General Book Thread

[dwarf]

Satan is made somewhat exotic and heroic in the opening two books but he is then clamped down on at around book seven, IIRC.

 

From the outset Milton says his purpose is to 'justify the ways of God to men', but I'm not sure he really does that. You're certainly right about God's world/voice being duller and less poetic.

[Blade]

I actually need to start doing some reading. I do enjoy it when I get into a book.

 

Problem is that I can never be arsed. I have to do a lot of reading, very quickly in my job so it just takes all the fun out of it.

[The Bard]

Just saw this @jayseven, you might want to be a little wary of intentional fallacy, as a general rule of thumb since what historical or biographical details about the author might suggest about the text are always secondary to what the text itself and its references might indicate. In the case of Paradise Lost people such as Blake and Philip Pullman pretty much come out and say the most satisfying interpretation the text sustains is that Satan is actually the hero - and that's pretty much commensurate with the place he occupies in the structure of the story when you compare it to the classical epics that Milton is modelling Paradise Lost after. An epic requires an epic hero, and the only character that fits that template is Satan.

 

Whether Milton was actually "of the devil's party without knowing it" is a matter for biography - all I know is that the parts depicting Satan and hell are way more fun to read.

[darksnowman]

Finished Mr. Mercedes yesterday. Thought it was good stuff and a successful foray into crime fiction for SK.

[dwarf]

On my English Lit & American Studies degree I engage with the great literary minds of Shakespeare, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Arthur Miller, Earnest Hemingway and Ice-T.

 

Yes, Ice-T. He got a co-writer to help him produce Kings of Vice, which is basically a novelised GTA. It makes me want to cut myself. Convinced it's only on the crime module I'm taking as a basis to assess the commercial climate of literature in America. Either that or the lecturer is retarded.

 

///

 

I mentioned Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller in the purchases thread. It's fucking awesome. The novel is comprised of short stories which are interspersed with snippets from a narrative thread that involves you, as reader, in search of something. It's very meta, a book about reading (and writing), and it's very concerned with form. Calvino has a deeply intimate style which might be something to do with the translation, it's certainly a result of his play with form (second-person protagonist + transitions to other perspectives), but also his laconic and direct use of language. Occasionally the act of reading it can feel like you're hacking through a thicket of denser matter in order to get to the juicy stuff, but it is completely worth persevering. He puts you under a spell at times and there are a couple of chapters that I'd love to share with you in their entirety but I won't spoil them because I can see you are about to order it now and judge for yourself.

 

Here are a couple of extracts, although admittedly it is somewhat pointless of me to do so because you've just opened a new tab to buy a copy:

 

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone.

 

Here is page 31 again, page 32... and then what comes next? Page 17 all over again, a third time! What kind of book did they sell you, anyway? They bound together all these copies of the same signature, not another page in the whole book is any good.

 

You fling the book on the floor, you would hurl it out of the window, even out of the closed window, through the slats of the Venetian blinds; let them shred its incongruous quires, let sentences, words, morphemes, phonemes gush forth, beyond recomposition into discourse; through the panes, and if they are of unbreakable glass so much the better, hurl the book and reduce it to photons, undulatory vibrations, polarized spectra; through the wall, let the book crumble into molecules and atoms passing between atom and atom of the reinforced concrete, breaking up into electrons, neutrons, neutrinos, elementary particles more and more minute; through the telephone wires, let it be reduced to electronic impulses, into flow of information, shaken by redundancies and noises, and let it be degraded into a swirling entropy. You would like to throw it out of the house, out of the block, beyond the neighborhood, beyond the city limits, beyond the state confines, beyond the regional administration, beyond the national community, beyond the Common Market, beyond Western culture, beyond the continental shelf, beyond the atmosphere, the biosphere, the stratosphere, the field of gravity, the solar system, the galaxy, the cumulus of galaxies, to succeed in hurling it beyond the point the galaxies have reached in their expansion, where space-time has not yet arrived, where it would be received by nonbeing, or, rather, the not-being which has never been and will never be, to be lost in the most absolutely guaranteed undeniable negativity. Merely what it deserves, neither more nor less.

 

The actual short story stuff I will leave for your discovery.

Edited August 6, 2014 by dwarf

[The Bard]

I was supposed to read that for my fiction and narrative class five years ago. I read a fantasy series for young adults about a necromancer who kills dead people instead.

[dwarf]

You've done it wrong. The book isn't a part of my course but David Mitchell (mimes wanking gesture and gently whines a mental 'oooeehhh' sound to anticipate forum ribbing over the obsession) mentioned it as being one of his favourite albeit flawed novels. So I snapped it up and ended up really enjoying it. Clearly inspired Mitchell's output.

 

Edit: Title fail in my above post, now corrected.

Edited August 6, 2014 by dwarf

[Ellmeister]

Currently reading Asimov's foundation series. 3 books of around 180 pages each but it is such a different sci-fi perspective that I can't stop reading. Especially considering sci-fi isn't my usual thing.

[bob]

Whoever recommended I continue with the Dark Tower series was right (can't remember who is was). The second book is much better and far more coherent. It's still weird, but a good weird rather than the first which was definately bad weird.

[drahkon]

Halfway through number9dream by David Mitchell

 

It's a masterpiece. A perfect blend of reality and fantasy, sometimes so incredibly mixed together you can't tell them apart.

Haven't enjoyed a novel this much since The End of Mr Y.

 

Can't wait to see how it all plays out.

 

Someone recommended it months/years ago...can't remember, who. Was it @dwarf gourami? Or @jayseven? Or @Supergrunch?

Edited September 26, 2014 by drahkon

[dwarf]

All 3 but Grunch started it. If there's one Mitchell I need to reread, it's that one.

[Supergrunch]

Yeah, it's a great book, as are all of his novels. And he has a new one out, as of early September - The Bone Clocks! I actually went to an event in Norwich at the release where he gave a reading and they interviewed him, and I got a signed copy, but I should probably wait until my PhD's submitted before starting it...

[Cosker]

I read Animal Farm. Its amazing how 55 pages say much more than books of 1000 pages.

[Daft]

I'm reading Ready Player One and while it's enjoyable, I can't help but think it's a bit stupid.

[Rummy]

Currently making my way through The Hunger Games trilogy(maybe 2/3s through the second book). I didn't know what to expect tbh, and swore off reading much again soon after doing all of Ice and Fire since May - but I have to say I'm rather taken with them. Light and easy compared to A Song of Ice and Fire, but gripping me immensely. Just didn't expect it for some reason, definitely going to be watching the films after(now taking priority over watching GoT!)

[drahkon]

Currently reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

 

It's amazingly well layered, fascinatingly beautiful, incredibly sexy and brilliantly written.

 

I'm already sure (after only about 140 pages) that this will become my new favourite book.

[Cube]

I recently got back into reading (enough to warrant buying a Kindle). A friend of mine recommended The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, Inheritance) and thought it was brilliant. The first two books do have a lot of plot similarities in Star Wars, but there's still a lot of unique stuff. The second two were a lot different (to Star Wars) and were great.

 

The same friend also recommended the Green Rider books, so I'm going to trust her recommendation and start on those soon.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Cube

[Jonnas]

I recently got back into reading (enough to warrant buying a Kindle). A friend of mine recommended The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, Inheritance) and thought it was brilliant. The first two books do have a lot of plot similarities in Star Wars, but there's still a lot of unique stuff. The second two were a lot different (to Star Wars) and were great.

 

I thought the 3rd book was hard to go through (read it when it first came out). So boring and uneventful, that it turned me off going for the 4th book.

 

Would you say that the 4th book picks up the pace?

[Cube]

Would you say that the 4th book picks up the pace?

 

The 4th book pretty much doesn't stop. If anything, there's a little bit too much action.

 

I think one reason for the 3rd book is because it was it was going to be a trilogy - the third was split into two books. So Brisingr is essentially the first half of a book.

[Kav]

I read another couple Ray Bradbury books not too long ago, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.

They're not quite up to the standards of Fahrenheit 451 but still really enjoyable reads, each of them are more of a collection of short stories that intertwine into one long one.

I loved the ending of The Illustrated Man!

 

I've also picked up the books of the Black Magician Trilogy from Trudi Canavan. Yet to start but I'm looking forward to reading them, they were a "Wasterstone recommends" spur of the moment purchase, as were Fahrenheit 451 and the books of Feist's Rifwar Saga which I absolutely loved.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Kav

[Jonnas]

The 4th book pretty much doesn't stop. If anything, there's a little bit too much action.

