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What are you reading?


Shane

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2 hours ago, Liam said:

Does anyone read poetry? It is always something I've tried to get into more - especially being an English teacher - but I'm never sure where best to look when it comes to more contemporary poetry.

I really like Sarah Manguso. Claudia Rankine too.

oh, and Eugene Ostashevsky 

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On 1/13/2018 at 8:29 AM, JLSigman said:

Next library book up is Chuck Wendig's Aftermath: Life Debt. The first one introduced a couple of really good characters, so I want to see what happens with them.

Finished that and Aftermath: Empire's End. Unfortunately, they end up killing off one of the best characters at the end, and with one exception things came together a bit too nearly for both the Republic and former Empire folks. Grand Admirals Rae Sloane and Thrawn are looking at the First Order kids, pinching the bridges of their noses, and thinking, "We're gonna have to save their dumb asses, aren't we?"

 

Next up is a book I got for the holidays, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death.

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5 hours ago, JLSigman said:

 

Next up is a book I got for the holidays, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death.

You will love it! She is SO good!

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Finally got around to reading Box Brown's new Andy Kaufman graphic novel. 

Most here would know most of the stories in the book, but I would still say check it out as it's an entertaining read. 

(Hopefully, he will be on the pod once I can record again.)

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Found my copy of Stormwatch Vol 1. Which reprints issues 37 thru 47 of the first series. Been years since I read these issues and re-reading them just makes me miss how much fun Wildstorm became in it's later years. 

At the same time I am reading Jonathan Ross's The Incredibly Strange Film Book. This is a later printing of it and it is pretty damn good. I wish they would release both series of The Incredibly Strange Film Show on DVD. Watching it back when Discovery channel was airing it was how I discovered lots of cinema.

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I've been picking away at A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay after some people elsewhere were talking it up as a personal favorite of theirs.  It is a very unusual book, technically it would be sci-fi yet at the halfway point I'd say it is primarily concerned with various philosophical examinations and viewpoints.  As it is from 1920 the science bits lean towards the fantastic,  really the whole thing is very creative and fantastical when it comes to the planet and various creatures that inhabit it.  Also if there is body horror then this would be its more curious cousin.

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On 2/25/2018 at 10:27 PM, username said:

I've been picking away at A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay after some people elsewhere were talking it up as a personal favorite of theirs.  It is a very unusual book, technically it would be sci-fi yet at the halfway point I'd say it is primarily concerned with various philosophical examinations and viewpoints.  As it is from 1920 the science bits lean towards the fantastic,  really the whole thing is very creative and fantastical when it comes to the planet and various creatures that inhabit it.  Also if there is body horror then this would be its more curious cousin.

All of David Lindsay's work is fucking brilliant, you'll want to chase down a copy of Devil's Tor, which I would call his true masterpiece. A Haunted Woman is very good as well. If you really want to dive into Lindsay, there are a couple of fascinating non-fiction works to look for, probably the best is by E.H. Visiak, the gentleman who wrote what was the best and worst horror novel of all time, Medusa. (The best because it had everything going for it that you could possibly want, the worst, because Visiak went WCW on it every chance he got and ended up with a hot steaming mess. There's a nearly perfect horror novel in there somewhere, it's just not the one that the author chose to write. Despite that, his work on Lindsay is pretty darn good.)

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I finished up A Voyage to Arcturus earlier today and yeah, it's definitely good stuff.  It really leans heavier and heavier towards its philosophical notions as it goes on but they are so fascinatingly constructed that it feels like doing anything else would have been an error.  I'd say more than of a particular genre (I mean, it is clearly sci-fi/fantasy) it is a novel of ideas, the kind that aren't thrown your way all that often.  I'll definitely chuck Devil's Tor onto my to-read list, which probably means I'll get to it around 2025 or so >_>

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Picked up Breath of Earth by Beth Cato on a whim, mostly due to the cover. The heroine looks to be Black and Asian. It's otherwise your standard Steampunk YA fare: young woman with powers she shouldn't have is in the middle of a plot to destroy the current status quo (it's a very interesting Earth AU, I don't quite have a grasp on it all yet, which is OK), and doesn't know if she should trust the cute Southern young man who is definitely not what he seems. 

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I decided to reread 1984, as I read it when I was 17 and the majority of it flew over my head. While folks on the left still hold it up as this beacon of light as it deals with our decent into right-wing socialist totalitarianism, and sales spiked when Trump was elected as a result, it's interesting reading it in the age of social media where people on the far-left are quick to censor, turn university campuses into uncontaminated safe zones where contrary views aren't respected or challenged and debate is shut down under the guise of bigotry or privilege. It's like they've turned into the thing they hate without realising what they've done because it's merely the opposite side of the coin

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I wouldn't want to get into politics when we have enough problems in threads right now. I think it suffices to say that 1984 is only a little more substantive as an analog for current affairs than the really tired comparisons to Harry Potter or Star Wars. I'm not the most well-read person, but that doesn't mean I think I can rely on comparing complex issues to a handful of cultural touchstones.  

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More of what I have read so far this year:

 Highly Recommended:

A Oral history of the daily show

Sticky Fingers(a bio of Jann Werner and Rolling stone)

A Kim Jong il production(about when Kim Jong Il kidnapped a famous South Korean director and actress, but so much more. Incredible detail about North Korea that shows how Batshit insane the regime was/is.

