The Books/Reading Thread

[Evil?]

I am not knocking your opinion or the fact that you enjoy Drizzt novels. I personally think they are hella fun to read. They are not fine literature, but are a blast.

The notion I dislike is that Fantasy novels are supposed to be a certain way. That is like saying all metal bands should play and look like Judas Priest otherwise they are doing it wrong.

 

[monoxide_child]

I am not knocking your opinion or the fact that you enjoy Drizzt novels. I personally think they are hella fun to read. They are not fine literature, but are a blast.

The notion I dislike is that Fantasy novels are supposed to be a certain way. That is like saying all metal bands should play and look like Judas Priest otherwise they are doing it wrong.

i wasn't saying the "a song of fire & ice" series is totally completely crap

i was just saying Drizzt Do'Urden novel series >>> A Song Of Fire & Ice series

 

[rms]

Just pulled up Less than Zero, No Country for Old Men and The Fellowship of the Ring...haven't read in awhile, something I know I need to change.

 

[Einherjar86]

A few books for term paper research:

 

[Dak]

Is next semester going to be Sixtyism?

 

[Einherjar86]

That is a horrible pun.

 

[monoxide_child]

 

[Einherjar86]

Have to give a presentation on this. Such a crazy fucking book:

 

[Dak]

I've been loading up my Kindle account with free books to prepare for some summer reading, and one free one was Dream Psychoanalysis by Freud. Will probably be interesting. Also hoping to tackle some Hobbes and Voltaire.

 

[Einherjar86]

Awesome! Interpretation of Dreams is great.

 

[Einherjar86]

Halfway through this gem. My first foray into the world of Wallace's fiction. He wrote this book as his undergraduate senior thesis. I don't even...

 

[monoxide_child]

 

[DyingWorld]

Just finished

 

[unknown]

nice. Bukowski is always a good call

 

[monoxide_child]

does erotica count as "reading"??

 

[Einherjar86]

Finished M. John Harrison's Empty Space and H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Some great stuff going on in both; now I'm about seventy-five pages into Samuel Delany's Dhalgren.

 

[unknown]

I've heard good stuff about dhalgren. Post a review when you're done. For the summer I've decided to revisit some of my favorite Bret Easton Ellis novels (American Psycho and Glamorama) and a few other odds and ends. Waiting for the semester to be over and to be done grading papers

 

[Einherjar86]

Will do. I can tell from the first couple chapters that it's going to be a trip, and in a good way. I read somewhere that it's been called the Ulysses of science fiction, and I can definitely see the reasons for comparison. Dhalgren is an odyssey in its own right, and the text is extremely aware of itself and how it is interacting with the reader. Furthermore, there are puzzles embedded within the text itself, which makes me think of something more like Borges's or Eco's work. Tons of fun.

 

[wandering_taco]

I've been out of school just under 3 weeks now, so I've been working my way back through the Hobbit and Lotr, since it's been several years. Finished the Hobbit and The Fellowship, then The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest arrived. I just finished that yesterday and I'm now working through the Two Towers. Has anybody else read Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy (Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played w/ Fire, Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest)? I thought it was absolutely fucking excellent. Each book is seriously impossible to put down. I read the last 200 pages of the second book last semester on night when I should have been studying for exams/writing papers that were imminently due, but I had to know what happened and couldn't focus on anything else knowing that book was there.

 

[Vimana]

I've been reading The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt lately and it's a mixed bag. I think one of his main points is flat-out wrong: that we evolved reason for the purpose of persuasion. Also, I don't think he goes deeply enough into elements of morality in an evolutionary sense. However, I love how he puts relevance of many philosophers pre-Darwin in their place. Also, the studies he cites have given me interesting insight into human evolutionary psychology. Moreover, he does a great job illustrating the elements of human nature beyond different political viewpoints.