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hi. idk if this is the right thread to ask in, but I'm going to Prague for a couple of days later in the month to see the Kafka museum and look around the kind of places that were important to Kafka. Would anyone be able to recommend a good Kafka tour, or just things related to Kafka that I should definitely look at? Thanks.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:07
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Venomous posted:hi. idk if this is the right thread to ask in, but I'm going to Prague for a couple of days later in the month to see the Kafka museum and look around the kind of places that were important to Kafka. Would anyone be able to recommend a good Kafka tour, or just things related to Kafka that I should definitely look at? Thanks. I can't specifically point you to a Kafka tour, but I can say some things about being in Prague. Just skip it if you don't care! Like all the old European cities, a lot of the charm is in the architecture. Make sure to pay attention to weird statues and monuments, gargoyles and buttreses and all that; roof ornaments – look up once in a while. And the weird narrow medieval alleys between houses. There's one that leads down to a weird modern statue of a guy pissing. It's very obviously modern, and very obviously pissing. The Carls Bridge is definitely worth visiting, though there're obviously a lot of busking there. But my best experiences were 1: finding a soviet 6th grade literature book just lying on top of a trashcan, and 2: the small weird bohemian cafes. And if a cafe should call itself bohemian, those in Prague have a pretty good precedent for that. You can probably look up his house and stuff, but it's a very beautiful city even if you don't see that specific house.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:18
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Venomous posted:hi. idk if this is the right thread to ask in, but I'm going to Prague for a couple of days later in the month to see the Kafka museum and look around the kind of places that were important to Kafka. Would anyone be able to recommend a good Kafka tour, or just things related to Kafka that I should definitely look at? Thanks. Idk anything about kafka but i do know a bit about prague go to kafka snob food. no one knows why its called that but its really good go to the church of st james. when you walk in, look up and to the right. the withered arm of a thief is hanging from the ceiling, and its been there for 700 years go to the old new synagogue, which is just a few blocks away from kafka snob food. it's where the golem of prague resides drink at u fleku absolutely take the train out of town to Kostnice and visit the sedlec ossuary, near Kutna Hora
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Jan 7, 2017 04:03
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read Švejk before you go!! edit: and then get drunk in all the same places Hašek did so you can become a cool guy like him 
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Jan 7, 2017 09:18
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chernobyl kinsman posted:absolutely take the train out of town to Kostnice and visit the sedlec ossuary, near Kutna Hora fully seconding this
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Jan 7, 2017 18:43
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The Kafka Museum is kind of naff. If you want to see some interesting stuff in Prague then go the Zizkov district. In the centre of it there's this odd looking tower that the Communists built which an artist decided to make look even weirder by adding these statues of giant babies crawling up the side of it. Also in the district is the Zizkov Military Museum. It's free to enter and has a load of exhibits which do a great job of telling the modern history of the country.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:13
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what's a good reading light? i don't have room for a nightstand, so i'd probably need something to attach to the book, or maybe to a wall. i'd use my phone's flashlight but that drains my battery
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Jan 10, 2017 07:50
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The fault is not in our posts, but in ourselves
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Jan 14, 2017 11:31
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i am going to eat you
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Jan 14, 2017 11:32
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you are all absolutely nothing but trash idiots and fools (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 14, 2017 11:33
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that's me
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Jan 14, 2017 11:33
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Abel Wingnut posted:what's a good reading light? i don't have room for a nightstand, so i'd probably need something to attach to the book, or maybe to a wall. i'd use my phone's flashlight but that drains my battery It depends on your budget, but clip on lights are annoying. If you want something dirt cheap with a on off switch and naked bulb then you can always screw a vivarium light to your wall.
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Jan 14, 2017 12:30
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Avshalom posted:it's spelt aureliano you uncultured screen-gazing sweet corn gently caress that's a fair cop
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Jan 15, 2017 19:54
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I bought Ancillary Justice on a whim like 2 years ago but I'll be hosed if I haven't tried reading it a dozen times without being able to break the first 100 pages. With how well its reviewed and my love for sprawling sci-fi epics/space opera I should be way more into this book but have all but geven up on finishing it. Deep down I know that all the threads that are shown in the first 100 pages will be woven into fantastic story with great payoffs I just can't get through it. IDK if I'm just overwhelmed by the scale of the story. I have never had this problem before. I'm wondering if it's the amount of simultaneous action that just makes it too hard for me to follow in the early stages. Anybody else have this issue with Ann Leckie's writing? 
