Now Reading

I have to get back into reading The Law Of Nines by Terry Goodkind. I've read all of The Sword Of Truth series. And now that The Omen Machine is out I really have to get at it. It's my all time favourite book series. Highly recommended.

Was impressed with Libra. Some of Don DeLillo's best characterization.

And but so finally committing to reading Infinite Jest.

the first 100 pages are the hardest.

I'm finding it's actually a pleasure to read on the Kindle Touch, because it takes all of 2 seconds to jump back and forth between footnotes (I've had a hard copy for a few years but the inevitable wrist injuries from holding the thing kept me from really committing). But oh man the James Orin Incandenza Filmography feels a bit long when you're reading right before bed. I need to stop doing that.

"Wardine be cry" didn't bother me as much as it seems to bother a lot of people.

Jeffrey Eugenides - The Marriage Plot

Three Kingdoms. Good read. Like the Illiad of China.

  On 1/16/2012 at 8:50 PM, iep said:

-Fred Kempe's Siberian Odyssee, for the nth time. he travelled with my father thru remote siberian lands that were just opened up for non-soviets. mesmerizing writer.

 

 

  Quote

Since the expedition was organized to be journalistic and ecological, and carried a letter of safe passage from the KGB--and because the author is obviously tenacious--Kempe was allowed to visit Tomsk 7, a self-contained city where nuclear weapons material is produced, although he was refused access to the reactors. He also stopped at vast industrial areas where the pollution is so severe that half of all newborns have chronic illnesses; and he spent time with Gulag veterans and aboriginal Siberians, including nomads who herd reindeer 100 miles above the Arctic Circle. With no pretense to finding the "Russian soul," Kemp makes vivid the populace's self-defeating acceptance of sudba , or fate, and its repressed anger at the Communist lie, as well as his compassion for "a people who had been so anaesthetized by suffering and exhausted by hardships that they had lost much of the spirit they needed for the free market and democracy."

 

 

 

-Chingiz Aitmatov "Mother Earth and Other Stories", ancient Siberian folk stories translated into english. some nuggets of gold in there.

 

 

 

-Gerard Jacobs "De Goden Hebben Honger"

 

 

  Quote

Stalin built the remote Soviet goldfields of the Kolyma, in eastern Siberia, on the back of convict slave labour. In today's market-oriented Russia, conditions remain almost as hard, for miners and mine-workers, pioneers and immigrants, native Siberians and ex-convicts alike.

 

 

 

-Colin Thubron's Samarkand/Het verloren Hart van Azie

 

 

 

  Quote

A land of enormous proportions, countless secrets, and incredible history, Central Asia--the heart of the great Mongol empire of Tamerlane, site of the legendary Silk Route and scene of Stalin's cruelest deportations--is a remote and fascinating region. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of newly independent republics, Central Asia--containing the magical cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and terrain as diverse as the Kazakh steppes, the Karakum desert, and the Pamir mountains--has been in a constant state of transition. The Lost Heart of Asia takes readers into the very heart of this little visited, yet increasingly important region, delivering a rare and moving portrayal of a world in the midst of change.

Wow intense literature. Sounds inspiring although very sad... Will probably leave you with a lump in your throat, or am I wrong. Would love to have a copy of "De Goden Hebben Honger", could you arrange that for me? Obviously willing to pay.

Personally I am reading this at the moment:

The book is about the way politics changed in the Netherlands after the death/ murder of Pim Fortuyn, a tragic moment in Dutch history. So far it is amazingly well written, and allows one to have some insight in how politics were arranged in the past, during the battle against water. Community thoughts were primordial, not the individualistic greed and interest parties play upon nowadays. Very touching in a way. Obviously not really interesting taken from a foreigner's perspective, but probably very interesting from a philosophical point of view.

This is a book I have finished not so long ago.

  Quote

In the pages of this slim, powerful book Rob Riemen argues with passion that “nobility of spirit” is the quintessence of a civilized world. It is, as Thomas Mann believed, the sole corrective for human history. Without nobility of spirit, culture vanishes. Yet in the early twenty-first century, a time when human dignity and freedom are imperiled, the concept of nobility of spirit is scarcely considered.

