Author Topic: books to read  (Read 431341 times)

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handsclapanin

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2100 on: September 26, 2014, 05:36:46 PM »
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Just finished this one. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I had never heard of the author or book. But he died a few months ago and I saw a story about him on the news. The book is supposed to be a major classic. And his finest work. In Colombia (where he was born) and Mexico (where he lived), he is regarded as a national hero. So I decided to check it out.
According to the back cover (NY Times Book Review) this is the first piece of literature since the book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. Maybe a little too much hype. Which usually leads to being disappointed.
I enjoyed it for the most part. He has a nice flow. The parts dealing with "magic" as an everyday reality are fun. But, I ended up feeling sorry for most of the characters instead of rooting for them. A lot of loneliness. And incest.
I put in a request for another of his books, No One Writes to the Colonel. Because I did like the way he writes.

[close]


I finished this a few weeks ago, and I chose to read it for the same reason haha. It's great, but man did it get annoying at times trying to keep up with all the characters that had similar/the same names.

I'm currently making my second round with this:



Finished that one I mentioned above, No One Writes to the Colonel and other short stories.. It was that story and others from a book of his called Big Mamas Funeral. Most of them felt like they could have been chapters that were edited out of 100 Years of Solitude. More sad stories of the town of Macondo.

Smell Good

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2101 on: October 05, 2014, 03:12:21 PM »
I'm still working on Brothers Karamazov, not reading too much really but I'm well into Book V

There's a compelling story and conflicts here but man, sometimes one of the characters will just break off into some long winded discourse on religion and faith and shit. It's tiring.

EPetrov

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2102 on: October 05, 2014, 06:52:28 PM »
first book ive read since highschool ( 5 years) Bukowski's the post office. I want to read more!!

Mr. Fink

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2103 on: October 20, 2014, 11:57:48 AM »
The Collector by John Fowles was really amazing. I'm definitely going to check out more of his stuff.




I can't wait to read this new Andy Kaufman book.

Smell Good

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2104 on: October 23, 2014, 01:56:02 PM »
I'm trying to read Gravity's Rainbow and there's a lot of shit that goes over my head (the fuck is an "adenoid" ? etc.)

I don't know. This feels like reading Burroughs' Naked Lunch where you're just reading strings of words after awhile with no meaning and only a vague semblance of the plot/scene.

I'm only reading it because I really like Neal Stephenson and apparently Pynchon was an influence?

brycickle

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2105 on: October 23, 2014, 09:36:12 PM »
Adenoid is a gland in your throat.

 You and the D00D have turned this thread into a horrible head-on-collision between a short bus full of regular kids and a van full of paraplegics.



floop

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2106 on: October 23, 2014, 10:02:54 PM »
i had mine removed when i was a kid
"Every time I read one of your shitty posts I wonder why I am wasting my time looking at SLAP."

oyolar

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2107 on: October 24, 2014, 07:46:31 AM »
I've read a few of Pynchon's books, and actually read Gravity's Rainbow first and I definitely suggest getting one of his other books if you want to try him out.  That is pretty much his masterpiece and has all of his tendencies at their peak of extremity.  I'd suggest picking up The Crying of Lot 49 or Inherent Vice and reading those instead.  Gravity's Rainbow is a huge time sink while those other novels will take 2-4 weeks to finish so you're not wasting much time on them.  And they're a lot easier to understand as well.

If you really wanna grind it out, you can visit here for some help: http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Smell Good

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2108 on: October 24, 2014, 09:26:36 PM »
Yeah, I may need to pull the eject lever on Gravity's Rainbow and try to get into Pynchon's earlier novels

Anyways, I've got a copy of William Gibson's new book (The Peripheral) on hold at the library so I'm pretty stoked on that.

heckler

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2109 on: October 28, 2014, 06:53:06 AM »
Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.
Ha SLAP's resident libtard and NY pro cocksucker.

Mr. Fink

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2110 on: October 28, 2014, 07:57:33 AM »
Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth is a novel about how things would turn out if FDR lost the 1940 election to Charles Lindbergh.

Mundungus

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2111 on: October 28, 2014, 08:13:34 AM »

logan chase

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2112 on: October 28, 2014, 01:38:45 PM »
Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..

jezus

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2113 on: October 28, 2014, 01:49:26 PM »
I've got this list of books I wanted to read like two years ago, and I started reading all of them like a maniac, leading me to now only have a couple left so I won't really know what to read in like a month or so, I'll just put the ones I really enjoyed here,  if someone has books in mind they  they think I would like, it would be highly appreciated!


1984 (George orwell)
the catcher in the rye (J.D. salinger)
Brave new world (Aldous Huxley)
on the road (jack kerouac)
catch 22 (joseph heller)
the doors of perception (Aldous Huxley)
one flew over the cuckoo's nest (ken kesey)
a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (douglas adams)
kanikosen (takiji kobayashi)
les particules elementaires (Michel houellebecq)
the dice man (George cockroft)
the electric kool-aid acid test (tom wolfe)
food of the gods(Terence mckenna)
GAIA (james lovelock)
l'?tranger (albert camus)
stranger in a strange land (Robert Heinlein)
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (Robert pirsig)
the alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
Ishmael (daniel quinn)

AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2114 on: October 28, 2014, 08:37:49 PM »
Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..

I'm not too sure about Capote being a visceral writer, but In Cold Blood is pure gold. Literary Journalism at its very, very, very best.

shark tits

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2115 on: October 28, 2014, 09:51:09 PM »
just read a short story by dostoyeovsky called 'white nights'. might be a double entendre for 'white knights' but i'm not sure if that tacky slang was used in 19th century russia. for anyways, the protagonist wanders st petersberg admiring the architecture like a proto-puleo when he encounters a woman about to be harassed by a man. he interjects and they swap lonesome stories.
his is that of a dreamer, all potential and no kinetic. hers is that after growing up sewn to her gramma's dress [literally, so the blind bitch can keep an eye on her] and she falls for their boarder. he promises to return in a yr w/ money for marriage but he's late so the girl gets pedantic and decides protagonist would be a better suitor.
he's all about it but just then the original suitor shows up and she kisses main character bye and wanders off w/ her fiancee.
in her capriciousness she broke the wigga's heart but he looks at it like 'better to have known a moments happiness than not to have'.
don't like me giving away the endings? well fuck ya'll yuppies w/ your matching books in the case, nobody ever answers me on this thread so i'm just gonna spoil the classics from now on.
good day sir. i said good day!

Ollie Ringwald

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2116 on: October 28, 2014, 10:48:36 PM »
Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

"Man in the High Castle" - Philip K Dick. It's fiction and kind of sci-fi so maybe not what you're looking for right now but definitely worth reading at some point.

jezus

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2117 on: October 29, 2014, 01:39:04 AM »
Anyone have any recommendations for a good history book? Specifically, I'm looking for something that delves into "what if?" scenarios and how the future may have been altered if significant events went differently.

I think 1984 fits under that category, but other than that I wouldn't know of any

Chinaskis underpants

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2118 on: October 29, 2014, 02:32:56 AM »
Wind, Sand and Stars by Saint-Exupery is real fuckin good. Similar to Hemingway, historically, but I feel he soars above him.

logan chase

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2119 on: October 29, 2014, 03:00:18 AM »
Expand Quote
Its probably been mentioned a 100 times through the thread
before but 'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote is a really good book.

The guy is the most visceral writer I've ever come across,
really worth reading..
[close]

I'm not too sure about Capote being a visceral writer, but In Cold Blood is pure gold. Literary Journalism at its very, very, very best.

More like a visceral reaction to his writing

oyolar

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2120 on: October 29, 2014, 06:12:11 AM »
I doubt Dostoyevsky intentionally made that pun just because I don't think those words are close enough in Russian.

shark tits

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2121 on: October 29, 2014, 06:22:38 AM »
I doubt Dostoyevsky intentionally made that pun just because I don't think those words are close enough in Russian.
i didn't either but it's all apropos and shit

woodsman

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2122 on: October 29, 2014, 02:36:21 PM »
The Butcher Boy

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2123 on: October 30, 2014, 12:23:12 PM »
William Gibson's new book has been great so far

Took me awhile for my brain to warm up and to be able to conceptualize and visualize the technology and the interfaces that these characters are dealing with but I think my imagination's done a good job of it.

I also feel compelled to buy a bunch of little drones now but I don't think the tech is there yet for them to be implemented like in the book.

thepman

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2124 on: October 30, 2014, 05:12:18 PM »
skating is all about choosing your outfit very deliberately, going out in public. looking super sick. and then riding your board a little bit

ChronicBluntSlider

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2125 on: November 11, 2014, 09:07:08 AM »


Such an interesting book. Uses historical data to show trends in income inequality over the past 300 years or so. Talks about the history of inflation and some other stuff I didn't know much about. Kind of depressing though. Inequality in the US is about as bad as it was in colonial Europe and is trending to get worse so that on the current pace by 2030 it will be the most inegalitarian society ever seen. Europe's headed back in that direction as well just at a slower pace. I'm only about half way through but I highly recommend it.

Peter Zagreus

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2126 on: November 11, 2014, 08:23:45 PM »

sametelt

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2127 on: November 12, 2014, 05:43:54 AM »


Thorough work. Really depressing read.

4wheels

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2128 on: November 13, 2014, 04:34:27 PM »

all set to hitchhike across the united states now

AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice

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Re: books to read
« Reply #2129 on: November 14, 2014, 05:20:41 PM »
I'm currently reading this:



And it's fucking awesome (no pun intended)! This just confirmed why I think Eggers is the most relevant contemporary American author out there. In a nutshell, Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng (a refugee from South Sudan) teamed up to compose the fictionalized (auto)biography of the latter and tell his story. The book is a compelling acccount of the life of a refugee in the US, gives a lot of background on the civil war in Sudan, and tells the story of the co-author's journey from his village in South Sudan over Ethiopia and a refugee camp in Kenya to Atlanta. The whole story is insane. Deng narrates how his family and friends died before his eyes and how he found himself completely lost and without a home from one day to another and survived the genocide in his village by a hair's breath.

I got nothing but great respect for Deng and how he's able to tell his personal story on a worldwide stage. Also, props out to Eggers for putting one of the most pressing issues of our time out there.

As much as I love other literature, it was refreshing to read a "real story."