What are you reading right now? What do you think of it? What have you read so far this year, and what are you going to read next? > last one: >>238 (https://archive.md/chbSl)
book club thread #2 :
Anonymous :
79 days ago :
No.3283
>>3336
>>3283 (OP)
I'm reading the Wild Ass's Skin by Balzac. It's my first book of his and I'm really liking his descriptions and sense of place. I'm only a few pages in but already the gambling house, the streets of Paris, and the antiquities shop were so richly described and established the bleak atmosphere incredibly. Mirrors the mental state of the main character as well. Excited to continue, but class work is getting in the way at the moment.
>>3290
>>3265
It's actually my first Ishiguro. I'm going to wait until I'm done reading it before judging his writings.
I do plan on reading more of his work.
ok interesting, well I've only read Remains of the Day but I really recommend it, the film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson is really excellent as well.
>>3286So far so good, I've read the first two chapters. In some sense much ado about nothing, but admittedly the prose is starting to get to me. I'm going to finish it though.
in my experience not getting fed up with the prose is a key skill to have when reading rushdie, amis also.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. I'm only about halfway through. I would describe it as ahead of its time, but not really in a good way. A lot of it feels cliche and like it's trying to be pretentious but failing somehow. There's not really much to analyze besides David's internal struggle between appearing masculine/straight and being with Giovanni. I guess the biggest themes are the stigmas of gayness and false appearances. Obviously Giovanni offs himself so I hope it's not as straightforward as only being because David leaves him.
Has anyone here read the Farseer trilogy? I was thinking of reading it next as I'm currently on a fantasy binge.
>The symposium began with organizer Anthony Uhlmann reading out a prepared statement from Murnane while the writer stood by tight-lipped; he would be present during the breaks and at the end of the day but was under no obligation to stay for the papers. Murnane didn’t stay, at least not for the first session. During the second session, he lingered in the bar, pretending to read the newspaper. During the third, he collected empty beer glasses and tinkered at the sink.
I'm thinking he's based. In any event, he BTFOs Rushdie and other such popular writers
>The writer lives in a single room, where he sleeps on a folding cot among his “archives”, including filing cabinets full of notes, diaries, and early drafts of his books. These files have unusual titles: “I decide that most books are crap”; ; “My hatred for literary critics”, and: “Peter Carey exposed at last.”
>Murnane prefers not to travel. He has never left Australia or flown in an aeroplane, he doesn’t appear at writers’ festivals, and has only ventured outside Victoria a handful of times. He has not watched TV or movies for decades, and has never used a computer – although he has recently acquired an iPhone on which he sends epistle-length text messages.
>Instead, he spends his downtime with several complex games, which he’s developed and played throughout his adult life. The most famous of these is “the Antipodean Archive”. It’s a vast and complex horse-racing game set in two imaginary countries called New Eden and New Arcady.
>Murnane has no sense of smell (to which he attributes his synesthetic perception of colour) and a prodigious memory. Before giving a recent talk, he recited every winner of the Melbourne Cup in order.
Started reading the Upanishads last night, will probably try to finish reading Envy by Yuri Olesha this weekend, and then start knocking down the remaining Chekhov plays on my list (already finished The Seagull).
Yesterday I read a short story from 1799 on the moral pitfalls of gambling called The Lottery. Very overly-literal and straightforward but sort of charming because of it.
Starting a book about cryptography called The Code Book. Written in a pretty unremarkable style but has some interesting historical anecdotes.
Anonymous :
78 days ago :
No.3318
>>3446
>>3318
Have you read the Turner Diaries? I have a weird interest in extremist literature like that for some reason. I guess it's just my inner edgelord yearning to break free.
Finished "Serpent's Walk" by M.A.R. Barker. Read it because "crypto-Nazi professor of Urdu and favorite gamemaster of Dave Arneson writes a propaganda novel under a pen name about the reemergence of the Nazis in the mid-21st century, published by the same people as the Turner Diaries" was too interesting to pass up.
As a work of literature, it falls very, very short. Better written than Ayn Rand, but not by much.
The speculative content though is exceptionally prescient (written in 1991) and you can see how its politics directly influenced the early BBS culture and ultimately /pol/ as well as other things downstream. You can draw a straight line from it to Sheldon Pacotti and Deus Ex, which I think is the most interesting takeaway from it. Also, makes me wonder about Elon Musk's obsession with Deus Ex, Walter Musk, and Maye Musk née Haldeman.
