Now Reading

[prdctvsm]

tried about a phew tiems 2 get in 2 Infinite Jest but its footnoting, po-mo, hypertextual endless sentences were just 2 much 2 cope w. but persisted & wen iBroke thru dat ice, iWuz hooked; an awsm book.

 

rcntly rd:

'A Different Drummer: The Story of E.J. Banfield, the Beachcomber of Dunk Island' by Michael Noonan. overly scholarly bio of an early white explorer in the great barrier reef. p. boring read given the explorer's life was so amaze. 6/10

'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. harrowing, 10/10

[doublename]

Infinite Jest actually reads pretty well as an eBook. You can treat the footnotes like links, instead of flipping back and forth 5-6 times on a single page.

[DorkingtonPugsly]

 

^Extremely gimmicky

 

I don't doubt such approaches can be interesting and involving, but I am old fashioned with my novels and prefer the words and their meanings to be the only tricks, not experiments in typography. I hear Infinite Jest by D.F. Wallace does similar things, a book I do want to read eventually, so who knows whether I'll enjoy that approach or find it aggrieving, merely getting in the way of enjoyable, organic prose.

 

Also, if that's the case, then it might not be a good book to read on the kindla--all those footnotes are bound to get fucked up by the digital format--which means I'll have to get a bulky physical copy. *gulp*

 

Read on amazon review that the kindle version is actually half assed and too tiny to read. I mean it's been printed very beautifully and it's semi hard cover but yeah I mostly 'read' Danielewski's recent stuff just for fun/laughs.

 

 

Also got a proper book though, Bradbury's Dandelion Wine.

[Atom]

I've been making my way through Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces". Watched the PBS show Bill Moyers interviewed Campbell for, "The Power of Myth", and I loved it. So then I decided to give the book a shot. Really enjoying it & learning a lot that I didn't know before. Makes me even more fascinated and curious about mythologies & culture from all over the world.

 

[jellyrajah]

Started 2666 yesterday, anyone here familiar with it?

[doublename]

^I read it a while back

[caze]

Reading Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, great stuff as expected. It's been mostly the usual case studies so far, not sure if gets into his own psychonautic experimentation at any point, but I hope so. I once hallucinated the face of Jesus on a wall while completely sober, was not in any way a religious experience, but offered me insight into how others may have been fooled throughout time.

[The Wumbo Man]

Has anyone read any Bill Bryson? I like his travel-type books but my favourites are probably A Short History of Nearly Everything and America 1927 (not sure what the proper title is).

 

SHNE is a Carl Sagan esque story about all sorts of stuff. It talks about life, physics, geography, famous scientists and pretty much anything else related. Really nice book.

 

The other one is about America during 1927. It mainly focuses on the summer and talks about Lindbergh, prohibition and Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Henry Ford etc. Just all the major events from that short period (there were quite a lot apparently).

[Bob Dylan]

Yeah man Bryson is typical reading, nothing new. Most of the bookolics will have read him. That Appalachian trail book was awesome. Same goes for the short history of everything and short history of home thingy. His latest was so-so.

 

 

His next book is a travel book about England, which seems a nice idea.

[dumplings]

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (he helped finish off The Wheel of Time iirc).

 

I wanted a standalone or short fantasy series to read after eating the huge chunks that GoT offers up.

 

 

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Also, any recommendations on where to start with Mr. Philly K 'Donglord' Dick?

 

I've seen some discussion on here before about his books and was intrigued after reading about him a bit more this week. I do know not to start with VALIS though, that's the general opinion at least.

[caze]

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (he helped finish off The Wheel of Time iirc).

 

I wanted a standalone or short fantasy series to read after eating the huge chunks that GoT offers up.

 

 

------

 

 

Also, any recommendations on where to start with Mr. Philly K 'Donglord' Dick?

 

I've seen some discussion on here before about his books and was intrigued after reading about him a bit more this week. I do know not to start with VALIS though, that's the general opinion at least.

 

yeah, the books after A Scanner Darkly are all pretty much the same story (related to the fact that he was going crazy, they're good too, but probably better if you're already well versed in his stuff), if you like Science Fiction in general I'd start chronologically with Solar Lottery, they get progressively better after that. Alternatively my picks would The Man in the High Castle, The Game Players of Titan, A Scanner Darkly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and Martian Time Slip.

