What are you reading

[DERBUNKERRECORDS]

I've been reading for a recording project in progress, and in part it's subject matter is the life of Idi Amin.

If you're at all interested in him look at these books, as there is a great deal of ignorance towards the man.

One is written by one of his sons,others are written by exiled cabinet ministers,some by journalists that are looking to give him a bad reputation,all interesting though.

IDI AMIN: HERO OR VILLAIN (JAFFAR AMIN / MARGARET AKULIA)
GENERAL AMIN (DAVID MARTIN)
STATE OF BLOOD (HENRY KYEMBA)
IDI AMIN 'LION OF AFRICA' (MANZOOR MOGHAL)
IDI AMIN AND MOAMMAR GADHAFI -'LESSONS FROM THE STORY PT 1' (MARGARET AKULIA)


Also - Joseph Conrad's 'Heart Of Darkness'

[RG]

I wouldn't call most people we encounter in daily life psychopaths, just self-absorbed jerks. Doesn't psychopathic generally mean violent, antisocial behavior and actual mental illness while sociopathic is pretty much the same thing but without so much mental illness?

No, psychopathic doesn't automatically equate to violent, murderous behavior.  By definition psychopaths are people who lack empathy, don't experience emotions like most people, and are prone to antisocial behavior. Most psychopaths aren't violent killers, but most violent (serial)killers are psychopaths (hence why he said "Not the weak serial killer glorification bullshit"). I've known a couple psychopaths in my life, and they weren't violent. Just liars and cheats who have no remorse for how they negatively affect the lives of those around them. It's just another term that is misunderstood and misused, like how people use "antisocial" when they really mean "asocial/unsocial".

And nothing was said about "most people we encounter in daily life are psychopaths". 

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

Thanks RG. Summed it up better than I would.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

Antisocial behaviour? Not at the moment no. But as far as psychopaths are concerned one very classical route is the fraudster. The person who became trusted in the local church and took off with all the money. The telephone salesman who coerced the old lady into buying a plot of land she didn't need and which actually didn't even exist and cleared out a lifetimes savings. Or the bully at work. Not antisocial in the rowdy drunk at a park bench or the rogue element at work or elsewhere who defies certain norms. This is infinitely more destructive than that. Read the checklist here:

Factor 1: Personality "Aggressive narcissism"
 Glibness/superficial charm
 Grandiose sense of self-worth
 Pathological lying
 Cunning/manipulative
 Lack of remorse or guilt
 Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
 Callousness; lack of empathy
 Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
 
Factor 2: Case history "Socially deviant lifestyle".
 Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
 Parasitic lifestyle
 Poor behavioral control
 Lack of realistic long-term goals
 Impulsivity
 Irresponsibility
 Juvenile delinquency
 Early behavior problems
 Revocation of conditional release
 
Traits not correlated with either factor
 Promiscuous sexual behavior
 Many short-term marital relationships
 Criminal versatility
 Acquired behavioural sociopathy/sociological conditioning (Item 21: a newly identified trait i.e. a person relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist


I think it's fascnating. People need to get over Patrick Bateman and Hannibal Lecter. They are slick James Bond versions and fucking boring. The best film psychopath I've ever seen by far is Aaron Eckhart in In the Company of Men. If you want to watch a realistic and therefore MUCH creepier and more unsettling psychopath then that film is the best one I've ever found.

Most everyone has a few of those. Just not all 7 at the same time...

Same for the checklist. Everyone will have a couple of those which is considered normal. When you get to more than that there's reason for concern and the select few who tick all or nearly all the boxes are very likely to be a big fucking headache to everyone wherever they go. The army and more regimented places are rare. Business, politics and other lofty spheres of power and risk taking are much more common.

