General Book Thread

[Retro_Link]

I have the book, but as you mentioned already in an earlier post, the first few pages are tough.

I do know the English language quite well, but the 19th century language is probably harder to understand for me than it was for you. :p

 

Maybe I'll give it another go, because you said the setting changes quite quickly.

It's a ridiculously difficult intro into the book, but well worth getting through.

[Supergrunch]

I need help. Looking for a good and not too complicated book about Quantum Mechanics/Physics and/or Thought Experiments.

 

I've been reading some texts about Schrödinger's Cat and the Double-Slit Experiment but want to dive into the matter a bit more.

Can anyone help me? @Supergrunch

I know very little about quantum mechanics, but you might find Richard Feynman's QED a useful gateway series of lectures into the harder stuff - it's supposed to be good, and Feynman is generally amazing.

 

Also, if you find Cloud Atlas too hardgoing due to the language, try Ghostwritten by the same author! I actually prefer it, and if I recall correctly it's all in modern English. Although Cloud Atlas is probably worth the effort too, but maybe Ghostwritten will convince you of that.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Supergrunch

[drahkon]

Finished reading The Night Circus last night!

 

100 pages in.

 

It's so good. I feel like I'm part of the story or rather part of the world.

[Retro_Link]

100 pages in.

 

It's so good. I feel like I'm part of the story or rather part of the world.

I know right! ... like I think I said before, I don't think I've known a book absorb me into it's world so well before!

 

You feel like you're there experiencing The Night Circus!

[Retro_Link]

Need some new books now I'm nearing the end The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry... which has got better!

 

I think I'm going to read Metro 2033.

 

I'm also interested in GhostWritten and Snow Crash... which would people recommend?

 

(chances are I'll end up reading both, but which to go for first? what did you guys think of them if you've read them?)

[jayseven]

Ghostwritten first, for what Grunch said. Snow Crash is a nicely realised world (but the author often struggles to knit everything together in the last quarter of the book in a tasty way)

[Retro_Link]

Ok cool, have ordered Metro 2033 and Ghostwritten.

 

Might give Snow Crash a look sometime, but I wasn't sure about the pages I read of it on Amazon (though probably not a particularly good reflection).

[drahkon]

Halfway through The Night Circus

 

What a marvelous novel. It keeps answering questions, revealing mysteries while at the same time bringing up new secrets.

And I feel it's building up to some major event. Something huge will be going down.

 

It's been a long time since I've enjoyed reading a book this much Thanks @Retro_Link

 

 

Oh, and I just ordered Inferno by Dan Brown. Loved every other novel by him, and will definitely devour his newest.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Just got a "free book" from https://www.facebook.com/audibleuk?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

 

I've not had an audio book for about 20 years... What sort of book is good to listen to as opposed to making it up in your head? I was tempted to get Inferno but I'm probably going to buy that physically later anyway.

 

Dunno what to get though! Hafta see what lovely fiction they have.

[jayseven]

My dad is an audiobook man. The person reading the book can make all the difference, but generally speaking if you're listening to the book and doing nothing else (i.e. fully concentrating on it whilst walking or on a bus, rather than whilst playing Spongebob on the doolally) then most audiobooks will be fine. Generally they're read by actors, so you'll get different voices for each character. Sometimes they don't know how to pronounce words, sometimes tehy say "hey can we do that again?" and it doesn't get edited out. Most times the book is 'abridged' meaning they've skipped bits in order to fit it on x amount of CDs (but this is becoming rarer and rarer).

 

Honestly I think often times having a book read to you is better because you're actually less likely to skip bits (we've all been there in an awesome moment where we've started reading faster and not really taken it in). Personally, I used to be a fan of chuck palahniuk's stuff (fight club, etc) but nowadays I try to read his stuff and I get too observant of what he's doing (in terms of his chosen repetetive phrases, n'stuff) and it detracts from the detail. Having his stuff read to me would be better.

 

Having said that, I did just borrow 3 of his books from the library.

 

Anyway, in your case, EEVIL, just treat the free book as if it was a book you wanted to read anyway. Audible are the company my dad uses and there are other issues with them (audio books appear a lot later than the paper version, are often abridged as I stated earlier, and sometimes it feels the price isn't great), but their customer service is great so if you start a book then say to them "hey I'm new to the audible experience and I'm not enjoying this free book, but I want to give audiobooks a chance. Could you cancel this one and give me credit to try something better?" they may even be cool with suggesting things for you.

[EEVILMURRAY]

It's been an absolute ballache actually getting it to work, being given a random username but no password and all sorts of random shit. But since it is my first proper audiobook experience I've gone with my favourite book River God.

[Magnus]

@Shorty wants some recommendations for good audio books.

 

Preferably autobiographies.

[Retro_Link]

@Dannyboy\-the\-Dane you're a big Sherlock Holmes fan... have you read the new novel?

 

 

Seems to have good reviews on Amazon, and it's only £2.99.

 

But I haven't read any Sherlock books before, but could see myself enjoying it probably?

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Haven't paid much attention to other Holmes novels. I'm still working my way through the Conan Doyle canon, but I get so little read these days.

[drahkon]

The Night Circus

 

It's more than a novel, more than a book, more than a story.

 

It is a dream, a dream expressed in words. I always thought it wouldn't be possible, it couldn't be done. But Erin Morgenstern did it.

Never have I read a book so perfectly crafted as this one.

 

Thanks again @Retro_Link

[Retro_Link]

Awesome! So glad you loved it!

 

It's an incredible experience and one that will stay with me for a long time! My favourite book I think.

I love how it seems to delve into your other senses too... it's all so vivid, you can almost smell the popcorn!

 

Even the book itself with it's white, black and red pages (which you learn the reasoning behind) feels magical!

Edited May 24, 2013 by Retro_Link

[dwarf]

Just got a "free book" from https://www.facebook.com/audibleuk?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

 

I've not had an audio book for about 20 years... What sort of book is good to listen to as opposed to making it up in your head? I was tempted to get Inferno but I'm probably going to buy that physically later anyway.

 

Dunno what to get though! Hafta see what lovely fiction they have.

 

Talking of that book burning thread, Inferno would definitely be an argument in its favour.

[Jimbob]

I'm still plodding along with the Song of Fire and Ice series, i'm currently 3/4 through book 3 - part 1 "A Storm of Swords". These seem to be a series of once you pick up, it's hard to put down as you want to know what will happen next.

[bob]

I've just started the Liveship trilogy by Robin Hobb. It's pretty good so far, but there's not much action in it...more chatting rather than doing.

[Ellmeister]

Finally ordered the sequel to the dice man. Hopefully it is as good as the Dice man which I still rave about all the time.

[dwarf]

I've made my way through a few classics this year: Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, The Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Great Expectations, Catch 22 and (perhaps they don't qualify) The Bell Jar & Diary of a Nobody.

 

While Jane Eyre and Great Expectations are fine reads, they're excessively sentimental at points. Jane Eyre was much more satisfying to me because it really looked like things were heading in a pitiful direction for her character, but relationship closure was sweet in the end.

 

Frankenstein really surprised me, it was much darker than I was expecting and because of Hollywood my preconception of the monster's appearance was miles off. In the book it's scarcely elucidated, he's just a large, ugly, yellow-skinned wretch with superhuman speed and strength; no bolt to speak of and he's not ungainly or boneheaded in the slightest. I want to watch Young Frankenstein again now.

 

 

Nineteen Eighty-Four is as good as everyone says. I'm ashamed to say I've not read many books but it's undoubtedly my favourite. I smile wondering how many adolescent boys it has left in awe. Once you've read it you realise the scale of its influence, the themes and plot devices are ubiquitous in modern culture.

 

‘The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said. ‘We’re getting the language into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.’

 

He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.

 

‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words…

 

People should check out this video:

 

 

Christopher Hitchens + George Orwell = Dizzying levels of win. An interesting point raised at around the 9 minute mark about a group of Soviets coming into possession of the novel, obviously illicitly, and how it draws a parallel with the fiction of Goldstein's underground book featured in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Animal Farm is incredible as well, there's something so haunting about the rules of the farm getting defiled one by one, capitals have never been used so effectively:

 

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

 

Diary of a Nobody is lightly amusing, you can see the beginnings of Alan Partridge in there.

 

The Catcher in the Rye is brilliant. Holden Caulfield is dislikeable on the surface - he's snarky, obnoxious and his virginity rules him, but underneath you know he's conscious of his flaws and he shows the faintest touches of humility every now and then. The subtleties are contained in his observations and can easily be overlooked. Loved this bit:

 

I apologized like a madman, because the band was starting a fast one. She started jitterbugging with me - but just very nice and easy, not corny. She was really good. All you had to do was touch her. And when she turned around, her pretty little butt twitched so nice and all. She knocked me out. I mean it. I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

 

The Bell Jar - I wouldn't recommend the novel, Plath is respected more as a poet, but it was still an interesting read. The character Esther is extremely passive throughout and events in her life are written in a watery and distant way. It captures depression well. When depressed you don't make things happen, things happen to you. You're left in free-fall, you're at the mercy of the world. In the book reality becomes hazier and hazier with every page. It achieves what it sets out to achieve but it's hard to identify with Plath. She was far gone by the time she wrote it. Her own tale is so sad. I advise against reading her Wikipedia page.

 

Catch 22 - this is riotous fun for the most part because there isn't a straight character in it. Extracts in the link:

 

http://matthew-serendipity.tumblr.com/post/44319909718/extracts-from-catch-22

 

To Kill a Mockingbird - I adore this book. GO READ IT. It holds you by the hand and takes you to a different era. It's absolutely bursting with charm.

 

'You look right puny for goin' on seven.'

'I'm little but I'm old,' he said.

Jem brushed his hair back to get a better look. 'Why don't you come over, Charles Baker Harris?' he said. 'Lord, what a name.'

''snot any funnier'n yours. Aunt Rachel says your name's Jeremy Atticus Finch.'

Jem scowled. 'I'm big enough to fit mine,' he said. 'Your names longer'n you are. Bet you it's a foot longer.'

 

//

 

I also recommend:

 

 

Description:

 

Set in the mid-1970s in India, A Fine Balance tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a ‘State of Internal Emergency’. Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances - and their fates - becomes inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen

 

That undersells it though. This section might do a better job:

 

The truck growled into the city after midnight along the airport road. Sleeping shanty towns pullulated on both sides of the highway, ready to spread onto the asphalt artery. Only the threat of the many-wheeled juggernauts thundering up and down restrained the tattered lives behind the verges. Headlights picked out late-shift workers, tired ghosts tracing a careful path between the traffic and the open sewer.

 

‘Police had orders to remove all jhopadpattis,’ said Ishvar. ‘Why are these still standing?’

 

Beggarmaster explained it was not so simple; everything depended on the long-term arrangements each slumlord had made with the police.

 

‘That’s not fair,’ said Om, his eyes trying to penetrate the rancid night. Splotches of pale moonlight revealed an endless stretch of patchwork shacks, the sordid quiltings of plastic and cardboard and paper and sackcloth, like scabs and blisters creeping in a dermatological nightmare across the rotting body of the metropolis. When the moon was blotted by clouds, the slum disappeared from sight. The stench continued to vouch for its presence.

 

It is not a comforting read at all, but it is incredibly powerful.

Edited May 29, 2013 by dwarf

[gaggle64]

Just finished reading the play Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth and good fucking god I was blown away. I absolutely need to see this on stage one day. I've never read better dialogue in any form.

[gaggle64]

Iain M Banks has passed away, having succumbed to terminal cancer.

 

We've lost a genuine literary treasure.

Edited June 9, 2013 by gaggle64

[dan-likes-trees]

Iain M Banks has passed away, having succumbed to terminal cancer.

 

We've lost a genuine literary treasure.

 

On this note, I feel like this would be an good time to finally read some of his sci-fi - today I saw a bunch of old editions of his in a charity shop on the cheap and I'm planning to go back and buy one or two - any suggestions from anyone on which to start with? I knoq Jay and a couple others on here are fans.

 

also just finished this..

 

 

it was great

[drahkon]

@Dannyboy\-the\-Dane

 

 

If you've read The Grand Design, I wouldn't recommend it. It covers some interesting points, but it is outdated. If you haven't read The Grand Design, you should first read A Brief History of Time as a kind of 'introduction'.

 

It is a good read, but I wish I hadn't read The Grand Design before

 

 

Now on to: