I love books recommended on here but unless I specify you mfs will recommend theory. You all read anything captivating without overt political themes?
Slowly chipping away at Brothers Karamazov. Despite all his wordiness and digressions, it contains some of the craziest drama unfolding within the space of hours I’ve ever read. Reality TV doesn’t hold a candle to these passionate, often drunk, Russians. And of course a drip feed of theological dialogues plus extensive detailing of contemporary Russian culture rounds it out.
The man does really have a way woth identifying all the little ways that people behave and navigate an interaction, putting on faces, jockeying for position, getting right up to the threshold of something before their pride stops them.
Sometimes it feels a little slow, but then something just fucking gobsmacking will happen and you’ll put up with a little more talking about an ancillary monk’s ascetic practice so you can find out what cruel trick Grushenka will do next.
I’ve only started reading (just at the start) and I have to yet read more. Its very good and as you say so dramatic. At the start I remember the father ridding of his first son and also if he did not forget him he would send him away cause he would get in the way of all the druken orgies. I was blown away this book rocks.
I sadly had lot stuff going on so I haven’t gotten back to it. But I want read it so bad.
I came here to jokingly suggest math books, but then you said
but unless I specify you mfs will recommend theory
‘No theory pls’
I would have minecrafted you if you literally suggested a number theory book lol
Oh, no, I hate number theory. I hate numbers. My hatred for numbers is why I study math - I want to start studying it for a living and get as far from working with numbers as I can.
I was thinking of something like Ore Ø.'s book on graph theory, or Jech’s book on set theory, etc.
I was thinking of something like Ore Ø.'s book on graph theory, or Jech’s book on set theory, etc.
Read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho recently. I don’t read a ton of fiction, I don’t have visual imagination (unless I do DMT or a lot of dabs) so over the top visual descriptions don’t do anything for me.
Oh and Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s “How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?” which is pretty funny.
Oh and Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s “How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?” which is pretty funny.
What a title
I have vivid visual imagination and The Alchemist still sucked you’re not missing out on much.
This week I’m working through China Meiville’s Bas Lag trilogy. Just started the Third Book. First time reading him, I’m in love.
I recently read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was really good.
Oh, also read Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Awesome stuff.
Second on Kindred
I recently read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was really good.
Her new book, Cuckoo also slaps
Word, I’ll add it to my list.
The Scar was so fun. Just neat water monsters left and right
Yeah, it was great. Gave me some cool dreams.
He’s currently collaborating with Keanu reeves on a novel about an 80 thousand year old warrior.
I’m happy he writing again, but it’s a weird collaboration
It’s out, saw it in a bookstore window the other day
Are you sure it isn’t one of the spin offs? He released one of those recently.
Looking at the wiki the third book doors of stone isn’t out
Oh it was “book of elsewhere”
Yeah, friend is currently reading it, they me told me about Bas Lag and I was intrigued.
Wait, it’s out?
Came out the 23rd.
Is it? I’m looking online and I’m not seeing it for sale. The Doors of Stone, right?
Nope, you may have your books mixed up.
Oh shoot, lol. I thought I was responding to a Name of the wind comment.
This week I’m working through China Meiville’s Bas Lag trilogy.
Hell yeah
Oh so the Communist Manifesto is political now? Fucking commies turning everything into politics.
Kinda’ wanna’ start Blood Meridian soon, but I don’t think that’s politically agnostic is it?
Excession by Iain M. Banks
very gay story about what would have been an iraq war allegory had it been released a decade later.
I read this one recently and it’s a banger. Maybe my second favorite Culture novel that I’ve read after Player of Games
If you like sci-fi read House of Suns.
Love that book. I really enjoyed the concept of the Shatterlings too. Reynolds is just great in general.
I just finished another Discworld book, Moving Pictures. Once again Pratchett is my perfect comfort read.
If only I could read the Discworld books again, for the first time. I should give them another read through
A confederacy of dunces. Outside of catch-22, it’s maybe the best satire book ever written. Highly recommend the barrett whitener audiobook.
Imagine having Catch-22 as one’s debut novel. At least Heller had a sense of humour about never again reaching such a height.
