Now Reading

Finally getting around to Neal Stephenson's "Reamde".

I'm not sure how I feel about Reamde.

It's a lot of fun, I'll give it that. And funny.

SEMI-SPOILER: I think Neal needed to let off some steam after Anathem. But I sort of needed moar world-building, particularly with respect to T'Rain cultures/economies/technology. Because it's Neal Stephenson.

  On 7/20/2012 at 7:49 PM, baph said:

I'm not sure how I feel about Reamde.

It's a lot of fun, I'll give it that. And funny.

 

SEMI-SPOILER: I think Neal needed to let off some steam after Anathem. But I sort of needed moar world-building, particularly with respect to T'Rain cultures/economies/technology. Because it's Neal Stephenson.

Well, I'm only 70 pages in, but I'm enjoying it's lightness compared with Anathem. Should be a good couple of nights.

finished lessig's free culture after having forgotten about it for many months... the chapter about his experience in the supreme court (trying to reduce the length of a copyright term) was eye-opening and sad.

now reading the gf's copy of the screwtape letters. short and entertaining.

Just started this week. Im only 100 pages in and I've already been blown away a few times. I have to say I admire L. Ron's hustle and ambition because, holy shit.

alternating between The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Both are excellent.

Nolites te bastardes carborundorum!

  On 7/9/2012 at 9:04 AM, chenGOD said:

Just finished Irvine Welsh's "The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs". It was ok. Not up to Welsh's usual standards though.

Have you read Skagboys yet? I'm afraid to, because his output since Glue has been absolutely dreadful to be frank.

I recently read David Peace's 'Red Riding' quartet (1974, 1977, 1980, 1983). They got turned into a very good 3-part Channel 4 serial a couple years back. I finally got around to reading the books, and they're brilliant. If you're very familiar with the TV version, you need to try and forget it, as a lot of characters were either excised or blended for the shortened TV series. Anyway, I thought the books were fantastic. Peace seems to have a real knack for taking a broadly historical event (in this case, the Yorkshire Ripper investigations) and spinning it into great fiction.

I'm about to read The Damned United off the back of this - again, seen the film, loved it, now getting around to the original...

  On 7/27/2012 at 3:36 PM, usagi said:

I never finished Requiem for a Dream so I'm going through that again. really quick to get through. I like it and all, but it's clearly tragiporn.

I still think it's one of Selby's best. Assuming you've read Last Exit and The Room, I recommend his last book, Waiting Period. It's an easy read by his standards, and surprisingly good.

going through Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard .D

In the Pond - Ha Jin

Yeah, for sure. Selby saw an awful lot of injustice in the world. This comes across strongly in The Room and Waiting Period (the only others I've read by him, apart from Requiem and Last Exit), but whereas the former is pretty gruesome and shocking, the latter is waaay more light-hearted and absurd to the point of being rather humorous.

Just got this. Finally getting round to catching up with my mate Cthulhu.

Red Mars - kim stanley robinson

just started the 2nd Dark Tower book. Read the first and to be honest wasn't greatly into it but heard it gets better so will read the 2nd one.

  On 8/20/2012 at 4:26 PM, jhonny said:

just started the 2nd Dark Tower book. Read the first and to be honest wasn't greatly into it but heard it gets better so will read the 2nd one.

it does get better (though personally i liked the gunslinger). wizard and glass and wolves of the calla are great, but there was one element that ran through some of the later books that pissed me off. it didn't ruin the entire series, i actually really enjoyed the ending. i just started wind through the keyhole, which i'm enjoying.

Ahh cool, it wasn't that the gunslinger was bad, but just that a lot of friends had said how good the series was and I wasn't blown away. The second is getting very good though, although a bit to close to that 'unruly passenger' story from yesterday!

Just finished the third part of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Life, the Universe and Everything). I'd never read the series before, and having just read the first three, I have to say I'm pretty underwhelmed. Everyone raves that these books are incredible, but I just didn't find them that funny. Sure, they're humorous on occasion. They just seem so lacking in everything else... there's no story at all really. The first one was alright, the second less so, and this third one I thought was really tedious. I don't think I'm going to bother with the next two. I love sci-fi, but these have just passed me by. What am I missing?

Still working on The Pale King... it's been like 3 months now, jeez. I am not a swift reader.

The Canterbury Tales-Chaucer.

Taking me an age to read because I feel I must read it in middle english,which is only fun when you read it out loud.

The Mind Parasites by Wilson, because it is trilltrill

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519U9stdudL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

-- William Blake

but have you read the rules?

Just started Bucky Fuller's short "Manual for Spaceship Earth"

link if you want it: http://classes.dma.u...ting-manual.pdf

Bucky was a smart guy, but holy hell does he ramble on incomprehensibly sometimes.

  Quote

"All the system's paths must be

topologically and circularly interrelated for conceptually definitive,

locally transformable, polyhedronal understanding to be attained in

our spontaneous-ergo, most economical- geodesicly structured

thoughts.

 

Thinking itself consists of self-disciplined dismissal of both the

macrocosmic and microcosmic irrelevancies which leaves only the

lucidly-relevant considerations. The macrocosmic irrelevancies are

all the events too large and too infrequent to be synchronizably

tuneable in any possible way with our consideration (a beautiful

word meaning putting stars together). The microcosmic

irrelevancies are all the events which are obviously too small and

too frequent to be differentially resolved in any way or to be

synchronizably-tuneable within the lucidly-relevant wave-frequency

limits of the system we are considering."

ah yes. Now I understand.

"i would bow down before just one--

one who bows before none.

i should know who that one might be who could do that to me

i am that one

and i bow down before me

since the hunter is the hunted, surely he knows what it is to lift an ecsatic dread

to some uncoming hunter's tread

such and such as the star that filters through the starry blue alone

a burning star turning in an orbit all of its own

such and such as i

beasts are always/were always trailblazing engineers

modern engineering would do well to do as well today

as well as beasts have done

if on this rock i stand alone

loneliness will turn heel, as he turns to stone

each today is yesterday's tomorrow, which is now

now is all i have

now is all i need

now is all i want

now

better i go, when you would that i stay, that i stay on,

than stay, when you would that i would go

better i go than stay

ebb and flow of the ocean

love and hate of emotion

nothing lasts, is my refrain

as the moon and my feelings wax and wane

i remain calm." - excerpt from Moondog's Monologue

http://bipbopmusic.blogspot.com/2010/11/moondog-monologue.html

  On 8/23/2012 at 6:31 PM, sine said:

The Canterbury Tales-Chaucer.

Taking me an age to read because I feel I must read it in middle english,which is only fun when you read it out loud.

It's true, middle English is the way to go. I bought a good interlinear translation earlier this year which was a smart move.

  On 8/27/2012 at 11:09 AM, Iain C said:

  On 8/23/2012 at 6:31 PM, sine said:

The Canterbury Tales-Chaucer.

Taking me an age to read because I feel I must read it in middle english,which is only fun when you read it out loud.

 

It's true, middle English is the way to go. I bought a good interlinear translation earlier this year which was a smart move.

Iain,I do believe that you're one of the most perfect men I've never met.