yall into reading Books? the what books u been reading thread

The Something Awful Forums > Main > BYOB: BYOB BYOB BOYB BBOY YOBB YBOB BBYO?? > yall into reading Books? the what books u been reading thread

«‹›34 »

How Wonderful!: I only have excellent ideas

I finished reading a book about how homosexuality and homophobic violence were represented and criminalized in journalism and fiction between the beginning of the 20th century and Stonewall. It was ok but as it went on I felt like too much of the book was just cryptic newspaper clippings about guys being murdered in hotel rooms, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that the book was a bummer but yeah it was a pretty big bummer. I am now reading a book about queer culture in Weimar Berlin, because I don't know how to learn from my mistakes.

-sig by Manifisto! goblin by Khanstant! News and possum by deep dish peat moss!

# ? Jan 4, 2021 10:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 23, 2024 17:52

Chuggles

I have just finished reading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.. I watched the film for Requiem for a Dream years ago and I was pretty suprised how quickly the book ends.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 11:15

beer pal

really liked flights by olga tokarczuk. my favorite sections are the one where the elderly lady flies out to poland at the request of her high school boyfriend she hasnt heard from for decades bc hes terminally ill and he wants her to euthanize him, and the one where another lady runs from her difficult life and spends several days sitting on trains and speaking to a homeless woman who rants outside the station every day. Check this out:

quote:

WHAT THE SHROUDED RUNAWAY WAS SAYING
Sway, go on, move. That�s the only way to get away from him. He who rules the world has no power over movement and knows that our body in motion is holy, and only then can you escape him, once you�ve taken off. He reigns over all that is still and frozen, everything that�s passive and inert.

So go, sway, walk, run, take flight, because the second you forget and stand still his massive hands will seize you and turn you into just a puppet, you�ll be enveloped in his breath, stinking of smoke and fumes and the big rubbish dumps outside town. He will turn your brightly coloured soul into a tiny flat one, cut out of paper, of newspaper, and he will threaten you with fire, disease and war, he will scare you so you lose your peace of mind and cease to sleep. He will mark you and record you in his records, provide you with the documentation of your fall. He�ll occupy your thoughts with unimportant things, what to buy, and what to sell, where things are cheaper and where they�re more expensive. From then on you will worry over trifles � the price of petrol and how that will affect the payments on our loans. You will live every day in pain, as though your life were a sentence. But for what crime? Committed when and by whom? You�ll never know.

Once, long ago, the Tsar tried to reform the world but he was vanquished, and the world fell right into the hands of the Antichrist. God, the real one, the good one, became an exile from the world, the vessel of divine power shattered, absorbed into the earth, disappearing into its depths. But when he spoke in a whisper from his hiding place, he was heard by one righteous man, a soldier by the name of Yefim, who paid attention to his words. In the night he threw away his rifle, took off his uniform, unwrapped his feet and slid his boots off. He stood under the sky naked, as God had made him, and then he ran into the forest, and donning an overcoat he wandered from village to village, preaching the gloomy news. Flee, get out of your homes, go, run away, for only thus will you avoid the traps of the Antichrist. Any open battle with him will be lost outright. Leave whatever you possess, give up your land and get on the road.

For anything that has a stable place in this world � every country, church, every human government, everything that has preserved a form in this hell � is at his command. Everything that is defined, that spans from here to there, that fits into a framework, is written down in registers, numbered, testified to, sworn to; everything collected, displayed, labelled. Everything that holds: houses, chairs, beds, families, earth, sowing, planting, verifying growth. Planning, awaiting the results, outlining schedules, protecting order. Rear your children thus, since you had them without understanding, and set out on the road; bury your parents, who brought you into this world without understanding � and go. Get out of here, go far away, beyond the reach of his breath, beyond his cables and wires and antennas and waves, resist the measurements of his sensitive instruments.

Whoever pauses will be petrified, whoever stops, pinned like an insect, his heart pierced by a wooden needle, his hands and feet drilled through and pinned into the threshold and the ceiling.

This is precisely how he died, Yefim, he who rebelled. He was captured and his body nailed to the cross, immobilized like an insect, on display for human and inhuman eyes, but most of all inhuman eyes, which take the most delight in all such spectacles; hardly a surprise that they repeat them every year and celebrate, praying to the corpse.

