Book Thread

Lumeinshin · 2022-11-06T17:40:17+00:00

This thread is for posting about what books you've been reading or one that has stuck with you since you read it. Think of this as a general book thread, feel free to make other threads dedicated to more in depth discussion ofc.

Gigachad

littlebirdu What do you like? Meditations by Marcus Aurelius was fun. Ive been doing the Warhammer books. Ciaphus Cain and Gaunts Ghosts have been wonderful trashy reads. Ciaphus Cain is just space Flashman (which is also on my list). I usually dont like fiction but shitty Warhammer writing does something for me. And most of it is pretty shitty. C. S. Lewis Is a favorite. JR Tolkien was good except for the third book. Dude can not end a story. Not sure if this helps you. I would need more specifics to be more specific.

gemisthon

littlebirdu Lord Dunsany is always good, either The Gods of Pegana or The King of Elfland's Daughter.

Trondei

Suspect I’m a normie with books. I’ve read all of Nicholas Nickleby, just because I grew up watching the movie with Christopher Plummer. Did you know those tomes could get two inches thick?

littlebirdu

Gigachad currently, i'm enjoying books that peek at an individual's perception of their circumstance. recently finished A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. finished Kafka by the Shore recently, too. now i'm reading At Dusk by Hwang Sok Yong and about to finish The Stranger by Albert Camus. they've all been good...

littlebirdu

gemisthon i'm very poorly read in fantasy beyond the childhood classics (harry potter, eragon, those types of books). i should definitely give the genre another try

gingermilk

damas I haven't read Gothic Violence, but I enjoyed reading Harassment Architecture. Mike Ma has a unique approach (compared to modern writers, not internet edgelords) in terms of observing and depicting the current state of society. It was a hilarious read and you can definitely see why his works always end up in polarized criticism.

damas

gingermilk If you can put yourself in his perspective and get totally immersed, the experience is 100x better.

Lumeinshin

Recommended to me by a friend, the Space Team series has been pretty good to listen to, I binged the first two books in the series and am on the third already. So I would consider that a recommendation worthy series.
There is lots of references to sci fi and pop culture, but not anything thats like a super recent trend that would date the book.
If you have an audible subscription, the first three books can be had as a trilogy for 1 credit, if you're that way inclined.

gingermilk

Please don't ban me for shilling ;-; but here are two book review posts I wrote on my blog.
fictions
non-fictions

gemisthon

gingermilk Nice reviews, and nice blog too. I was not aware that Capitalist Realism was so short, I guess I really should read it.
What did you think about The Burnout Society? I have been reading another Byung-Chul Han book called In the Swarm as it happens. It kind of felt like he was presenting pretty ordinary observations on tech in very aphoristic Continental terms, but maybe that's a weak subject for him and/or I've been on the internet too long to be surprised by observations like that.

Randgris

If you're into history "The Rising Sun" by John Toland and "Shattered Sword" by Jonathan Parshall. The last Sci-Fi series I read, and enjoyed, was the Terran Fleet Command series. I wouldn't call it anything groundbreaking, but it was enjoyable and had a few twists to it. The Ark Royal books 1-3 were alright as well, by being more grounded, but there's a subplot line that's a bit obnoxious 'we get it these two are fucking' tier. I did like the aliens and the Captain was an interesting character.

gingermilk

gemisthon I agree with you and this is a common critique of his works on how his ideas are mediocre and ordinary but his writing style is unnecessarily flowery and filled with figures of speech. The book is revolves around the question "why are we so busy and mentally fucked up" and he built his arguments by lashing out at philosophers before him. The main takeaway is basically that we have transformed from a disciplinary society to achievement society, where surveillance and exploitation become internal processes; we are no longer constantly being negated, but instead being affirmed and stressed by the "YES WE CAN" sentiment.

He could have explained his entire theory in an essay, so the book can be repetitive.

JudgeHolden

I'm nearly done with Death on Credit by Celine. It's great so far, though I prefer Journey. Also reading Gravity's Rainbow. I'm on the second part atm. It's though but brilliant and surprisingly funny.

userlame

I'm just starting "How to write, think & speak correctly" by C. E. M. Joad and so far it's been pretty good. The title is what it is really, it's just a book explaining the proper ways to think, write and speak but the writer has a very nice way of explaining things, he can talk about boring things like how sentences are built and still make them easy to digest.
It's really interesting how much knowledge and insight old books have compared to newer books, especially when it comes to things like self help or philosophy. Authors back then seem to have wanted to actually help people achieve their goals unlike modern authors who usually write stuff like this just to inflate their ego.

Lumeinshin

Lumeinshin
I've listened to 6 of the Space Team series, I'm on 7 now. 1,4 and 5 have been the best ones. I was surprised how good the serious parts of the series have been, and how funny other parts are.

Rez

Currently reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It's fairly good.
I've had space westerns on the brain recently, and I've been reading books in the genre while contemplating my own. The book is essentially about 6 travelers traveling to a planet called Hyperion which contains two interesting things:

The time tombs, which seem to travel backwards in time, and
The Shrike guarding them, a mythical metal creature who is seemingly unable to be killed, and who's motives are a mystery.

The 6 travelers are all people who have visited Hyperion before and interacted with either the time tombs or the Shrike. I'm currently on the part of the book where one of the travelers, an archeologist, is afflicted with a mysterious "disease" that causes her to age in reverse while slowly loosing her memories.

Overall, it has a lot of interesting Cyberpunk concepts, and reminds me quite a lot of Rimworld.

MO

I know the guy is a horrible person, but long ago when I was young, I read Empire by Orson Scott Card.

There was many aspects of it that stuck with me. Now that I'm older, I like to think of how my father is like the protagonist of the story. I like how each chapter started with a decently wise sounding quote. I liked the part at the start where the guy lifts up the dead Afgan elder and wails, because he wants to communicate that he actually cares about the community as a special forces operator.

Maybe I should read the book again and try to get my own writing off the ground, maybe.

Murderbunny

I'm currently reading Name Of The Wind by Rothfuss (about halfway in). I'm liking it pretty well so far. The protagonist is a straight up Mary Sue which kinda grates on me, but the plot is pretty interesting and the author's prose is pretty good so it ends up making up for the Mary Sue-ness. In fact I was really surprised by how much an easy read this book has been so far because my experience with original fantasy books so far has been invariably that the first quarter or so of the book is a slog while the author has to contextualize his world and only then it starts being enjoyable. But this book has proven to be catchy pretty much from the start and the only reason I havent finished it yet has been lack of time.
I also discovered that apparently it was the original reference for Skyrim's "arrow in the knee" line which is really neat.

Lumeinshin

I finished all the Space Team audiobooks available (all books but the most recent I believe)
I thoroughly enjoyed them and can recommend them to all.

I'm now listening to Horus Heresy. I'm not a WarHammer guy but its pretty good so far, just screams COOL.
I think i'm gonna dedicate more time to actual reading, either via e-reader or paperback. Just gotta decide whats next.

gingermilk

I finished Consciousness Beyond Life by Pim van Lommel recently. NDE is an extremely rare topic to be mentioned in the scientific community and I like how the author approached it in an unbiased and secular perspective. His analysis in the second part might sound a bit overreaching or even psychotic to some. It is an overall interesting book, but I wonder how accurate his writings are when it comes to quantum physics, a field he acknowledged to not be an expert in.

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