The Books/Reading Thread

[Blind Guardian]

^ I'm reading The Children of Hurin now by the way.

A flaw in The Silmarillion is of course that the narrative is too cold and sweeping to be very emotionally engaging, so CoH provides a nice First Age alternative if you prefer a more subjective narration akin to that of LotR. Of course I know that LotR itself doesn't have that much focus on characterization either, but I'm strictly comparing Tolkien works here, and there's an obvious stylistic difference between Sil and LotR/CoH.

 

[skeptik]

^ I'm reading The Children of Hurin now by the way.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

Which is why I would imagine most people find The Silmarillion such a tedious read.

Thanks for the recommendations, Dodens. I'm guessing you're familiar with Lord Dunsany and Robert W. Chambers and that I should go with the Penguins classic of the former. Any other suggestions would be nice.

 

[Zephyrus]

Reading Aeschylus' Agamemnon in the original Greek. Man, it's tough!

 

[unknown]

currently reading Algernon Blackwood's The Centaur and fucking loving it.

 

[skeptik]

Which is why I would imagine most people find The Silmarillion such a tedious read.

Thanks for the recommendations, Dodens. I'm guessing you're familiar with Lord Dunsany and Robert W. Chambers and that I should go with the Penguins classic of the former. Any other suggestions would be nice.

Lord Dunsany has a lot of material that is quite varied. One thing to understand about him, like most of the early 'weird fiction' writers, is that, obviously, 'weird fiction' did not exist. Dunsany's writing was very influenced by mythology in general (including the Bible), especially early on, and is generally more based in a fantasy style that is meant to invoke the sensation of awe rather than terror, which is why he was as influential on Lovecraft as he was Tolkien. He has an extensive bibliography far beyond what I'm familiar with, however, including numerous novels, but his most relevant material to the weird fiction genre are his earliest short stories contained in the collections The Gods of Pegāna, Time and the Gods, A Dreamer's Tales, The Book of Wonder, and Tales of Wonder, although The Sword of Welleran is also relevant, but is more of a precursor to the sword and sorcery style.

For Chambers, far and away his most accomplished work is his first short story collection, The King in Yellow, and in particular the first 4 short stories in this collection. His subsequent short story collection, The Maker of Moons, is also supposed to be pretty good, although I haven't yet. All of his relevant works are included in an anthology edited by Joshi for Chaosium under the name The Yellow Sign and Other Stories.

I would also highly recommend reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray if you haven't yet. Obviously it's not explicitly 'weird fiction' either, but it is well within the gothic tradition that was a direct precursor to the style, and, to be rather blunt, Wilde is a far more elegant and accomplished man of letters than most of those who write of such things.

 

[Dak]

http://mises.org/books/bourbon_for_breakfast.pdf

 

[The Ozzman]

I read some of that and it's pretty interesting. I agree with the Crime section entirely (what I read of it anyway)

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I live in a new house and have been wondering why the shower sucks so much. I guess that explains it

 

[unknown]

wat

 

[Dak]

wat

Maybe you should read more

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Jeffrey Tucker's sense of humor is fantastic, it's a thoroughly entertaining read. I'm glad that he commented on the economic reasoning for the Mises Institute offering most of their books on pdf for free. Tbh, if they didn't offer much of it for free, then I wouldn't have gained enough of an interest in Austrian Economics to actually buy the works of Mises and Rothbard, not to mention the fact that I will probably buy this book now too. I probably would have just continued being stuck in the Ayn Rand bubble

 

[Dak]

Jeffrey Tucker's sense of humor is fantastic, it's a thoroughly entertaining read. I'm glad that he commented on the economic reasoning for the Mises Institute offering most of their books on pdf for free. Tbh, if they didn't offer much of it for free, then I wouldn't have gained enough of an interest in Austrian Economics to actually buy the works of Mises and Rothbard, not to mention the fact that I will probably buy this book now too. I probably would have just continued being stuck in the Ayn Rand bubble

I see so much evidence of this exact scenario playing out both repeatedly in online acquaintances/anecdotes, and personally. Yes I am thankful for the free literature provided by the Mises institute, which has most likely led to the purchase of both MESPM and Human Action, which may have otherwise not have happened.

Not only have I never read Rand, at this point, I refuse to. I am so sick of the Randian ad hom's thrown at anarcho-capitalists, it is in my own self interest/defense to be able to honestly claim she has no effect on me. The fact that she couldn't see the forest for the trees on the subject of IP, is indicative of deeper issues.