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Jan 17, 2017 05:50
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I pretty much blasted through Ancillary Justice & loved it. At that time, there was a lot of complaining about Leckie's use of pronouns, many of the type "but I can't imagine what they look like if I don't know their gender" which is dumb and boring. I enjoyed the heck outta the book tho After a long break, I started reading the sequel & it did not work for me at all. I assume it's mostly because it started inside the boring space station with the boring raadchai(?) empire. That officer who is really into putting on gloves and keeping them on though; love tahat; also way more fun than what happens here & there.
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Jan 17, 2017 06:03
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Hi, I hated it. It felt disjointed in a way that kept me from getting interested or invested. It also has the feel of something someone wrote for NaNoWriMo, and even with the editing it just...shows? It needs to be tighter. Also, regarding the pronouns, I got annoyed at how the main character would figure out genders and then slap everyone with one anyways. I mean, it's absolutely fine to go with she as the default, but ignoring the preferred gender just smacked me as rude. That's a personal gripe, though. Another peeve: the starship character ultimately felt human. I know every single alien a human writes will have an element of that, but it felt too human, if that makes any sense? It made it difficult to - again - get invested when I could tell it was a written story, and not a great one at that.
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Jan 17, 2017 07:55
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StrixNebulosa posted:Hi, I hated it. It felt disjointed in a way that kept me from getting interested or invested. It also has the feel of something someone wrote for NaNoWriMo, and even with the editing it just...shows? It needs to be tighter. their language only has one gender, so – The Ancillary themselves hardly understands the disitinction & thus comments on their judgments through the book. also she didnt feel human imo
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Jan 17, 2017 08:06
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Powaqoatse posted:their language only has one gender, so – The Ancillary themselves hardly understands the disitinction & thus comments on their judgments through the book. Fair on both counts: it's been a while since I read it, and the alien-ness thing is highly subjective.
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Jan 17, 2017 08:19
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I don't post here often but I am working my way through the whole Asimov universe and just finished The Stars, Like Dust and would like to report what is possibly the most incredibly groan-worthy forehead slapper of an ending that just makes you shake your head because it was exactly what you thought it would be Still a very fun book in a pulpy way, with a pacing that is absolutely breathtaking compared to Robots and Empire immediately before it and even the Elijah Baley ones before that. Now I begin on Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, which after thoroughly enjoying the recommendation from the other thread I read here of Return from the Stars I have high hopes of e - I am also reading Give Us The Ballot but all I have to report of that book so far is anger, sadness, and immeasurable depression
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Jan 18, 2017 10:55
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What's the story on dust-jacket platitudes, just paid-for bullshit? 'Cause I just finished Mr. Punanibrambras 24-hr Nerd Wankery Book Club and if John Hodgman truly felt that it was "...delightfully funny, provocative, deft, and even thrilling..." he probably needs to take a long recuparitive trip somewhere to cool his fevered brains. God, what a poo poo book.
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Jan 20, 2017 08:32
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Along with miss peregrine's home for peculiar children, it's a book with a great idea at it's centre and then completely hosed up by the rest of it being poo poo. With both books it makes you wonder if the authors didn't steal their one good idea off of someone on the internet or their nan.
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Jan 20, 2017 09:40
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idiotsavant posted:What's the story on dust-jacket platitudes, just paid-for bullshit? 'Cause I just finished Mr. Punanibrambras 24-hr Nerd Wankery Book Club and if John Hodgman truly felt that it was "...delightfully funny, provocative, deft, and even thrilling..." he probably needs to take a long recuparitive trip somewhere to cool his fevered brains. I'd be surprised if money actually changes hands but it's frequently authors with the same publishing house or agency or they just know each other socially. It's also nice to be seen on the back of the book, as it puffs the puffer as being someone whose opinion matters. One story I like was Hunter S. Thompson was sent a book to read and plug, and he soaked it in woodglue and sent it back pay on delivery, but he was an eccentric.
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Jan 20, 2017 14:59
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Avshalom posted:it's spelt aureliano you uncultured screen-gazing sweet corn gently caress lol
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Jan 20, 2017 15:51
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sorry friend i bear you no ill will but i have exactly one trigger and it is one hundred years of solitude
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Jan 22, 2017 10:50
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I love One Hundred Years of Solitude, and how it's seemingly opaque and simplistic characterization really just makes them more powerful by condensing them into the base elements of humanity. I think that's really the basic quality of mythic/folkloric storytelling.
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Jan 22, 2017 19:14
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I've been feeling really bad recently. There are so, so many books I want to read, but I have trouble getting through a short story I really wanna. If I could I'd do nothing but read until the heat death of the universe, but right now I'm paralyzed with choice. I'm not asking for recommendations; I already know what I want to read, but how can I pick one over the other? It's distressing. So instead I've been rereading a book I already read, which, I know, isn't exactly helping, but it's less daunting. The Screwtape Letters is one of my all time favorites and I'm not even Christian. I want to write a fan sequel concerning recent world news and I may actually do it.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:01
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WickedHate posted:I've been feeling really bad recently. There are so, so many books I want to read, but I have trouble getting through a short story I really wanna. If I could I'd do nothing but read until the heat death of the universe, but right now I'm paralyzed with choice. I'm not asking for recommendations; I already know what I want to read, but how can I pick one over the other? It's distressing. Flip a coin. Whatever it lands on, you'll know what you want to read, whether by side it lands on, or how you feel about the results of the coin toss. Basic psychology trick: you know what you want as soon as something tells you what you want.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:12
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WickedHate posted:I've been feeling really bad recently. There are so, so many books I want to read, but I have trouble getting through a short story I really wanna. If I could I'd do nothing but read until the heat death of the universe, but right now I'm paralyzed with choice. I'm not asking for recommendations; I already know what I want to read, but how can I pick one over the other? It's distressing.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:50
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Juanito posted:Grab any book, and just agree that you'll read 2 chapters, and if it sucks, you'll find something else. You'll either be hooked, or move on to another book. It'll get easier once you get back into constant reading. This, or set a page count of like, 20 pages, or an hour of reading without interruption.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:54
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I haven't really been "into" reading ever since I left school and quiet hours in the library stopped being a thing. The irony is I'm home all day every day now and could force myself to go through novels a day if I was on meth or something, but there are too many distractions. I really valued having absolutely nothing to do but read in an absurdly comfortable chair and with a somewhat limited selection. I'm gonna try, though.
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Feb 3, 2017 22:26
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Go to your local library or to a cafe. Leave your phone behind. Once you get drawn into a story, you will want to keep reading it.
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Feb 3, 2017 22:45
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WickedHate posted:I've been feeling really bad recently. There are so, so many books I want to read, but I have trouble getting through a short story I really wanna. If I could I'd do nothing but read until the heat death of the universe, but right now I'm paralyzed with choice. I'm not asking for recommendations; I already know what I want to read, but how can I pick one over the other? It's distressing. I read David Vann - Aquarium recently and it was super cathartic. It's kinda hard to get through, but it's worth it imo.
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Feb 4, 2017 02:28
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Powaqoatse posted:I read David Vann - Aquarium recently and it was super cathartic. It's kinda hard to get through, but it's worth it imo. It's so drat good.
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Feb 4, 2017 02:55
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Franchescanado posted:It's so drat good. Heck yeah. Book's got so much love, and so much hate, but it all makes sense. It's rare that books make me feel anything so intensely. Usually I just go "oh, yeah, that character is angry because ___ and ..." without any feelings like a robot
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Feb 4, 2017 03:29
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I just discovered these unauthorized first US editions of LotR and now I must have them: (The reason they are unauthorized was because to Tolkien the very thought of having his books published as softcovers was disgusting)
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Feb 4, 2017 13:48
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These old Finnish editions' covers are cooler
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Feb 4, 2017 13:53
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Even the bats are depressed in Finland.
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Feb 4, 2017 15:20
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latvian ed. not as cool as the finnish one, i think  
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Feb 4, 2017 18:45
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Honestly, to me the cool factor isn't the covers but that they were illegal.
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Feb 4, 2017 22:08
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WickedHate posted:I haven't really been "into" reading ever since I left school and quiet hours in the library stopped being a thing. The irony is I'm home all day every day now and could force myself to go through novels a day if I was on meth or something, but there are too many distractions. I really valued having absolutely nothing to do but read in an absurdly comfortable chair and with a somewhat limited selection. Try audiobooks, I have headphones on listening to them all day while doing other stuff.
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Feb 5, 2017 00:26
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