books to read

[DarthDingusMaximus]

So depressingly accurate and that just hold my head above water and usually falls from grace. This guy's life mirrors mine in a lot of aspects.

[Freelancevagrant]

I just picked up two books yesterday.

1. Antifa: The Anti Fascist Handbook. By Dr. Mark Bray, I’m a huge fan of Dr. Bray and will support him and the cause by any means necessary.

2. Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll. I’m fascinated by ritual magik, the left hand path, and chaos magic so this a must.

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Halfway through Obama's A Promised Land. As said, usually I'm not into politician's memoirs, but in the light of the shitshow of 2021, Obama's quite a refreshing read. As could be expected, it's at times overly dramatic and Hollywood-esque with him shedding tears over letters from parents of fallen soldiers, blablabla... but at its core, it also provides valuable insight into how different institutions and key players in America work in practice. In its best moments, Obama carries you through the conflicting ideas and feelings behind his decisions. Not being from the US myself, this has taught me a lot about certain unwritten rules in US politics that I hadn't been aware of. There's also some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff (probably not always the whole truth, of course).

I also like Obama as a person. Obviously, he's trying really hard to come off as the guy-next-door, but it's also nice to listen to a politician, who doesn't shy away from questioning himself and his motivations in politics and who somewhat believes in the value of modesty. I'm also buying his inner conflict between pragmatism and idealism. Obama never seemed like a power-hungry narcissist to me.

While Obama is being fair to almost all fellow politicians, he also proves that Mitch McConnell is a complete dipshit, and tells you not just between the lines.

That being said, it's about time to get back to my normal reading. Just had these in the mail. Can't decide which one to read first:

[Lorem_Ipsum]

Cool to see Raymond Chandler in here. If you like his style, I recommend checking out Dashiell Hammett as well. His novel Red Harvest was used heavily as inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's period pieces, which in turn influenced the creation of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Some cool Western - Japanese - back to Western ties in there.

[Sluggloaph]

Tolstoy, for sure. The golden age of Russian literature is the cats pajamas.

[DaleSr]

Halfway through Obama's A Promised Land. As said, usually I'm not into politician's memoirs, but in the light of the shitshow of 2021, Obama's quite a refreshing read. As could be expected, it's at times overly dramatic and Hollywood-esque with him shedding tears over letters from parents of fallen soldiers, blablabla... but at its core, it also provides valuable insight into how different institutions and key players in America work in practice. In its best moments, Obama carries you through the conflicting ideas and feelings behind his decisions. Not being from the US myself, this has taught me a lot about certain unwritten rules in US politics that I hadn't been aware of. There's also some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff (probably not always the whole truth, of course).

I also like Obama as a person. Obviously, he's trying really hard to come off as the guy-next-door, but it's also nice to listen to a politician, who doesn't shy away from questioning himself and his motivations in politics and who somewhat believes in the value of modesty. I'm also buying his inner conflict between pragmatism and idealism. Obama never seemed like a power-hungry narcissist to me.

While Obama is being fair to almost all fellow politicians, he also proves that Mitch McConnell is a complete dipshit, and tells you not just between the lines.

That being said, it's about time to get back to my normal reading. Just had these in the mail. Can't decide which one to read first:

I think reading through Obama's memoir and seeing him continue to try and argue in good faith and work in a bipartisanship manner after the midterms where they got swept by the tea party shows that he was dangerously naive. He should have been more combative and he should have followed Reid's example and pushed aggressively for his agenda instead of meeting in the middle with the frothing psychos who hated him.

[Lifer]

Just finished Walker Ryan’s book over the weekend. Anyone else read it? I thought it was good.

[matty_c]

I’ve uh, been reading a whole bunch of war books last couple weeks, they’re like crack to me.
Can anyone recommend?

Ones I read already are

Dispatches
Chickenhawk
Lone survivor
Marine corps tank battles
War
Black hawk down
A bright shining lie
Fearless
Seal team six
Matterhorn
We were soldiers once and young
American sniper
Kill anything that moves
Night drop
Seal of honour
Going after cacciato - almost finished and I have bogged down wtf is the whole book like a dream sequence or what? It’s alright though

I am not counting stuff like Vonnegut, Hemingway, Joseph Heller or any of the Russians. They’re great books but I read them already - I’m sorta locked in to more non fiction type stuff right now, but yeah a couple I listed above are fiction

Cheers

Edit

Where are you cunts stealing your books from I usually go to pdfdrive but I’d be interested if there’s other good sites. Many you gotta join, fuck around with all these links and bullshit and it just seems suss
Anyone know any ones like pdfdrive?