This is why tyrants of all stripes, infernal servants, have such deep-seated hatred for the nomads � this is why they persecute the Gypsies and the Jews, and why they force all free peoples to settle, assigning the addresses that serve as our sentences.

What they want is to create a frozen order, to falsify time�s passage. They want for the days to repeat themselves, unchanging, they want to build a big machine where every creature will be forced to take its place and carry out false actions. Institutions and offices, stamps, newsletters, a hierarchy, and ranks, degrees, applications and rejections, passports, numbers, cards, election results, sales and amassing points, collecting, exchanging some things for others.

What they want is to pin down the world with the aid of barcodes, labelling all things, letting it be known that everything is a commodity, that this is how much it will cost you. Let this new foreign language be illegible to humans, let it be read exclusively by automatons, machines. That way by night, in their great underground shops, they can organize readings of their own barcoded poetry.

Move. Get going. Blessed is he who leaves.

also just about done with the audio book of chaos which i picked up on the recommendation of our friend nut & its just as wild as advertised. im in the last numbered chapter and it starts like oh we're in the denouement but then oh nevermind heres another brand new shady coverup lol one more for the road

https://i.imgur.com/xQxnooW.png

# ? Jan 6, 2021 20:33

magic cactus: We lied. We are not at war. There is no enemy. This is a rescue operation.

beer pal posted:

flights by olga tokarczuk.

just checked this out and it seems like my kind of thing, first 2021 addition to my "to-read" list. Thanks!

Thanks to Saoshyant for the amazing spring '23 sig!

# ? Jan 6, 2021 21:58

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

Okay so my reading list lately has been escapist stuff I come across at book exchange nooks and such.

Most recent was King Solomon's Mines. No real comment except like John Buchan novels the setup is more fun than the payoff.

Before that it was the Rising Sun. Only upside to powering through is that I now understand a BYOB in-joke during movie nights.

And right before that it was Ivanhoe which was more fun than the above two but interesting in its antisemitism if that can be said without offending anyone. Like, everyone constantly talks about the Jews and how bad they are. Even the noble hero ends up with a random pretty Saxon girl simply because the Actual heroine is Jewish. I realize that the author was probably making fun of the past or even making social commentary but still...

And I say "everyone" but the two characters who seem not to mind are Prince John and the bloodthirsty Templar who kidnaps the girl. Even then it's because John is a lecher and the Templar doesn't care about anything.

# ? Jan 7, 2021 16:54

magic cactus: We lied. We are not at war. There is no enemy. This is a rescue operation.

Finished Burroughs cut-up trilogy. Of the three novels in the "trilogy", I liked Nova Express the best, probably because it felt like the most structured of the three. They were a trip though. On a sentence level, Burroughs's mastery of the cut up technique leads to some beautifully hallucinogenic writing.

Next up some light reading with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, because I haven't read it since grad school and still call myself a Kantian for some reason. Gonna be reading through the Cambridge Companion to it that I picked up because going through it alone is the definition of insanity.

Thanks to Saoshyant for the amazing spring '23 sig!

# ? Jan 7, 2021 23:40

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

Locke is nice light reading.

But also I was thinking of ordering something from Danielewski's The Familiar series but I am not sure I want to read a less than 1/5Th finished story which won't be continued.

Actually the last good book I read wad The Mirror & The Light which made me realize I just don't like the concluding parts of any series. So maybe The Familiar should be a go?

# ? Jan 7, 2021 23:56

xcheopis

I'm giving up on trying to read any new fiction. I just can't get into anything, so I'm going back to my favourite non-fiction subjects for now.

With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside

# ? Jan 8, 2021 00:17

Buttchocks: No, I like my hat, thanks.

Just finished the first book in the Expanse series. currently on waiting list for book 2 from the library. :f5h:

# ? Jan 8, 2021 04:58

How Wonderful!: I only have excellent ideas

xcheopis posted:

I'm giving up on trying to read any new fiction. I just can't get into anything, so I'm going back to my favourite non-fiction subjects for now.

the only good novels I've read lately are reissues or older things that just got translated into english. I think novelists need to get their acts together and stop loving around writing crummy ones

-sig by Manifisto! goblin by Khanstant! News and possum by deep dish peat moss!