Riemen insists that if we hope to move beyond the war on terror and create a life-affirming culture, we must address timeless but neglected questions: What is a good society? Why art? Why culture? What is the responsibility of intellectuals? Why anti-Americanism? Why nihilism? Why the cult of death of fundamentalists? In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Baruch Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own time; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis.

“The forces now aligned against humanistic values are manifold,” observes George Steiner in the foreword to the book. In this imaginative and compelling volume, Riemen addresses these forces and speaks to every reader who believes in the power of classical ideas to restore Western civilization’s highest values.

 

 

Rob Riemen, an essayist and cultural philosopher, is founder of the Nexus Institute, an international center devoted to intellectual reflection and to inspiring Western cultural and philosophical debate. He lives in the Netherlands.

  On 1/25/2012 at 1:47 PM, ex-voto said:

  On 1/16/2012 at 8:50 PM, iep said:

-Fred Kempe's Siberian Odyssee, for the nth time. he travelled with my father thru remote siberian lands that were just opened up for non-soviets. mesmerizing writer.

 

 

  Quote

Since the expedition was organized to be journalistic and ecological, and carried a letter of safe passage from the KGB--and because the author is obviously tenacious--Kempe was allowed to visit Tomsk 7, a self-contained city where nuclear weapons material is produced, although he was refused access to the reactors. He also stopped at vast industrial areas where the pollution is so severe that half of all newborns have chronic illnesses; and he spent time with Gulag veterans and aboriginal Siberians, including nomads who herd reindeer 100 miles above the Arctic Circle. With no pretense to finding the "Russian soul," Kemp makes vivid the populace's self-defeating acceptance of sudba , or fate, and its repressed anger at the Communist lie, as well as his compassion for "a people who had been so anaesthetized by suffering and exhausted by hardships that they had lost much of the spirit they needed for the free market and democracy."

 

 

 

-Chingiz Aitmatov "Mother Earth and Other Stories", ancient Siberian folk stories translated into english. some nuggets of gold in there.

 

 

 

-Gerard Jacobs "De Goden Hebben Honger"

 

 

  Quote

Stalin built the remote Soviet goldfields of the Kolyma, in eastern Siberia, on the back of convict slave labour. In today's market-oriented Russia, conditions remain almost as hard, for miners and mine-workers, pioneers and immigrants, native Siberians and ex-convicts alike.

 

 

 

-Colin Thubron's Samarkand/Het verloren Hart van Azie

 

 

 

  Quote

A land of enormous proportions, countless secrets, and incredible history, Central Asia--the heart of the great Mongol empire of Tamerlane, site of the legendary Silk Route and scene of Stalin's cruelest deportations--is a remote and fascinating region. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of newly independent republics, Central Asia--containing the magical cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and terrain as diverse as the Kazakh steppes, the Karakum desert, and the Pamir mountains--has been in a constant state of transition. The Lost Heart of Asia takes readers into the very heart of this little visited, yet increasingly important region, delivering a rare and moving portrayal of a world in the midst of change.

 

Wow intense literature. Sounds inspiring although very sad... Will probably leave you with a lump in your throat, or am I wrong. Would love to have a copy of "De Goden Hebben Honger", could you arrange that for me? Willing to pay of course.

 

Personally I am reading this at the moment:

 

 

The book is about the way politics changed in the Netherlands after the death/ murder of Pim Fortuyn, a tragic moment in Dutch history. So far it is amazingly well written, and allows one to have some insight in how politics were arranged in the past, during the battle against water. Community thoughts were primordial, not the individualistic greed and interest parties play upon nowadays. Very touching in a way. Obviously not really interesting taken from a foreigner's perspective, but probably very interesting from a philosophical point of view.

 

 

This is a book I have finished not so long ago.

 

  Quote

In the pages of this slim, powerful book Rob Riemen argues with passion that “nobility of spirit” is the quintessence of a civilized world. It is, as Thomas Mann believed, the sole corrective for human history. Without nobility of spirit, culture vanishes. Yet in the early twenty-first century, a time when human dignity and freedom are imperiled, the concept of nobility of spirit is scarcely considered.

 

Riemen insists that if we hope to move beyond the war on terror and create a life-affirming culture, we must address timeless but neglected questions: What is a good society? Why art? Why culture? What is the responsibility of intellectuals? Why anti-Americanism? Why nihilism? Why the cult of death of fundamentalists? In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Baruch Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own time; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis.

 

“The forces now aligned against humanistic values are manifold,” observes George Steiner in the foreword to the book. In this imaginative and compelling volume, Riemen addresses these forces and speaks to every reader who believes in the power of classical ideas to restore Western civilization’s highest values.

 

 

Rob Riemen, an essayist and cultural philosopher, is founder of the Nexus Institute, an international center devoted to intellectual reflection and to inspiring Western cultural and philosophical debate. He lives in the Netherlands.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before but I finally got around to buying Haunted Air by Ossian Brown, a collection of old Halloween photos that manages to be both sweet and extremely creepy. Maybe just creepy.

  On 1/25/2012 at 2:03 PM, verticalhold said:

haven't read any ballard before yet always wanted to pick up "crash". on the other hand, this one looks pretty interesting. any thoughts about it so far (if you've gotten far enough in, of course)?

  On 1/26/2012 at 3:10 AM, benc812 said:

  On 1/25/2012 at 2:03 PM, verticalhold said:

 

haven't read any ballard before yet always wanted to pick up "crash". on the other hand, this one looks pretty interesting. any thoughts about it so far (if you've gotten far enough in, of course)?

not far yet but OH MAN I feel like I've uncovered a whole new world here... the way he figures everything geometrically and blurs people with architecture and landscapes etc is just really beautiful, as if everything's just one skin. Amazing concept though; it's basically about this guy who's experiencing a nervous breakdown while witnessing the media events of the late 60s, choosing to reconstruct them in a way that "makes sense". I like Ballard's style.

I'm drunk btw

I don't know how that double post occurred sorry.

  On 1/25/2012 at 1:47 PM, ex-voto said:

Would love to have a copy of "De Goden Hebben Honger", could you arrange that for me?

would be my pleasure m8, i'll get you a "signed" one

  On 1/26/2012 at 4:07 PM, verticalhold said:

  On 1/26/2012 at 3:10 AM, benc812 said:

  On 1/25/2012 at 2:03 PM, verticalhold said:

 

haven't read any ballard before yet always wanted to pick up "crash". on the other hand, this one looks pretty interesting. any thoughts about it so far (if you've gotten far enough in, of course)?

 

not far yet but OH MAN I feel like I've uncovered a whole new world here... the way he figures everything geometrically and blurs people with architecture and landscapes etc is just really beautiful, as if everything's just one skin. Amazing concept though; it's basically about this guy who's experiencing a nervous breakdown while witnessing the media events of the late 60s, choosing to reconstruct them in a way that "makes sense". I like Ballard's style.

it's early gonzo perhaps?

I got to get into Ballard more... just read Empire of the Sun, but I have a Concrete Island and High Rise in my collection.

Isn't that novel some sort of mini-books thing?

  On 1/28/2012 at 12:42 AM, Philip Glass said:

I got to get into Ballard more... just read Empire of the Sun, but I have a Concrete Island and High Rise in my collection.

 

Isn't that novel some sort of mini-books thing?

I don't think I'd call it this; seems to be more a bunch of scenes. It's in a similar cut-up style to say Burroughs' Nova trilogy. They're mini-novels only in the sense that it takes real world events like the Kennedy assassination as an episode in the protagonist's spiral

also the film of it is very good indeed

I enjoyed porno too but nowhere near as much as trainspotting. Juice terry ftw

Welsh and Ballard are the same person?

yeh wut?

less than 200 pages from the end of 1Q84. After that, not sure what I'll read next.

read this if you have not yet, nothing to do with Murakami, everything to do with Orwell and his influence for '1984', amazing book:

  On 2/6/2012 at 11:42 PM, Atop said:

read this if you have not yet, nothing to do with Murakami, everything to do with Orwell and his influence for '1984', amazing book:

I'll definitely check it out. I actually have three or four books I haven't even cracked open yet, so at the moment I'm just reading some short vignettes in this anthology about the many faces of crime.

the gilded pages and seemingly-screenprinted cover are really fucking awesome, not that that really matters.

But yeah, I still have Infinite Jest (never read DFW), Pale Fire, and books I've already purchased (Trapped!, Ficciones, a few others) to tackle before I can take on recommendations. Added it to my to-buy list though.

Hedda Gabler