Now Reading

Weird i just read the ritual by adam Nevill.

Really great atmosphere and actually kind of scary and then completely fell apart about two thirds of the way in. You'll know the exact point if you read it. Dude definitely needs an editor.

Laird barron is decent for lovecraft/ligotti style. Jeff vandermeer has some short stories that mix surrealism and horror expertly.

Thanks for the recommendations. Ritual was definitely being added to my reading pile, Apartment 16 has a disappointing ending too but thinking about it most horror does. Probably the longer the author can keep things interesting without showing their hand the better. 

Jerusalem is fucking long

But good. I don't think there's a pebble in Northampton Moore has not described or featured yet.

I'm reading The Dispossessed and uh... can't wait for it to be over. It makes a bit sad that I apparently will never like an Ursula K Le Guin novel.

Also reading I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, and enjoying that quite a bit.

I am the opposite: I wish to read more Le Guin, having enjoyed the first Earthsea immeasurably.

I haven't read any of the Earthsea books, and still plan to give them a go. For all their merits, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed just never 'clicked' with me.

The Lathe of Heaven was pretty good iirc

really digging "Darkmans" by nicola barker.  i like her style a lot.  every now and then i don't understand  why something is funny because BRITISH! but mostly it all translates pretty easily.    she hits things just right.. 

Yeah, Barker is unashamedly British, obsessed with small town life / characters. After reading a whole bunch of American books where I just about understand certain references / nuances, it's nice to get everything for once.

  On 10/24/2016 at 2:39 PM, caze said:

 

  On 10/23/2016 at 2:54 AM, doorjamb said:

one of you sci fi geeks please advise: having read Neuromancer, would I be foolish to skip the middle one before reading Mona Lisa Overdrive?

 

coincidentally I just started reading Count Zero last week, seems ok so far.

 

  On 10/24/2016 at 7:56 PM, LimpyLoo said:

I alway seem to be disagreeing with Keanu

but I loved the Pattern Recognition trilogy

So much so that I bought a signed copy of PR

WG's newest book is about a post-apocalyptic performance artist

Which sounds awesome imo

Tanks guise. Picked up MLO at a garage sale last week, but reckon I’ll hunt down CZ first.

Gibson’s not a priority at the moment anyway; this time of year it’s all about the old school spooky: Poe, Stevenson, Lovecraft, James, De La Mare… Stuff to listen to haunted house SFX by

back to reading at a normal pace after infinite jest left me feeling like I had learning disabilities

Jorge Luis Borges - A Universal History of Infamy ~ Got a book compiling all of Borges' short story compilations and this is the first one. It's not particularly worth reading. It's all fictionalised, 5 page accounts of real life criminals like Billy The Kid. Even Borges says it's shit on the intro. But there's a story in there that's supposedly the beginning of the magic realism movement, so if that's your jam check that out. But yeah, it's kinda crap. Now on to Ficciones so it only gets better from here

Santiago Lorenzo - Los Huerfanitos ~ Really good, as are all 3 of his novels so far. One of my favs spanish authors alive. Hasn't been translated and probably never will so no use in saying much about it

now reading White Noise as I really liked

Borges is amazing...wish my Spanish was good enough to read him untranslated

I've been reading China Mieville's political articles and I am frankly embarrassed for him. He is a smart guy and a sweetheart but Jesus Christ, he interprets everything uni-dimensionally through the lens of Marxism, and so some of his conclusions are truly idiot. Like, any time someone poor does something bad against 'the bourgeoisie', it is a reaction to class (and thus half-justified). Now, Marxism is a completely valid way to abstractly parse the world, but if it's the only fucking tool in your toolbox then imo you have truly lost the plot. Models should be like the translucent pages of an architectural blueprint, holographically layered on top of each other. It really makes me not want to read him.

https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/10/29/lsd-and-quantum-measurements-can-you-see-schrodingers-cat-both-dead-and-alive-on-acid/

Finished Italo Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler" some time ago. Liked it quite a bit.

Also read Marco Polo's Travels. Now reading a biography on John Dee.

  On 10/30/2016 at 8:52 PM, Milwaukeeeee said:

https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/10/29/lsd-and-quantum-measurements-can-you-see-schrodingers-cat-both-dead-and-alive-on-acid/

Interesting (and way more rigorous than I expected)

   >   free .pdf

Excerpts from Marina Abramović's memoir read like Camus:

'When I was young, I thought our flat was the height of luxury. Later I discovered it had once belonged to a wealthy Jewish family, and had been confiscated during the Nazi occupation. Later I also realized the paintings my mother put in our apartment were not very good. Looking back, I think — for these and other reasons — our home was really a horrible place.'

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/books/review-marina-abramovic-memoir-walk-through-walls.html

^ wow that review.

Rektamovic

  On 11/2/2016 at 11:22 AM, hello spiral said:

^ wow that review.

 

Rektamovic

lol @ the review and lol @ Rektamovic

  On 10/28/2016 at 1:26 PM, Bechuga said:

Yeah, Barker is unashamedly British, obsessed with small town life / characters. After reading a whole bunch of American books where I just about understand certain references / nuances, it's nice to get everything for once.

oh i love it though.  it's only now and then w/some of the slang and colloquialisms where i have to think real hard trying to get it.  mostly it's just really awesome. such great characters and story arch.  will have to check out more of her work once i plow through the pile of stuff to read/max/msp tutorials. fack. 

edit: and oh shit.. that book review.. stole it for my FB wall. too good. 

This is rocking my brain right now: It's a compilation of interviews with Noam Chomsky. His stone-cold rationalism and research-based fact dropping ensures that every response feels like a mic drop.

The new Alan Partridge book, as good as the last one.

Pattern Recognition, enjoying it on many, many levels

I bought Pattern Recognition yesterday from a bookshop but I have lots of other books in queue also so I don't know when I'll get to that.

One reason I love PR is because of the hypertextual element of "20 years on, here's how the world does and doesn't resemble Neuromancer"

(Y'all prolly noticed the protagonist has the same first name innit...)