The Books/Reading Thread

[Einherjar86]

His lecture on the novel is pretty amazing, I thought...

He's definitely appealing to a particular audience in his lectures/interviews, which may not necessarily be the readership that his fiction attracts.

 

[Sirjack]

ha that's me!
l stand corrected...well...give me links
i've watched a few 'street' interviews and some sort of lengthy interview with him at home or a studio somewhere..he was concise and factual. He Just seemed unemotive and for use of a better word...boring. Could just be my stoned head tho, so...

 

[Einherjar86]

Here's his lecture on the novel:



He delves into a lot of history about the novel, but I think it's a great lecture. He really knows his shit about realism, modernism, and the contemporary novel.

 

[Sirjack]

cheers man i'll watch that next week sometime and give you my thoughts

 

[TageRyche]

Yeah man that's a great story. Good luck...onwards and upwards etc

Thanks Sirjack. I've already received two more books for review and finished one of them.

 

[Dak]

Using my winter break productively. Great little read: devastating critiques, prophetic, and with a thread of paradox/contradiction.

 

[LuminousAether]

cool. i haven't read any vandermeer, i have a copy of CITY OF SAINTS somewhere though.

City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, Finch, and the Southern Reach trilogy are all amazing. VanderMeer is one of the best authors out there.

 

[Einherjar86]

Using my winter break productively. Great little read: devastating critiques, prophetic, and with a thread of paradox/contradiction.

Sounds about right... Have you read Leo Strauss?

City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, Finch, and the Southern Reach trilogy are all amazing. VanderMeer is one of the best authors out there.

I just finished the last book in the Southern Reach trilogy a few hours ago. Holy fucking shit, what a story.

 

[Dak]

Sounds about right... Have you read Leo Strauss?

I have not. Should I?

 

[Einherjar86]

If you're interested in Chicago-school conservatism, which included people like Weaver. Strauss is a mainstay of that movement, a major figure in political philosophy, and highly regarded among the left and right. Incredibly influential.

 

[LuminousAether]

I just finished the last book in the Southern Reach trilogy a few hours ago. Holy fucking shit, what a story.

Yeah, the whole thing was my favorite book of 2014, I read them as they released. City of Saints and Madmen straight up blew my mind back when I read it so VanderMeer jumped up to the top of my "have to read everything this guy does" list.

I'm reading The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu right now, sequel to The Three-Body Problem, and this is some pretty crazy sci-fi. It's about how these traitors to humanity contacted an alien race that lives on a doomed world and wants them to come to Earth to take over and wipe out humanity, and of course most people on Earth don't want that to happen. The aliens are going to arrive in 400+ years due to the time it takes to space travel and to stop humanity from advancing enough in technology to pose a threat they send these microscopic computers to disrupt and spy on humanity's technological progress.

 

[EspaDa]

Reading this masterpiece for the second time

 

[TageRyche]

By the way, here's the link to the online version of the review I had printed in Mystery Scene - Article Link.

 

[Weyland]

Stephen King - The Stand
Another book from Metro 2033 Universe

 

[Cythraul]

Just started reading this. Introduction's already got me hooked.

 

[tagradh]

Will finish it. Today. Maybe. Or tomorrow. It has to be finished. I'm not sure it needed to be nearly 900 pages. Though I think I probably enjoy most the parts that bore a lot of readers. Don't really give a fuck about any of the characters but the 'hard' sci fi stuff is cool.

 

[SentinelSlain]

last read: Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock

currently reading: Supernatural by Graham Hancock and The Witching Hour by Anne Rice.

 

[TageRyche]

My Top 10 mystery and thrillers of 2016. They could be published in either hardcover or paperback during the calendar year.

01. WHAT YOU SEE (2016 PB),*DRIVE TIME (2016 REISSUE) BY HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN

02. THE INNOCENTS (2016 HC), THE REDEEMERS BY ACE ATKINS (2016 PB)

03. FOREIGN ECLAIRS BY JULIE HYZY (2016 PB)

04. OVERWATCH BY MATTHEW BETLEY (2016 ARC)

05. DARKTOWN BY THOMAS MULLEN (2016 ARC)

06. ORDER TO KILL BY VINCE FLYNN / KYLE MILLS (2016 HC)

07. THE HOLLOW MEN BY ROB McCARTHY (2016 ARC)

08. MEMORY MAN BY DAVID BALDACCI (2016 PB)

09. A FATAL CHAPTER BY LORNA BARRETT (2016 PB)

10. READING UP A STORM BY EVA GATES (2016 PB)

A bunch of books by authors that normally make my list with no problem didn't make it this year because while I purchased them, I haven't yet gotten the time to read them. I was pretty surprised to see three "cozy" mystery novels make my Top 10.

 

[Talos of Atmora]

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Rereading Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s The Imperial Presidency.