# ? Jan 8, 2021 08:20

3D Megadoodoo

The only book published in 2020 that I've read (bought it on the 23th, finished it last night) was a collection of (mostly) Pompeiian graffiti. So that's how up-to-date I am with modern literature.

# ? Jan 8, 2021 08:25

Dr. Yinz Ljubljana

This is How You Lose the Time War was short but really good. So far Zoey Punches The Future in the Dick is, as all the other books Jason Wong wrote, pretty good

# ? Jan 8, 2021 10:00

Tezer

How Wonderful! posted:

the only good novels I've read lately are reissues or older things that just got translated into english. I think novelists need to get their acts together and stop loving around writing crummy ones

Novelists are very good at finding new ways to be crummy. Gotta take the sweet with the sour.

Dr. Yinz Ljubljana posted:

This is How You Lose the Time War was short but really good. So far Zoey Punches The Future in the Dick is, as all the other books Jason Wong wrote, pretty good

I dig Max Gladstone, he's an easy read. I'll have to give How You Lose the Time War a shot.

# ? Jan 8, 2021 20:37

xcheopis

How Wonderful! posted:

the only good novels I've read lately are reissues or older things that just got translated into english. I think novelists need to get their acts together and stop loving around writing crummy ones

I wanted to get into Bujold (finally) but the books just sit about until it's time for them to go back to the library. Bit depressing but it'll pass. I have a lot of excellent non-fiction. :yayclod:

With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside

# ? Jan 10, 2021 23:41

Prof. Crocodile

I recently finished reading a book by our very own nut. It's called "The Campaign for a Tim Horton's in the Small Community of Aldersbridge", and it's about exactly what it says. It is quirky and funny in the vein of early Wes Anderson, but it also has a subtext about the importance of community. Also it has an ending that is very effectively heartwarming, perhaps because the book was played like a goofy comedy early on, so the unfolding of familiar characters into three dimensions has a heightened impact.

I liked it quite a lot, and it was one of the better books I read in 2020, somewhere between "The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber" and "Physics and Philosophy".

I waited so long to post this ITT because I didn't want to doxx nut so soon after he escaped the clutches of Terry Harrison, but he posted about it in another thread, so here goes.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 00:25

nut

# ? Jan 15, 2021 01:25

Dr. Yinz Ljubljana

Picked up The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by the Nightvale team and it's much better than their last two books, though Alice Isn't Dead did a better job wrapping up that story than the podcast did. Kinda curious now that I found out there's a Within The Wires book coming soon

# ? Jan 15, 2021 15:48

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

Anyone remember the name of a book about an ancient Mesopotamian language that has the power of neurolinguistic programming? I thought it was Neuromancer but I'm wrong.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 19:48

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

I have known about Never Let Me Go for a long time but just being generally aware of the plot makes me fear the novel would mess with my precarious sanity.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 19:50

xcheopis

Bright Bart posted:

Anyone remember the name of a book about an ancient Mesopotamian language that has the power of neurolinguistic programming? I thought it was Neuromancer but I'm wrong.

That is pretty loving funny!

With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside

# ? Jan 15, 2021 19:52

nut

Bright Bart posted:

I have known about Never Let Me Go for a long time but just being generally aware of the plot makes me fear the novel would mess with my precarious sanity.

one thousand percent feel this

# ? Jan 15, 2021 20:10

Tezer

xcheopis posted:

That is pretty loving funny!

If I answer their question, am I falling for an in-joke I'm not aware of

# ? Jan 15, 2021 20:34

xcheopis

Tezer posted:

If I answer their question, am I falling for an in-joke I'm not aware of

I'm just tickled at Neuromancer being confused for a book about ancient Mesopotamian language. It's not as funny as 10-year old me thinking Lord of the Flies would be a boy's adventure book (which I guess it technically is but still), though.

With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside

# ? Jan 15, 2021 21:26

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

xcheopis posted:

I'm just tickled at Neuromancer being confused for a book about ancient Mesopotamian language. It's not as funny as 10-year old me thinking Lord of the Flies would be a boy's adventure book (which I guess it technically is but still), though.

I mean I've read both but a long while ago. And the first thing that I thought of with the keywords "neurolinguistic" and "classic of sci-fi" was Neuromancer.

