The Books/Reading Thread

[dwellerINTHEdark]

Just finished Paul Tremblay's The Cabin at the End of the World--gut-wrenching home invasion thriller that borders on horror but doesn't quite get there (or maybe it does...?).

Didn't enjoy this one as much as Head Full of Ghosts, but it was still a page-turner. Thinking about getting either Tremblay's most recent, Survivor Song, next, or his 2016 book Disappearance at Devil's Rock. Really like his writing style, he makes something mildly fun out of sheer horror (although Cabin was pretty heart-breaking).

Head Full of Ghosts looks interesting. Adding it to my list.

Currently reading Needful Things by Stephen King.

 

[Einherjar86]

Head Full of Ghosts is one of the coolest riffs on the possession narrative I've ever read/watched. It's also very self-conscious of its form, which lets Tremblay toy with his audience's suspicions and expectations. And on top of that, it has a sense of humor. Great book, I thought.

 

[rms]

Just can't with Grant anymore. Chernow's own bias in writing his narrative the drunkard/failure President and General is just too much. I guess I don't see how this book is at all persuasive, let alone some must-read non fiction. My first of his, probably not going back.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

I really want to read Djinn at some point, haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet.

So I finished the collection of Djinn and La Maison de rendez-vous last week. La Maison is what anyone familiar with his style should come to expect and serves as a pretty fascinating precursor to his film The Blue Villa (1995) which really needs to be rescued from obscurity. Djinn was shockingly accessible. I figured it'd be one of his most dense and difficult given the whole textbook trickery but it's honestly where I'd tell newcomers to start with ARG. The sense of dislocation and narrative shifts are still there but it feels like he's holding your hand a bit along the way (there's a pun in that sentence you'll pick upon after reading). The actual grammar exercises he intended to teach with it don't become all that noticeable until later in the book in the form of repeated words and phrases and even that he does regularly in other novels.

 

[Einherjar86]

Very cool--thanks. Out of curiosity, does it look like a textbook (i.e. with lessons, units, etc.) or like a conventional novel?

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Very cool--thanks. Out of curiosity, does it look like a textbook (i.e. with lessons, units, etc.) or like a conventional novel?

Totally conventional.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

https://global.oup.com/academic/pro...nh61s4qMk-iz5_M3MR-HALEEW0uhevono1jWxBFCOFAg#

Its unique ability to sway the masses has led many observers to consider cinema the artform with the greatest political force. The images it produces can bolster leaders or contribute to their undoing. Soviet filmmakers often had to face great obstacles as they struggled to make art in an authoritarian society that put them not only under ideological pressure but also imposed rigid economic constraints on the industry. But while the Brezhnev era of Soviet filmmaking is often depicted as a period of great repression, Soviet Art House reveals that the films made at the prestigious Lenfilm studio in this period were far more imaginative than is usually suspected.

In this pioneering study of a Soviet film studio, author Catriona Kelly delves into previously unpublished archival documents and interviews, memoirs, and the films themselves to illuminate the ideological, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of filmmaking in the Brezhnev era. She argues that especially the young filmmakers who joined the studio after its restructuring in 1961 revitalized its output and helped establish Leningrad as a leading center of oppositional art. This unique insight into Soviet film production shows not only the inner workings of Soviet institutions before the system collapsed but also traces how filmmakers tirelessly dodged and negotiated contradictory demands to create sophisticated and highly original movies.

 

[rms]

Got my copy of Dune today, gotta finally get into this book. Only experience to Dune is the old RTS/strategy game from forever ago.. trailer looked sick. Never watched the Lynch version

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm actually trying to re-read Dune before the film comes out. Just started last night.

 

[rms]

did you get past book 1? is that "required"?

 

[Einherjar86]

Nah, I never bothered with the sequels. I've heard from people I respect that they aren't as good, or really worth getting into. The first book is a self-contained story.

 

[TageRyche]

I finished the debut thriller A Desperate Place by Jennifer Greer today.

My review of this book can now be seen via this Mystery Scene magazine link.

 

[Einherjar86]

Just recently finished Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's The Discomfort of Evening. I don't wanna hype this too much, as it's probably not everyone's cup of tea; but I thought it was an absolutely gorgeous and disturbing read. The narrator is one of four siblings on a Reformist Dutch dairy farm. Needless to say, gothic queasiness ensues. I'd recommend it for those fans of Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, and other varieties of modernist gothic writing. It's distinct from works by those writers, though. There's more outright horror here, mostly horror at the prospect of being a biological body (lots of anxieties about infection, contagion, decomposition, etc.--one major plot point involves an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle). The narrator on more than one occasion fantasizes about being able to take off their body like a piece of clothing. Oh yeah, and there's sexual depravity galore, bordering on incest. Not what you'd expect from a highly religious farming family.

Just starting this book by Hugh Raffles. It's ostensibly a memoir about the death of his two sisters, but more accurately its a retrospective through processes of deep time and geological formation. I'm psyched.

 

[Dak]

Dune hit for me like Star Wars. Probably good in its day but a drag now. Also triggered me a bit for the time I wasted back in the day reading Terry Goodkind.

 

[no country for old wainds]

the dune movie release date got delayed by 10 months lol

 

[TageRyche]

I finished it a while ago but only just now got around to writing up my thoughts on the Kyle Mills thriller Total Power.

Last night I finished reading the new Maddie Day Country Store mystery Candy Slain Murder. It came after I met the author at a local bookstore earlier in the afternoon (properly distanced and masked of course). I'm a big fan no doubt but the book was phenomenal! My thoughts on the book can be seen via this Goodreads.com link.

 

[Einherjar86]

Dune hit for me like Star Wars. Probably good in its day but a drag now. Also triggered me a bit for the time I wasted back in the day reading Terry Goodkind.

I've been re-reading it for the film release, and find the prose way less palatable than I remember. The roaming free indirect style is jarring, and the didactic tone of characters' interior thoughts feels wrong.

Still a pretty awesome story though. And more complex than Star Wars ever was.

the dune movie release date got delayed by 10 months lol

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Dune is a masterpiece.

 

[Einherjar86]

Dak's main problem with fiction is that it's fiction.

 

[Dak]

Dak's main problem with fiction is that it's fiction.

Mostly true although I'm still fitting in a little bit of the Black Library for super light reading. I enjoy world-building as far as it goes, but so much of fiction is hamfistedly bad and/or alternately trying too hard. Of course, it must be noted that "non-fiction" is in the most significant part still fiction.