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I'd like to read the One Thousand and One Nights this year. Does anyone have a favourite version? The Burton has this criticism in the Wikipedia article: quote:It has, however, been criticized for its "archaic language and extravagant idiom" and "obsessive focus on sexuality" (and has even been called an "eccentric ego-trip" and a "highly personal reworking of the text").[49] which I guess is a bad thing. It would be nice to get an attractive physical version, maybe with illustrations.
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Mar 19, 2021 19:43
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Thanks man  . I keep forgetting we can search within threads now.
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Mar 19, 2021 21:54
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Grifter posted:Seeing this post reminded me of how much I liked Replay. Can anyone recommend books specifically about being in time loops where you get to try things repeatedly? Replay was in longer time frames (reliving lives) but Groundhog's Day type books would be cool too. All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka is a zippy Japanese SF novel with a gimmick like this. It got made into a Tom Cruise movie.
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Nov 24, 2021 21:06
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Five Books did an interview with Peter Hacker, who has written a bunch of books on Wittgenstein. His recommendations are not to dive right in to the primary books, but to situate yourself with some introductory material and biographical details first. quote:It’s impossible to understand without deep knowledge of his great predecessors, Frege and Russell. It is too difficult to recommend to anyone who is not familiar with their work. I have chosen memoirs and intellectual biographies that describe his life and work. He had an intensity about him that was apparently quite awesome and fairly frightening. Wittgenstein had a passion for the subject that was extraordinary. It’s difficult to separate out his life from his work, which is true of all great geniuses. Anyway this is his list: Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk Recollections of Wittgenstein by (ed.) Rush Rhees Wittgenstein by Severin Schroeder The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy by Friedrich Waismann This part made me laugh: quote:Are there particular anecdotes that come to mind?
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May 23, 2022 13:47
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CapnAndy posted:Anyone got some history recommendations about how interesting things got built? I just finished Disney's Land and Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, and both of them disappointed me for the same failings -- a bad reliance on "a thing had to be done and nobody knew how and it looked really hard, but then it got done" narrative without covering the interesting bit of how they overcame those challenges, and in failing to include really obviously important bits (Disney's Land skips right from the monorail in 1959 to Walt Disney dying without mentioning the 1964 New York World's Fair at all, like inventing audio-animatronics and motherfucking It's a Small World isn't pertinent somehow, and Dogfight gets apparently distracted or something and veers off its narrative to discuss media moving to digital distribution, which is a)completely not the loving point and b)hilariously dated given that the book was written in 2013). By contrast, I really loved Losing the Signal, and Devil in the White City is one of my all-time favorite books. Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford is a collection of essays where each one is focused on one feat of British engineering -- building a Mars probe, building Concorde, building the first cellular phone network. There's one chapter about programming the game Elite : an abridged version is online here. The whole book is like that, only more so.
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Jul 4, 2022 18:51
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The Tombs of Atuan by Le Guin has a similar sounding relationship between Tenar and Ged. It's the second Earthsea book, but you don't need to have read the first. e: just remembered that it was also quasi-adapted into a lesser Ghibli movie rollick fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Aug 4, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 20:09
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The Hustler and The Color of Money by Walter Tevis are solid -- good portrait of the psychology of a pool shark. Can never go wrong with a collection of Damon Runyon short stories either. I think Runyon On Broadway is the most complete one in print.
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Aug 22, 2022 21:22
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Tulip posted:So last year I bought this for my aunt: Check out the gift book tag from the Irish Academic Press for ideas. Probably this book (Old Ireland In Colour) is a safe choice - it was huge a couple years ago. People went nuts for it.
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Dec 11, 2022 15:37
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caspergers posted:Need something similar to King's IT or Langan's Fisherman, but more in the way of its history. What I loved most about these is the investigatory nature of the books, "So and so told me..." Doesn't have to be horror. Also my favorite plot in thread in Game of Thrones (didn't read the books) is Ned's investigation into the King's lineage, so something along those lines as well. I guess maybe detective stories are the way to go? Devil House by John Darnielle It's a novel about a true crime writer researching supposedly Satanic murders in small-town California, only a little weirder than that sounds. rollick fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 13:38
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Kart Barfunkel posted:Anybody have suggestions on poetry books that feel ‘black metal’? Gotta be Poe, right?
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Mar 11, 2023 00:50
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Kvlt! posted:I know this is a little broad, but hoping to get some recs. Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee is a good one, and short enough to read in one sitting. Maybe also The Plague by Camus?
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Apr 7, 2023 10:18
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Augustus by John Williams is an epistolary historical novel from 1973 about the first Roman Emperor. The title character doesn't appear too much directly -- instead you hear the story of his life mainly through reports from his friends and rivals.
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May 3, 2023 12:18
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Sarern posted:There is some Weird Sex Stuff with one of the characters, Lucy Mancini (seen in the film in the wedding scenes). I read the book when I was 12, and this whole plot is the only thing I really remember from it. I think I halfway thought it was a novelisation of the film at the time. So when I eventually saw it, I was surprised by her lack of depth.
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Jul 12, 2023 19:10
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fez_machine posted:Vikram Seth's An Equal Music this, and Orfeo by Richard Powers
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Oct 28, 2023 18:09
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Piss Stain Johnson posted:What are the best boomer book series? Thinking along the lines of Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, etc. Looking for Xmas gifts for my dad and I think he's got those covered, except maybe Bosch. Reddit recommends The Grey Man as a newer series along those lines. Boomer dads I have known love the Slough House books by Mick Herron (Now an Apple TV+ series starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas)
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Dec 1, 2023 23:36
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I liked the Thor Heyerdahl books about the Kon Tiki and Ra expeditions -- building boats with pre-industrial technology and sailing across the ocean. Tim Severin also did something similar, retracing famous voyages. Other ideas: The Perfect Storm by Sebastien Junger (sea rescue), The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (space travel), maybe Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods too (just a light travelogue about a funny guy going hiking). If he might like books that have been made into Tom Hanks vehicles, could try A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin, Lost Moon by Jim Lovell or even Band of Brothers by Stephen A. Ambrose. I feel like polar exploration and the space race are both classic dad fixations, so if he's into one of them there's like a million books out there for him. (e: the number one classic dad fixation is obviously World War II, followed by Some Other War (misc), and the Roman Empire. But exploration books are up there). rollick fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Dec 3, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 22:02
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Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux just came out and sounds exactly like that sort of thing
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Dec 12, 2023 01:20
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