It's just odd because I like the book I'm referring to more and remember much more of the plot but the name escapes me while Neuromancer was right at the back of my mind despite needing to read the Wiki page to remind me of even basic details.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 21:37

more falafel please: forums poster

xcheopis posted:

I'm just tickled at Neuromancer being confused for a book about ancient Mesopotamian language. It's not as funny as 10-year old me thinking Lord of the Flies would be a boy's adventure book (which I guess it technically is but still), though.

iirc lord of the flies was supposed to be a critique of boy's adventure books where Proper Right Young English Lads showed their dominance over both Nature And The Savages

thanks Saoshyant and nesamdoom for the sigs!

# ? Jan 15, 2021 21:40

Tezer

xcheopis posted:

I'm just tickled at Neuromancer being confused for a book about ancient Mesopotamian language. It's not as funny as 10-year old me thinking Lord of the Flies would be a boy's adventure book (which I guess it technically is but still), though.

Ya, bridging from kids books to adult books always goes sideways at some point. I was in middle school when I picked up Disclosure by Michael Crichton which... has some adult themes.

Bright Bart posted:

Anyone remember the name of a book about an ancient Mesopotamian language that has the power of neurolinguistic programming? I thought it was Neuromancer but I'm wrong.

You may be thinking of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 21:40

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

Tezer posted:

ou may be thinking of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

Yes! Thank you. Now I am also reminded of Cryptonomicon and other works by this author.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 23:02

Bright Bart: False. There is only one electron and it has never stopped

Tezer posted:

Ya, bridging from kids books to adult books always goes sideways at some point. I was in middle school when I picked up Disclosure by Michael Crichton which... has some adult themes.

I remember being proud by selecting Last of the Mohicans and Lorna Doone in sixth grade English class but the teacher was like "Yeah good choices they were actually required reading in grade four or five at the elementary school I went to!". I felt bad.

In that year we read a sci-fi novel which included cryptic (to tweens) references to young teenage relationships e.g. "our lovemaking was only in the dark and only when our parents were away".

Grade five the attempt to play Romeo + Juliet was aborted. So too was another film where a sex scene was prominent, even earlier.

# ? Jan 15, 2021 23:07

How Wonderful!: I only have excellent ideas

Bright Bart posted:

So too was another film where a sex scene was prominent, even earlier.

Yeah these days Fritz the Cat is barely even taught at all in K-12.

-sig by Manifisto! goblin by Khanstant! News and possum by deep dish peat moss!

# ? Jan 16, 2021 00:53

Prof. Crocodile

Bright Bart posted:

I remember being proud by selecting Last of the Mohicans and Lorna Doone in sixth grade English class but the teacher was like "Yeah good choices they were actually required reading in grade four or five at the elementary school I went to!". I felt bad.

In that year we read a sci-fi novel which included cryptic (to tweens) references to young teenage relationships e.g. "our lovemaking was only in the dark and only when our parents were away".

Grade five the attempt to play Romeo + Juliet was aborted. So too was another film where a sex scene was prominent, even earlier.

We watched The Name of The Rose in 10th grade, and even though there were boobs, pretty much everyone was too excited about F. Murray Abraham's performance to pay it much mind.

# ? Jan 16, 2021 01:32

beer pal

finished this weekend the canticle for leibowtiz which is one my dads favorite books and i thought it was pretty good. also last week finished the audio book of the autobiography of malcolm x which was very good. narrated by laurence fishburne & he did a great job very engaging. bit of a bummer it leaves off the epilogue, where alex haley descibes the process of writing the book and about the time surrounding malcolm x's assassination, but thankfully the text is available on the alex haley website

now im reading spring snow by yukio mishima

https://i.imgur.com/xQxnooW.png

# ? Jan 18, 2021 19:18

3D Megadoodoo

I decided to read a kids' book instead of a REAL BOOK :goonsay:

so I picked Arthur Roth's The Iceberg Hermit from the "Youths' Wish Library" (volume 233). It was a quick read and made me realize I actually quite like robinsonades as light reading. Next up (I think): something with pirates who buckle swashes.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 17:12

How Wonderful!: I only have excellent ideas

I have been reading a lot of stuff for lesson planning and it's been a lot of fun. This week I read Men Beyond Desire: Manhood, Sex, and Violation in American Literature by David Greven, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire by Amy S. Greenberg, and Walt Whitman's strange pseudonymous fitness book Manly Health and Training to Teach the Science of a Sound and Beautiful Body. I learned a lot about the boys and their awful ways.

