The books thread! What are you reading? What are your goals? What is your favorite?
36 replies, posted
[b]USE SPOILER TAGS [noparse][sp][/sp][/noparse][/b]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/a8PjmcQ.png[/img]
[b]BOOKS![/b]
It seemed odd to me that there were no book threads going on. I apologize if I just didn't see any.
What books are you reading right now? do you have a 2015 reading goal?
So far this year, I've read:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c3/The_Martian_2014.jpg[/img]
[b]The Martian, by Andy Weir[/b]
Set about 40 years in the future, an astronaut is stranded on mars. Using his knowledge of botany and mechanical engineering, he must figure out a way to survive the next 3-4 years on mars and maybe escape.
[sp]I began this in 2014, since I got it for christmas, but I finished it in 2015. The book switches back and forth between Martin the astronaut, and NASA, as they try to get him off of mars. It was really good for real-science scifi. The book is basically an explanation of the science that each party uses for survival. For example, Martin uses rocket fuel and fire to create water to grow potatoes for survival, and develops a method of communication using ASCII and a 50 year old mars lander from the 1990s.[/sp]
[img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361254930l/9998.jpg[/img]
[b]The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe[/b]
In 1960s Japan, an amateur entomologist is captured by a village along the sea while looking for sand beetles. He is forced to shovel away the sand that threatens to destroy the village. They dump him in a hole to live with a woman in a shack.
[sp]The book seems to me sort of about accepting the position you have in life. When the man finally escapes the dunes, he is brought back. But as he was running away, he couldn't help but think of the woman and how he had hurt her by leaving. Ultimately, he is caught and brought back to the hole. a year or so goes by and the woman is pregnant. In the end, for the first time he is given the opportunity the escape the hole via a rope ladder, but instead he decides to climb to the top to see the sea, and then climbs back down into the hole[/sp]
I'm planning on reading "the box man" by the same author soon
[img]http://www.thelandofshadow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/The-Hobbit-Book-Cover.jpg[/img]
[b]The Hobbit[/b]
You don't need me to explain it. If you do, google it. I can't do it any justice.
[sp]So I admit, I only started reading it after I saw pt. 1 of the movies. My girlfriend had invited me to go see it with her before we had started dating, and I really liked the movie, believe it or not. I guess that's from the perspective of someone who didnt read the book first. I didn't really "read" this in 2015, but I finished the last 100 pages of it because my girlfriend and I were waiting to watch the third movie before reading the ending of the book. Criticize me if you will, but I did it because the hobbit movies are one of the first things I did with my girlfriend and it was fun to follow the series with her[/sp]
[b]I am planning to read[/b]
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R Tolkien (currently reading)
The Box Man, by Kobo Abe
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
My goal is to finish 26 books (2 books a week) by the end of the year. That's Mark Zuckerberg's challenge. I want to read books from authors from different countries. So far I have England, America, and Japan. I want to read something from [b]Korea[/b]. PM me or recommend some books by [b]Korean authors[/b] if you know any, and I'll be mighty Thankful
[b]Things to discuss[/b]
What are you reading?
What do you want to read?
What is your reading goal?
What have you read?
What is your favorite genre?
What is your favorite book?
I actually always wanted to read Franks Herbert Dune, but I never got around it and I actually don't know how his style is or if I would even like it.
[IMG]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KH8NWA7RL.jpg[/IMG]
It's not too bad. Not really my taste and I'm only finishing it cause I started.
[IMG]http://feministfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Locke-Lamora-UK.jpg[/IMG]
Read this a few months back and it's a bloody incredible book. Seriously read this. Follows the life of a master thief and it's just too good. Three books in the series, and by the last one you'll be clawing at the walls when you realise you'll have to wait for the fourth.
[img]http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2010/10/Surface_Detail_500.jpg[/img]
This was the last book I started to read and honestly it's so awful. I can't bear to read it any further, there are some nice ideas in this book for sure but I feel like it's sometimes extremely poorly written. Also the sex scenes are just so forced and absolutely cheap.
[QUOTE=junker154;47024054][img]http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2010/10/Surface_Detail_500.jpg[/img]
This was the last book I started to read and honestly it's so awful. I can't bear to read it any further, there are some nice ideas in this book for sure but I feel like it's sometimes extremely poorly written. Also the sex scenes are just so forced and absolutely cheap.[/QUOTE]
the editor copy pasted mandelbrot fractals onto the cover. It looks cheap.
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47024998]the editor copy pasted mandelbrot fractals onto the cover. It looks cheap.[/QUOTE]
That is not only the cheapest part of this book.
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47023891]
[b]The Martian, by Andy Weir[/b]
Set about 40 years in the future, an astronaut is stranded on mars. Using his knowledge of botany and mechanical engineering, he must figure out a way to survive the next 3-4 years on mars and maybe escape.
[sp]I began this in 2014, since I got it for christmas, but I finished it in 2015. The book switches back and forth between Martin the astronaut, and NASA, as they try to get him off of mars. It was really good for real-science scifi. The book is basically an explanation of the science that each party uses for survival. For example, Martin uses rocket fuel and fire to create water to grow potatoes for survival, and develops a method of communication using ASCII and a 50 year old mars lander from the 1990s.[/sp]
[/QUOTE]
There are no words to describe how much I adored that book.
Redwall has some of the greatest covers, I would love this art blown up so I can have it as posters and stuff.
[IMG]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/redwall/images/4/49/RedwallUSCover.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130119055011[/IMG]
[IMG]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mmcover.JPG[/IMG]
[t]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/redwall/images/7/70/Mtw10.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091014074530[/t]
The foreign covers are just as cool if not cooler too! Dragonlance also has some of my favorite cover art as well
[t]http://dragonet.narod.ru/dragons/Larry-Elmore-the-soulforge.jpg[/t]
this is my all-time favorite. it may be simple, but Raistlin is my most favorite character out of the series. he's so well written and cunning, I love characters who are physically weak and frail (with sickness or without) but are clever and work with their environment.
[editline]28th January 2015[/editline]
The Soulforge is one of my favorite books, but I haven't picked up the second one yet because I have no idea why. I'm a horrible sinner. :((((
Finished Stephen King's [B]IT[/B] not long ago. Does Audible count? I just feel compelled to mention Steven Weber's reading of it. Really doubt there's a greater performance on the site; the man can [I]really[/I] act. Get a trial just for IT. I fucking loved the story. I had crazy nightmares going through IT. I haven't read many novels, but I've read a lot of creepy pastas. Pennywise is the only thing that has infected my dreams. I now understand why Stephen King is so adored. Felt like I was letting go of a group of friends when it was all finished. I have high expectations of the movies coming out. They better not pull any punches, they'll need to be hard R.
I'm working my way through Cryptonomicon. It's an interesting book but a really long one.
What are some books with a "comfy" atmosphere? I should read more often, especially before bed, and I want something that I can wind down with. During the holidays I read A Christmas Carol for the first time since middle school and it just felt cozy.
As funny as this may sound:
[IMG]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qG7dHPYQL.jpg[/IMG]
I mean, it's a kid's book written by Enid Blyton, but it's an amazing book nonetheless. I read it years ago when I was a teenager and it was really good. I'd defo read it again but I've got tonnes of other books on my list I wanna read first. Reading this before bed will cheer you up and make you sleepy, cause it's not full of climactic, suspenseful action. It's more just chill adventures and it paints really brilliant scenery in your head.
Feel free to laugh at me though for recommending it. I have no shame in admitting I'd read this and that it's a 10/10 in my books (ehehe pun)
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Inherent_vice_cover.jpg[/IMG]
I'm reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, it's basically fantastic realism in the psychedelic 70's, post Vietnam and paranoia runs the show as each character takes interest in the main history for way different reasons, be it Charles Manson's cult or a big cocaine drop at a harbor or a partiular yatch owned by Al Capone in the 20's.
I'm really liking the diegesis of the narrative so far, you can almost sense the characters backgrounds by the references they cite and their general attitudes towards Doc, a private investigator and main character in the story and, for each drug related to the chapter in question, the narrative intensity and tone changes drastically. [sp] Also, I'm sensing a tone of melancholly in the way Pynchon talks about the psychedelic dream, as it is forever fading in the midst of the struggle of power amongst different groups. Doc slowly realizing that the 'love and peace' dream is not only fading from collective memory but it's probably unreachable and untangible. [/sp]
Anyway, good reading so far.
so far this year i have read
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
Catcher in the Rye
Death of a Salesman (the play)
The Trial (Kafka)
i wanna read the millenium series by friday.
also, i saw the martian on r/books' suggestion, it looks damn interesting. maybe ill read it this weekend.
