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What Ya Reading in 2022?


Dolfan in NYC

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Went down to New Orleans a few months ago and went to the William Faulkner House in the French Quarter. (Check it out if you're down there!) They have a small bookstore in there were I picked up Faulkner's first book:  

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While not the greatest book I've ever read (Will has some - ahem - interesting characterizations of women and black people.), it was cool to see the beginnings of a genius just beginning to find his way.  Certainly some flashes of the guy who'd eventually win the Pulitzer.  Will probably read Mosquitos at some point too. 

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I clearly hate myself, because in addition to the constant slog of watching new movies, I'm re-reading Wheel of Time because 1 interminable hobby apparently isn't enough. 

I think I expressed my feelings about the show enough; it's very 'two steps forward, two steps back' in its handling, though it cut the flab of the first book.  The second book isn't one I like much - I think the 4th one was probably my favorite - but it's a good stage-setting book for the things that are to come.  This is the first time I revisited it since the only time I read the last 5 (ugh!) books, so it's sort of interesting to see certain characters in their true light from the beginning.  I was reminded that I kind of had a crush on Moiraine while reading them when they first came out, and I'm also reminded that that gross-ass May/December cradle-robbing motherfucker Thom Merrilin can go fuck himself with his flute.  Bad shipping, bad shipping!

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On 1/2/2022 at 6:16 PM, JLSigman said:

Still working my way through Far Sector. It's good, I am just not spending much time staring at my phone screen these days, which is where my Hoopla account is set up.

Finished up Far Sector. That was AMAZING. Highly recommended

Downloaded but haven't started the collection of The Old Guard: Tales Through Time or whatever it's called. While the art makes me cringe, the stories are so good.

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I finished with 62 for last year, and I started off with Penn Jillette's God No! which was purported to be a funny atheist book, but no so much. Its not a bad read, but beyond the bio portions, its more of a absolutist take on religion and politics(libertarian) its wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Christopher Hitchens, he aint. Currently reading the last king of america by Andrew Roberts, about George III. About a hundred pages in and I'm loving it. Great, readable history and I love british political history, though I havent read much about it. Setting up a run with a Queen Anne book next(going back slightly) then to George IV and Victoria. Might go up to Elizabeth II if I dont burn out. 

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I'm terrible about picking up books and never reading or feebly starting them. One of my goals this year is to actually read. I started Benioff's City of Thieves last night. We'll see if I stay consistent with it. Not sure what the general consensus is on it here. I checked my Good Reads account to see if friends had read it, and it was a negative. 

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I got the new Neal Stephenson book, Termination Shock, for Xmas and, boy, was that disappointing.  I love a lot of his work but he hasn't so much lost his fastball as his entire arm fell off.  I wish he would just write more nonfiction since he has some interesting ideas but isn't putting any more than a token effort into character or plot anymore.

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1 hour ago, Zimbra said:

I got the new Neal Stephenson book, Termination Shock, for Xmas and, boy, was that disappointing.  I love a lot of his work but he hasn't so much lost his fastball as his entire arm fell off.  I wish he would just write more nonfiction since he has some interesting ideas but isn't putting any more than a token effort into character or plot anymore.

I was just talking to someone the other day about Snow Crash. Still one of my all time fav books.

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9 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I was just talking to someone the other day about Snow Crash. Still one of my all time fav books.

Mine too.  I still regard everything up through The Baroque Cycle fondly, although by that point I think he was showing some cracks.  Pretty much everything since then has been rough going.

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On 1/6/2022 at 8:44 AM, JLSigman said:

Downloaded but haven't started the collection of The Old Guard: Tales Through Time or whatever it's called. While the art makes me cringe, the stories are so good.

Finished this yesterday. Again, decent stories, but there were several times that the art was so bad I could not tell who was in the panel.

Downloaded Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 (the first 5 issues) for the hel of it.

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29 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

Finished this yesterday. Again, decent stories, but there were several times that the art was so bad I could not tell who was in the panel.

Downloaded Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 (the first 5 issues) for the hel of it.

Have your read the Journey Into Mystery run by Kieron Gillen that precedes it?

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18 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think it’s the best Marvel run of the 21st century. Probably 5-6 tpbs.

Library has three of them, so I'll check those out. I kept recognizing the author's name, and while searching said, "OH! Vader comics and the Once and Future stuff, yeah!" Thanks!

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I'm reading Kipling's collected schoolboy stories Stalky & Co. written in the 1890s and based somewhat on his own boarding school experiences. It's fun and absolutely mild, mischievous stuff but you wouldn't think it based on the contemporary reactions.

Quote

Many reviews were harsh, notably Robert Buchanan's essay on Kipling in The Contemporary Review,[12] in which Buchanan saw Kipling's work as a sign of British culture's reversion to barbarism, and said of the book, "The vulgarity, the brutality, the savagery reeks on every page."[13]

Henry James called the book "deplorable"; Somerset Maugham, "odious".[12] Teddy Roosevelt said it was "a story which ought never to have been written, for there is hardly a single form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud."[14] H. G. Wells called Stalky and his friends "mucky little sadists".[15] 

 

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On 1/22/2022 at 4:37 PM, Justin877 said:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI  by David Grann for a book club.  I really want to finally read and finish The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

My sister bought me that. Truly a heartbreaking story but it hooked me good and I knocked it out fast. Pretty sure a documentary coming from one of her friends in the film industry.

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On 1/12/2022 at 8:25 AM, JLSigman said:

Downloaded Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 (the first 5 issues) for the hel of it.

Not too bad, although I agree with Matt D. that I need to read some more of the background stuff.

Because Moon Knight is coming, Hoopla promoted the collected 2016 Lemire run, so I've started that.

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Reading "The Boys" by Ron and Clint Howard, which includes several pages mentioning pro wrestling (them watching it in the 60s, mentions of Freddie Blassie, Gorilla Monsoon, Buddy Rogers, John Tolos, Haystacks Calhoun, The Sheik) and also Ron Howard's story of

Spoiler

being in Ontario, seeing two wrestlers rehearsing some moves, and concluding that pro wrestling was fake, only in Canada

The book is really good and you get both Howard brothers using the term "heel" too

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On 1/27/2022 at 8:25 AM, JLSigman said:

Because Moon Knight is coming, Hoopla promoted the collected 2016 Lemire run, so I've started that.

This was cool, a good introduction to the character.

Gonna grab the latest Saga in a minute, and Fine Print by Stjepan Sejic, which I've seen start as some random sketches a couple years ago to a whole ass graphic novel.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I reread both I Heard You Paint Houses and Casino recently as I bought both for my dad and he finished them in record time, so I had to at least match him. Casino was finished in a day. Both books are far darker feeling than the films that they spawned. 

Still staring down the barrel at some punk zines that I need to finish up (General Speech and Artcore), the Lemmy bio which I got for Xmas (which was stolen by a former roommate so I've already read it too. Coincidentally another Xmas gift was the Motorhead graphic novel about their career up to No Sleep Til Hammersmith), the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac Director's Cut graphic novel, the last issue of Rue Morgue, some of the last issue of Fangoria, and that Blood and Thunder book about Japanese indies that one of the posters here wrote is coming in the mail. So, I'm loaded for bear. John would be happy. 

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Now reading This Storm by James Ellroy, which is part 2 of his Second LA Quartet (a prequel to his first LA Quartet). I think he's losing a step as he's getting older, Dudley Smith really feels like a self insert Mary Sue is this story, which he didn't in his previous appearances. It's well written and well plotted, but it's gone from an ensemble story to one person being the handsome, charismatic genius buff stud centre of the universe.

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