 

[unknown]

Maybe you should read more

telling an english major to read more is like telling a crack addict to do more crack (sometimes they're the same person)

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I see so much evidence of this exact scenario playing out both repeatedly in online acquaintances/anecdotes, and personally. Yes I am thankful for the free literature provided by the Mises institute, which has most likely led to the purchase of both MESPM and Human Action, which may have otherwise not have happened.

Not only have I never read Rand, at this point, I refuse to. I am so sick of the Randian ad hom's thrown at anarcho-capitalists, it is in my own self interest/defense to be able to honestly claim she has no effect on me. The fact that she couldn't see the forest for the trees on the subject of IP, is indicative of deeper issues.

I still love Rand's writings and I won't deny that Atlas Shrugged was, and probably always will be, the book that has had the most profound effect on my life. It's primary downfalls consist of: Ayn Rand being a bit of a bitch who used "shocking" words to define things that are in fact very moral, and she was not an economist. The latter would probably annoy you the most because the core of her philosophy is, in fact, Austrian economics.

As for anarcho-capitalists getting some of the Anti-Randian hate, Rand isn't the problem, she's just a "Hitler". Most of the people that are completely closed minded to the idea of anarcho-capitalism, which I should add is pretty much everybody, carry fairly progressive beliefs. Anarcho-capitalism is so far out of the mainstream school of thought that even the notion of it seems foreign and out-landish to most people. I don't believe that Ayn Rand has anything to do with anarcho-capitalism not being accepted, though she is a contributing factor to the contempt for it.

It's odd, though, that you have taken the idea of reading any Rand off of the table. I see why you're resistant to reading any of her works, but I don't see why you think having read it may have a negative impact on your perspective. Reading Rand (Atlas Shrugged specifically) after reading Mises and Rothbard isn't really going to give you any new ideas, unless of course you want unspecified and egotistic Austrian-esque economics and a sprinkle of a narrow minded Nietzsche-esque philosophy thrown in with it.

With that said, Atlas Shrugged doesn't deserve all of the trash it gets. It's a story book, not a disease. Also, I think that The Fountainhead is a better story; Rand is the only person who could possibly make rape romantic

 

[The Ozzman]

Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book. It had a profound effect on how I view the world when I was in college. In fact, I recently got a new copy of it because the copy I lent to my dad ripped down the binding and he bought me a hardback version. I can't wait to read it again.

 

[The Ozzman]

For anyone who is interested in a good book in favor of capitalism:

 

[Dak]

It's odd, though, that you have taken the idea of reading any Rand off of the table. I see why you're resistant to reading any of her works, but I don't see why you think having read it may have a negative impact on your perspective. Reading Rand (Atlas Shrugged specifically) after reading Mises and Rothbard isn't really going to give you any new ideas, unless of course you want unspecified and egotistic Austrian-esque economics and a sprinkle of a narrow minded Nietzsche-esque philosophy thrown in with it.

With that said, Atlas Shrugged doesn't deserve all of the trash it gets. It's a story book, not a disease. Also, I think that The Fountainhead is a better story; Rand is the only person who could possibly make rape romantic

#1. I don't expect any new insight from reading Atlas Shrugged. I don't, however, think it would have a "negative impact".
#2. At this point I can honestly claim to not merely be following the "Randian/Galt cult".

 

[Death Aflame]

I intend to read Atlas Shrugged one of these days. Not because I really want to, but because I feel like I have to to get a better understanding of those who cite her as a significant influence on their thought.

The book that had that type of effect on me is Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed. Beautifully written, speculative sci-fi about the radical possibilities of human organization.

Currently though I am reading Zizek's Living in the End Times and Clash of Kings.

 

[Einherjar86]

Atlas Shrugged is really an intriguing and interesting book, but is completely superficial in terms of philosophy or logic. Rand claims to demystify philosophy, but all she does is ask her readers to accept very questionable a priori evidence.

I haven't read Zizek's Living in the End Times, but I have read The Sublime Object of Ideology, which lays out his primary theory of ideology, and First as Tragedy, then as Farce, which lays out his criticism of global capitalism; so I've been told that Living in the End Times doesn't add much to that.

I took a break from M. John Harrison, and am currently reading an amazing and addictive book by Robert Charles Wilson called Spin. Basically, one night the stars and moon disappear from the night sky, and the story only gets weirder from there: