Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Yeah, that sentence was from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (and wasn't even the most egregious one I came across, either). Portrait of a Lady looks perfectly fine and I don't think the prose will give me any trouble with that one

Recommend away, for what is a recommendation, really, considering the fragility of the ego in our tenebrous existence, other than a well intentioned attempt to lessen the burden of navigating the overwhelming amount of sensory and intellectual input bombarding the psyche for one's fellow man and thus arriving at a net positive due to the very intention regardless of whether the recommendation is a hit or a miss?
But you're right, I probably won't read any philosophy tomes, though

@FuriousMachine applauds Very impressive, good sir. Well, the book in question is Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. You may already be familiar? 😉

If not, it's meant to be among the best, but yeah, still definitely a sizeable tome, for sure.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Thank you, thank you, I think I actually pulled a brain muscle coming up with that, but it was a fun exercise
And if we define "familiar" as "having heard of both author and work", then absolutely
I have a childhood friend who's a philosophy professor at the University in Bergen and when he goes on a philosophy rampage in our conversations I get exhausted very quickly. Interesting in small doses, though

@FuriousMachine @GirlVersusGame I'll check both of those out sounds interesting. Apologies for the late reply, had the nieces staying over for a long weekend. Finally got sometime to myself again today.

I finished 'Killer on the Road' it was like Dual with a monster thrown in for good measure. Not my favourite book I've read this year but not bad either.

Next up I have an old horror anthology and also 'The Minotaur takes a cigarette break'.

Yesterday I got through the following while once again working on my base, now we have a tomato garden and much better base defenses like shock traps and tesla coils.

"Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book”
“Lost Hearts”
“The Mezzotint”
“The Ash-Tree”
“Number 13″
“Count Magnus”
” ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ “
“The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”

All by M.R. James.

"The Outsider (1926)"
"The Music of Erich Zann (1922)"
"The Rats in the Walls (1924)"
"The Shunned House (1928)"
"The Call of Cthulhu (1928)"
"The Colour Out of Space (1927)"
"The Dunwich Horror (1929)"
"At the Mountains of Madness (1936)"
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1936)"
"The Shadow Out of Time (1936)"

All by H.P. Lovecraft.

And today will be Michael Fassbender reading Dracula followed by The Powers of Darkness.

In 1900, Icelandic publisher and writer Valdimar Asmundsson set out to translate Bram Stoker’s world-famous 1897 novel Dracula. Called Makt Myrkranna (literally, ‘Powers of Darkness’), this Icelandic edition included an original preface written by Stoker himself. Makt Myrkranna was published in Iceland in 1901 but remained undiscovered outside of the country until 1986, when Dracula scholarship was astonished by the discovery of Stoker’s preface to the book. However, no one looked beyond the preface and deeper into Asmundsson’s story.

In 2014, literary researcher Hans de Roos dove into the full text of Makt Myrkranna, only to discover that Asmundsson hadn’t merely translated Dracula but had penned an entirely new version of the story, with all new characters and a totally reworked plot. The resulting narrative is one that is shorter, punchier, more erotic, and perhaps even more suspenseful than Stoker’s Dracula. Incredibly, Makt Myrkranna has never been translated or even read outside of Iceland until now.

It's (regretfully) been many years, but thanks to the fact that my position at my job generally has a lot of lulls during the day (at the time being), I've been getting back into reading.

At first I just scrounged up some books I had lying around the house since back in high school and have read three of them:

• Jurassic Park (Michael Chrichton) - Just as gripping & exciting as it was back when I read it in school. It's been so long that I had forgotten the fate of some of the cast, so it was still able to string me along.
• Tom Clancy's Endwar (David Michaels) - Tie in to the PS360 game of the same name (have no idea if it's an adaptation of the game's narrative, a prequel, or else). I can see why I liked it as a teen as it's absolutely full of action scenarios, and although I still have a nostalgic connection to it can admit it's little else than pure jingoistic "'Murica, Heck Yeah!" in novel form. Due to background narrative reasons Russia invades Canada, and since the Canadian government meekly thinks they can just negotiate away the literal active invasion without any sort of military response whatsoever (this actually happens, lol), the US steps in because if "Canada won't guarantee it's own sovereignty, the US will because it's in our best interest" (there's a quote almost word for word copy of this). Anyhow, it largely follows the perspective of service members from each branch of the military (sans Coast Guard) across the Canadian theatre, and like 2 or 3 of them are pretty much the same cliche army guy personality.
• Tom Clancy's Power Plays: ruthless.com (Tom Clancy & Martin Greenberg) - With a narrative that comprises more corporate espionage & political posturing than overt warfare action scenarios I was almost certain I never read it as a kid because of it, however about halfway through & towards the end there were a few pages I clearly recognized, so I either got further than I remembered or just didn't remember much of it. Anyhow, I do think I connected better with it this time and it managed to keep me engaged, and narratively it was a bit more mature & nuanced than "Endwar's" blatant jingoism.