For sure lol, I don’t know how I’d recover from that.
it’s pretty funny reading confederacy of dunces and realizing that guys like that have been around forever. happy he got to live in the 60s as a hot dog vendor instead of today, where he’d be a 4chan neet
Working my way through The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan right now. Pretty standard high fantasy, Tolkien inspired.
If you’re looking for something more light-hearted, maybe some Discworld?
I read the Three Body series last year, very engrossing hard sci-fi imo.
I wanna read this wheel of time. I knew about it cause brandon the mistborn finished them or some shit. I’m interested.
I also want to get into discworld. I found a book from the series in like weird thrift sale. It was thud if i remembered.
I did read three body problem. I currently am reading the third one. The books are pretty good.
WoT is funny for me because if you look at who I am (demographically speaking), at the age I am, and at the sorts of books I enjoy I should love them. But I read them at exactly the wrong time in my life and hated them, and now I feel like it’s pointless to revisit them, that that first experience with them will forever taint my opinion of what I suspect are, at the very least, perfectly serviceable fantasy fare, certainly nothing worthy of hatred.
I happened to visit a used bookstore, while on vacation in a different State to the one I live in, and there was a box with copies of all the books that had been released up to that point (I think this was right before the first Sanderson book came out). Of the 12 books, 7 were hardcover and in very good condition, though the 5 paperbacks were a little beat up. Got the whole set for, IIRC, $38. Bought the Sanderson ones too, even though I never did get around to reading them, just for completion’s sake.
Read Gideon the Ninth, it is a great sci-fi book and it is incredibly funny.
Let’s see
The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton - Very good, Edith Wharton is the GOAT, but unfinished at the time of her death. The edition that I had was finished (badly) by some hack in the 90’s, so watch out for that
Education of a Felon by Eddie Bunker - A fascinating memoir by a career criminal turned novelist. Well worth it for a look at the seedy underbelly of midcentury LA and prison culture. Danny Trejo, William Randolph Hearst, and George Jackson are minor characters
Blood and Guts in High School by Cathy Acker - I don’t even know what to say about this one. Visceral, weird and raw. Highly recommend
Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan - Posthumously published memoir of an English officer during WWI. Great if you’re at all interested in this period of history
The Rifles by William T. Vollmann - If you’re not already Vollmannpilled you need to be. This one mingles the history of the doomed Franklin expedition with the systematic destruction of the indigenous arctic peoples through the present day (well of the 90’s when he wrote it)
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker Martin - I really liked Manhunt last year and this one is also great. Queer horror in a wilderness conversion therapy camp. I actually saw her on her tour for this one’s release
What’s your favorite Vollmann to start with? I couldn’t get into You Bright and Risen Angels and am suspicious of Europe Central but I’ve been meaning to try something from the Seven Dreams series.
Okay of the ones I’ve read
I remember really liking removed for Gloria
The Rifles is great and is Volume 6 of the Seven Dreams Series
I just started Imperial, which has been sitting on my shelf for years. It’s good so far, but is a MASSIVE tome
I’ve been wanting to snag a copy of You Bright and Risen Angels
Thanks - The Rifles looks most intriguing right now.
I recently read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. If you’re looking for something you can shut your brain off with It’s a pretty good page turner.
i recently finished the savage detectives. it’s a really unique book in terms of how its formatted and i really liked that about it. it’s a book about poetry and poets, and it made me want to read some poetry. i’ve looked around in the small town library and didnt see any poetry that caught my eye, or really much if any at all. i don’t think i’m gonna jump on 2666 yet though, think a break from his style for a little bit before starting a massive book like that is a good idea. in a year or so maybe.
right now im reading suttree by cormac mccarthy. im a big fan of mccarthy’s but i havent read any of his books set in the southeast yet. i like it so far, but definitely a very different tone than what im used to from him
“You can win a girl with a poem, but you can’t keep a girl with a poem. Not even a poetry movement.”
Even your small town library ought to have Baudelaire, which counts as getting started on 2666 since one of his lines (idiosyncratically translated?) is the epigraph for that one. “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.” From The Voyage.
I second Baudelaire, he was a friend of Monet and has some interesting stuff!
thanks for the rec, i will definitely check his stuff out! unfortunately a search of his name on my library’s online catalogue does not seem to bring up anything relevant (a bunch of series of unfortunate event books and a history book about paris)
