Books!

[Syndiciate]

Favorite Author? Stephen King.

Favorite Book? The Wastelands or Hearts in Atlantis. 

What am I reading right now? 1963.

[Funyarinpa]

I haven't gotten anywhere near books in months, except for reading the first 200-300 pages or so of House Of Leaves.

Now I'm going through Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and while it doesn't have that completely unique... flavor Kafka on the Shore had, it's still pretty good contemporary fiction. The curiosity, vagueness and surreality of the world is presented pleasantly and relaxedly, as always. 

I bought The Stars My Destination, which is great from what I read of it in the bookstore. I understand why @Scorp has a quote from it in their signature.

I also got A Fire Upon The Deep, which while nowhere near as captivating from the onset as The Stars My Destination is, has too interesting a premise to pass it up. Essentially, it takes place in a galaxy where the galaxy's split into four distinct regions in which different levels of life and intelligence can flourish.

There was also an incredible-looking hardcopy of Roverandom, but I didn't quite have the budget to buy it on its appearance alone.

 

Also wanted to buy a copy of Philip K. Dick's A Maze Of Death which seems to be my favorite trope "bunch of people trapped somewhere in which they start to die", I wanted to get started on Dick's works anyway. I'll probably pirate it and read it during commute.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rose]

Mainly reading the Ramayana with some bits of Sherlock Holmes every now and then. =D

[Funyarinpa]

The Stars My Destination is amazing 

[Fred the Barber]

It seems something has changed in me over the past decade or so, and I am now able to appreciate poetry a great deal more than I once could. I picked up a Yeats collection and have been reading some of his lyric poetry. It's really dense going, but haunting.

[gunter]

Right now i m reading  a compilation of lovecraft's short stories(in english)... I m in love with that kind of stuff ,even if i cant grasp everything x)

[Darklord Rooke]

For everyone who liked the recent 'Gate' anime ('Thus the JSDF fought here', not 'Steins Gate',) the novel '1632' by Eric Flint is free on the Kindle. Definitely worth a read and it's the same sort of thing/fun  

[Funyarinpa]

22 hours ago, Rooke said:

For everyone who liked the recent 'Gate' anime ('Thus the JSDF fought here', not 'Steins Gate',) the novel '1632' by Eric Flint is free on the Kindle. Definitely worth a read and it's the same sort of thing/fun  

Talking about Kindle...  I got the app to work on my iPad recently and I already bought 6 books or something 

-a Lovecraft novella for a dollar

-an introductory textbook to calculus

-Dante's Inferno

-Neuromancer 

-Inkheart 

-Rendezvous With Rama 

HELP

[Darklord Rooke]

52 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Talking about Kindle...  I got the app to work on my iPad recently and I already bought 6 books or something 

HELP

Nuh uh. I'm glad people are feeling the same pain I'm feeling  

If you were having trouble with the Kindle app, you could have used a program called 'Calibre' to convert Kindle format books to normal ebooks, then just used a generic ebook reader Ipad app ... thingy. 

'The Rook' ( http://www.amazon.com/Rook-Daniel-OMalley/dp/0316098809 ) and 'Dire Born' ( https://www.amazon.com/DIRE-BORN-Dire-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B018L5DJN0 ) - I read these 2 books in the past couple of days and they're amazing. 'Dire Born' feels like a marvel, comic book series, where the main character has amnesia and though has good intentions ... becomes a super villain. Written decently. The Rook is another amnesia story though the main character is more of a secret agent. Written beautifully. Pretty cheap as well, at 5 bucks US for the both of them, I've been paying 8-12 each for ebooks recently and I'm hoping to find more cheap + good series xD

Text books aren't as good on the Kindle, unfortunately. Easier to make notes, flip around, and hurl across the room when in physical format.

[Down]

19 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Text books aren't as good on the Kindle, unfortunately. Easier to make notes, flip around, and hurl across the room when in physical format.

Heh. I'm the opposite, I can't read fiction in a non-physical format, but non-fiction is mostly fine (except huge books, I can't finish big books on numerical formats for some reason).

I guess I don't really take notes (or I do it on the side instead of making unreadable scribbles in the margins) when I read nf. Nor do I hurl books across the room... wtf are you reading anyway to get you so mad?

(If I'm supposed to talk about what I'm reading too, for fiction I'm currently reading Goethe's Faust, which is pretty dope, and for non-fiction I'm on Discipline and Punish, which is fascinating like everything Foucault writes).

[Darklord Rooke]

11 minutes ago, Down said:

wtf are you reading anyway to get you so mad?

Erm ... I remember Gauss used to get me pretty frustrated. But most of it is too long ago to remember (dropped out of Uni to pursue writing and other interests.)

[Jun Inoue]

Ah... I just finished Calamity, ending the saga of The Reckoners. Such great books, I can already feel the existential void in me.

I'm also reading (although quite leisurely due to its format and nature) the Necronomicon, since I found a really neat edition with his most emblematic works in my usual bookstore.

[Funyarinpa]

Considering stalling A Fire Upon The Deep. The medial sections are just too dull, although the sci-fi setting is great. 