[QUOTE=Sad.;47027423]so far this year i have read
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
Catcher in the Rye
Death of a Salesman (the play)
The Trial (Kafka)
i wanna read the millenium series by friday.
also, i saw the martian on r/books' suggestion, it looks damn interesting. maybe ill read it this weekend.[/QUOTE]
Did you hate Catcher in the Rye? I hated Catcher in the Rye
I'm currently reading Nick Offerman's [I]Paddle Your Own Canoe[/I]. It's a pretty funny and great read so far.
Re-reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen and its splinter works. There's apparently another trilogy in the Malazan world that'll be coming out soon, but no designated date was revealed.
Could anyone who's read it give me some info on American Psycho?
It's probably my favorite movie of all-time and I'm really interested in reading the novel but I've heard from lots of people that it's 1. very boring 2. extremely tedious to read (but maybe this is a good thing in this book's case since I know it puts you right in the head of Bateman?).
I also read the Martian. Really neat book.
I'm thinking I'm going to give Philip K Dick's Valis a new try soon. Never finished. Else I'm slowly going through Contact by Sagan.
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47027500]Did you hate Catcher in the Rye? I hated Catcher in the Rye[/QUOTE]
i liked it very much, reading it was a breeze. among the 5 i read, id say it was top 2. top 1 is fahrenheit 451 easily. why'd you hate it? i felt that i related to holden quite a lot. a friend told me when she was reading the book that she thought of me because of holden, so it definitely is not only the angst speaking (well at the very least not completely anyway).
[QUOTE=TheWhiteFox1;47027531]Could anyone who's read it give me some info on American Psycho?
It's probably my favorite movie of all-time and I'm really interested in reading the novel but I've heard from lots of people that it's 1. very boring 2. extremely tedious to read (but maybe this is a good thing in this book's case since I know it puts you right in the head of Bateman?).[/QUOTE]
American Psycho isn't really long enough to get boring, though I can see how people might think of it as a bit dry. [sp]The book is a lot more graphic than the movie, but everything is described from Bateman's dry, disconnected perspective. It's definitely worth your time, but try not be disappointed by the ending like I initially was, because looking back it fits the theme of the book quite well.[/sp]
[thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/WoT01_TheEyeOfTheWorld.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~karlh/book2/bigcover.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://pentucketnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/TheDragonReborn.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/WoT04_TheShadowRising.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/aa/WoT05_TheFiresOfHeaven.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/wot/images/1/1b/LOCCover.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100411154510[/thumb]
I'm currently six books into The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. My primary goal for this year is to finish the series (which shouldn't be too bad because I'm currently averaging ~2 books/month). After that I'm going to make a start on the works of Brandon Sanderson because I've had the Mistborn trilogy and the first 2 Stormlight Archive books on my shelf for months, untouched because I've been busy.
But mainly I just read physics textbooks :v:
Brandon Sanderson is too good. Mistborn Trilogy will blow your socks off.
[QUOTE=Sad.;47027684]i liked it very much, reading it was a breeze. among the 5 i read, id say it was top 2. top 1 is fahrenheit 451 easily. why'd you hate it? i felt that i related to holden quite a lot. a friend told me when she was reading the book that she thought of me because of holden, so it definitely is not only the angst speaking (well at the very least not completely anyway).[/QUOTE]
I'm of the mindset that books require some plot development, but all he does is wander around the city and bitch. He's not deep or misunderstood, he's just an over-privileged whiner who thinks that he's more special than the rest of the world.
basically:
[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png[/img]
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/House_of_leaves.jpg[/IMG]
i got this for christmas and at first i was only into it because i'm a big fan of non-Euclidean geometry and that weird formatted type of post-modernist (metamodernist apparently?) horror, but there's actually a pretty cool character story going on in there too which i wasn't expecting. i just got up to the point where [sp]the doorway disappears with Will[/sp] and the horror is less one-note than i thought it was going to be, it's got the house of course but when [sp]Johnny goes crazy and starts buying a bunch of guns it becomes a lot more genuinely disturbing in my opinion[/sp].
[QUOTE=Cone;47028277][IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/House_of_leaves.jpg[/IMG]
i got this for christmas and at first i was only into it because i'm a big fan of non-Euclidean geometry and that weird formatted type of post-modernist (metamodernist apparently?) horror, but there's actually a pretty cool character story going on in there too which i wasn't expecting. i just got up to the point where [sp]the doorway disappears with Will[/sp] and the horror is less one-note than i thought it was going to be, it's got the house of course but when [sp]Johnny goes crazy and starts buying a bunch of guns it becomes a lot more genuinely disturbing in my opinion[/sp].[/QUOTE]
my girlfriend hated that book. said that it was trying to be ~~postmodern~~ but the writing style was just unfollowable
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47029020]my girlfriend hated that book. said that it was trying to be ~~postmodern~~ but the writing style was just unfollowable[/QUOTE]
yeah that's fair enough. there's a lot of times where it just throws out a bunch of equations or data or something and sometimes it goes somewhere and sometimes it doesn't (JUST LIKE A LABYRINTH WHOOAAAAAH). like at one point it describes the etymology and mechanics of echoes and it becomes very important and leads to a cool sequence, and at another point it spends like five pages detailing how carbon dating works to basically just sum it up in one line that more or less says "this thing is old as balls."
but in all fairness a third of the book is from the perspective of a schizophrenic and the other third is a satire of pretentious film academics. so i guess that's how it's supposed to be, which always sounds like a cop-out to me but i think it works out fine for the general mood of it. when it cuts all that stuff out and just describes what's happening then it becomes a real page-turner.
[QUOTE=Cone;47029126]yeah that's fair enough. there's a lot of times where it just throws out a bunch of equations or data or something and sometimes it goes somewhere and sometimes it doesn't (JUST LIKE A LABYRINTH WHOOAAAAAH). like at one point it describes the etymology and mechanics of echoes and it becomes very important and leads to a cool sequence, and at another point it spends like five pages detailing how carbon dating works to basically just sum it up in one line that more or less says "this thing is old as balls."
but in all fairness a third of the book is from the perspective of a schizophrenic and the other third is a satire of pretentious film academics. so i guess that's how it's supposed to be, which always sounds like a cop-out to me but i think it works out fine for the general mood of it. when it cuts all that stuff out and just describes what's happening then it becomes a real page-turner.[/QUOTE]
whats the last third
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47029234]whats the last third[/QUOTE]
the part about the actual house and the people exploring it. that part of the story is comparatively straightforward, but in-universe it's a documentary called The Navidson Record, and the stuff in the book is framed as an academic analysis of it. so it takes minor details in the Record and expands on and dissects them to offer backstory on the characters, comments on its cinematography, interviews some people, and gives various critical theories behind stuff that happens in the film.
but the other thing is that all [I]this[/I] is framed by a guy who finds the manuscript of the analysis after its author dies, and as it turns out The Navidson Record doesn't actually exist anywhere - the only evidence of it ever existing is the manuscript. it is a really, really screwy book.
[editline]28th January[/editline]
oh and also the guy who wrote the manuscript and the guy who found it both started/start going crazy so it might be affecting reality (and might be connected with the in-universe fictional House somehow), and sometimes the editors of the book have to put in footnotes to clear things up when the narrator gets too crazy. so there is a grand total of four framing devices, two of which are fictional but affect reality, one of which is by a guy who can't tell the difference anymore, and the fourth of which is by the guys who have read all three before you started reading it too. so yeah most people will probably not like it
My favorite author is definitely Haruki Murakami. Norwegian Wood, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage were great. Any authors that have a similar style that you guys recommend?
420th post, haw haw
[QUOTE=DoritoBandit;47027960]I'm of the mindset that books require some plot development, but all he does is wander around the city and bitch. He's not deep or misunderstood, he's just an over-privileged whiner who thinks that he's more special than the rest of the world.
[/QUOTE]
i liked following the character himself i guess. it was more about him anyway. i mean, he is the plot, if that makes sense. yeah i definitely agree that there is some air of pretentiousness about him that you need to ignore without getting too self-absorbed if it pisses you off. hahah.
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