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Author Topic: What are you currently reading?  (Read 482738 times)

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #650 on: 20 Sep 2012, 19:41 »

Susan Jacoby, "The Age of American Unreason". Title is a bit misleading since she traces anti-intellectualism and contempt for rationality through the country's entire history.
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Zingoleb

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #651 on: 20 Sep 2012, 20:44 »

I'd say calling it bad writing isn't fair in the least, but it's definitely not easy reading.

Okay, you're right. He's a technically good writer but his writing style makes me want to strangle babies because it's so bloody dense. I find it irritating; the only person who's ever written in that sort of style (not horror, but that sort of...verbose 1800s feeling) whom I have enjoyed was Poe, and even then I can only stomach him in small doses before I start to claw my eyes out.
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VonKleist

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #652 on: 21 Sep 2012, 02:30 »

Maybe have a look at Lord Dunsany. Lovecraft took his Dreamland-stuff straight from him, but the guy also wrote a lot of interesting short-stories about ghosts and haunting and stuff which are pretty neat and not as brooding as old Howard Philips.
The longer stories  bored me a bit but the shorter stuff was nice and weird and english folk tale-ish.
Haven't read any of the poems yet.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #653 on: 22 Sep 2012, 21:17 »

"The Republican Brain".
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #654 on: 05 Oct 2012, 13:00 »

I have just read John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider yet again; in fact, I have probably read this more times than any other single book. 

It's a cyber-punk novel written ten years before the genre was recognised.  It was rather poorly received, both because it was seen as too fantastical (in many respects it wasn't), and because its style is rather disjointed (it works for me); the rather moralistic ending is weakly done, even though it fits the theme of the book just fine.  In many respects the book has also dated somewhat, which was inevitable - however, it was also the book that gave us the term "computer worm".  The inspiration for the book was Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, hence the title. 

The idea in it that resonates so strongly with me that I keep coming back to it is the importance of individuality, and of recognising and nurturing it.  The depiction of what happens when this recognition is lost may be extreme, and strained at times; but it never seems to me to go beyond the bounds of possibility, in the sense that I can picture people who would be pleased to build such a future.  I would wish to forestall such people before they reached this point.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #655 on: 15 Oct 2012, 22:52 »

Reading Emily Dickinson, until I got fed up with the death obsession and re-viewed Randall Munroe's rejoinder.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #656 on: 16 Oct 2012, 07:43 »

Apollo 13 (fka Lost Moon) by James Lowell
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #657 on: 17 Oct 2012, 17:40 »

An old TSR novel called The Savage Caves.

Have no clue what's really going on.  Something underground concerning spiders, goblins, and hobgoblins.

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #658 on: 20 Oct 2012, 13:11 »

James Branch Cabell, "Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice".
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #659 on: 23 Oct 2012, 06:28 »

Wrapped up Dry by Augusten Burroughs. Moved onto Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #660 on: 24 Oct 2012, 00:41 »

Daang

Breakfast of Champions is my favorite book ever. Must have read it 20 times.

I´m reading Heinrich Böll Das Brot der frühen Jahre because he is the man and I held his Nobel Prize certificate while visiting the city archive.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #661 on: 24 Oct 2012, 06:15 »

I enjoy it, hard to believe I haven't read this one yet. I'm making it a mission to read everything he's ever written since I've loved everything of his that I've read so far.
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VonKleist

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #662 on: 24 Oct 2012, 06:51 »

Same here :)

Check out Hocus Pocus next if you haven't yet. It is positively hilarious.
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ElitistJerk

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #663 on: 28 Oct 2012, 13:52 »

Just finished The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I'll now get started with Cryptonomicon or To Kill a Mockingbird, still not quite sure which.
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Thrillho

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #664 on: 02 Nov 2012, 04:56 »

The Lovely Bones.  Because I had a week at the beach.

Is the book as stupid and morally bankrupt as the film?
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #665 on: 02 Nov 2012, 19:11 »

No.  Well, maybe. 
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Thrillho

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #666 on: 03 Nov 2012, 02:03 »

The moral of the film's story was 'if someone rapes and murders you, it's okay if no one catches them because they'll fall off a cliff anyway.'
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Carl-E

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #667 on: 03 Nov 2012, 08:23 »

the book focuses more on the collapse and re-imagining of the family. 

This makes it much more engaging. 



OF course, I haven't seen the film. 
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #668 on: 03 Nov 2012, 09:00 »

I'm told the film lost a lot of what was in the book and the ending was changed too, so I don't think I've just spoilered it.

If I did just spoiler it, feel free to come back and inform me on here, and I will go hang myself.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #669 on: 05 Nov 2012, 01:25 »

A bunch of stuff by H. Beam Piper. Definitely Golden Age, looks like it was written to appeal to Campbell in the macho sub genre rather than the sense-of-wonder sub genre.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #670 on: 07 Nov 2012, 02:11 »

50 shades of gray.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #671 on: 07 Nov 2012, 05:58 »

Heh, for realz`?
If so, what do you make of it?


Time for some non-fiction for me. Questions to Prussia - On the history of an abolished state by german historian Rudolf von Thadden. It deals with the history of Prussia and it´s relation to the german state(s) both past and present.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #672 on: 07 Nov 2012, 21:56 »

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #673 on: 09 Nov 2012, 05:11 »

For real. I wanted to know what the fuss was about.

Well. it's not good. It's not literature. It's not Shakespeare, Elliot, Winterson ... but then it never sets out to be any of those things. It claims to be and it is a romance novel. And it does what a romance novel is supposed to do. So, in that sense, it's not a bad book. It does what it sets out to do.

You know, it just is. I'm sure I won't be able to recall anything from it in about a month.

If kinky people have issues with it, that's fine. But since it's a romance novel it never has a hope of ever claiming to represent reality in any way shape or form. Just read it if you want to and otherwise ... don't.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #674 on: 09 Nov 2012, 05:34 »

That's the kindest review of it that I've read or heard.
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ackblom12

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #675 on: 09 Nov 2012, 05:35 »

Ehhh, I'd say that's a bad defense of it as far as the BDSM community goes. Many books and films have very problematic characters and stories that are not necessarily intended to be based on actual reality, does not make them immune to crtique or not problematic. I think a better defense would be that it's not necessarily any more problematic than anything the Marquis de Sade, Lady Chamerbly, or something more modern, "The Story of O" had.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #676 on: 09 Nov 2012, 05:47 »

Oh.. well, making sport of romance novels is too easy.

Moving on.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #677 on: 09 Nov 2012, 07:38 »

Ehhh, I'd say that's a bad defense of it as far as the BDSM community goes. [...]
I'm not going to defend anything against the BDSM community because I know next to nothing about the BDSM community. I'm just saying read it or don't. Get angry at it or don't. It'll blow away in a little bit.
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ackblom12

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #678 on: 09 Nov 2012, 07:48 »

Oh god, I think you may be wrong...

http://www.themarysue.com/twilight-fanfic-book-deal/
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Zingoleb

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #679 on: 09 Nov 2012, 07:59 »

Emma Watson has said she'd play the main part in 50 Shades of Grey, from what I've heard, which makes me sad because that actually makes me want to watch it.  I dunno how true the rumour is.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #680 on: 09 Nov 2012, 08:28 »

I heard that the rumour existed, but also that she'd replied that she wouldn't be in it.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #682 on: 09 Nov 2012, 19:17 »

"The Turn of the Screw".

All the literary critics are wrong: it's actually a vicious satire on English society.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #683 on: 10 Nov 2012, 14:48 »

Who Goes There, the book that was the basis for The Thing
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #684 on: 12 Nov 2012, 18:08 »

Nice, taut, Golden Age material there.