[dumplings]

 

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (he helped finish off The Wheel of Time iirc).

 

I wanted a standalone or short fantasy series to read after eating the huge chunks that GoT offers up.

 

 

------

 

 

Also, any recommendations on where to start with Mr. Philly K 'Donglord' Dick?

 

I've seen some discussion on here before about his books and was intrigued after reading about him a bit more this week. I do know not to start with VALIS though, that's the general opinion at least.

 

yeah, the books after A Scanner Darkly are all pretty much the same story (related to the fact that he was going crazy, they're good too, but probably better if you're already well versed in his stuff), if you like Science Fiction in general I'd start chronologically with Solar Lottery, they get progressively better after that. Alternatively my picks would The Man in the High Castle, The Game Players of Titan, A Scanner Darkly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and Martian Time Slip.

 

Thanks for the rec's caze. I'll be sure to use this as a rule of thumb in future.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Dropped Godel Escher Bach cause the last thing I wanna do after spending all day working on this stupid CompSci degree is read more about programming nonsense

 

Started Gravity's Rainbow now... let's see how that goes... hopefully I'll be done by the end of the summer

[Bechuga]

Good luck with Gravity's Rainbow! Remember: the first 200 hundred pages are merely the intro.

 

The timing is quite apt, actually: as you start on that, I have finished Inherent Vice, which I enjoyed very much. Pynchon Lite indeed, but that's not to say it's shit, in fact I highly enjoyed it, very funny.

[VIII]

I've been making my way through Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces". Watched the PBS show Bill Moyers interviewed Campbell for, "The Power of Myth", and I loved it. So then I decided to give the book a shot. Really enjoying it & learning a lot that I didn't know before. Makes me even more fascinated and curious about mythologies & culture from all over the world.

 

this is an interesting book, although a lot of it was way over my head... e. snøwden mentioned this as one of the books that most influenced him. the pbs special looks cool too, didnt know about that till now

Edited May 17, 2015 by VIII

[prdctvsm]

http://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Tarkovsky_Andrey_Sculpting_in_Time_Reflections_on_the_Cinema.pdf

 

[Bechuga]

Finished The Luminaries, quite excellent, glad to see such a lengthy book tie everything up neatly, every word in its place. Definitely worthy of the Booker win.

 

Also finishing up Alice Munro's Dear Life on my kindle. Such beautiful stories, tragic but realistic. Need to get more.

[azatoth]

Read Doris Lessing's Shikasta. Rather depressing. But interesting nonetheless. Not sure if I will read the rest of the series.

[doublename]

Giving Cocaine Nights by JG Ballard another shot, probably the only JGB novel that I've quit on.

Edited May 23, 2015 by doublename

[spratters]

James Patterson - Unlucky 13

 

Started reading this a while back but stopped for no real reason. I've sort of hopped about on the Women's Murder Club series - 9 to 1 to 2 now 13 - and I have enjoyed them, wish I'd just started from 1 and progressed but I was bought 13 so it seems pointless to buy 3 and leave this sitting there for quite sime time before I get to it.

 

Anyone else read the WMC? Opinions?

[Bechuga]

James Patterson - Unlucky 13

 

Started reading this a while back but stopped for no real reason. I've sort of hopped about on the Women's Murder Club series - 9 to 1 to 2 now 13 - and I have enjoyed them, wish I'd just started from 1 and progressed but I was bought 13 so it seems pointless to buy 3 and leave this sitting there for quite sime time before I get to it.

 

Anyone else read the WMC? Opinions?

 

My mom loves WMC, read them all. I...did not. I like the idea of incredibly short chapters though.

[spratters]

Yeah I'd like to see more short chapter books.

[Bechuga]

Reading Timequake by Vonnegut, the only novel I have left of his to read until there are no more forever. I am sad.

 

Also! Short chapters. Vonnegut always did good by 'em.

 

On my Kindle: Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, Foster Wallace talking about picking his belly button in a frozen airport.

[baph]

I can never forgive Vonnegut for disparaging the semicolon.

[Bob Dylan]

On my Kindle: Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, Foster Wallace talking about picking his belly button in a frozen airport.

 

 

You know, I should read this next before the movie gets out. I already have seen the trailer and I'm pissed a little bit, although they say it's a good indie flick.