Genghis Khan by Frank Mclynn. Probably about as close as we'll see to a definitive bio of Temujin, given the completxity of languages/dialects of places effected by him. Goes into his sons as well and the attack on Europe.

The Romanovs by Simon Montefiore. Its pretty thick, but lots of great detail about every tsar. Personally I thought it dragged by the mid 19th century and Nicholas II's section is heartbreaking. Your taste for thick history might be different from mine, so take that into account.

Terry Pratchett a slip of the keyboard: Great collection of essays and a good(but sad) section at the end about his fight against Alzheimer's.

Cleopatra by Stacky schiff. Very interesting bio, revisionist, but that's mainly because the Roman sources are biased against her, and very little impartial writing has come down to us. She reads between the lines quite a bit, but I thought it was pretty good.

The End of Empire by Christopher Kelly. A biography of Attila the Hun. Limited by lack of sources(the Roman weren't exactly anthropologists when it came to other cultures), but a facinating narrative about a man that has been misunderstood through the ages.

Faith and Treason by Antonia Fraser. About the Gunpowder plot. A good examination of the Gunpowder plot, and the reasons behind it. Our British friends might have read more widely on the subject than us Yanks, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Though I wondered at times whether author wanted it to succeed given how pro-Catholic the book seemed at times. 

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I thought it was a sequel to American Gods, and its not but still a pretty damn good book in its own right.

Neutral Recommendations

SPQR by Mary Beard. A history of Rome from the beginning until 212 AD. Its readable(though I thought it almost too simplistic at times) and at points almost a biography of Cicero, given how much she uses him. Frankly I think Cicero was a sanctimonius prick, after reading this anyway. You mileage may very on this, its a perfectly competent history, but it didn't quite connect with me.

Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. An account of an expedition into a remote part of Honduras in search of a lost civilization. Its writing could be a lot better and lacks scholarly credibility(which is addressed in the text).  Another whether I might be picky, but I found part of it, especially the expedition itself pretty boring.

A Sacred history of Peru. Its very solid, but I found it hard to really get into the descriptions of the ancient sites. Probably better than I'm rating it.

Don't bother

Walking the Amazon by Ed Stafford. Boring book about an arrogant asshole walking the Amazon. If he isn't getting in fights with sponsors or partners, he's giving very matter of fact descriptions about walking in the jungle. Almost as much as a slog as his trip was.

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I've also read a few Elmore Leonard books(going in order written):

Valdez is coming-solid western, pretty good read.

Forty Lashes less one-another good western

Mr. majestyk-A modern story, good action but not great. Wouldn't go out of my way to find it, but not bad.

52 Pick up. Not bad but not great. Another one that's non essential.

Swag. Has some good bits, but dies about half way through and doesn't quite get going again.

Unknown man #89. This is a damn good adventure, and with this one you start seeing his style emerge from good to great. 

Also read Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. Not one of his best, skippable unless you can find it really cheap, even then expect to be disappointed.

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I'm shocked Quentin Tarantino (or a Tarantino wannabe) has never made an adaptation of FORTY LASHES LESS ONE.  The premise (a prison warden decides the best way to reform a black and an Indian inmate is to train them in the warrior ways of their African and Apache ancestors???  When there's a massive prison break, the warden is left with no recourse but to turn them loose to hunt the escapees down.) is pulpy as fuck.

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21 minutes ago, EVA said:

I'm shocked Quentin Tarantino (or a Tarantino wannabe) has never made an adaptation of FORTY LASHES LESS ONE.  The premise (a prison warden decides the best way to reform a black and an Indian inmate is to train them in the warrior ways of their African and Apache ancestors???  When there's a massive prison break, the warden is left with no recourse but to turn them loose to hunt the escapees down.) is pulpy as fuck.

Send me a big bag of money! I'll get going on the screenplay stat!

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47 minutes ago, EVA said:

I'm shocked Quentin Tarantino (or a Tarantino wannabe) has never made an adaptation of FORTY LASHES LESS ONE.  The premise (a prison warden decides the best way to reform a black and an Indian inmate is to train them in the warrior ways of their African and Apache ancestors???  When there's a massive prison break, the warden is left with no recourse but to turn them loose to hunt the escapees down.) is pulpy as fuck.

He owns the film rights. At one point it was going to be his follow-up to Jackie Brown. Fairly recently he's talked about adapting it for television. 

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My best friend got me "Unbelievable" by Katy Tur, its her account of her time following Trump during the election. Once I started reading, I coudln't put it down. No matter what your political views are, it's an interesting read just to see what kind of crazy life she had to live for all those months. Living in and out of hotels and suitcases, preparing to do on-camera updates with only minutes notice, having to deal with Trump and his people directly.

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On 3/30/2018 at 8:13 PM, Mike Campbell said:

My best friend got me "Unbelievable" by Katy Tur, its her account of her time following Trump during the election. Once I started reading, I coudln't put it down. No matter what your political views are, it's an interesting read just to see what kind of crazy life she had to live for all those months. Living in and out of hotels and suitcases, preparing to do on-camera updates with only minutes notice, having to deal with Trump and his people directly.

She really should have called it Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail Part Deus  (Sorry, Hunter, RIP)

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