[Darklord Rooke]

The Old Man and Mr. Smith is the tale of God and the Devil taking a sojourn to Earth to find out whether they’re still relevant. Hilarities and thought provoking moments ensue:

Quote

‘Of course,’ the concierge replied defensively. ‘Although even a hotel of the highest category must ask itself questions when a potential client declares himself to be a Mr God with one “d”, and isn’t even the possessor of initials, let alone luggage.’
‘I told you, my luggage is on its way.’
‘With your friend?’
‘Yes. We both realize it is practically impossible to get a hotel room without luggage.’
‘Oh, you’ve tried before?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And so? If I may ask?’
‘And so, he has bought some luggage.’
‘Just luggage? With nothing inside?’
‘How inquisitive you are!’

Quote

'Mon Dieu,’ said the concierge, watching the struggle. ‘He looks older than God.’
‘No, we’re roughly the same age,’ observed the Old Man.
‘Bertolini, Anwar,’ ordered the concierge. The two employees of the hotel were too fascinated to move without being called to order. They now rushed forward, and helped the newcomer, whose bags seemed of suspicious lightness.
The newcomer walked unsteadily towards the desk.
‘At last!’ said the Old Man, pointedly.
‘What do you mean, at last?’ snarled the newcomer.
‘I have been engaged in small talk while waiting for you. You know how tiring I find it. Where did you get the bags?’
‘I stole them. You don’t expect me to buy them, do you? In any case I had no money!’
‘And your name is …?’ the concierge asked, pretending not to hear the rest.

Quote

‘Never mind about that,’ Mr Smith went on. ‘It’s not the fact of my expulsion. That I have had to live with and I would probably have left on my own sooner or later. It was the motive! You had to rectify a terrible oversight in the Creation, which was otherwise handled with competence.’
‘An oversight?’ asked the Old Man, betraying what almost amounted to nervousness.
‘Yes. With everyone white, how could they recognize you for what you are?’
‘What are you saying?’ The Old Man licked his lips.
‘White needs black in order to be recognized for what it is,’ said Mr Smith with terrible precision and lack of his usual fuss. ‘When all is white, there is no white. You had to push me in order to be recognized yourself. The motive was … vanity.’
‘No!’ the Old Man protested. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘Oh, I hope not!’
‘You have a debt of gratitude towards me which no amount of contrition can ever hope to repay. Until my expulsion, nobody, not even the angels, understood you or felt the warmth of your radiance. With me to supply the background of darkness, the contrast, you became visible for what you were, and still are.’

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Man-Mr-Smith/dp/0745141072

[AaronIsCrunchy]

As part of a proofreading scheme that I do (basically involves reading scans of books and then correcting the scan's mistakes) I'm reading Darksong Rising by L. E. Modesitt and... to be honest, it's totally not my thing. It seems like your typical 'normal person falls into fantasy world and shit happens yadda yadda' fare so far, and I'm not sure how likely it is to change. And I've got another 400 pages to go. Sigh...

Also reading 'Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism' by Marcel H. van Herpen which is actually pretty excellent. It's a little wordy, but van Herpen goes into every single (relevant) aspect of Putin's international political action brilliantly. Helps me understand Eurasia better as a whole too, which is always a bonus.

[Darklord Rooke]

8 hours ago, AaronIsCrunchy said:

As part of a proofreading scheme that I do (basically involves reading scans of books and then correcting the scan's mistakes) I'm reading Darksong Rising by L. E. Modesitt 

You might want to consider reading more modern books. With publishing companies losing money, they've recently started cutting down their editing departments significantly, so much so that people are constantly (not really constantly, but constant relative to before ...) complaining of proofing errors. It seems sometimes done by software these days, so you'll get words which are spelt correct but they're the wrong word, and it happens far more often than it used. Which is sometimes funny, cause you see shit like this :3

[Funyarinpa]

Taking opinions on ebook readers. Namely the Kobo Glo HD 

[Down]

25 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Taking opinions on ebook readers. Namely the Kobo Glo HD 

Took a tablet so I can emulate gamez and read mango on it. Probably less good in terms of reading comfort but I'm fine with it so far.

[Darklord Rooke]

I've no opinion myself but Kobo Glo HD was recently reviewed by PC Mag - http://www.pcmag.com/roundup/294182/the-best-ebook-readers 

[Fred the Barber]

Can't say anything about that one, but I've been using a Kindle PaperWhite for years now, and I was using an older Kindle before that. I have only good things to say about them, and I expect the newer ones are even better than the now relatively old one I have. It's convenient when traveling, and having a single-purpose device for reading is worth it to go a little easier on your eyes, IMO.

[arakura]

Trying to work up the heart to start The Wheel of Time

[Fred the Barber]

10 hours ago, arakura said:

Trying to work up the heart to start The Wheel of Time

Having spent way too much of my life reading those, I recommend against it. The journey is often boring, and the payoff isn't worth it.

[Darklord Rooke]

The first book or two was addictive, though. Unfortunately, got bogged down somewhere along the way.

[arakura]

I thought I should at least read the first. You don't think so? 

[Fred the Barber]

3 hours ago, arakura said:

I thought I should at least read the first. You don't think so? 

Like Rooke said, the first one is pretty good, so the risk there is that you get pulled into the long, aimless slog that comprises the remainder of the series.

I didn't think the second was that good, but the third was highly enjoyable. And then the rest of them just... kept... coming...