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StrixNebulosa posted:
The first two GG novels are a bit dull, but with Necropolis the series hits its stride. The Eisenhorn trilogy has some pretty good world-building (the main character is essentially a secret agent in a science-fiction setting where demonic possession is a real danger). Good pulpy action even if you are unfamiliar with the universe.
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Oct 23, 2017 14:17
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I started The Sound and the Fury last night and I'm already halfway through. It's a darn good read.
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Oct 30, 2017 15:34
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Just finished up Homage to Catalonia, and will be moving on to something entirely different. Have had James Scott's Against the Grain gathering dust on my Kindle for a few months now, so now is as good a time as any to pick it up. Haven't really got extensive knowledge about the history of early civilizations, so it'll be an interesting read for sure.
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Dec 23, 2017 13:21
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Enemy at the Gates . Went on sale for kindle today, pretty loving interesting so far.
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Dec 27, 2017 00:48
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Cosmic Creepers posted:Have had James Scott's Against the Grain gathering dust on my Kindle for a few months now, so now is as good a time as any to pick it up. Haven't really got extensive knowledge about the history of early civilizations, so it'll be an interesting read for sure. The subject matter interests me, though I'm wary that it's going to be a contrarian primitivism/anarchy circle jerk.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:55
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I recently returned from a trip to Southeast Asia and while I was there I discovered that there are a ton of cool English language used bookstores in the area, especially in Chiang Mai, Thailand but I also spent time in bookstores in Bangkok as well as in Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. I focused almost entirely on getting books about or from the region that you don't often see outside of it and came back with quite a haul including a couple of things that seem pretty rare based on google and amazon searches. Anthology of ASEAN Literatures: Epics of the Philippines. Published in 1983 in Manila as part of a series highlighting the traditional oral and written literature of ASEAN member states. The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Myanmar. Published in Yangon in 2008 in a limited run of 1000 copies to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the translation. Letters from Thailand by Botan Jungle Book: Thailand's Politics, Moral Panic, and Plunder, 1996-2008 by Chang Noi History of Timor-Leste by Frederic B. Durand The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong by Edward A. Gargan. This one's actually a bootleg copy, which personally I'm fine with. Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand by Kamala Tiyavanich Si Phaendin (Four Reigns) by Kukrit Pramoj Got Singapore: Bits & Pieces from a Dot in the World by Richard Lim Max Havelaar by Multatuli Travels in Upper Laos and Siam, with an Account of the Chinese Haw Invasion and Puan Resistance by P. Neis History of Lan Na by Sarassawadee Ongsakul The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U. Another bootleg copy. Durians are Not the Only Fruit by Wong Yoon Wah
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Jan 24, 2018 17:55
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Just began 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and really enjoyed it, even though I don’t think I really understood it. Is it true that the third book is poorly translated?
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Jan 24, 2018 18:25
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stereobreadsticks posted:I recently returned from a trip to Southeast Asia and while I was there I discovered that there are a ton of cool English language used bookstores in the area, especially in Chiang Mai, Thailand but I also spent time in bookstores in Bangkok as well as in Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. I focused almost entirely on getting books about or from the region that you don't often see outside of it and came back with quite a haul including a couple of things that seem pretty rare based on google and amazon searches. That's an impressive haul for sure. Any insight into the book reading/buying culture while you were there?
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Jan 24, 2018 20:58
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Captain Hotbutt posted:That's an impressive haul for sure. Any insight into the book reading/buying culture while you were there? Well, I don't know about the local book culture to be honest because the shops I went to (except in Singapore and to a lesser extent Malaysia) seemed very heavily oriented toward backpackers and expats. I did get a chance to have a nice chat with the owner of Orn's Bookshop in Chiang Rai which is a great place. He's a German guy who's lived there for years but he says that his business is really down lately, mostly because the advent of ebooks means that most foreigners in the region just aren't looking for physical books to anywhere near the same extent they used to. Personally, while I like ebooks, I greatly prefer physical books while traveling. It just seems more romantic to have an actual book in your hands when you're sitting on an overnight bus through Laos or a train through the Balkans or something like that, you know?
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Jan 26, 2018 08:57
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I just started goon-favorite "The Black Company". I don't know what to make of it so far.
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Feb 12, 2018 19:43
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Just started The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. Only a few chapters in and it's got me hooked. Great concept and some seriously fantastic prose. "Nestor's forehead rippled as if the question had been a stone tossed into the lake of his thought." drat!
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Feb 15, 2018 13:02
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I've just started reading "The Hobbit" by Tolkien. Cool thing)
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Feb 16, 2018 08:29
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Captain Hotbutt posted:I started The Sound and the Fury last night and I'm already halfway through. It's a darn good read. I've got a bunch of my dear old dad's mid-century literary hardcovers, and I'm starting the Viking Portable Library Faulkner. Wish me luck.