>>3283 (OP)
I'm reading the Wild Ass's Skin by Balzac. It's my first book of his and I'm really liking his descriptions and sense of place. I'm only a few pages in but already the gambling house, the streets of Paris, and the antiquities shop were so richly described and established the bleak atmosphere incredibly. Mirrors the mental state of the main character as well. Excited to continue, but class work is getting in the way at the moment.
I've had four midterms in a week, so I haven't actually read for pleasure in some time.
The last book I finished was Las multitudes argentinas, by a politician of the XIX century.
Now I'm going to read The Book of All Books (Calasso).
Anonymous :
77 days ago :
No.3420
>>3422
>>3420
Usually depends if it's a book I want to 'tick off' or one I was just taking a punt on.
>>3437>>3420
I generally just put it aside and give it another shot later on.
When i pick it up again i might find it more enjoyable to read
>>3440>>3420
For fiction, I just put it aside. May give it a shot later. A lot of books I highly disliked at first have become my favorites.
For non-fiction, I try to keep at it, albeit at a slower pace, while looking for other books or articles on the same topic.
>>3458>>3420
Happened to me recently with the count of monte cristo. I enjoyed the book well enough, but around 750 pages in I just tailed off and then stopped reading it entirely. I guess it was fatigue, but I just started to wonder what the point of finishing the next 400 or so pages was.
>>3542
If you guys dislike a book you're in the middle of, or grow to find it a slog, do you drop it or push through?
Anonymous :
77 days ago :
No.3422
>>3423
>>3422
Assuming that you chug the former and abort the latter?
>>3420
If you guys dislike a book you're in the middle of, or grow to find it a slog, do you drop it or push through?
Usually depends if it's a book I want to 'tick off' or one I was just taking a punt on.
>>3420
If you guys dislike a book you're in the middle of, or grow to find it a slog, do you drop it or push through?
For fiction, I just put it aside. May give it a shot later. A lot of books I highly disliked at first have become my favorites.
For non-fiction, I try to keep at it, albeit at a slower pace, while looking for other books or articles on the same topic.
Anonymous :
77 days ago :
No.3446
>>3478
>>3446
I haven't. I'm also drawn to extremist litature, but I've heard enough about the Turner Diaries that I don't find anything really interesting about it.
Have you read the Management of Savagery or the works of Pentti Linkola?
>>3318
Finished "Serpent's Walk" by M.A.R. Barker. Read it because "crypto-Nazi professor of Urdu and favorite gamemaster of Dave Arneson writes a propaganda novel under a pen name about the reemergence of the Nazis in the mid-21st century, published by the same people as the Turner Diaries" was too interesting to pass up.
As a work of literature, it falls very, very short. Better written than Ayn Rand, but not by much.
The speculative content though is exceptionally prescient (written in 1991) and you can see how its politics directly influenced the early BBS culture and ultimately /pol/ as well as other things downstream. You can draw a straight line from it to Sheldon Pacotti and Deus Ex, which I think is the most interesting takeaway from it. Also, makes me wonder about Elon Musk's obsession with Deus Ex, Walter Musk, and Maye Musk née Haldeman.
Have you read the Turner Diaries? I have a weird interest in extremist literature like that for some reason. I guess it's just my inner edgelord yearning to break free.
Anonymous :
77 days ago :
No.3458
>>3461
>>3458
I liked Monte Cristo quite well, but only after reading it did I realize my version was actually an abridged 800 page version, and, to be honest, I don't think I would have thought any more highly of it had I read the unabridged. The excessive length is partly just a result of the serialized format it was initially published in. It makes for a very bloated single volume novel.
>>3420
If you guys dislike a book you're in the middle of, or grow to find it a slog, do you drop it or push through?
Happened to me recently with the count of monte cristo. I enjoyed the book well enough, but around 750 pages in I just tailed off and then stopped reading it entirely. I guess it was fatigue, but I just started to wonder what the point of finishing the next 400 or so pages was.
>>3458
>>3420
Happened to me recently with the count of monte cristo. I enjoyed the book well enough, but around 750 pages in I just tailed off and then stopped reading it entirely. I guess it was fatigue, but I just started to wonder what the point of finishing the next 400 or so pages was.