After that I picked up a stack of books (new, if only to me in most cases) from various stores and I've just started going through them:

• A Dog's Purpose (W. Bruce Cameron)
• Godzilla & Godzilla Raids Again (Shigeru Kayama)
• I Am America: And So Can You! (Stephen Colbert)
• the King of Late Night (Greg Gutfeld)
• Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court & Constitution (Amy Coney Barrett)
• Promise Me, Dad (Joe Biden)

I finished What Maisie Knew by Henry James, I thought it was a good book, but didn't enjoy it as much as The Portrait of a Lady ,by the same author, four and a half stars to 'Portrait's five. Apples and Oranges, I s'pose. They're quite different books.

Edit: I've now just started The Ambassadors ,also by James, as I'm on a bit of a quest with regard to reading all the author's major works, and it's been great so far, this one is said to be his most challenging novel, so I'm just taking it one day at a time.

Every few years there are a few books I re-read. Just finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson for about the 4th time. It's a crazy story about a future where private corporations rule. A guy, who works for the Mafia delivering pizzas, also enters the "metaverse" at night where he is a sword fighting legend. The story is completely nuts yet also brilliant as it ties into some pretty heavy themes even tying into Babylonian culture. Crazy part was it was written in 1992. Next up is the Rabbit Tetralogy by John Updike. His character "Rabbit" Angstrom is basically a metaphor for America. There were 4 books and a short story written, each 10 years after the previous one. It started in 1959 and ended in 1999. It's kind of cheating, but this is my favorite book even though it's 4 books in one. This will be about my 9th read of it. The first time I literally called into work and knocked out all 1200 pages in 3 days I was so enthralled. Happy reading everyone.

@Steeleye50 I remember loving "Snow Crash" when I read it back in the day and considered it a superior cyberpunk novel to "Neuromancer". I've since revisited "Neuromancer" and enjoyed it slightly more this time around, so I'm curious about what 2020s me would think of "Snow Crash". Need to slot it into my reading list soon

I looked up the "Rabbit" books on Goodreads and I found this quote from a reviewer quite funny:

God, do I hate Rabbit Angstrom! How much do I hate him? If I was in a room with Hannibal Lector, the Judge from Blood Meridian, the Joker from Batman, and Rabbit Angstrom, and someone handed me a gun with only 3 bullets, I'd shoot Rabbit three times.

And this was from a 4-star review (out of 5) so I assume Rabbit is supposed to be unlikable?
Either way, I'm intrigued.

@FuriousMachine That's funny I am going to have to re-read Neuromancer as it's been ages since I did read it. Yes, Rabbit is extremely unlikeable. He was initially written as a response to the Kerouac's On the Road about the other side of people who leave their families and the consequences of it. That is a hilarious quote that had me crack up out loud and very accurate. Updike though is my favorite writer because he is a master of language. He literally has stories about stuff like just going to the dentist and makes them magical. Take care!

Finished S.A. Cosby's All the Sinners Bleed. With all the rave reviews I expected something special, maybe even exceptional, from this novel, but what I got was what I felt was a slightly above average run-of-the-mill crime story. While I really liked Titus and the rest of the Crown family, apart from them and the antagonists, most of the supporting characters were basically paper-thin cardboard cut-outs; some of them barely more than names on the page. The novel is by no means bad and it did have some interesting things to say about faith and religion, so I'd say it was a decent, but humdrum, crime novel, nothing more. Three weak stars.

Also banged out two novellas from Stephen King's Night Shift collection:
I Know What You Need, a novella about a student and her strange suitor that just didn't work for me; the characters and dialogue felt "off". Far from King's best work, this." Two stars.
Children of the Corn, an excellently creepy novella about a couple with a strained marriage that blunders into "the nicest little town in Nebraska - or anywhere!". This is classic King! Five stars

Which brings me to my next read, which is even more Stephen King, with his new-ish Holly Gibney novel Never Flinch. Holly Gibney is one of my favourite characters, so I've been looking forward to this one.