My committee chair also gave me a book, The Laws is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons by Dayan, which I'm excited to read. And then last week I was able to just lounge around in the tub for a pretty long while so I read a Mary Ruefle poetry collection I hadn't read before, DUNCE.

-sig by Manifisto! goblin by Khanstant! News and possum by deep dish peat moss!

# ? Feb 5, 2021 17:32

mailorder bees: FLUFFERNUTTER

i read annihilation, it was real good

thanks Manifisto!

# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:38

beer pal

i quite liked spring snow & interested to continue the series. now im reading never let me go by kazuo ishiguro and having a pretty good time. its my first of his & i had an image of him that was like heavy lit vibes but this ones pretty light.

been keeping on with my dual stream paper fiction / audio nonfiction system & read david graeber's book Debt the first 5000 years. very dense and full of interesting tidbits most of which i haven't retained but ive held on to the big concepts anyway. turns out money is fake

then i read a book by Rashid Khalidi called the Hundred years war on palestine &it was just what i was looking for, direct and concise. now im reading Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe which is a narrative history about the troubles in ireland & its very good

https://i.imgur.com/xQxnooW.png

# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:50

beer pal

minecraft_holmes posted:

i read annihilation, it was real good

i liked it too, the writing in the stairwell was very cool to me

https://i.imgur.com/xQxnooW.png

# ? Feb 5, 2021 19:53

Finger Prince

I'm currently reading A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is really, really good. Up there with some of his best work (Sarantine Mosaic, Lions of Al-Rassan). The chapter describing the lead-up and 3 lap horse race around a city square was edge of seat exciting. The way he tells the story through the different perspectives of everyone who interacts with the story is always so great. If you've never read his stuff, it's like quasi-historical low fantasy fiction. Based loosely (generally) on European* historical cultures/geography/time periods, but obviously altered so that actual history doesn't get in the way of telling the story.
Anyway I really recommend his books if you're looking for some really engaging and well written fiction**

*he did a couple of books set in pseudo-China which were pretty decent

**I didn't like the Fionavar Tapestry series (his first books), but I don't like those kinds of stories where the protagonist(s) are modern people that get teleported to some fantasy world. His rest aren't like that at all. If you're interested, you can pretty much bounce around, but I'd start with the Sarantine Mosaic (2 books) and Lions of Al-Rassan, and branch out from there, because they set the world that the rest build on. Maybe read Children of Earth and Sky before A Brightness Long Ago. Actually you can pretty much just read them in the order they were published. Tigana is stand-alone and isn't set in the same world as the other books.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 22:55

cardinale

I didn't like Fionavar Tapestry either! I agree the Sarantine Mosaic is great. I also liked the one set in early Britain which I have just googled to recall was called Last Light of the Sun. I haven't read either of his latest two so thanks for posting, I'm going to seek them out.

# ? Feb 5, 2021 23:17

SeaGoatSupreme: Ask me about fixed-gear bikes (aka "fixies")

My job is really hard physically which is great for my body but it's made it hard to get into high minded stuff, so I've been running through some early adulthood favorites lately. I'm glad they still hold up

A short list of the last week and a half:

Neuromancer
The wind-up girl
The wind-up bird chronicles
Raw shark texts
American gods

I tried reading wise man's fear because I thought it couldn't be as bad as I remember and uh its worse its real bad folks

I think I'm gonna go back farther and read the bartimaeus trilogy next because drat at 10? years old I thought those books slapped hard. After that I'll probably read some John Grisham because it was one of the few things I bonded with my grandfather over before he passed.

# ? Feb 6, 2021 14:46

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 23, 2024 17:52

SeaGoatSupreme: Ask me about fixed-gear bikes (aka "fixies")

Ooh I just remembered a book called "The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray" and I really liked the setting, that's going on the list too.

And Rivers of London! Man I am just firing on all cylinders I'm excited to keep refreshing on some favs

# ? Feb 6, 2021 14:48

The Something Awful Forums > Main > BYOB: BYOB BYOB BOYB BBOY YOBB YBOB BBYO?? > yall into reading Books? the what books u been reading thread

«‹›34 »