I liked Monte Cristo quite well, but only after reading it did I realize my version was actually an abridged 800 page version, and, to be honest, I don't think I would have thought any more highly of it had I read the unabridged. The excessive length is partly just a result of the serialized format it was initially published in. It makes for a very bloated single volume novel.
Anonymous :
77 days ago :
No.3478
>>3489
>>3478
Not that anon, but I've read Can Life Prevail and really enjoyed it. Is there any other Linkola you would recommend?
>>3446
>>3318
Have you read the Turner Diaries? I have a weird interest in extremist literature like that for some reason. I guess it's just my inner edgelord yearning to break free.
I haven't. I'm also drawn to extremist litature, but I've heard enough about the Turner Diaries that I don't find anything really interesting about it.
Have you read the Management of Savagery or the works of Pentti Linkola?
>Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open. I looked for anything in the landscape that seemed to hint at some elaborate meaning behind appearances.
>My journey to the plains was much less arduous than I afterwards described it. And I cannot even say that at a certain hour I knew I had left Australia. But I recall clearly a succession of days when the flat land around me seemed more and more a place that only I could interpret.
Anonymous :
76 days ago :
No.3489
>>3495
>>3489
If you don't read Finnish, unfortunately that's the one work of his available besides a poorly translated group of secondaries essays floatibg around.
>>3478
>>3446
I haven't. I'm also drawn to extremist litature, but I've heard enough about the Turner Diaries that I don't find anything really interesting about it.
Have you read the Management of Savagery or the works of Pentti Linkola?
Not that anon, but I've read Can Life Prevail and really enjoyed it. Is there any other Linkola you would recommend?
/int/ et al screwed me up with Finns like modern day pan-rightism is fucking up youths' relationship to Jews and Indians; every time I encounter a Finnish person I have to physically bite my tongue to not blurt out mispronounced Finnish cursewords that were the apex of humor in 2011
been getting more interested in strict longform verse recently (epic poems, verse novels). not many good ones were written (or translated well enough), and it seems like much of the late 20th century revival centered around free verse rather than stricter meter and rhyme. currently digitizing picrel, going to make an epub but ive been having fun figuring out hocr, bulk image processing and everything else to make a good scanned pdf. i would recommend this book, either buying the physical version or waiting a couple weeks for my versions to pop up on annas' archive. also just bought another book by croft that i plan to digitize, its described as an epic poem so i hope he can pull off more gravitas this time
>>3292
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. I'm only about halfway through. I would describe it as ahead of its time, but not really in a good way. A lot of it feels cliche and like it's trying to be pretentious but failing somehow. There's not really much to analyze besides David's internal struggle between appearing masculine/straight and being with Giovanni. I guess the biggest themes are the stigmas of gayness and false appearances. Obviously Giovanni offs himself so I hope it's not as straightforward as only being because David leaves him.
I had the same feeling of cliché (although, like you say, it was probably not at the time), so I didn't even finish it.
>>3420If you guys dislike a book you're in the middle of, or grow to find it a slog, do you drop it or push through?
I stop reading with no remorse, unless it's too much a classic to be bad, then I pause, and try and change my mindset approaching it.
Who else /brandonsanderson/ bros? He's pretty based :-) actually a great writer great sense of STYLE literature is SAVED
Reading Xenosystems. It has been alright so far, the prose is mechanical. As someone who was a red blooded communist through the 2010s, it's very interesting to see what the 'other side' was up to during that time.
Anonymous :
54 days ago :
No.4728
>>4832
>>4728
Good luck. In the original, or if translated, which translation?
I got The Search of Lost Time. This is my planned summer read (and probably autumn, winter, and some other seasons). I figured there was no reason to wait anymore to read what is supposed to be a masterpiece.
I just hope I'll be able to stay that long with the same book.
I've been reading La derecha argentina and a biography of Savitri Devi. For fiction, I'm reading Tía Juia y el escribidor.
I'm reading "The Assertiveness Workbook" by Randy J Patterson. I have struggled to say no, set boundaries and speak my mind for most of my life, and would love to break free of the habits and chronic need to be agreeable at the cost of my own self-respect. I have checked out "When I say no I feel guilty" by Manuel J. Smith but a lot of the examples provided don't seem very effective.
>>4728
I got The Search of Lost Time. This is my planned summer read (and probably autumn, winter, and some other seasons). I figured there was no reason to wait anymore to read what is supposed to be a masterpiece.