 

I think one reason for the 3rd book is because it was it was going to be a trilogy - the third was split into two books. So Brisingr is essentially the first half of a book.

 

Ok, I'll give it a chance at some point. At least, that book won't spend half of the time describing dwarf politics and beards

[drahkon]

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

 

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Its format and structure amplify every single theme, every single scene. Words and page-layout dance in harmony to create an experience that I did not expect from a novel.

 

Found out that the novel is a great example of Ergodic literature. Will definitely do some research and find more of its kind : peace:

[Beast]

 

Yes, seriously, I have read this. I read this for several reasons: curiosity as to what has overtaken Harry Potter as the fastest selling book ever (I think that was it), the curiosity as to why people went insane for this book, my friend advised I go beyond the terrible writing because a decent story lurks behind it and because I got the trilogy for £1 in my local charity shop.

 

If you didn't guess already, it's a huge pile of shit. The writing is tragically bad, I spotted a couple of typos in there and she just uses big words to try and make the book sound clever when all it is is trash. Let's talk about the sex for a second too. So as we are all aware, Fifty Shades is supposed to be known for it's kinkiness, right? This book is supposed to be kinky? This is complete amateur! 95% of the sex is basically normal sex. Only three things are kinky: 1. Flicking her bean with a leather crop, 2. tying her to the bed and 3. Spanking her arse til it's red. I guess there's four if you count the fact they had sex whilst she was on her period which is seriously disgusting and just wrong and goes against everything! So sex scenes = disappoint! I've had kinkier sex than this. I've had it on a trampoline in the back garden in broad daylight. I tied my ex up and smothered her in whipped cream and Nutella. Two things I've done that's more kinkier than this book already. I need to write my own shit!

 

Now when it actually came to the characters, I was expecting some deep shit to happen considering he's meant to be this unhappy, fucked-up billionaire but what did we find out. 1. He's 'kinky' and likes to take control. 2. He did it with a MILF at the age of 15 (about the only thing I could possibly high-five him for) and 3. His mom was a 'crack-whore'. That's it. Over 500 pages and that's all we find out. Whilst Ana, the main hoe, is basically this whiny, irritating twatbag who bangs on about her Inner Goddess doing cartwheels or cheerleading or whatever and doesn't know how to say the word 'vagina' or 'pussy' and just describes it as 'down there' instead. What is she? 8 years old? She's able to say 'erection', 'cock', 'fuck' and all of this but she can't say what she has? WTF!

 

The story is basically nothing. The whole book revolves around her thinking about signing a contract to become his submissive, which she doesn't sign (and if she did, I must have been bored that I forgot it) and becomes anyway. He wants to love but he just does what he wants anyway, defeating any purpose of showing the reader that Grey is capable of it.

 

I'm actually reading the trilogy and I'm going to suffer the second and the third but seriously, how the fuck does this even sell? If horny bitches want some erotica, all they have to do is ask me and I'll be more than happy to write some up for them because pretty much ANYBODY could write a better story than this!

 

Of course, you're all asking "What was I expecting?" and I wasn't expecting anything. Just a reason why people bought and liked this book and I can't find anything. At least with Twilight, as bad as it was, I could see why people bought into it. This...I just can't. It's not a love story...it's...shit...

 

Edited February 15, 2015 by Animal

[bob]

I still can't work out what you thought of the book. Perhaps if you gave it some sort of score?

[Pancake]

Am currently struggling through The Night Cleaner by Florence Aubenas. It's a true account of her living as a cleaner for a year or so, to get an insider look at the industry. It's depressing as fuck. I think more so for me cos i worked in hotel housekeeping for years, so it's a bit close to the bone.

 

She basically has zero job security, and get chucked from one random inadequate temp contract to another. She's often working 3 jobs at a time. Most of them demand working very early in the morning, or late at night, for a few hours. So basically she's putting herself out going from one to the other, for a few scrap hours at each one, trying to piece together a living. It's a horrible life.

 

I'm not keen on her writing style, and like i said the subject matter is as depressing as it gets. I'll be glad to finish it. But i'm glad this book exists, it's about a group of people that are usually invisible in society.