[ARKHE]

Nikanor Teratologen: "Assisted Living", http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100162230 - http://www.vice.com/read/nikanor-teratologen-s-rolodex-of-atrocities
The article fails to mention the heavy philosophical references thrown into this obscene rant, and it seems the heavily Northern dialect that made the Swedish original even more unique and compelling (and untranslatable) hasn't been transferred into the new language (the massive annotation in the people's edition is necessary, as it's sometimes completely incomprehensible even for the advanced Swedish reader). Think the Norwegian translation was in dialect, but any way... it's a must-read. They should also translate Teratologen's most recent work, feverish and obsessively obscene as always, the title translates to "To hate all human life". No humour, no dialect, just pure filthy darkness.

[RyanWreck]

Pierre Guyotat Eden, Eden, Eden. Not a fan of his writing style but so far the book itself isn't bad. I do prefer Sade's brutality over PG's gay soldier loving.

[HongKongGoolagong]

Pierre Guyotat Eden, Eden, Eden. Not a fan of his writing style but so far the book itself isn't bad. I do prefer Sade's brutality over PG's gay soldier loving.

I couldn't get on with that book at all, had it built up in my mind as a great experimental classic due to mentions by Kathy Acker etc and was disappointed and bored. Certainly no Genet. And as far as the 'long sentence' language innovation goes, Gertrude Stein did all that thirty years before.

I don't know if anyone here has read Muriel Spark 'The Driver's Seat'? If anyone wants a brutal read (which you certainly wouldn't expect from someone who was a fairly mainstream literary figure and a Catholic to boot) this, in all honesty, is up there with Sade and Sotos. A devastating book, had it recommended to me by P Best.

[HongKongGoolagong]

There's another called "Oliver Twink," that, at the risk of sounding super-faggy, is beautiful.

Dennis Cooper has a big sadistic streak and that story could be read as glorying in the twink's demise and the uncle's cruel triumph. It's certainly a stand-out in the book. My favourite novels of his for brutality are Try and The Sluts. For spooky and otherworldly creepiness, Period. For sheer hilarity, even though the subject matter is the usual kiddy snuff porn etc, Guide. The whole tone of that one is hysterically funny.

His graphic novel in collaboration with Keith Mayerson 'Horror Hospital Unplugged' may be expensive and hard to find now, but it's an amazing book.

He's a phenomenal writer, one of the greatest living.

[andy vomit]

mormons are fucking nuts.

[HONOR_IS_KING!]

[HongKongGoolagong]

I think Vachss started the shit-talking with a garbled reference to the 'big-time freak' who produced Pure in an interview. Been a long while since I read any of his stuff, doesn't sound like his themes have changed much.

Currently: Bukowski 'Notes of a Dirty Old Man' - scrappy and slung-together newspaper columns which is making me want a drink.

Recently: David Cassidy 'C'mon Get Happy: Fear And Loathing On The Partridge Family Bus' - crummy showbiz ghost-written biog of 70s star - good for detail on the girl who died at his farewell show, his drug intake and a glimpse of Justin Bieber's most likely future.

[absurdexposition]

Currently reading Boyd Rice - Twilight Man... ho hum, largely uninteresting. Rice's writing style isn't anything special. Another person's review sums it up nicely: "Another chapter in the ongoing self-mythologising of the World's Smartest Deadbeat."

[Levas]

Pentti Linkola - Can life prevail?

There were quite a lot of written somewhere about this book so I won't repeat. Quite interesting means and ideas about ecology.

[RG]

The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead
Haven't read much yet, just the prologue and some other introductory chapters. Haven't gotten to the actual "Seven Sermons" yet, which only takes up 15 pages of the book. Been meaning for a while to delve into some occult topics and read an actual book instead of just various stuff on the internet, and this seemed like a decent start.

[ARKHE]

Harry Martinsson's Aniara.
Lyrical epic set on the spaceship Aniara. Earth is dead, leaving for Mars the steer off course and head towards deep space. Everything falls to pieces, the darkness of space as a metaphor for the bleakness of existence. At times amazing. He got the Nobel prize for it, so it should be pretty good. Reminds me of Poul Anderson's Tau Zero novel thematically, and also reminiscent of the stronger work by Arthur C Clarke. But of course this is "fine literature" and not lowly science fiction, bah...