What are you reading

Started by Tenebracid, January 15, 2012, 08:40:21 PM

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Theodore

Hakan Nesser - Borkmann's Point, crime fiction, typical of its kind i guess. Easy, light, to kill your time before sleep, although at the 3rd and final opening i didn't sleep cause i wanted to finish it [Good thing for the book]. 3 murders with an ax in a small town, and a detective arrives to help the local police to catch the murderer. One thing i don't like in fiction books is the extensive description of the scenery which i find boring. Not the case here. Just the absolutely neccesary, it focuses more on the dialogues and thoughts. Dialogues are quick, sharp, funny at times. Thoughts have a natural flow, like when you are really thinking and not like when you are writing a book.

To compare it with the last similar book i read, Joe Nesbo - The Bat, i think Borkmann's Point is better. I don't even remember a lot of things from The Bat, although i am not sure i will remember Borkmann's Point in the future too !

Conclusion : I wouldn't buy it, but hardly i would buy any book of that kind. -It was a gift, a mother's gift, you know the one where your mom feels the obligation to make you a gift cause it's your birthday, enters the bookstore, tells the employee "Give me a good book for a present" and he makes the choice for her.- But i don't feel i lost my time. It was OK. As for mom's gifts, i think i have to give her links to some distros and tell her "Pick some random tapes from there, next time".
"ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες"

Duality

Quote from: Theodore on July 07, 2016, 03:42:25 AM
As for mom's gifts, i think i have to give her links to some distros and tell her "Pick some random tapes from there, next time".
I don't think my mother would ever talk to me again if she heard the music I listen to.
"Here you go son, I got you this cd called "Hammer Of Aryan Terror" I hope you enjoy."

david lloyd jones

Quote from: Duality on July 07, 2016, 07:58:25 AM
Quote from: Theodore on July 07, 2016, 03:42:25 AM
As for mom's gifts, i think i have to give her links to some distros and tell her "Pick some random tapes from there, next time".
I don't think my mother would ever talk to me again if she heard the music I listen to.
"Here you go son, I got you this cd called "Hammer Of Aryan Terror" I hope you enjoy."
[/quote
yours and lots of mothers!
can't even go visit without checking my t shirt pic!]

Fluid Fetish

I'd probably be the only exception as my mom eventually became an alcoholic cokehead, so she never had much room to talk in regards to my choices and interests even if it included Beheading the Semites.

oOoOoOo

#469
Dropping The Marble Swarm, I read about 70 pages of it. The narrator of the book just annoys the hell out of me, and the book just makes me sad. It wasn't just that the narrator of the marble swarm was referring to the fact that he's writing the book that he's writing, he just went into these absolutely fucking frivolous digressions that were so boring that I couldn't take it, and his personality was so fucking obnoxious. Not to mention the fact that the book had absolutely senseless torture of innocent cute young boys, which was hard for me to stomach reading. The writing style of everything Dennis Cooper has ever written has always been disorienting and confusing, but man, the narrator of this book is just absolutely lacks any sort of consciousness and actually has a pretty superficial personality. Like jesus, how many times are you going to mention that you're as attractive as a model, and how many times are you going to try to guess what I'm thinking while I'm reading the book? The narrator addresses the person reading the book SO MUCH. I get that some people do that, like Dostoyevsky in notes from underground, but damn. The Marble Swarm was just horrible for me to read.

KillToForget

I still need to pick up the marble swarm. I love Cooper, but now I'm a little worried haha

Kim V

Currently reading "The War in the West" by James Holland and "KL" by Nikolaus Wachsmann.
you're just a victim of yourself

ProzacPatrol

In my free time I will probably pick up Le Calvaire by Octave Mirbeau. After completion I will probably transition into Marquis De Sade's Justine.
Right now I am reading a lot of economics and business books. I wont bore you guys with most of the titles they are just typical business course books. One title you guys might find interesting is Investment: A History (Columbia Business School Publishing) By Norton Reamer.

oOoOoOo

Read about 30 pages of the second half of A Picture of Dorian Grey. I put it down a while ago after I got to page 56, but oh man, this book is so good. It's really a cacophony of emotional and moral dramas unfolding all at once, it's really something special, I love this book.

cr

Jack London's John Barleycorn

Liked it! At times it was like reading about myself, the old drunkard ;-)

calaverasgrande

almost done with the massive 'Complete' J.G.Ballard. Interesting at least as it is in chronological order, so you get to see his evolution as a writer. But you also see that he revisits certain themes over and over. He really reminds me a lot of Borges, just replace the mate with tea.
Also working on the 'Wizard Book' aka "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs'.  An MIT text on AI and computer programming in general.  I really love the old school of computer geekdom. It is unabashedly toiling in obscurity, with all the requisite whimsy, hard science and philosophical paradoxes as jokes.

Deadpriest

Quote from: calaverasgrande on July 16, 2016, 04:36:59 AM
almost done with the massive 'Complete' J.G.Ballard.


I got a few stories into the second book (ones chosen pretty much at random) but didn't find it dark enough.

Currently I'm reading Notes From The House Of the Dead by Dostoevsky, which I am in love with, I read it before when I was living in a care home, I was really able to join my suffering with his.

I'm also reading this retarded hentai thing which is just fantastic.
My book of poetry: http://www.histergrant.com/

david lloyd jones

Quote from: cr on July 15, 2016, 07:38:02 PM
Jack London's John Barleycorn

Liked it! At times it was like reading about myself, the old drunkard ;-)

also recommended by jack London is' people of the abyss'. this is an almighty headlong immersion in the underclass of 1904 London with photos that raises all sorts or echoes before the fact of current poverty, homelessness, crime, struggle and how the working man is always tucked over-a long way from his might is right reputation. thematically linked is 'down and out' by tony Wilkinson documenting late 1970's London homelessness, still just about with a foot in the London that jack London described. it is actually a book following a series of film reports on national TV at the time on a news magazine programme-' nationwide' harrowing stuff, you can almost smell the suit pies and moths of the homeless whilst scratching at non existent fleas.

oOoOoOo

#478
I just finished A Picture of Dorian Grey. It's been a long and tedious undertaking for me, but until I finally decided to listen to the book on tape. That is when it started to become very easy for me, listening to a book on tape is almost an effortless exercise for me, where as reading books themselves tire me out. I am hoping that when I get my noise cancelling ear muffs in the mail tomorrow that I'll have more luck with reading, I've also been contemplating getting some sort of stimulant drug like Adderall or something, I may actually have a condition that warrants it. I think if I had some sort of stimulant in me I may even have more motivation, and I think I'd be able to do things like reading books without feeling so utterly distracted by everything. I hate to say it, but I have a sort of naive view that if I start taking drugs to fix my issues, that I'll have somehow compromised my brain or will somehow not be experiencing the world in an authentic way. Although I feel it's reasonable to feel concerned about the side effect of drugs, I suppose now that I'm older I can see that not taking drugs doesn't make you feel any more "normal". What a strange thing, what an inexplicable feeling, to feel "normal" or not normal, or not yourself. That's bizarre. I feel no more normal than when I took Adderall when I was a young boy.

Anyways, I admire Oscar Wilde's work a lot. Maybe next I'll read Gravity's Rainbow. I already received my copy in the mail and I read a little bit of it, I'm certain that I'd rather attempt to tackle it with the comfort and security of my ear muffs, if only so I get some placebo of self confidence from their noise cancellation that I'll feign some sort of attention span. It really is a shame that I get mentally exhausted of reading, I wonder though if it's just because of my inexperience. I'm not a very avid reader, I've only read 5 books in my adult life, including this last one, and I cheated and finished the last 60 pages with an audiobook recording.

Or maybe I'll read a Shakespeare tragedy, or Lolita. I don't know yet.

david lloyd jones

Mr Peterson, I suspect you are giving Mr oooooo more attention than he merits.