I just hope I'll be able to stay that long with the same book.
Good luck. In the original, or if translated, which translation?
In French. That's also why it would be ridiculous to not read it. I dread reading Joyce, but Proust wrote in my mother tongue.
Reading Chesterton's New Jerusalem. It's dated but funny, even if most of his reasonings are pleasant rather than solid.
>Sanctity was the light of the Dark Ages, or if you will the dream of the Dark Ages. And democracy is the dream of the dark age of industrialism; if it be very much of a dream. It is this which prophets promise to achieve, and politicians pretend to achieve, and poets sometimes desire to achieve, and sometimes only desire to desire. In a word, an equal citizenship is quite the reverse of the reality in the modern world; but it is still the ideal in the modern world.
I have began the third and final entry of a mystery visual novel series.
Started The Trial. I don't know why I stopped reading Kafka after finishing The Transformation.
Anonymous :
24 days ago :
No.5793
>>5924
>>5793
I finished The Freeze-Frame Revolution yesterday. While (re)reading this series I discovered some additional stories, in partially-completed states, on the author's website, and learned that he was contracted for a Sunflowers story due around the end of the year. I look forward to living within that world a little longer.
And now I will read Blindsight for the third time. Imagine being Anonymous.
At the moment, I have been rereading Peter Watts' 'Sunflower cycle'. It totals four short stories about a group of posthumans within a spaceship, which circumvents the galaxy building incremental warpgates. A rudimentary AI, engineered to a certain low level of intelligence in order to be predictable, and relying on human meat in times of crisis. Of course, a mutiny was involved. Three of the four stories include the same PoV so many of the thousands are forgotten. The science being QUITE hard has made it much more enjoyable. I notice I tend to reread books after about a 5 year gap and retain more after.
Previously and throughout, I have been reading
>the cultivation webnovel A Will Eternal
a much more linear direct traversal throughout its world (thus far, in its sixth book) compared to its predecessor I Shall Seal the Heavens. It does feel like pulp so I bounce back and forth.
>finished the Unwilling God trilogy
A small self-published series, the third direct trilogy to feature one, maybe two of its protags. Very much includes a messiah-like deity in the form of a natural mage, a human healer who is much more than he appears. It takes place within a small sword and sorcery world that the author wrote many other stories in, which I adore. I went in believing that this may be the last of the Ursian chronicles but there is hope for the future. The author's personal life seems healthier too. I believe he lost his dog and wife in the same year--2014--and now mentions a girlfriend on his blog. I wish him the best.
I saw a dog in the middle of the road today in a busy area and felt heartache.
>reread the final ~30% of Dungeon Crawler Carl
I believe the author has grown too successful to finish this series within any timely manner now.
Anonymous :
24 days ago :
No.5805
>>5810
>>5805
i might give it a go. but i had ulysees as my target doorstop for this year and it might get in the way of that. i guess i can try both...
>>5838Tartar Steppe, love it so far. Motivating me to stop being stagnant.
>>5805
I am
Also wow this site got really active, haven't visited since January.
anyone going to do the rs gravitys rainbow project?
Anonymous :
20 days ago :
No.5838
>>5839
>>5838
Oh, and I found this massive list of history books on the /lit/ archives from 2012 after I finished reading John Ehle's Trail of Tears a few weeks ago. Idk where to share it, maybe it'll interest some of you
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/2955560#p2956854
Tartar Steppe, love it so far. Motivating me to stop being stagnant.
>>5805
anyone going to do the rs gravitys rainbow project?
I am
Also wow this site got really active, haven't visited since January.
>>5838
Tartar Steppe, love it so far. Motivating me to stop being stagnant.
>>5805
I am
Also wow this site got really active, haven't visited since January.
Oh, and I found this massive list of history books on the /lit/ archives from 2012 after I finished reading John Ehle's Trail of Tears a few weeks ago. Idk where to share it, maybe it'll interest some of you
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/2955560#p2956854
I finished reading Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. Liked it. It's an interesting difference from the first book of his I read, Beyond Good and Evil. More academic in style, but it has a little glimmer of his more prescriptive and bombastic prose. I find the thesis very interesting and insightful, that of the Apollonian and Dionysian undercurrent which fuels the human arts.
Now I am reading Bed by Tao Lin. Not sure whether I like it or not yet.