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Mar 6, 2018 07:16
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I'm doing my first reread of The World According to Garp in over 30 years. I was a junior in high school when it first came out. For some unknown reason, the librarian took a liking to me and thought I was mature enough to read this. It was definitely not what I was used to reading. I've read it a couple of times since then, but it's been a while.
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Mar 29, 2018 00:34
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Captain Hotbutt posted:"The Black Company" I just started this myself, actually - after buying it ages ago and only just now getting around to it... But yeah, although I have been enjoying it so far, I did notice that all the character and place names are so distinctly...fantasy. Like, it's not a bad thing, but I'll genuinely be surprised if the Company meets a "John" or "Bob"!  Since so far literally everyone (including regular schmos who presumably only get mentioned once or twice) has a distinctive name/nickname, like "Peewee", "Jolly", "Elmo" and "Longhead".Also, does the author actually go into any detail, when it comes to battles, etc.? Since (aside from the Forvalaka fight, which doesn't really count as it's 1 v TBC fight and not a conventional battle) so far whenever there's a big fight coming up, Croaker simply says something like "[...] and then [X] ordered us to take [Y]. So we did." I mean, don't get me wrong, I do like his nonchalant, slightly-desensitized attitude towards combat, but I'd like it if there was a little detail about what happened and who/how many died, etc.
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Apr 3, 2018 00:47
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Amazon just delivered The Three -Body Problem by Cixin Liu, heard it was good sci-fi, can't wait to get started.
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Apr 3, 2018 19:41
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Well, as I've finished the first book in The Black Company trilogy, I've bought the all-three-in-one (as you can't seem to buy #2 or #3 separately these days) volume, as well as Passage at Arms, seeing as that was recommended to me on SA as well. I really regret placing my order as late as I did, though - I should've placed it right after the first couple of chapters, when I knew I'd enjoy the rest. Since now I've got to wait another week for them to arrive.  (And then later in the month I'll end up buying the new Witcher book, so May is gonna be a very fantasy-filled month of reading, for me)
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May 1, 2018 04:17
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I've been traveling in South America for a while now, stopping in at book shops every now and again to see if they've got anything interesting in English. A few weeks back in Quito I picked up The Heretic by Miguel Delibes (which I enjoyed but thought the translation was a bit lacking and needed proofreading, seriously I've never read a professionally published book with more typos) and The Last Cannibals: A South American Oral History by Ellen B. Basso, which I'm currently reading and really enjoying. It's an academic anthropology book but the majority of the book is direct translations of stories told to the author by Kalapalo tribal storytellers in the Upper Xingu region of Brazil. The stories aren't modified to be easier to comprehend or more accessible to outsiders, the translations are very direct and it's fascinating to see such a different approach to narrative. Today in Lima I picked up Yawar Fiesta and Deep Rivers, both by Jose Maria Arguedas, as well as The Vintage Book of Latin American Stories, edited by Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega with contributions by Borges, Cortazar, Marquez, and Lispector among others.
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May 1, 2018 19:23
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just got a bunch of books for cheap nasuea by sartre a book on russian fairy tales gogol's dark souls novelization book of mormon that a mormon gave me for free liberators by robert harvey despair by nabokov dodonpachi daioujou by cave strangely no czech books this time
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May 9, 2018 01:53
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That Russian fairy tale book looks rad as hell
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Jun 3, 2018 08:48
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Another trip to my favourite bookstore leaves me under an ever growing pile of must reads...
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Jun 23, 2018 07:57
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Not a bad haul. What's first on the list?
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Jun 24, 2018 00:54
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Robot Wendigo posted:Not a bad haul. What's first on the list? Debating between This Census-Taker and Norse Mythology, as I already am reading a social commentary and would like to avoid overdosing on that immediately, and have no fun light books on the go. Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Jun 24, 2018 |
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Jun 24, 2018 07:32
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Just reached the big jump in time in The Passage by Justin Cronin. There were a few moments early on that read like pulp sci-fi and I was a bit concerned, but very much enjoying it at the moment.
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Jun 27, 2018 03:53
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Just got We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor on audiobook I cringed when I first heard the references to Star Wars and Star Trek and thought they'd go away after a few chapters...
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Jul 10, 2018 14:46
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The North Water by Ian McGuire
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Aug 27, 2018 04:50
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I've just started reading The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, seeing as I've always heard it was good (yet never saw the films) as well as that I've been playing Phantom Doctrine on PC, which drew inspiration from TMC. I've been quite enjoying it, so far - I'm just shy of halfway in. I've reached the point where Raymond murders Gaines, then is shocked to hear about it afterwards due to his conditioning, then puts a $5,000 reward on finding the killer. I quite like how the author goes to such great lengths explaining how Raymond is just so immensely unlikeable, as well as how fleshy Johnny's nose is. 
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Oct 2, 2018 00:52
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