realistic. And kinda terrifying, too.

 

Beware: makes you want to eat sourdough.

[prdctvsm]

the australian economist richard denniss' level-headed, if somewhat dry & fluffy, take on how 2 fix the socio-economic, political f. up thats destroying ourselves & the planet.  

a user friendly, beginners guide 4 those of us willing 2 change.  clear & sober, he nudges his dear readers 2 use the facts at their disposal & encourages a common sense approach 2 affect cultural change, which will, in turn (he asserts) drive political & economic change.

no mention of guillotining bankers / 10

 

both wild & insightful, this is a unique, hard boiled cabin(fever) in the woods extended rant by the infamous hideaway & brainiac killer who blames technology for all our ills.

it offers a pertinent critique of  ‘industrial technological society’, its ‘power process’ & subsequent impact upon the human species.

however, his advocacy of a non-leftist, nature loving luddite revolution 2 destroy this system, w/o mention of replacing it w. anything is completely untenable & ludicrous.

no mention of kindness / 10