>>5793
At the moment, I have been rereading Peter Watts' 'Sunflower cycle'. It totals four short stories about a group of posthumans within a spaceship, which circumvents the galaxy building incremental warpgates. A rudimentary AI, engineered to a certain low level of intelligence in order to be predictable, and relying on human meat in times of crisis. Of course, a mutiny was involved. Three of the four stories include the same PoV so many of the thousands are forgotten. The science being QUITE hard has made it much more enjoyable. I notice I tend to reread books after about a 5 year gap and retain more after.
Previously and throughout, I have been reading
>the cultivation webnovel A Will Eternal
a much more linear direct traversal throughout its world (thus far, in its sixth book) compared to its predecessor I Shall Seal the Heavens. It does feel like pulp so I bounce back and forth.
>finished the Unwilling God trilogy
A small self-published series, the third direct trilogy to feature one, maybe two of its protags. Very much includes a messiah-like deity in the form of a natural mage, a human healer who is much more than he appears. It takes place within a small sword and sorcery world that the author wrote many other stories in, which I adore. I went in believing that this may be the last of the Ursian chronicles but there is hope for the future. The author's personal life seems healthier too. I believe he lost his dog and wife in the same year--2014--and now mentions a girlfriend on his blog. I wish him the best.
I saw a dog in the middle of the road today in a busy area and felt heartache.
>reread the final ~30% of Dungeon Crawler Carl
I believe the author has grown too successful to finish this series within any timely manner now.
I finished The Freeze-Frame Revolution yesterday. While (re)reading this series I discovered some additional stories, in partially-completed states, on the author's website, and learned that he was contracted for a Sunflowers story due around the end of the year. I look forward to living within that world a little longer.
And now I will read Blindsight for the third time. Imagine being Anonymous.
Listened to an audiobook of Mishima's Sun and Steel on a little roadtrip. It was my first Mishima. A lot of interesting concepts, with a kind of plodding "plot." I especially enjoyed the muscle/body as mind idea, and the way that that is explored.
I would like to read his novels next, of course.
Rosas bajo fuego. The guy was having a hard time, amirite?
DNF'd Knausgaard's first autobiographical book around 70% of the way through. He's a good writer but I keep expecting some greater philosophical or analytical conclusion, which obviously floats in the air as he describes the society around him, but which he is just a few degrees short in analytical brainpower to synthesize. Even the basest of writers will tack some sort of bow on top of their take on the world but he seems almost to be allergic to higher order analysis.
He said he was going to be writing a book which involves the Norwegian black metal scene as a backdrop, but goes on to call it 'death metal' in an interview. Not a good sign...
Anonymous :
4 days ago :
No.6187
>>6189
>>6187
>I hate how we've gone from academics putting in entire French or Latin paragraphs to this shit.
That used to work back when every reader had some French, Latin and at least another language. George Steiner books from the 21th century are like this, it is humbling (Latin OK, Spanish maybe, but Italian? Ancient Greek?) and motivating (for once, the author expect something difficult from the reader. It is a pleasant challenge).
In some circles, leaving too much of the original language (think of the -san, -kun, -sama in Japanese) is the stigmata of a bad translator. That said, this choice of gate instead of street seems baffling.
There were also some weird translation bumps in the English version, such as never translating 'gate' into 'street', thereby ensuring that the majority of the readership will literally picture the English 'gate'. I don't know why the author never left in some Norwegian phrases or swearwords. Didn't this used to be standard? I hate how we've gone from academics putting in entire French or Latin paragraphs to this shit.
Erm, translator, not author. Sorry...
>>6187
There were also some weird translation bumps in the English version, such as never translating 'gate' into 'street', thereby ensuring that the majority of the readership will literally picture the English 'gate'. I don't know why the author never left in some Norwegian phrases or swearwords. Didn't this used to be standard? I hate how we've gone from academics putting in entire French or Latin paragraphs to this shit.
>I hate how we've gone from academics putting in entire French or Latin paragraphs to this shit.
That used to work back when every reader had some French, Latin and at least another language. George Steiner books from the 21th century are like this, it is humbling (Latin OK, Spanish maybe, but Italian? Ancient Greek?) and motivating (for once, the author expect something difficult from the reader. It is a pleasant challenge).
In some circles, leaving too much of the original language (think of the -san, -kun, -sama in Japanese) is the stigmata of a bad translator. That said, this choice of gate instead of street seems baffling.