@Steeleye50 I've added it to my reading list, but the list is over a 1000 books deep, so we'll see when I get around to it. "On the Road" was the first novel I realised that life is too short to endure things one don't enjoy and thus the first novel I ever put aside without forcing myself to finish it. I found it truly annoying, but around 30 years have passed since then, so who knows what I'd think if I were to read it again? I believe that question will remain unanswered; as alluded to above, there are literally thousands of books I want to read before it

@FuriousMachine Hope you get around to it, but I totally understand. I have the same problem with a huge reading list, but these days find myself re-reading quite a bit since I am getting more picky in my old age. I read On the Road in my early 20s and didn't care for it either. Way overrated, but I think it was just representative of that time and one of the springboards for the hippy generation.

@FuriousMachine @Steeleye50 Added the Rabbit Angstrom Tetralogy to my Wishlist. I find myself getting more interested in Literature and Gaming as I get older, and drifting away from things like Music and the Guitar. I find that my Backlog of Books is far larger than my Backlog of Games, though. Partially due to the fact that books have been going a lot longer, and partially due to the fact that I'm very specific about my taste in games.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN @Steeleye50 There is definitely no shortage of things to choose from, neither from games nor books. Especially books. There must be hundreds of them by now. I even hear tell of whole buildings where every wall is stacked with books, floor to ceiling, but it seems a little far-fetched to me. Still, as I understand it, some Americans have decided that it is such a problem that they are making a concerted effort to remove a lot of them. I guess the best way to dispose of books are via bonfires. Heh, imagine if someone wrote a book about burning books. Wouldn't that be something?

Sorry, went off on a bit of tangent there; sometimes my frustrations bubble up in the form of poor humor. This thread and all the book lovers in it gives me a lot of joy, though, and for that I am thankful

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN That's great to hear, I hope you enjoy it! Just keep in mind there's some racial language and stereotypes that were common at the time. The second book actually explores this as like I said the character is a metaphor for America and that took place during the Civil Rights movement, but it still can be jarring for some people. I'm a big music junkie as well as I used to be in a few bands and liked tracing the history of music from my influences to theirs and so on. Hope you like it, take care!

@FuriousMachine not a tangent that is something very near and dear to me, especially considering I grew up in a white supremist family that is now part of that group that does want to ban books. They literally saved me as that was my outlet growing up in all that - we didn't have any books in my house and were not allowed to watch TV so I spent a lot of time at the library (when I wasn't at the arcade). I pretty much summarize them with something my sister once told me. When I said I wanted to go to college, she said "Books are stupid. Learning is stupid." Bunch of knuckleheads. There have been lots of books about book burning the most famous probably being Farenheit 451.

@Steeleye50 Yeah, the works of Orwell have sadly never been more relevant than they are today.

I can't imagine how it must have been growing up like that, just like I simply cannot fathom how people can come to think like that (the white supremacy thing, I mean). I suppose it has a lot to do with upbringing and what one is taught as young, but it is very, very uplifting to hear that it is possible to break out of it, as you surely are proof of. And as you say, books and access to them are no doubt a huge part of that.

I think they may be humankind's greatest achievement, no hyperbole, and they may save us yet

@Steeleye50 Oh I'm very familiar with Joseph Conrad's works, also those of Dos Passos, i.e. the USA trilogy ,which contains similar language, so that won't phase me, but I appreciate the heads up, nevertheless. Are you familiar with the aforementioned trilogy? Seems to me a similar work, from what you've told me, so might be worth looking into.

@FuriousMachine Definitely. Although everyone cites 1984, I think Animal Farm is more relevant as it deals with a utopia the animals created that was undone by a pig with bad hair. But seriously, it was very hard to grow up in. My dad was a police officer who regularly joked about shooting black people. But I grew up in Miami, and the neighborhood was full of people from other cultures who were very welcoming to me. I could never understand why I was supposed to hate the people who I played with on the streets every day. But now, I hear the same garbage that used to come out of my parents and grandparent's mouths coming out of the mouths of my neices and nephews. It's disgusting. Fought with my family over it forever, but none of them talk to me now since I don't support you know who. Strangely, my life has been much better since.