[Hands down Hass out]

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time - Joseph Frank (shit is a phonebook)

I fuck with Russian lit/poetry so shout out to Lermontov and Solzhenitsyn. Just read Marina Tsetaeva's biography which was pretty damn good too.

Might be a stretch, but if any PALS know any worthwhile Hungarian and/or Czech authors, lemme know.

Cheers.

[oyolar]

Lászl󠋲asznahorkai is intense.

[matty_c]

Unreal, thanks mate!

[Hands down Hass out]

Expand Quote

I’ve uh, been reading a whole bunch of war books last couple weeks, they’re like crack to me.
Can anyone recommend?

Ones I read already are

Dispatches
Chickenhawk
Lone survivor
Marine corps tank battles
War
Black hawk down
A bright shining lie
Fearless
Seal team six
Matterhorn
We were soldiers once and young
American sniper
Kill anything that moves
Night drop
Seal of honour
Going after cacciato - almost finished and I have bogged down wtf is the whole book like a dream sequence or what? It’s alright though

I am not counting stuff like Vonnegut, Hemingway, Joseph Heller or any of the Russians. They’re great books but I read them already - I’m sorta locked in to more non fiction type stuff right now, but yeah a couple I listed above are fiction

Cheers

Edit

Where are you cunts stealing your books from I usually go to pdfdrive but I’d be interested if there’s other good sites. Many you gotta join, fuck around with all these links and bullshit and it just seems suss
Anyone know any ones like pdfdrive?

[close]

b-ok.cc/

anything you can imagine, no payment needed. z library, boyeee

[childhood]

largepdf.com & libgen.is are also both good resources for books/scientific articles/magazines/etc.

Largepdf specifically, I used to download a bunch of graphic novels, early on in quarantine when I was trying to get into that kind of thing.

b-ok.cc / z library is probably the best though. Most user friendly too, I've even gotten my mom into getting books off there for her kindle.


This is an essay, not a book, but since there's so many Cormac McCarthy fans on here, I figured I would post his first ever published non-fiction essay (largely about the development of language in humans) that came out a few years ago. I dunno if everyone has read it already, I only just learned about it a few days ago.
https://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Tolstoy, for sure. The golden age of Russian literature is the cats pajamas.

Yeah, right on. That's exactly what I did. It was great: depressing, bleak, but ultimately great. Exactly what I was looking for. The Russians never disappoint (well, at least not Dostoyevski, Tolstoy or Bulgakow...).

On to Last Evenings on Earth and that book on climate change. I'm on the fence between fiction and non-fiction. Might as well read both at the same time.

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Expand Quote

Halfway through Obama's A Promised Land. As said, usually I'm not into politician's memoirs, but in the light of the shitshow of 2021, Obama's quite a refreshing read. As could be expected, it's at times overly dramatic and Hollywood-esque with him shedding tears over letters from parents of fallen soldiers, blablabla... but at its core, it also provides valuable insight into how different institutions and key players in America work in practice. In its best moments, Obama carries you through the conflicting ideas and feelings behind his decisions. Not being from the US myself, this has taught me a lot about certain unwritten rules in US politics that I hadn't been aware of. There's also some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff (probably not always the whole truth, of course).

I also like Obama as a person. Obviously, he's trying really hard to come off as the guy-next-door, but it's also nice to listen to a politician, who doesn't shy away from questioning himself and his motivations in politics and who somewhat believes in the value of modesty. I'm also buying his inner conflict between pragmatism and idealism. Obama never seemed like a power-hungry narcissist to me.

While Obama is being fair to almost all fellow politicians, he also proves that Mitch McConnell is a complete dipshit, and tells you not just between the lines.

That being said, it's about time to get back to my normal reading. Just had these in the mail. Can't decide which one to read first:

[close]

I think reading through Obama's memoir and seeing him continue to try and argue in good faith and work in a bipartisanship manner after the midterms where they got swept by the tea party shows that he was dangerously naive. He should have been more combative and he should have followed Reid's example and pushed aggressively for his agenda instead of meeting in the middle with the frothing psychos who hated him.

Yeah, I concur. Reading his memoir, it feels like Obama is aware of that mistake himself, but he still tries to explain and justify why he wanted to work with Republicans in a bipartisan manner. In all fairness, I'm not sure he saw "birtherism" and other outright crazy, vicious right-wing attacks on him coming, when all he wanted was unify the country and its political institutions. But yeah, definitely naive in hindsight.

[oyolar]

Found a bunch of obscure philosophy books on that site so thanks for sharing! I’m still taking forever to get through the Knausgaard essays but am almost done. They’re fine but can get a little meh on their own. They definitely don’t have the same force as My Struggle and reading them all together is doesn’t work as well as reading them separately as they’re published elsewhere.

[sometimeperhaps]

I feel like I should give My Struggle another try. I was really hyped when I got it, and I love the idea of the book. But when I started reading it, I almost found it to descriptive. And I think I recall stopping at a point that was leading up to a negative event, and you could tell something bad was going to happen, but you knew you still had 10 pages to go and it made me anxious or something. But maybe that’s a good thing.

[oyolar]

I loved the series but I cannot recommend them to anyone because I honestly have no idea how to tell whether someone else would like them or not. The massive details and drawn out emotional context are definitely one of the major themes and drivers of the series but if you don't care for how he does those, you won't like the series. I feel like you can tell pretty quickly within Book 1 (maybe 100 - 200 pages in?) whether or not the series is for you because it does not vary from that style and vibe for the remaining books.

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Found a bunch of obscure philosophy books on that site so thanks for sharing! I’m still taking forever to get through the Knausgaard essays but am almost done. They’re fine but can get a little meh on their own. They definitely don’t have the same force as My Struggle and reading them all together is doesn’t work as well as reading them separately as they’re published elsewhere.

Which essay collection are you reading? In the Land of the Cyclops?

I must say that - despite loving books 1 to 5 of My Struggle - I was a little put off by book 6. Never finished it to be honest and at this point, I'm not sure I ever will. It's not that I don't like a demanding analysis every once in a while, but I had no idea where exactly he was going with that Celan poem. I think what was really bothering me was the contrast to the emotional depth and style of previous books. Even though I might have missed something, it seems to me like Knausgaard is out of his element when he writes complex literary analyses. I'm not saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about - he obviously does - but I think he can't convey his points the same way he can when he talks about real life events. What did you think about book 6?

That being said, I feel some of his best writing is in this underrated gem of a a book. To me, it's up there with Fever Pitch as one of the best books about football ever. Hands down. Strong recommendation if you're into football.

[Skibb]

b-ok.cc/

anything you can imagine, no payment needed. z library, boyeee

Duuuu-huuu-de!!

[oyolar]

Expand Quote

Found a bunch of obscure philosophy books on that site so thanks for sharing! I’m still taking forever to get through the Knausgaard essays but am almost done. They’re fine but can get a little meh on their own. They definitely don’t have the same force as My Struggle and reading them all together is doesn’t work as well as reading them separately as they’re published elsewhere.

[close]

Which essay collection are you reading? In the Land of the Cyclops?

I must say that - despite loving books 1 to 5 of My Struggle - I was a little put off by book 6. Never finished it to be honest and at this point, I'm not sure I ever will. It's not that I don't like a demanding analysis every once in a while, but I had no idea where exactly he was going with that Celan poem. I think what was really bothering me was the contrast to the emotional depth and style of previous books. Even though I might have missed something, it seems to me like Knausgaard is out of his element when he writes complex literary analyses. I'm not saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about - he obviously does - but I think he can't convey his points the same way he can when he talks about real life events. What did you think about book 6?

That being said, I feel some of his best writing is in this underrated gem of a a book. To me, it's up there with Fever Pitch as one of the best books about football ever. Hands down. Strong recommendation if you're into football.

Yep - In the Land of the Cyclops

I agree with you completely about Knausgaard. I definitely like his personal essay, recounting his life versus his criticism voice. Those parts of My Struggle were definitely my least favorite unless he directly tied it to his inner experiences. Book 6 suffered because of that, especially the middle third about Hitler (and Breivik to a much lesser extent). I understand what he was doing but the best parts of that section were the brief times he put his life in the fore and described how it personally impacted him. I will say that the last third is MUCH better. It's more in line with the other 5 books and I liked the first third (also save for the Celan analysis). It was altogether an uneven end to the series but does make sense as a whole and the last third makes up for it and is a satisfying conclusion.

[Urtripping]

I read George Saunders' Tenth of December book of short stories in college and really loved it, I'm a sucker for bleak shit. Also, something about the short story collection format is really attractive to me. Reminds me of when my parents would read Stephen King's collections to spook us out around the campfire or on Halloween.

I wanna give Pastoralia a shot. Anybody else fuck with a short story?

[botefdunn]

Anybody else fuck with a short story?

I do. Mavis Gallant and Paul Bowles are my champions in this regard, and also my favourite writers, probably not a coincidence.

[CorneliusCardew]

Mother by Maxim Gorky

[AnotherHardDayAtTheOffice]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Found a bunch of obscure philosophy books on that site so thanks for sharing! I’m still taking forever to get through the Knausgaard essays but am almost done. They’re fine but can get a little meh on their own. They definitely don’t have the same force as My Struggle and reading them all together is doesn’t work as well as reading them separately as they’re published elsewhere.

[close]

Which essay collection are you reading? In the Land of the Cyclops?

I must say that - despite loving books 1 to 5 of My Struggle - I was a little put off by book 6. Never finished it to be honest and at this point, I'm not sure I ever will. It's not that I don't like a demanding analysis every once in a while, but I had no idea where exactly he was going with that Celan poem. I think what was really bothering me was the contrast to the emotional depth and style of previous books. Even though I might have missed something, it seems to me like Knausgaard is out of his element when he writes complex literary analyses. I'm not saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about - he obviously does - but I think he can't convey his points the same way he can when he talks about real life events. What did you think about book 6?

That being said, I feel some of his best writing is in this underrated gem of a a book. To me, it's up there with Fever Pitch as one of the best books about football ever. Hands down. Strong recommendation if you're into football.

[close]

Yep - In the Land of the Cyclops

I agree with you completely about Knausgaard. I definitely like his personal essay, recounting his life versus his criticism voice. Those parts of My Struggle were definitely my least favorite unless he directly tied it to his inner experiences. Book 6 suffered because of that, especially the middle third about Hitler (and Breivik to a much lesser extent). I understand what he was doing but the best parts of that section were the brief times he put his life in the fore and described how it personally impacted him. I will say that the last third is MUCH better. It's more in line with the other 5 books and I liked the first third (also save for the Celan analysis). It was altogether an uneven end to the series but does make sense as a whole and the last third makes up for it and is a satisfying conclusion.

Yeah, I that makes sense. I actually liked the first third - about his dad's cousin who objects against his books and their portrayal of his father - and in general enjoyed reading about the process of writing and publishing the first book - up until the point where he starts discussing the Celan poem.

I haven't heard anything good about the Hitler essay, but for some odd reason, I still feel like I could be interested in that part. What specifically put you off?

You actually made me consider giving the book another try. The question is whether I should just skip the Celan part or start over. But yeah, now I'm totally looking forward to the last third. Thanks, man!

[oyolar]

It was fine, but it devolved into such a biographical and historical analysis that it became a slog. I think that it's obviously important to address the shared title and to set up the contrast between the base and unremarkable Hitler and the sublime Celan (If he is going to include Celan which...eh?). And in the Hitler essay, we see the dark mirror of what can happen to failed artistic ambition in a world reeling from upheaval and what it means to be isolated. This review: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-form-of-the-small-life-karl-ove-knausgaards-my-struggle-book-six/ does a good job of describing the point of section 2 at its best. The problem is that "at its best" is maybe a third or 40% of the entire section? The rest is just overly thorough details of Hitler's life that could have been greatly condensed without losing context. And by not condensing them, we just get bogged down by these details so we lose the emotional immediacy that's the point of that biographical turn.

[Sluggloaph]

I read George Saunders' Tenth of December book of short stories in college and really loved it, I'm a sucker for bleak shit. Also, something about the short story collection format is really attractive to me. Reminds me of when my parents would read Stephen King's collections to spook us out around the campfire or on Halloween.

I wanna give Pastoralia a shot. Anybody else fuck with a short story?

Anton chekov. His short stories are perfect. Pushkin has some shorts too.
I pretty much just plug russian lit on this jawn.

[goeatsomefriedbread]

I recently finished "The Hard Life" by Flann O Brian (Brian O'Nolan), it's a really bizarre yet captivating novella set in Ireland at the turn of the century (1900). It charts the adolescense of a young man in Dublin, and his brother and father, I wouldn't want to ruin the plot, it's odd and is riddled with criticism of the Irish education system, the Catholic Church. I picked up another of his books called "The Third Policeman", released posthumously (I think they found the book in his house after he'd died and got it published). Apparently he used to write in to the local newspaper pretending to be two different people, argueing with himself about different topics in the public opinions section, but they only figured out it was him after he died and they checked his house. I would definitely recommend The Hard Life if you enjoy odd fiction, it's told really well, I think you can find most of his work online for fairly cheap.

edit - RE the Russian literature posts, I read Crime and Punishment a number of years ago and loved it, I tried reading The Karamazov Brothers (sp?) but couldn't get through it. Not Russian but I also tried reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Phillip K Dick, but struggled again. Maybe soon I'll be able to get through it, my attention span and ability to concentrate is awful! But reading books definitely helps me rebuild it somewhat

[fredgallSOTY]

Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is a classic and a fantastic work of art

[Frank and Fred]

I read a lot of post-war American Lit in university but this never came across my radar until now. Picked it up to honor Black History Month and so far its a stunning read.