Reading up on Campbell's childhood makes it resonate even more.
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VonKleist

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #685 on: 13 Nov 2012, 09:25 »

Anybody into sci-fi read anything by Theodore Sturgeon?
I just read he is the guy Kurt Vonnegut based the character of Kilgore Trout on (ICWUDT).
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #686 on: 25 Nov 2012, 05:40 »

Currently reading the original Ninja Turtles comic, it's in a big fat compilation book.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #687 on: 25 Nov 2012, 06:00 »

This thread?
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #688 on: 25 Nov 2012, 06:01 »

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #689 on: 25 Nov 2012, 16:52 »

Calculus, I liked it at the beginning but the plot seemed to get a little repetitive when it got to the multivariale chapter.  That being said the characters are wonderful and so dynamic, it seems like X has an entirely new value every time you turn the page.  I would definitely recommend it to those with some time on their hands. 
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #690 on: 25 Nov 2012, 22:25 »

Didn't you know?  It's an infinite series...
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VonKleist

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #691 on: 27 Nov 2012, 14:00 »

I found The Jungle Book in a book-sharing thingy and it´s pretty damn fucking cool :)

I had a book of Rudyard Kipling shorts that I lost when I was only half the way through and they were also pretty good. Loved the one about two englishmen going to Afghanistan and trying to start a kingdom.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #692 on: 29 Nov 2012, 17:19 »

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

It's much quicker paced than I had expected.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #693 on: 29 Nov 2012, 18:35 »

That's funny; the living unit where I work is named after Frederick Douglass.

Current reading: Ragtime. The novel, not the play nor the movie.

Trivia: the movie was the final appearance of Jimmy Cagney and one of the first appearances of Samuel L. Jackson on the silver screen.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #694 on: 30 Nov 2012, 11:09 »

The Founding arc, from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #695 on: 01 Dec 2012, 21:50 »

Calculus, I liked it at the beginning but the plot seemed to get a little repetitive when it got to the multivariale chapter.  That being said the characters are wonderful and so dynamic, it seems like X has an entirely new value every time you turn the page.  I would definitely recommend it to those with some time on their hands.

A good book about life on the delta, but I found the characterization had limits.


The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt,

Cognitive psychology research about moral intuition and reasoning, aimed at a popular audience, putting ideas in the context of their development and their application. Interesting points include that the contemporary mid-to-upper-class EuroAmerican idea of the scope of morality is far narrower than in anyplace else that's been studied. Also that social class correlates better with moral ideas than does age, urbanization, or anything else that's been studied.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #696 on: 02 Dec 2012, 09:08 »

The Founding arc, from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.

Very good books, but they get better as they go on. The Saint is a brilliant arc (Guns Of Tanith is an action book, a thriller, a legal drama and a murder mystery all at once), The Lost not as good of an arc but it has Traitor General, which is easily the best book in the entire series, absolutely stunning book.

How far through are you?
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In the end, the thing people will remember is kindness.

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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #697 on: 04 Dec 2012, 22:08 »

Just finished _House of Silk_, a new Sherlock Holmes novel.
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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #698 on: 05 Dec 2012, 01:46 »


A good book about life on the delta, but I found the characterization had limits.


I felt his style was a bit derivative in places, and lacking some of the integral elements I had come to expect of the author.

#mathpuns



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Re: What are you currently reading?
« Reply #699 on: 05 Dec 2012, 08:31 »

The Founding arc, from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.

Very good books, but they get better as they go on. The Saint is a brilliant arc (Guns Of Tanith is an action book, a thriller, a legal drama and a murder mystery all at once), The Lost not as good of an arc but it has Traitor General, which is easily the best book in the entire series, absolutely stunning book.

How far through are you?

The Armour of Contempt was the latest book that I read. Been reading them for years as they've been released. But as much as I love the series, the more of the core characters that get killed off, the less I can connect with the series. Yes, its a war series, characters are going to get die, but at the same time there is this point of how many characters getting killed off before the replacements outnumber the originals and that what connected people to the story is gone.
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