friday 13th 2020 not disappointing so far

Miro Hrubjak - Octopus - slovak book about a hacker fighting local mafia

+ some book about slovak politics

  On 2/23/2020 at 11:01 PM, IDEM said:

Dyer will be more up your alley then -- it actually owes more to Thomas Bernhard than to Lawrence. It's really genuinely funny in an existential way.

I'm halfway through Charlie Kaufman's Antkind atm. Incredible. Should appeal to a lot of people here -- think Pynchon meets Kafka meets Beckett with a side of DFW and PKD. And then some.

Here' the Kirkus Reviews review:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/charlie-kaufman/antkind/

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how'd you get it? it's not out yet afaik

  On 3/20/2020 at 10:40 AM, KovalainenFanBoy said:

how'd you get it? it's not out yet afaik

Yup, I have an ARC. Second half is even stranger than the first. It's definitely not an easy read, very perplexing at times, but even more Kaufman-y than his movies, if that makes sense. Very strong Jungian influence. I've never read anything like it.

Edit: It's also meta af, but I guess that's obvious.

  On 3/6/2020 at 4:18 PM, Entorwellian said:

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Really? You gonna read the whole fucking thing from front to back? I can tell you that Marx was really bad at writing in an entertaining way. Best way to approach him is probably through secondary literature

  On 3/20/2020 at 1:46 PM, darreichungsform said:

Really? You gonna read the whole fucking thing from front to back? I can tell you that Marx was really bad at writing in an entertaining way. Best way to approach him is probably through secondary literature

Yeah I've read Balibar's "Philosophy of Marx", the communist manifesto and Elster's "making sense of marx" plus what I learned in University (bare bones)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is nice. PK Dick being cooler and imaginativier in this bitch

https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Whirling-Ecstacy.pdf

Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House

Andrew Keen - The Internet is not the answer

been blowing through The Looming Tower, lot of fascinating insights and details about 90s build up to 9/11 I wasn't aware of

The Catcher in the Rye. I wanted to read it after watching a bio-pic about J.D.Salinger, and I wanted to see if I could power through it without falling asleep. Seems I can only read the newspaper without dozing off.

  On 3/23/2020 at 7:55 PM, Milwaukeeeee said:

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is nice. PK Dick being cooler and imaginativier in this bitch

I don't know whether he wrote it around the same time, but Martian Time Slip was fucked up in a similar way and it quickly became one of my favorite PKD novels.

Jozef Karika - Priepasť (Abyss) - slovak story about mountains and places in mountains where strange forces operate near cliffs that make people jump from them 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-backwards/

Just polished of another novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (one of Borges’ buddies): Dormir al Sol.

Starts off innocently enough: middle aged man has unhealthy relationship with wife and with housekeeper (no sexytime, sorry). In-laws not to great either. Just regular slice of life boring meandering stuff.

But there’s some weird sprinkled in. Things that seem reasonably normal only a little bit off. Maybe.

This is a good thing because it keeps you reading to ...

... the end, which is gloriously twisted, unsettling and makes all of the preceding 180 pages worth it I hindsight,

  On 3/8/2020 at 8:16 PM, hello spiral said:

I'm reading Andrew Niederman's PIN. I've been a fan of the 1988 movie for about 15 years (it was weird going back to it and recognising Locke from Lost, as the dad. Because when I first saw it Lost didn't exist)

 

I recommend the movie too, it's weird af

 

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I watched this a few nights ago, genuinely great. Locke was a surprise but even more so Mike from Breaking Bad doing the voice!

I am currently reading two books. Kafka - Trial - I love the style of that era from Europe (and Russia too). So weird and twisted as most of the authors couldn't write about politics openly because they would risk their life.

The other book is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Highly recommended. 
 

  On 5/13/2020 at 3:26 PM, ropprecht said:

I am currently reading two books. Kafka - Trial - I love the style of that era from Europe (and Russia too). So weird and twisted as most of the authors couldn't write about politics openly because they would risk their life.

The other book is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Highly recommended. 
 

Kafka is one of my favorite authors. With you on the style of that time period, too.

My favorite works of Kafka are not his novels, however, but his short stories. Some of which he himself thought were good enough to publish during his lifetime. There also very funny, but that part only becomes clear when you read them aloud to someone else.

  On 5/13/2020 at 5:02 PM, rhmilo said:

There also very funny, but that part only becomes clear when you read them aloud to someone else.

I am from eastern europe so I think that somewhat helps tuning into this type of humour. Super dark and twisted.

  On 5/13/2020 at 5:02 PM, rhmilo said:

ith you on the style of that time period, too

Just found this ebook today as well:  Best Russian Short Stories

  On 5/13/2020 at 9:23 PM, ropprecht said:

Just found this ebook today as well:  Best Russian Short Stories

Cool. Any other favorites from dark and twisted (Eastern) European 1910-1920 you can recommend?

  On 5/13/2020 at 10:49 PM, rhmilo said:

Cool. Any other favorites from dark and twisted (Eastern) European 1910-1920 you can recommend?

Uh, I mostly read the Russians from that time period, would definitely recommend Bulgakov - you might know about him already. Master and Margarita is my favourite book.

Also my other favourite authoris Boris Vian, although he was more like 1930's and 40's and was French but super surreal and fun. 
enjoy ! 

  On 5/13/2020 at 11:01 PM, ropprecht said:

Uh, I mostly read the Russians from that time period, would definitely recommend Bulgakov - you might know about him already. Master and Margarita is my favourite book.

Also my other favourite authoris Boris Vian, although he was more like 1930's and 40's and was French but super surreal and fun. 
enjoy ! 

 

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Yes, the Master and Margerita was great.

I liked Babel’s short stories as well (roughly the same time period, yes?).

  On 5/14/2020 at 7:30 AM, rhmilo said:

Babel’s short stories

Oooh, not heard of him, putting it on my list Yeah, seems like the same era.

Read the entire Walking Dead comics, all 193 issues.  Good stuff in these days...