Rolling "Books Recently Read" Thread

[Mo]

Got these today:



I read some of them already, but not in English.
Yay!

[Mo]

Yeah, who would have thought?

[Eulogy]

god why is he here

[Order 66]

I think he's a pretty good poster. 8/10. Would buy from them again

[Mooney]

"perfect exposure" michael freeman
"light & lighting in digital photgraphy" michael freeman
"teach yourself: film studies" warren buckland
"the death of bunny munro" nick cave

[Mo]

Originally Posted by Order 66

I think he's a pretty good poster. 8/10. Would buy from them again

That coming from Karl Connor is kind of hilarious.

[TuralyonW3]

[Mo]

Originally Posted by Mooney

"the death of bunny munro" nick cave

I've been reading about that. How was it?

[Eric Blair]

Originally Posted by cocksure

reading a lot of shit simultaneously

Completely sick of this man

[cocksure]

he does make a lot of interesting points but (for example) he provides so few footnotes that it's hard to take him seriously as a "scientist"

in a way he was the ultimate advocatus diaboli of social sciences, only there to challenge others to refute his arguments

[Eric Blair]

Yeah, I understand your issue with footnotes. I remember writing an essay on Damiens the regicide and decided to look into what he wrote about it. When I did come across footnotes I could follow up on, I got the feeling he was taking some pretty major liberties and drawing things from his sources that weren't really there.

On top of that I have become incredibly bias against French philosophy in general after suffering through this English degree.

[Mooney]

Originally Posted by Mo

I've been reading about that. How was it?

well, its the first fiction that i've read for pleasure since i was hooked on goosebumps, so i have no real basis for comparison. but i found it engaging enough, and plowed through it in a couple of sittings. i'm definitely going to check out some more fiction because of it, though.

[Eulogy]

C

Stylistically, just a chore. Didn't find it very compelling. It's a classic blah blah. Whatev.

[Eulogy]

Criticism of it is as much of a chore to read as the story itself. Good lord. Plodding through a 35-page article right now. Buhhhh.

[Eulogy]

A+

Brilliant. Oppressively depressing. Somehow manages to still function as a page turner. Could have read it in one sitting if I hadn't tried to go to bed at 2:00 last night. Best thing I've read since..... I dunno. Awesome. Totally fucking awesome. Get it and read it.

[smashingjj]

somaly mam - the road of lost innocence

fucking intense and a very good read.

marek van der jagt - de geschiedenis van mijn kaalheid

i decided i don't like this writer

erlend loe - naive. super

very nice!

[cardiac]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

Now why would he say that whilst carrying a conscious criminal? Jesus

[Luke de Spa]

wearing a suit doesn't make you a criminal

commie scum

[severin]

incredible beginning, then continously begins to get less engaging, in the end it's a very basic vampire story which doesn't really bring anything new to the genre. still read it in 2 sittings each lasting until 3 am, so it seems to have worked. sometimes it feels like it was written with a movie adaption already in mind and given del toro's history of movies with absolutely fantastic creature design this should be something to look forward to, if it ever happens. so, it's worth reading, and i'll pick up the sequels

[Trotskilicious]

woah that looks cool

SELL ME ON IT GO GO GO

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Eric Blair

You have described just about every creative writing class currently in existence. There should be a law against them. The teachers who take them are worthless, pretentious idiots who are typically too stupid to teach anything else.

i got a book from someone because i enjoyed tintin as a kid and it's as tintin from the first person perspective and I picked three passages at random because it looked horrible and each one, from completely different spots in the book, had these really strange and blatantly obvious sexual motifs. it's from a doofy looking creative writing department chair

[Trotskilicious]

tragic villians are good

he's evil because he's evil is not.

15th century english is a bit of a hurdle

buxom vixens are the best kind of vixens

[Eulogy]

A+

Holy crap. Probably the most ambitious 20th century novel I've read. And it's wonderful. It took me FOREVER to get through it because there is so much packed into each and every one of 533 pages, but it was certainly worth it, and I'm really glad I finished it.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Nihilist

Are you serious? Man, I loved reading this book. It's so awesome how you become completely confused about what's happening and there are so many possible explanations until the very end. I felt like I was going crazy while I read the story, just like the protagonist.

Anyway, I'm about to finish A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce and I'm loving it.

Did you think the end resolved anything?

I dunno, I just thought it was a chore to get through.

[Mo]

Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby
A

[pale blue eyes]

I haven't posted in here since the summer, so here's everything I can remember reading since then:

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - A
Great, quick read. I really like his writing style. Clever but not pretentiously so, and the dialogue comes off as really natural. Most people have probably read this years ago, and I wish I had also. Looking forward to checking out his other books.

Harry Potter (the entire series) by J.K. Rowling - A
Consistently awesome and I am happy I finally took my brother up on his offer to let me borrow his copies. I will admit that for the first half of the first novel, with all the sort of cutesy language and stuff, I was a little put off. But it was written well enough and I liked the ending so I started the second book and pretty much plowed through them all two or three months. I remember the fourth and fifth books (too lazy to look up titles now) being absolutely fantastic. I wish I had read them when everybody else had so I could have had somebody to talk about them with.

The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Eric Fromm - B
I probably would rate this higher but I read it in between two of the Harry Potter books so it seemed like more than a chore than it should have been. Fromm is one of my favorite theorists and while I think he brings more to his theories than most considering his background, sometimes I didn't feel like reading through his explanation of the entire history of human existence to get to the meat of his theory. I would probably recommend one of his shorter volumes over this one, most notably Escape From Freedom or The Art of Loving.

EMDR: The Breakthrough Eye Movement Therapy For Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma by Francine Shapiro - C+
My friend underwent this therapy a while back so I bought this book about it. It was interesting but after they explain how they do it and the logic and science behind it, it gets to be sort of repetitive. Just case studies of people, what their issue was, and how they progressed through the therapy. About halfway through I was pretty bored. Probably should have just looked up some articles about it or something instead.

I am currently reading This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin, which is sort of slow so far. Like having Music 101 summed up in 100 pages, but hopefully it gets better. It had a recommendation on the front from Oliver Sacks, and that's pretty much the only reason I picked it up.

[Mooney]

betrand russell "why i am not a christion - and other essays on religion and related subjects"

elizabeth goodman "cat power: a good woman" well, i learned that chan is actually pronounced "shawn"

[cocksure]

Originally Posted by Mooney

betrand russell "why i am not a christion"

i used to think this essay was extremely good, nowadays i'm not so sure

[28if]

portrait of an artist sucks a dick.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Nihilist

Yeah, my interpretation is probably wrong, but I thought at the time that the protagonist's murder of her charges points to her mental instability as being the root of all the mysterious happenings.

Maybe we just like different writing styles; I've only read it once but I did so in one sitting. I just couldn't put it down and I remember finishing it late into the night.

The girl never even died.

I was supposed to read Heart of Darkness today. I read like 30 pages and then spark noted it. I don't feel like I missed out on all that much.

Next up for me: